By CoralLevang in Persona Paper July 10, 2015, 11:29 PM 10-07-15

How I Caught Up on an Entire Notification List at Persona Paper Without Going (Too) Crazy

Getting through one's notification list can be rather daunting, especially if one has not been around for a few days. I have found it difficult to know how to catch up, and I get confused and flustered with the list having all the notifications listed together. Today, however, I found an easier system that worked for me.

I worked for seven hours non-stop getting caught up with all the notifications. I have spent a couple more hours today reading and interacting more, and staying on top of things all day from time-to-time. I think that this system will make it easier for me to support my fellow contributors, as I won't miss as much again, if I pop in every few days. It worked for today.

I noticed:

On the Recent Activity page where all the notifications are listed it lists everything together, but...
On the right hand side of page, there is a list called Activity Breakdown--New Followers; New Posts; New Polls; Comment Responses; Post Comments; Profile Comments; Tagged. The number in the parenthesis indicates how many of each you have in the notification list for the period that the system follows it.

I went in this order:

New followers -- to make sure I had checked out to see if I was following, and to read a bit to make sure before adding.
New Posts --I started from the bottom of the list and I opened up six pages at a time in new tabs. When I read my follower's piece, I clicked the "Like" button to indicate (to me) that I had visited. I then added a comment, as I know that building a connection/relationship takes that effort. Once I did that and it refreshed, I closed the tab, and worked through remainder of the six I opened. I toggled back to the tab for the new posts notification and moved upward through the next six new posts, doing the same thing, until I was finished.
New Polls --I had none in the list today, but would treat these just as I did the posts. Perhaps, I would have started here because there would have been fewer and it would have felt less daunting to get through.
Post Comments --These are the comments others have left recently on what I have written. I started from the bottom of my list, and as I did with the new posts, opening up new tabs. If the comments were on the same article, I only opened one tab per article, so I had six up at a time. Then I went through each of my articles, reading the comments, and replying, as appropriate. If I did not respond, I "liked" the comment to indicate (to me) that I had read the comment. When I was finished with the article's comments, I closed the tab, and moved on, as described above. I went back to the notification and made my way up the page until I was finished with this category.
Comment Responses --These are the responses made on comments I have left for others. I worked from the bottom up, as I did for the other categories, and replied, or liked the responses, as I did in the Post Comment section.
Profile Comments --If I had any in the list, I would go to read them, and then click through to the commentator's profile page to respond, as necessary.

I am not sure how many days notifications are maintained on the system, but I believe this was the best way for me to manage it. I need to make sure that I pay attention to what the time was when I last do this to keep up, so that I do not waste time going back over things already read. Once I get used to this system of doing things, it will be a breeze, as it shows how long ago things were posted on the left side of the recent activity page.

There might also be an easier way to manage this that I have not yet discovered, but this gave me a tracking system that seems to be somewhat logical. It was time-consuming, as I had minimal personal activity due to my work schedule in the last few days. However, the reward that it gave me was feeling a sense of accomplishment and connection to a community that I have unintentionally neglected in the past.

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