There are no doubts about the fact that Google Reader is the best browser based RSS reader available. It has some excellent features and helps you to easily deal with a large number of RSS feeds.

Today I decided to mention few productivity tips for this app, which will help you manage your RSS feeds better. These are very simple but useful tips.

1. Master the Google Reader Keyboard Shortcuts

Google Reader provides some awesome keyboard shortcuts which let you save a lot of time while reading feeds. If you are able to learn and master them then you can easily navigate through hundreds of feeds in less time. If you forget a keyboard shortcut, just press Shift + ‘ ? ‘ and it immediately shows you the shortcuts.

2. Use the List View

There are two ways in which you can view the feeds in Google Reader - Expanded view and List View. I have personally found that List view is a better and more productive way to navigate through the feeds.

3. Use the Trends Feature

Google Reader has an impressive feature to help you manage your RSS reading habits. You can use it to trim your RSS feeds and analyze your RSS feeds effectively. Here is an article which tells you how to manage RSS overload using trends in Reader.

4. Separate Tags and Folders

Although Google Reader only provides ‘ Tags ‘, if you add more then one complete website feed to a tag, it automatically becomes a folder. Now everyday when you read feeds, there might be many articles which you’d like to tag separately. You can do that but make sure you do not mix the tags and the folder names.

You should have folders for website feeds and tags for particular articles. That way you can effectively manage and search through feeds later.

5. Use Star / Email to Read Later

When you are in a hurry and want to read an article later, don’t just mark it as unread. Instead star it or email it (yes, you can easily email a feed by pressing ‘ e’ ) . If you just mark it as unread then next day you’ll have more unread feeds and you might not be able to get back to that particular article.

I hope the above tips help you in using Google Reader more effectively. I’d love to know what other ways you manage your RSS feeds, in comments.