Test-Driving BlogRush

Andy Quayle asked (via Twitter) if anyone else was using BlogRush. Having never heard of it, I checked it out and, suitably interested, dedided to give it a shot myself.

What Is BlogRush?

It's a traffic aggregator for your blog.

See the new BlogRush widget in my sidebar? Those are all links to other people's blog posts, which BlogRush thinks cover some of the same bases as my own blog posts. Kind of like Google ads, but for blog referrals instead of retailers.

How Does Blog Rush Work?

That remains to be seen, since I just installed it. But, in theory, every time someone comes to this site, one of my blog posts gets pinged out into the BlogRush referral network. If I get 100 visitors a day, the BlogRush network will ping my posts through that widget 100 times.

Where it gets interesting is in the "tiered structure" of referrals: if you sign up for BlogRush by clicking on the tab below the widget (or by clicking here), my blog(s) get additional views via the BlogRush network. (And if someone signs up through your widget, we both benefit... and on and on...)

So It's a Pyramid Scheme?

I'm not sure.

On one hand, yes, it does seem structured that way. But since the resources being aggregated are page views, not actual cash, it somehow seems more benevolent, no?

On the other hand, it could easily become a tool for spammers, so I'm very interested to see how BlogRush combats that.

And, lastly, I have no idea how this applies to RSS views. If someone reads my blog posts in a reader and never actually visits the site... does that register as a "visit"?

It's all food for thought, but I'm interested in seeing how it plays out. I'm also interested in seeing how accurate the widget aligns other blog posts with mine. Semantic web, here we come...

What Flooding Can Teach Us About To-Do Lists

Pittsburgh (actually Allegheny County) is under a State of Emergency due to the storms that rocked the region all day and caused massive flooding, power outages, downed trees, etc. Several areas (like Millvale, Ross Township, etc.) are in very bad shape.

On the news tonight, Public Safety Director Mike Huss said one of the reasons things are as bad as they are right now in the North Hills is because all of the debris from the flooding caused by Hurricane Ivan (in September of 2004) was never cleared away. That means today's floodwaters had even less wiggle room, so to speak -- because they're contending with leftover trash from 2004.

The good news? Huss said they're optimistic that they "may bid" on a proposal to clean that debris up... in October.

Not to be glib, but what leftover item keeps floating down your to-do list? Why not nip it in the bud now, before it causes problems down the line?...

The Value of Doing Nothing

We wrapped up our fourth season of Something to Be Desired this week, and suddenly, I'm faced with the situation I've dreamed of for weeks:

I have nothing to do.

And it's simultaneously rapturous and alarming.

Semantics, Baby

Of course, I don't have nothing to do. I've been juggling several freelance projects, with a few more on tap. I have an upcoming PodCamp Pittsburgh 2 to plan for. I have numerous financial situations to improve, rectify and otherwise attend to.

But, for all intents and purposes, the primary focus of my life for the past year is over -- temporarily, at least.

Now I have the complete freedom to organize my days any way I see fit. I can compartmentalize my workflow differently. I can go out in the evening, spend time with family and friends, and remind myself I have a girlfriend again.

I can read.

The Downside to Freedom

Like most people, I tend to get a lot of great ideas at precisely the wrong time to work on them.

I'll be staring down a hard deadline for one project and suddenly see the answer to a problem in another project that I'd completely forgotten about -- but I don't have time to implement it.

I'll be Googling for information about one project and invariably find something I know I can use in another capacity -- but I don't have time to explore it.

Now all I have is time.

Of course, the cynics among you have seen this point coming: with no excuses, I now suddenly have no recourse but to follow through on all these other grand ideas.

Will my subconscious mind, which tends to generate far more material than I ever seem to be able to act upon, be as fertile when I now actually HAVE the capacity to take action? Or will I suffer from psychosomatic stage fright? Time will tell. And time is something I have plenty of...

What about you? Do you find a wealth of free time to be a blessing or a curse? How do you maximize your freedom?

