Who are the bloggers and writers that you love reading? Which blogs or authors will you not be able to live without in 2013?

It is time to clean house. Ditch the feeds you have been reading, unfollow your friends, and start the year off reading fresh material.

I don't think I can live with out Things Magazine. Of all the blogs, I subscribe to, Things Magazine leads me down more worthwhile rabbit holes than anything else I subscribe to.

One of the most compelling blogs I read is from C.J. Chivers who writes about guns, the proliferation of automatic arms and their influence on war.

So this is an interesting question because I think a true reset would involve just listening for a while and seeing what is out there. Actively not looking. That's how I found out about all the history blogs with their Blog Carnivals, and Small Wars Journal, and the like. And executedtoday.com. All of those were very goal-driven discoveries. I was making things and so I found news that fed into the making. So maybe a way to frame this (sorry to meta-ize your sensible question and propose new frames, I am annoying) could be: What are your goals, big and little? And how can you keep track of things that support them?

My strategy, both professionally and personally, is to follow what I call "the @ftrain doctrine." Paul famously once said something like "I make as few decisions as possible, I just pick my friends wisely and take their advice." (Paul, what did you really say? Pretty close?)

So I am surrounding myself with writers wherever I can, and reading as much as they write & recommend as possible. So far it's going well.

Paul — Every year I ditch all of my feeds, but there are a few that immediately come back, but not before reassessing a few factors:
- Volume: will this drown out other things I could be reading
- The ratio of substantive posts to yawns
- Surprise Potential: the likely hood that I will find other good things to read as a result of reading this

So yes, this is very much a process of listening, exploring, and adding over time. And I find that if I don't regularly wipe everything out, that I never make the cuts that are needed to explore new territory.

You make a good point about adding in some goals.

For the most part, I am interested in reading about any topic as long as it is well framed and the person/people behind it are obsessive. But you are right that it is good to set some goals so you don't end up in the same place you were last year,

There are a few areas of interest that I am seeking to know more about this year:

701 Arts: Philosophy & theory — I want to know who is writing about the state of the image, culture, and media beyond your average 'media' hawk.

346 Law: Private law — I am interested in the public perception of identity and privacy.

334 Economics: Cooperatives

But like I said, I am open to anything that surprises.

I would love some community goals and aspirational goals. For example, I would love this year to:

1) Work through more of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming
2) Read one good book about statistics
3) Read from more older books--odd and ephemeral texts from the 1600s and 1700s. Like the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, a recent favorite.

But no one is going to keep me honest on this. Not that I'm trying to create a club here, just an observation.

One of the best ways I've known what to read is by writing. So Jeremy, will you start a blog with tags #701, #346, and #334? I would appreciate that and so would the future.

I'll work through Knuth, with you, @ftrain. I also wanted to start a book club for "Land of Lisp" last year. I'd also like to read his collection of essays called "Literate Programming."

The idea would be books that we know we should read, but ones we may simply not be motivated to on our own. Gravity's Rainbow might be another.