Some tips I’ve found helpful for keeping the stream of information on the Web at a sane and reasonable level:
1) If you don’t read it, unsubscribe. I recently unsubscribed from about 10 email newsletters and 10 blogs that I simply don’t have the time to read. Much of the information was helpful and even pertinent to my job, but I simply had to cut back on how many distractions I had in a day.
2) If you find a blog helpful, do take time to read it. Don’t feel guilty. Choose a specific time each day and read the blogs that are helpful for you. A half hour of sifted, well-chosen reading couldn’t be more useful. A focused, meaningful blog will add a needed diet of sharp writing and helpful recommendations to your week. I often find immediate application for many of the posts I read.
3) Less About (Insert Name.) On Facebook, if you would rather not hear or see updates from a certain person who posts incessantly about every social event (or non-event) of their lives, simply choose “Options” next to the newsfeed item (it appears when you roll over the post), and choose “Less About _____”. Admit it: there are many of the same people who show up in your Facebook feed. People you don’t keep up with. People you will never see. (I may even be that person for someone else. That’s fine. “Less About Brannon,” then.)
4) Turn off email notifications. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many other sites offer to send you on-the-spot email updates when someone contacts you, posts on your wall, etc. If its not the moment to spend time on that site, why hear about it right then? That’s like opening your bills when you can’t pay them—it will only frustrate you.
5) Choose specific times each day to visit your social sites. Maybe a 10 am break. Maybe mid-afternoon. Maybe after dinner. Perhaps all three. But randomly loading your Facebook or Twitter page between every micro-task can only significantly dilute the value of your day’s work. Would you get up out of your chair every 10 minutes and walk out to your front porch to see if (maybe, just maybe) a FedEx truck came with a package just for you?
6) Delete your MySpace account. Narrow your social sites down to the very best. I deleted my MySpace account in favor of Facebook. I can’t manage both. Stuff White People Like referred to MySpace as “Digital Detroit”. I couldn’t agree more.
Alfredo
Brannon, these are great tips.
After I read Getting Things Done by David Allen, I felt like I could focus much more.
I think that your first trip is perhaps the most important one for me. I get caught up with something new, subscribe, and then end up considering such posts or newsletters to be “junk mail” as I unsubscribe.
Perhaps that’s what it takes to get a good list of subscriptions.
A kind of thesis, antithesis, synthesis?
Maybe.
JGons
I have done all of these things in my life as well and agree them very helpful.
I will say, for the music lovers: i have a myspace account, but do not maintain it or add friends. it is merely to use searching for bands.
Andrew Ramos
Excellent advice Brannon. I was just having a conversation about this the other day, and it’s been on my mind for quite a while. The first point is the most helpful for me too, too many blogs, newsletters, and twitter accounts to keep up with Thanks for the post, now I’m off to do some unsubscribing.