Are you following me on Twitter?
You might ask yourself how a guy who eats and sleeps everything web-related could say “stop reading Mashable” in the title of an article. Mashable is actually one of my favorite sites and I think after you’re done with this post, you’ll simply read Mashable differently – not stop altogether.
I must have been one of the first readers of Mashable (at least I like to think so). I remember commenting on an early post, when Pete was still writing everything on the site himself. I got an email back from him personally thanking me and asking if I wanted him to review my (early-stage then never-launched) start-up, to just let him know.
It was engaging – and I attribute much of Mashable’s success to Pete’s early commitment to his readers. Mashable immediately became a daily read for me. A constant stream of start-ups being reviewed: tools, mash-ups, social networks – it would’ve been fine if I would’ve just read the articles and had drawn knowledge and lessons out of each story – but instead, I had become a “beta addict.”
Almost every web app that came along which got mentioned on Mashable, I was one of the first to register for. Keeping track of account names and passwords was obviously difficult – but it even got to the point where I was getting dozens of emails from sites that I had forgotten what their purpose was.
So began the circle of beta sign-ups, confirmation clicks, account registrations, friend-finding, app-learning, and finally… app-quitting.
Know What You Need to Be Productive
I get upset at my mother when she constantly finds stuff at discount stores and swap meets that she “needs.” Her house is full of things that she couldn’t pass up because of the price – even though she’ll never use it and it’ll just add to the clutter.
In the web-world, the price is our time and our mind is our house – but the definition of our needs is still very important. Because I never had a definite outline of HOW I wanted to be productive, I had no idea what I NEEDED to be productive. The effect of this is that I signed up to use everything that came my way.
1.) Write down exactly how you want your work flow to happen. This will change depending on who you are and what you do. The key here is to be exact – know how and when thoughts enter your head, what the easiest way to record that thought would be, do you need a main system of recording and tracking information, etc.
When will you review all these bits of information? How often? Maybe you’ll need project management software and maybe you’ll find you can do everything you need by using Google Calendar. Either way, breaking down exactly what you need will help you determine what you need to fulfill your productivity.
2.) Sign up for only what you’re missing. Let’s say you’ve broken down your information process and you’ve determined that you’re going to immediately input any thought or action into a pocket Moleskine. At a later time each day, you’re going to enter the day’s notes into a web notebook, like Evernote, so you have access to it anywhere. You’ll add dates and reminders to Google Calendar, and to-dos to…. oops, you don’t have anywhere to put to-dos.
You can make due for now, but now you know that all you need to make your process complete is an online to-do manager. You can limit yourself from signing up with just any service to try it out – and focus only on testing new to-do apps. (I’ve chosen Remember the Milk.)
Wash and Repeat
No matter what process you’re overloading yourself with – whether it’s social networking, blogging, finance or design – you can become more productive by repeating this process again and again.
I. Write down the exact needs for your process.
II. List what you currently use that you love and can be used in that process.
III. Define what needs you have left to fill and only try new applications that fill that need.
The web is allowing us to be more productive than ever, but the flood of new applications on a daily basis can actually destroy our productivity instead of making it more sound.
Start today! If you can define your process and the tools you need, the next article on Mashable about a social network for your cat can simply be entertaining instead of distracting you from what’s important!
Filed under: Getting Things Done and tagged with: Productivity, Social Media, Time Management, web apps.
{ 1 comment }
there are a lot of social media that you will get addicted to one of which is mashable. First, you will learn a lot from each articles and Second, you'll find a lot of new things and old things that you still don't know. It can also help you with your website. If you have website that you need something to post to just check out mashable and you'll see some interesting things that you may want to share to your readers.
Comments on this entry are closed.