Facebook Lists: Streamline Your Page

If you've been wasting a lot of time searching through your News Feed on Facebook, you are going to love this feature. My "Homepage" on Facebook is usually strewn with people I don't know well enough to have an interest in their updates. Often times, I scroll to the bottom of the page and don't see a single update of a close friend. Cue lists:

In the upper corner, notice the "+Create" button:


It'll bring you to this page (I've removed names):


The criteria you choose for this list can be anything--the only list I currently have is the 35 people I know the best. Now, my homepage displays the status updates of everyone I care most about.

Once your list is created, it'll show up with your "feeds".

You can hit that little pencil any time you'd like to add or remove someone from your list. Make sure to click and drag it to the top of the list if you want this to always load as your homepage:


To edit your lists differently, head to the Friends page. You can also delete lists from the Friends page.


This is a very quick way to effectively decrease wasted time on the site. You can also use lists in Facebook Chat to limit who you speak with.


Part 2: Lists Make Privacy Easier to Control

Head over to Settings in the upper-right corner of your page and click Privacy Settings.


Click Profile.


In this example, you can create a list of people who you'd like to restrict from seeing your tagged photos. You can also restrict people from seeing your videos, status updates, and even your basic information.


It's safe to put your mobile number on Facebook because you can navigate to the Contact tab and select your list of Friends/Family to be the only people who can see it. The same holds true for your address.