Social Media & Time Management
Though we all admit social media tools can be beneficial to our personal and/or corporate success, the truth of the matter is we all get lost from time to time reading less than productive blogs, or sneaking a peek at our old college roommate’s weekend fun from last weekend. Right? The key to making sure that certain social media tools remain productive for you is time management. It’s as simple as that. Here are a few steps to make sure you time spent on the social web is advantageous.
1. Manage Disruptions: Have daily priorities. Figure out what your task list is for being online. Assuming you’re actually using your social media tools to accomplish things for work or personal success…Do you want to have a blog post done by a certain time today? Do you want to have commented on all you favorite industry blogs by the time you get up and need to be out the door for dinner? Do you want to blast out a few links to the company blog and photo reel from your latest press event..? Do these things first. Then you can go see what photos your buddy uploaded from Monday Night Football last week….
2. Don’t overload on information: Pick a few sites that work best for you, NOT all of them. Stick with what you know… and when new strategies and applications are added learn them. Pick a few and know them well, rather than dabling with many. Better to be an expert in a few social media sites than hardly understand them all, am I right? Google Reader offers an easy way to monitor many blogs, but unles you can read them all, don’t subscribe. The truth is, you do’nt have time for it all – and you will make your head spin trying to monitor it all so pick what’s important and do away with the rest.
3. Learn task management: There are plenty of wasy to do this and many different programs that can help. I am an amatuer and I use my outlook task list, and my gmail task list. Don’t use your e-mail as a task list. Delete e-mails that you wont reply to, and move on. If something needs to get done.. put it on a to-do list!
4 .Get a Routines: If there are things you need to take care of once a day, or once a week. Make sure you set reminders and create a rountine for those items. (Whether it be blogging, e-mail, reporting results & updates to clients, and checking in on social networks)
5. Disconnect: Remember to unplug occasionally. Some things just won’t get done if you don’t get off facebook and twitter for a little bit, even if they do have to do w/ social media. Spend some time each day, or each week un-connected. Stay away from the computer (iphone, blackberry etc) while you prioritize your to-do list and get organized for the week.
What things do you do to stay organized and manage your to do list??? What don’t you do – that you could be doing?