In Praise of Naps

The concept of the nap is a touchy subject in my household. One of us (i.e., me) believes a nap is one of the most useful, refreshing and rewarding ways to spend a slice of one's day. The other (i.e., she) believes naps are evil, soul-draining activities that rob a person of time that would be better spent being productive.

I'll admit it's entirely possible to overnap -- lord knows I'd sleep 24 hours a day if it were physically possible. But I actually consider a strategically timed nap to be one of the best things a person can do to improve productivity.

Maybe it's just me, but I find a nap helps me:

- recharge and reinvigorate my body

- clarify and recalibrate my mind

- calm down and refresh my energy

The way my mind works, I tend to go through "stages" in a day, in which I transition from number crunching to organizing to creating to filing to scheduling to brainstorming. I find the transition between mindsets can be jarring, and it often helps immensely to grab a quick nap and approach the new situation with a new frame of mind.

I'm not alone. Studies have shown that workplaces which allow their employees to nap / meditate on the job experience higher morale and increased productivity. It also decreases the chances of heart disease!

From one such article in the Chicago Tribune:

By one estimate, sleep-related fatigue costs U.S. businesses $150 billion annually in absenteeism, accidents and lost productivity, according to a 2006 report by the Institute of Medicine.

Pulling an all-nighter or sleeping as little as four to five hours daily for a week produces the same level of cognitive impairment as if a person were legally drunk, with a blood-alcohol level of 0.10, according to Czeisler. We would never praise someone who came to work inebriated, he argues, yet business glorifies people who sacrifice sleep to work.

Polls suggest a majority of Americans are sleep-deprived, says Darrel Drobnich, program director of the National Sleep Foundation. The group's 2005 poll found that U.S. adults sleep an average of 6.9 hours daily, compared with about 10 hours a century ago.

How ironic: Given the rigors of the workplace and the pressure to succeed, sometimes the best solution is to check out of the game for a catnap.

What about you: do you find a nap recharges your batteries or derails your day?

Motivation Burst

The trickiest thing about motivation is harnessing it.

So often, I spend days -- or weeks, months or, in some extreme cases, years -- harboring ideas or glimpses of things I'd like to do, or should do, but which I never seem to get around to. It always seems like these ideas need "further gestation."

And then, suddenly, something comes along and forces me to take action and -- out of nowhere -- I enter the ring and come out swinging.

Boom.

Job's done. Case closed. No more procrastination.

Where did that sudden burst of motivation come from?

Home Cooking

The most obvious example of this behavior is housecleaning. I can stare at the piles of misplaced items all around my apartment and KNOW they should be put away. But it takes a phone call from a friend or family member -- "We thought we'd drop by tonight..." -- to get me off my ass and into homemaker mode.

Suddenly, dishes get washed, papers get recycled, furniture gets rearranged and laundry gets washed, dried, folded and hung up... usually in just a couple hours. Visitors have no idea that the place looked like a homeless man squatted here mere hours ago.

And, of course, as soon as I'm done, I'm thinking, "This wasn't hard at all. Why the hell did it take me THIS LONG to do?"

Leaving the Nest

Half the reason I don't pull the trigger on an action is because I don't consider it to be ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. I lull myself into a false sense of security. I become complacent with my life as-is, even though I know it needs to be improved.

"Sure, those piles of books belong on a shelf somewhere, but leaving them out won't kill me... I should go play Madden instead."

The problem with this type of thinking is that it justifies my excuses. And once I start justifying excuses for little things, I start doing the same for big things. It's a snowball effect, and it leads to a massive amount of NOT getting things done.

If I applied that same "burst of motivation" in housecleaning to whatever business, social or creative endeavors I'm putting off, I could probably clear up my hundreds-of-items-long to-do list in a reasonable amount of time AND have a blast doing it.

Odds are, so could you.

All it takes is the strength to say "yes" to that tiny, flickering flame of motivation in the back of our minds -- the one that says, "Hey, wouldn't it be a good idea if you did this?..."

Failure Junkies

How often do you come SO CLOSE to what you want to accomplish... only to let it slip away?

Not that you meant to fail. You just didn't plan properly. Or you forgot an element of the process. Or you misunderstood the directions. Or you overslept.

