Reddit is just a huge time sink, right? Not necessarily. With users constantly submitting and voting on content to a wealth of broad and niche communities, it's an endless supply of useful information—if you know where to look and how to filter effectively.

That's not to say you can't browse Reddit for fun, of course. If you just want curiosities, jokes, and cat pictures, Reddit can provide. But it's easy to feel overwhelmed by Reddit or that you've wasted your time. So, we're going to show you how to use Reddit productively and maybe even reach your self-improvement goals.

1. Create an Account

If you don't have a Reddit account already, the first step you should take is to sign up for one—it only takes a minute. Once you've done that, you can customize the Reddit homepage, but importantly it means you can subscribe to the subreddits that you want to follow. To do that, visit the subreddit and press Join.

reddit sign up

Once you've joined a subreddit, the top recent posts will appear on your home feed, which means you'll see content that is relevant and interesting to you.

2. Unsubscribe From Old Subreddits

If you've had a Reddit account for a while, you're probably subscribed to lots of subreddits, perhaps for hobbies you've dropped or TV shows you were once interested in. You should clear out the subreddits you don't care about anymore, along with any which are wasting too much of your time and providing little value.

To see what subreddits you're a member of, go to the subreddits overview page. Here, work your way down the Home Feed Subreddits list and click Leave on those you no longer wish to see.

You can still view these subreddits again by visiting them directly, but this stops them appearing on the homepage. You may also want to consider using two Reddit accounts: one for productivity, another for entertainment. That way, you can switch between the accounts depending on your mood.

3. Find Productive Subreddits

Now it's time to replace the fluff with useful stuff. Obviously, what you consider useful is personal—that depends on your job, your goals, how much time you want to dedicate to lighter content, and so on.

get motivated subreddit

There are various ways to find your next favorite subreddit, including browsing the Top Growing Communities page or using Reddit's search function. Here are a few ideas:

  • r/GetMotivated offers all sorts of motivational material, for whatever your goal is.
  • r/Entrepreneur is full of tips and information for anyone starting their own business.
  • r/Frugal has a lot of great money saving tips (and some silly ones).
  • r/DIY outlines tons of do-it-yourself projects.

This is just a starting point, of course. Take the time to seek out those useful to you and you'll be amazed at how productive your time on Reddit will become

4. Browse the Best All Time Posts

Not everyone realizes it, but you can sort Reddit posts in different ways. The default is to show you what's Hot, meaning posts that are popular or rising right now. This is fine, but can surface controversial or karma-farmed posts, and you may have to wade through some garbage.

If you're not interested in the flavor of the moment, you can instead see only the Top posts for the day, week, month, or year, which ranks according to how many upvotes a post has. You can even see the top posts of all time, which is very useful when you want to see the greatest content a subreddit offers.

You'll need to apply this setting each time you visit a subreddit, but it only takes a few clicks—use the menu above the posts to choose your favored sorting method.

5. Change Reddit's View

When viewing posts, Reddit offers three viewing options: Card, Classic, and Compact. You can switch between these using the dropdown in the top-right of the posts (on the same row where you find the Best, Hot, and New buttons).

The Reddit home feed using the compact view

Card is default and is very visual-focused; it expands images, videos, and text automatically. Trouble is, this takes up a lot of space and results in a lot of scrolling, especially to get past posts you're not interested in. Instead, it's better to use Classic or Compact.

Classic shows a thumbnail of the post, which you can expand in a click if you want to see more—for most people, this is the ideal view. Compact packs everything tightly, focusing on the headlines—good if you're subscribed to text-heavy subreddits and want to move through the homepage quickly.

6. Use Third-Party Tools and Apps

Reddit has never had the best design or functionality. In 2018, the site underwent its biggest redesign, though many long-time users were resistant. To give Reddit the power it truly needs, you need to turn to third-party solutions.

One of the most popular is Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES), which is a browser extension that provides loads of great features, many of which are ideal for productivity: an account switcher, post filter, subreddit manager, keyboard shortcuts, and more. It'll allow you to browse Reddit like a pro. RES is primarily designed for Reddit's previous design, which you can switch to by visiting old.reddit.com.

There are also plenty of Reddit apps for your Android or iOS device. While there is an official Reddit app (Android, iOS), you should experiment with others as many of them are better. Try out BaconReader (Android, iOS), Reddit Is Fun (Android), or Apollo (iOS).

Easily Find What You Need on Reddit

Remember, Reddit is what you make of it. You don't always need to be trying to better yourself; it's fine to have a mindless scroll through its homepage every once in a while. But to ensure you get the most from your time on Reddit, use our productivity tips.

Considering Reddit launched in 2005, the site is brimming with helpful and engaging content—though it has its fair share of nonsense too. Be sure to learn how to search Reddit effectively to mine those gold nuggets.