Following Blogs: How Do You Keep Up?

Oh, me, oh, my, I'm sure posting late today.  It's been a crazy week with my jobs that pay.  All my real work is keeping me from reading and writing!

And that leads me to my post for today.  It's actually a question for you awesome followers, and I seriously want feedback.  How do you keep up on the blogs you follow?  I'm not talking about the blogs you just say you follow, I mean the ones you actually read.  What are your methods for keeping up and sifting through?

Now I have my own method of blog sifting, which I'm happy to share: Along with following a blog, the ones I really want to make sure I don't miss I subscribe to through Google Reader. Not familiar with Google Reader? From their website:

Stay up to date
Google Reader constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for new content. Whether a site updates daily or monthly, you can be sure that you won't miss a thing.

Simplify your reading experience
Google Reader shows you all of your favorite sites in one convenient place. It's like a personalized inbox for the entire web.

Discover new content
Millions of sites publish feeds with their latest updates, and our integrated feed search makes it easy to find new content that interests you.

I have Google Reader on my computer and my phone.  They link together so that when one updates, so does the other. Whenever I find myself waiting in line or with my kids at the playground, I can sift through a couple of blog posts. I skim through posts until I find things I'm really interested in. If I love a post, I star it as a favorite.  I'm pretty happy with this, but I'd like to hear from others.

Now your turn.  Do you have a better method? How much time do you spend reading blogs? I would love to hear what it is.


Also, congratulations to all the finalists in Deana Barnhart's blogfest first 200!  While I'm sad to not be a winner (boo hoo) I was sincerely impressed by the talent I saw in the other excerpts.  If you haven't had a chance to check them out, please do.