Maximizing LinkedIn - Marie Kondo Your Newsfeed

A common refrain I hear from people about LinkedIn is that there is too much clutter. I don’t see any clutter in my feed. But there’s a reason, I take time to tidy up and organize. This isn’t a piece on how to get a lot of likes on LinkedIn. If you want that, you can stop reading now. This is an article about maximizing your existing network on an ongoing basis.

Laying Out Everything

I bring up Marie Kondo because her philosophy towards clothing isn’t about getting more but extracting the most of what is already in the closet. One of the first things Marie Kondo advises is taking all your clothes out and laying it out there. Individual items either bring joy or they don’t. There’s a third pile for sentimental items.

In the context of LinkedIn - I do the same with the content I see on my newsfeed. Items typically fall into three categories.

Actionable - these are things I take time out of my work day later to contemplate

Not Actionable - I don’t mind seeing it but there is no strong catalyst for action or reason for extended thought

Does Not Spark Joy - In Marie Kondo’s lexicon, this is what makes you not want to ignore LinkedIn’s newsfeed

Here’s what I do for each category:

Actionable - I copy and paste the entire post into a mini to-do list with the original poster.’s name Personally, I paste these things into slack messages to myself. Some of you may prefer pen and paper. For things I see on my phone, I take a screen shot of my phone and then send a slack message to myself as part of my LinkedIn to-do list. Examples of actionable posts for me are in the bullet points below in no particular order:

  • Event - I set a reminder to buy the ticket/RSVP and add the event to my calendar. Part of the to-do list may also involve checking if people I want to get in touch with are attending.

  • Referral - Someone needs recommendations for a person (usually associated with professional business services or a hiring need). This is very high priority. Helping other people you know get clients or new jobs serves two purposes: 1) It increases the value of your network 2) It builds a stronger rapport with the people you connect for future requests.

  • Career Change - Someone’s looking for a job. If they are important to my network, I add them to a mini mental list. Usually this mental list is five or less people and I make introductions when appropriate.

  • Job Application - Someone applied for a job but doesn’t know someone there and I am the the 2nd degree connection. I send a recommendation message with whatever positive things I can say that I believe. I need to know the person and the words have to be real or my words won’t be trusted in the future - which hurts everyone in my network.

  • In Town or Same Event Message - Someone is in my city or attending the same conference or event. I make a note to ping them to catch-up.

  • Long-form - Something worth reading in greater depth - it could be a long post or it could be an article. This is the most common actionable item for myself. You can’t be great if you are not keeping up with what’s happening.

Not Actionable - I read it and move on. If someone I know would benefit from seeing it, I either send a direct message to the link url of the post or I tag them in comments section with an @ sign followed by their name. If it’s relevant to other people in my network in general, then I’ll like it. If I have an interest in a dialogue about the topic - I might leave a comment.

Does Not Spark Joy - I hide the post from my newsfeed. if I consistently hide posts from a specific person, I right click on the post and hide all their posts from my newsfeed (effectively blocking them from appear on my feed but not removing the relationship). This is very important. If you don’t tidy up, be prepared to miss out on what you want to find. This is a core concept of Marie Kondo’s organizational process for clothing and also one of mine for LinkedIn.

Here’s some associated questions with everything above:

Q: How long does it take to have a useful newsfeed?

A: You’ll start noticing early results results after two weeks if you start removing people from your feed everyday (who consistently post or interact with content in the “does not spark joy” category). There will be reduced marginal improvements over time as the clutter is removed. Although this also means less time tidying!

Q: What about my friends that post a lot of clutter?

A: Your friends should be in touch with you digitally through SMS, calls, facetime, facebook, instagram etc. LinkedIn is for your career. Do you let your friends send random emails to your clients from your work email? No. Why would you let them make you miss out on a critical actionable content from LinkedIn?

Q: What does not spark joy for you on your LinkedIn newsfeed?

A: 1) Memes 2) Posts that require people to write a comment to get a link to a spreadsheet as fake interaction bait 3) Exercise videos or personal ones (if I cared about your personal life I would follow you on Instagram but I don’t - do I?) 4) Generic quotes 5) Inspirational posts involving a low paying job in high school or college followed by bragging of current status ** caveat** If you like any of this stuff, it might be part of your not actionable category but it’s all part of does not spark joy for me.

Good luck!

Kenneth To