If this happens to you once or twice, it's an aberration. If it happens enough that it becomes synonymous with your personality, it's a problem.

Some people might call this kind of chronic shortfall "self-sabotage" -- a fear of success. I'd counter that argument: it's not fear of success that sends people stumbling en route to the finish line; it's complacency with failure.

Simply put, if you fail often enough, you learn how to do it really well. You subconsciously understand how NOT to get the job done. And that kind of perpetual second (or third, or thirtieth) place finish becomes a bizarre version of a safety blanket.

Once you learn how to handle failure, you realize it's not so bad. Once you fail enough, you realize it might not even matter.

Sure, you're not planning to fail, but you're not necessarily concerned about winning either. Because you know failing won't kill you, and -- in a best case scenario -- it might even allow you to prolong your current lifestyle, which you've become accustomed to.

In short, you've become a failure junkie.

I understand this kind of behavior because I live it more often than I'd like to admit. Odds are, so do you.

So, what do we do about it?

The first step to recovery is admitting we have a problem...

New Year's Resolution Update

"Wow," you thought as you read this headline in a midday, coffee and lunch-induced haze... "Who's still thinking about New Year's resolutions? It's April."

Exactly.

As spring prepares for arrival, the promises we made to ourselves three months ago now seem like college love letters or old grocery lists: full of passion or practicality but, now, ultimately useless.

Or are they?

Punctuality and Organization

Those were my top two bugaboos back in January, as they have been my whole life. So, what better way to kick off the new year than by whittling away at old habits that die so very, very hard?

I knew going in that I couldn't change my world at the flip of a switch, but I could make inroads that, over time, would add up to something proactive. So I identified several key factors in my life that I needed to improve:

- I wanted to become more punctual (as in, not perpetually late).

- I wanted to find a workflow and daily schedule that worked for me.

- I wanted to clear off my desk and my inbox and clean up my apartment.

How have I fared these first few months of the year? Not great, but not horribly either.

Punctuality Status Report

Nope. Still need a lot of work here. (Ask my cast -- I don't think I've been on time for one shoot all year.)

- I still have trouble planning ahead for things, especially activities that require input from multiple sources.

- I still routinely show up a few minutes late for meetings.

- I still turn in paperwork / documentation / finished product at or near the 11th hour before a deadline.

However, I have learned a few tips and tricks that help me avoid the slip-ups that cause the tardiness in the first place. [Side note: does any word connote the spine-tingling shiver of gradeschool like "tardiness"?]

- DON'T check email on my way out the door. (Nothing says "ten minutes later" like one last email sweep.)

- Print out directions, itineraries, files, etc., as soon as they come in / the night before, so there's no need to rush right before departing on a trip.

- Snooze less. The extra ten minutes I buy myself after a nap could be the ten minutes in which I can get everything else packed and out the door on time.

Organization Status Report

It's not perfect -- not even close -- but my approach to keeping track of what needs to be done when, and where everything IS, is improving.

- I've narrowed my ToDo list down to one primary document, which I then (try to) update daily. I keep all ancillary ideas (STBD tasks, BootCamp tasks, bills, etc.) in separate text files, and then I (try to) review them once per week while setting up the following week's big list. That way my daily document isn't overwhelmed with EVERYTHING I have to do, and I have easy access to everything that does need to be done over the long haul.

- I've found my productive times of day for certain activities, and I try to stay within those bounds. For example, it's best to get my blogging and emailing out of the way early, get the hands-on work (like writing or editing) done during the afternoon, and then I re-fuel and return to work in the evening, where I find I can be productive until at least 3 AM.

On the other hand, my desk looks worse than it has in months, and the piles of stuff around it continue to grow. Once we're done with this season of STBD (if not gloriously sooner), I need to take a day -- or even an hour each day -- and whittle away at these towering infernos of obligation. Something tells me it'll do wonders for my psyche.

Future Outlook

So I've made some improvements and fallen short with others. Fair enough. But what happens now?

