James Mattson

For those of you who thought about signing up, but put it off to another day, I suggest today. I promise you that receiving RNL content notifications won’t be a big intrusion on your busy life.

If you request notification via a RSS reader, you choose when—or whether—to check your reader on any given day. If you don’t have time, the information will stay there, just minding its own business, until you find time to check it out, along with other content you subscribe to via your reader. There’s a lot of information available and, instead of venturing out into cyberspace every day to look for it, let your RSS reader do that for you and bring it directly to your desktop, laptop, Blackberry, iPhone (or other smartphone) or iPad (when it is released on 3 April).

If you request notification via e-mail, you’ll receive a courteous, non-obtrusive announcement from your reader that says, in so many words, “Pardon me. When and if you have time, check this out,” followed by the title of the article or news item. If what follows isn’t of particular interest to you, select it, press “Delete” and, hey, it’s out of there.

But maybe there’s something you don’t want to miss, or you don’t want to wait a month to find out about. Here’s a sample of what was announced just in the last few weeks:

Celebrating nursing (the latest installment of President Karen Morin’s column)

Nurse practitioners bring Idaho nursing history to life (and you thought Idaho was just about potatoes)

Counting nurses in a nursing shortage: What of the silent attrition? (perspectives of a UK gerontology nurse)

Social media: An innovative way to share nursing ideas (useful information from a young nurse from Canada)

Yoga: A self-care option for nurses (from the author of Stop Living Life Like An Emergency!)

The sweet spot of civility: My story (first in a series of articles on civility in nursing education and practice—why it matters and what can be done to foster it)

In case you missed my earlier blog, here’s how to get started with RSS feed:

First, choose a reader. To find one, click on the RSS feed icon in the upper right-hand corner of RNL’s home page, right below “Stay connected.” (I use Google’s reader, but there are at least 18 other Web-based readers to choose from.)

After registering—it’s free—log in and instruct the reader you’ve selected to bring you each and every update to Reflections on Nursing Leadership when it becomes available. Do the same with other sites you frequent and, before long, you’ll develop the RSS feed habit.

Or, if you prefer, be notified of the latest RNL posting via e-mail. To initiate e-mail notification, click on the same RSS feed icon and check the box next to “Get Nursing Society RNL delivered by e-mail.”  (It’s directly below the logos for the various RSS feeders.)

That’s all there is to it. I hope you become a more up-to-the-minute reader of RNL by subscribing to an RSS reader or, if you already are subscribed to a reader, by including RNL in your list of must-reads. Do it today! RNL