silva rerum

Keep me groovin’ with some energy

Some people have wondered where I find the time to do that which I do. I’ve never really given it any serious thought until today, when I wanted to look at all the tools I use for productivity. Here are three things that I do to same time and attention (both of which are finite resources).

“You Have No New Mail”

I’m among those that are guilty of checking email obssessively, leaping for joy when new emails come streaming in. As with most, I have subscribed to some periodic emails which initially seemed useful (discounts to my favourite stores) at which I don’t even bat an eyelash anymore. But that’s beside the point.

When I check email, I attempt to make every attempt to either ignore emails (those which are merely informational), defer emails (actions that are not time-sensitive), delegate emails (actions that are unimportant but time-sensitive) or act upon emails (actions that are important and time-sensitive). I use Thunderbird so I can star emails that can be deferred or delegated while acting upon emails requiring my immediate attention. I don’t typically mark informational emails but I know I can always search for them if a need arises. I don’t tend to delete emails; rather, I amass an archive of emails, searchable at a later time.

Having done this for years before I learned about “Inbox Zero,” I advise anyone who leave emails unread to begin working towards Inbox Zero. It really makes a huge difference in workflow and you just need to learn the knack of it. Be an email ninja! I’ve even begun to apply Inbox Zero philosophy to communication with people. It just requires more of my mental desktop to process.

“If You Build It, They Will Come”

Like most, I used to check out the same websites every day for new content, assuredly spending hours cumulatively on mere browsing. Of course, we’re in Web 2.0 and so the paradigm has shifted. Users no longer need to go to the content (unless they are creating the content), the content is now coming to the users. That’s right, I’m talking about RSS!

RSS feeds are the joy of my life; they save me the trouble of going to websites and checking them each individually. But like most, I suffered from information overload with RSS feeds – so much to read in so little time. Enter Feedly.

Feedly is an RSS aggregator (Firefox-only) that also doubles as a social medium through its recommendation system. Basically, in Feedly, you can have a digest page listing only some of the newest news from your favourite feeds as well as some of the highest recommended articles by other uses using Feedly. The more users that are recommending different articles, the better! Feedly really cuts down on the useless articles through which you have to sift while also allowing you the serendipity of discovering new articles (which Digg doesn’t allow; serendipity is often buried).

I’ve got 159 sources currently in Feedly separated into 18 categories; only some of which makes it to my digest. I read the digest, skip anything not of great importance or interest and move on with my day. Think of browsing 159 websites in mere minutes! Doesn’t that blow your mind?

“Into…the TWITTERSPHERE!”

For the derision that it has received, Twitter has withstood the acid test and proven itself useful in several regards. Sad as it sounds, I no longer have to manually ask people what they are doing; they’re letting me know via Twitter. Saving time shouldn’t be about being antisocial but the socially mandated exchange of platitudes has now shifted to a very businesslike model: on Twitter, I tell you what I am doing. If you aren’t interested, don’t read it. If you are, then I’ve saved you the effort of asking me. Better yet, If I want to know something about you, I can send you a Tweet, freeing your time and attention to continue with your affairs and allowing you the liberty of answering me later when you are free.

Serendipity still exists in this model! Ask the world anything, anything, and anyone could conceivably reply. Twitter also dovetails neatly into so many other services; it’s the one-stop shop for status updates (Twitter->Facebook; Twitter->Blog; Twitter->Windows Live; etc.) I’d rather post updates to one, unified interface and have it disseminate to everything else. It’s like the invention of the printing press. So don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.

So there you have it. I’m sure I have more productivity tricks (I’m always learning from Lifehacker, Stepcase Lifehack, etc.) Anything you want to share with me? I might try to analyze how I spend my time more.