Instead of tabling the discussion until January ("I'll just try again next year..."), let's consider a few short-term goals:

- A clean desk by June 1st (talk about a long view)

- An empty "Pending" mailbox by June 1st (that's where all the items in my inbox that require more than 2 minutes of my attention get thrown)

- One week of meetings / errands in which I'm no more than 5 minutes late for anything. (Sounds like I'm planning to fail, but 5 minutes is definitely an improvement over 20...)

So, that's my quarter-year evaluation on all those sweet nothings I whispered to myself back in January. How about you?

How Many Social Networks Does It Take to Screw in a Lightbulb?

As I mentioned yesterday, I recently joined Virb, on the advice of Justine, who proudly proclaims Virb to be the new and improved version of MySpace.

I agree, Virb is nice. It's clean. It allows for increased customizability without needing to resort to trolling the internet for hacks and codes. And because it's so new, it doesn't have the profile that attracts spammers (yet).

But why do I need Virb? I already have a MySpace.

Tool Time

I've also been toying with Ning and People Aggregator, which are two sites that allow you, the user, to CREATE YOUR OWN social networks.

Why?

What will your new social network do that you can't already accomplish with a forum, a message board, or a Twitter account?

Some people like, Steve Garfield, use Ning as a catch-all for existing groups, like Boston Mediamakers. That would make sense, as long as the group doesn't already have its own website or wiki.

After all, isn't asking people to come to two different sources for the same information a bit redundant? And if there's different information on both sites, isn't that a bit presumptuous to assume that a group's members have the time and interest to visit both sites regularly?

As with your blog and your actual site, all peripherals -- MySpace, Twitter, wikis, etc. -- must build back to the same brand. They must build on the overall experience for a member of your group -- or, in STBD's case, our fans -- rather than creating a disjointed, cacophonous racket.

They Can't All Be Screwdrivers

However, that's not to say you can't happily maintain a presence on numerous social networking platforms.

The question is, WHAT DO YOU DO at each of them?

As the grandaddy of the form, MySpace has one thing going for it: numbers. It's easier to aggregate a large audience there than anywhere else, solely because they already have the userbase. If you need to get a message out fast to the legions, MySpace is the place to do it.

So why use another service? Because perhaps there are actions you can take there that you can't take at MySpace.

Let's consider Virb again. What are the pros?

- Clean
- Easily customizable
- Everything is taggable
- Shareable playlists
- No spam (yet)

And the cons?

- Small(er) userbase
- Small(er) growth rate
- Potential redundancy with MySpace

So, from a user-end POV, if I didn't already have a MySpace, I'd choose Virb in a heartbeat. Presuming it'll continue to grow at a healthy clip as more and more people discuss it, it may become the social networking site of choice for people who prefer it to the five-and-dime look (and interface) of MySpace.

What potential actions could be taken on a smaller, more nimble platform? Could Virb be used to:

- Create a "street team" of more centralized, passionate individuals?
- Recruit extras for filming group scenes, with friends sorted by location tags?
- Program a faux-podcast using the built-in shareable playlist feature?
- Easily buzz businesses for sponsorships or event hosting, using friend tags?
- Encourage fans to customize their own brand-themed Virb pages?

MySpace has long been established as a place where users come to "hang out" and exchange information about themselves. With a name like "Virb," it seems only natural that the site could be used for far more action-oriented experiences.

What other ways could you use Virb?

What other ways could you use other social networks?

5 Ways Twitter Has Changed My Life (After a Week)

I started using Twitter last Monday.

I was wary. I didn't know if it would be worth my time. I didn't understand how another attention-stealing device could improve my life.

After 8 days of use, here are my five observations:

1. Twitter Is Highly Addictive

This is obvious, because that's what Twitter was built to do. It's designed to enthrall the generation that can't help oversharing with itself, 24/7. But it's WHY in which it's addictive that's unusual.

Unlike a publicly-accessible forum, in which you may or may not particularly care what half the commenters have to say, the members of your Twitter group are all friends you've VOLUNTARILY chosen to "follow." This amounts to a nonstop stream-of-consciousness dialogue with the people whose opinions and anecdotes you inherently care about.

