Simple Tricks to Declutter Your Facebook News Feed

If you’re like most, you probably feel bombarded by an endless wave of spam on your Facebook news feed from people you barely know. Maybe it’s the daily horoscopes of someone you met once, game updates from the guy down the hall at work, or the endless wave of status updates from your favorite band. Either way, you may feel compelled to abandon Facebook all together. But, before you click that “Close Account” button, let’s look at some ways you can sort through all the clutter and find the posts that really matter to you.

Create Lists

Lists allow you to group your friends and tell Facebook who you want to hear most from. Clicking on any list will display a separate news feed with only updates from the people on that list.

Built-in Lists

Close Friends
Anyone you add to this list will show up more often in your news feed.
Acquaintances
Friends in this list will show up less often in your news feed.
Restricted
These friends only see posts you make public. You’re still friends, but they only see stuff non-friends have access to.

Smart Lists

These lists automatically update based on the information in your friends profiles, such as their location. These can be based on employer, school, or geographic area.

Custom Lists

Create separate lists for each group of friends. For example, work, church, and school. You can check each of these daily to stay on top of what’s happening with each group of friends.

Unsubscribe from Friends, Pages and Applications

You can remain friends with someone but never see any of their posts by unsubscribing from them. Simply hover over any post and an arrow will appear in the upper right corner of that post. Click the arrow and click “Unsubscribe from [their name here].” This will work for pages and applications as well, so you can finally rid yourself of those pesky games.