"It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others." ~ Michel de Montaigne
As you may have noticed, I do not have a "blog roll" like most other bloggers. I only visit a small handful of blogs on a daily basis and another small handful on a weekly basis. As with a portfolio of investments, I try to achieve a "blog portfolio" built on diversification, moderation, and simplicity. Furthermore, to overcome "the poverty of attention," I allocate a relatively small portion of time to reading blogs...
As for my "attention allocation" to media sources, blogs only represent approximately 20 percent of the pie, which, in total, I estimate to be 65% Books, 20% Blogs, 10% News Periodicals, and 5% Television.
My blog portfolio is broken into the three broad categories of Financial / Productivity & Self-Improvement / Philosophy:
Financial Blogs
The Big Picture: The blog content is primarily "macro perspective on the capital markets" but author, Barry Ritholtz, is a philosopher. His analytic insight and proficiency are nearly unmatched in the world of financial blogs but his delivery, in my humble opinion, is more Socrates than stocks. Barry consistently doubts everything, especially government and mainstream media, and asks questions that have his loyal readers asking their own questions and hungry for more information.
The Kirk Report: Author, Charles Kirk, actually studied philosophy in school and it shows: First, he is a trader, which requires emotional stealth and, second, he appears to have a great understanding of himself as a person and as a human -- traits that place him solidly on the path of self-awareness.
TraderFeed: In addition to his blogging efforts, Dr. Brett Steenbarger is a psychologist, trader coach, and book author. His insights into human behavior and his view from the world of psychology make for interesting reading -- and I'm not even a trader!
FinanceTrendsMatter: David Shvartsman creates a fine balance of financial trends, simplicity, and relevance that makes for an informative and easy read for all levels of financial proficiency. Even more important, to me at least, David really is a nice guy!
GetRichSlowly: You only really need one good personal finance blog and this one, for me, is it! Blog author, J.D., covers all the ground from debt management, consumer tips, and basic investment guidance to creative home remedies for the common financial challenges in our daily lives.
Self-Improvement & Productivity Blogs
For this category, I will lump three blogs together: PickTheBrain, Zen Habits, and Lifehacker are all immensely popular and quite useful. As my readers may have already guessed, I will say that self-improvement and productivity blogs have the same strength and weakness: They structure content, mostly in the form of lists and catchy titles, to appeal to our human attraction to shortcuts. These three blogs, however, are the cream of the crop and, more often than not, place substance on an
equal or higher plane with marketing hype. The authors all seem to have a genuine passion for providing useful information rather than just fluff to drive up their traffic numbers.
The Growing Life and I Will Change Your Life are two "up and coming blogs" that show immense potential. Both are written by young and original thinkers who, at first, may appear to be defined as "self-improvement" bloggers but I find their apparent intelligence, honesty, and openness with sharing their thoughts and life trials to be interesting, engaging, and refreshing. I look forward to watching these young bloggers grow (and perhaps finding some new ways of thinking)...
Philosophy Blogs:
The Splintered Mind: For some real "heavy lifting," go to this college Philosophy professor's shared thoughts on both classic and progressive philosophy. When I am ready to be challenged mentally, this is where I go...
The Philosopher's Carnival: There's something here for everyone and every "ism" you could dream of: Taoism, Buddhism, Idealism, Relativism, Individualism, Collectivism, and more! Take a look at the current and past issues and see if you
find anything meaningful...
The Financial Philosopher: Why doesn't anyone list their own blog as one of their favorites? Are we all so pretentious that we can not just admit that, no matter how much we are driven by passion, we ultimately are driven by our own inner desire to reach self-actualization? I would like to say that TFP is a combination of all of the three categories mentioned and that my ultimate objective is the quest for self-awareness and leading others to it...
What does your media source "portfolio" look like? Do you read more books or do you read more blogs? What about television?
Do you have any favorite blogs that you would recommend to others? I would love to know what you are reading (blogs or otherwise) when you are not at TFP...
Cheers to all of the bloggers and readers...
TFPAuthor, Kent N. Thune, QPFC, is the President and founder of Atlantic Capital Investments, LLC (ACI), a 'fee-only' financial planner and Registered Investment Advisory firm located in Mount Pleasant, SC.
Great Blog. Keep up the good information.
Posted by: Financial Planner | June 17, 2008 at 03:44 PM
Great post. It's not often you see this much thought put into, or explained for one's blog reading strategy. How often do you switch up your 'portfolio'?
Posted by: Patrick | August 25, 2008 at 04:55 PM
Patrick:
Much like my investment portfolio, and my approach to advising investment advisory clients, my "blog portfolio" does not change much.
Of course, I keep my mind open to new sources of information but blogs represent a relatively small portion of my overall information consumption.
Most of my information comes from books, primirily being philosophy and behavioral finance, as you might imagine...
To answer your question more directly, I still read all of the blogs in this post, which was written several months ago.
Here are a few new blogs I read also:
MindHacks: http://www.mindhacks.com/
SharpBrains: http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/
Thanks for the comment...
Kent
Posted by: The Financial Philosopher | August 26, 2008 at 10:14 AM
Your domain name has a great impact building huge web traffic , in turns bring profits in financial terms .
Posted by: Michelle Boudreau | August 19, 2009 at 07:15 AM