I am a internet junkie if not anything else! Spending hours reading blogs (about 250 of them) lurking around forums and not to mention Social Networks and the links shared on Twitter, Facebook and Stumbleupon. This has led to serious time management issues ever since I started working on my startup. I finally decided to fine tune the time spent online and this is my set of times for time management for the social media enthusiast.
The biggest time waster. I started with Gmail, which has somehow managed to become my preferred email client (Yahoo!, Listening this?) and I started off setting up labels, filters and using the stars more efficiently so that things that need attention get it and those which do not get out of my way. (apologies to friends who send a lot of fun forwards, you have been labeled!). And as a final tip, email was initially projected as something which does not having the jarring emergency of a phone call. This led me to decide to check emails once in 2 hours. Tons of time saved!
Micro Persuasion: Turn Gmail Into Your Personal Nerve Center and Hack Attack: Become a Gmail master helped a lot in this regard.
RSS and Blogs
I have been using Google Reader for sometime now, after checking out some AIR based readers and some desktop based clients I decided that reader is still the leader out there. I have blogs, alerts and some other stuff on the reader. But one tip that definitly saved a lot of time was the list feature. You do not really have to read every technology news out there, and for that matter, most of the news articles are similar anyways. (Hint: New wordpress version launch). I am now looking for a email client that will sync it to my mobile and read it when I am stuck in traffic.
Social Networks
This was tricky, the idea was to interact with maximum people and not spend the whole day on it. I finally decided on the networks where I want to be active in and updated the information there, set up a few tools to monitor the updates and developments. Not much tips and tricks here because social media is all about engagement and participation for me. I did find a few good tools and got some scripts made to make life easier. More on that later.
Blogging
Those following the blog, will have an idea about this. I slacked off completly in the process an even decided to start off again only after the new design came in(Oops, that was supposed to be a surprise!!) 😀 But since thats not happening in another 2-3 weeks time, guess I should find some other sort of inspiration to blog.But hey, I never followed any rules of blogging anyways!
I soon plan to implement something I first heard from BinnyVA, the points system. On searching around, I found another fellow passionate blogger who has this setup in a neat excel file for you to download and use. Passionate Blogger – Blog Points System
Getting Things Done (GTD)
I am a big fan! I finally heard the whole ebook again and customized the concept into my own system and got myself Tudumo, the best GTD software ever. Information is jumping at you at every point, emails, phone calls, at the coffee machine and on the stairs while leaving office. Trick is, to capture those inputs and complete them categorically, not get worried or frustrated thinking about them. It helps a lot in actually getting things done. So, get the book and read it like three times!
Office Space
Having a home office is the new fad, but for me, I like to have a desk to work and a sofa to sleep than do them both from the sofa 😀 . If you cannot get an office space, at least have a table assigned to just work. Helps you keep your mind on it and not easily get distracted.
If you do not know it yet, time management is everything. It lets you take on more work, chat with your girlfriend or even tweet more often 😉 I really recommend anyone starting off to sit down and plan your time online, not just to get things done, but to be more productive at what you do.
PS: Consider following me on Twitter if you want to know whats happening with my life in between blog posts and have a quick conversation about anything!
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