A Tip for De-cluttering Your Twitter Feed

Lately I’ve been feeling like my Twitter feed is very cluttered. Cluttered with either things that I don’t have interest in or as much interest as my feed would lead on.  I felt as though I wasn’t getting the information I was looking for and not utilizing the outlet as much, which I didn’t like because I love twitter.  At this point I was following 415 accounts.  I know that doesn’t sound like that much, but looking at it now I’ll never know how people handle their account when they’re following double that and even into the thousands.  I would leave my computer for a little bit and come back to hundreds of new tweets and immediately feel overwhelmed.  I decided I needed to de-clutter my feed without losing the content that I once thought was important enough to follow in the first place!  ENTER LISTS.  This is a Twitter feature I’ve utilized before but have let slip by the way side and not keep up with over the past 2 years or so.

First I went through my existing lists to see what I had- mainly to see if I would still be utilizing these or maybe needed to edit them. 

I then went through my account as best I could to see what types of accounts I was following.  This ranged a lot, from fellow bloggers, to sports writers, broadcasters, teams, and other university athletic departments, to people in sports whose career I admire, to A-D list celebrities and finally news/gossip accounts.  So as you can see, it ranged tremendously. 

Next I determined whether I even read a particular accounts tweets when they showed up on my feed.  If the answer was no I unfollowed, confused as to why I was following them in the first place (this didn’t happen often).  If the answer was sometimes or yes, they stayed.  I then determined whether I still wanted to follow them or if they would be fine on a list that I could periodically check.  If I added someone to a list, I tried to not be following them as well to avoid getting the information twice.

I was able to eliminate 82 accounts from main Twitter feed.  This took a lot of work, but I definitely feel like my feed is less cluttered and easy to scroll through.  It’s now organized by categories and I’ll be able to go to a specific list if I am looking for specific information or just to catch up with that particular “group” of accounts!

Lists are a great feature on Twitter.  Do you utilize this?  Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your feed?