I empathize entirely with that-- you're one of Steemits authentic manual curators; doing what you do takes time. And it gets to be a LOT to keep up with everything.
I have been working on a post for about a month now (since Steem started upticking in early December, and people suddenly got busy posting again) about the whole idea of "following" and the futility of having more than 100-150 people you actively follow.
I'm about to have "a cutting" of people I follow because the number has crept up to 400+ and I am missing out on favorite writers/contributors. I just don't even get how anyone thinks they can "follow" 2000 people, unless they are just casting 0.05% automated bot votes. And that's just not my gig, although I suppose it could make sense if you're sitting on 1M SteemPower.
Besides, I really enjoy the social aspects of Steemit... I'd rather interact with a few hundred people I've gotten to know over time, than randomly pepper myself around. Which isn't to say I don't occasionally pick up interesting newcomers...
I’m going hold you accountable for doing so! Lead by example. You been saying and thinking you need to for a while now! It only gets to be a worse and worse issue over time.
And I will!
I keep going back and forth between two systems, one of which I am testing. Either I can just plan cut my followers from the current 450+ to about 150-200... OR I can adopt the system I have been making on a "private" page on one of my external blogs; create my own categories with links to each profile. It's laborious to build but once it's up, it's very easy to use... and because it lives on a web site, I can access it independently of what device I am on.
Stay tuned...