In my case, my Twitter friends happen to be a few dozen of the movers and shakers in the new media space. This colors the information I receive. Instead of inane posts from friends whose lives are no more interesting than where they're eating dinner and what they're watching on TV, I get real-time windows into the offices and mobile lives of the people who are changing the way we communicate.

This enables me to take action or supply information as needed on an instantaneous basis, which means I need to stay connected.

2. Twitter Replaces Multiple Websites and Apps

Twitter is billed as a "better IM" -- or, in some circles, the app that will kill blogs -- but I disagree.

I see Twitter as an ever-updating group chat or forum thread. Here, my Twitter friends can post links to news articles they're reading (or writing), events they're attending, pop culture they're consuming and world events they're considering.

Instead of needing to check Digg, Newsvine, CNN and other rapidly-updated sites all day, I can usually gleam the best of the buzz from my Twitter list. If something's relevant or worth talking about, someone on my list probably mentioned it, and included a link.

Instead of leaving Instant Messenger open all day, I now logon only when I'm looking to communicate with someone directly and privately and may need to transfer files. (I could do most of that directly in Twitter as well, but I have yet to cycle AIM completely out of my bag of tricks.)

And I check MySpace almost exclusively for business purposes at this point, because the people I'm really interested in keeping up with are on my Twitter list -- and I don't need to waste time opening their messages or approving their comments in Twitter; they're just there.

3. Twitter Inspires Me to Do More

Seeing what everyone on my Twitter list is up to reminds me that I need to keep up with their productivity.

At my old day jobs, I paced my workflow against that of my managers. If they seemed to be slacking, I knew I could slow down because the vibe was mellow. If they were stressed out, I knew I'd better keep my head down and get things done.

Now I can gauge the day's workvibe against my Twitter friends. And since the folks I follow on Twitter are all involved in a medium I'm highly interested in, and their work has massive and far-reaching impacts on the medium (and on me), they set the bar pretty high.

Speaking of which...

4. Twitter Urges Me to Be More Relevant

The meta-conversation my Twitter friends have tends to be the kind of conversation that moves a medium forward. At any given moment, a few of them can be asking questions, soliciting advice and making connections. If I'm fast on the draw, I can be part of the problem-solving process.

Twitter is also a great place for self-promotion. Did you just blog about something? Include a link in your Twitterstream. Are you being interviewed at a certain time and place? Mention that to your "followers." New song? New video? New website you've found that no one else seems to have glommed onto yet? Stake your find on Twitter.

Meanwhile, if I've noticed that 3 or 4 of my own most recent Twitter updates are of the "what I ate for dinner" variety, I realize I need to get back to work...

5. Twitter Reminds Me to Get Up Earlier

If I didn't realize I was wasting time by sleeping in before, I certainly do now.

It's embarrassing to see Chris Penn posting a new Financial Aid Podcast, Chris Brogan wading through three meetings, Jeff Pulver flying through twelve time zones and Steve Garfield raising the dead before I've even had breakfast.

Striving to keep up with my contemporaries means I need to get at the workload earlier and hit it harder. Otherwise, the dozens of people who get my Twitter updates will start noticing I haven't been around, and they may presume I'm wasting time... and they might be right.

The Last Word

Despite the downsides to the service -- it's obviously growing faster than it can handle, and it doesn't currently support a lot of features that many of us are striving to find workarounds for (like groups, filtering and "highlight reels") -- the immediate upside is hard to argue.

Twitter hasn't yet changed my life in such drastic tones that I can't imagine not having it around. But it certainly does add a new facet to my daily web life that I'm finding increasingly more dynamic by the day. And it enables me to live at the pulse of the new media lifeline.

I don't believe I'm jumping the gun when I say: The revolution will not be televised -- it will be Twittered.

Get By (Or Not) With a Little Help from Your Friends

Michael Bailey at MobaSoft has had a series of revealing blog posts lately.

In seasonal fashion, he's been working through the same late-winter blahs that affect most of us, and cause us to second-guess what we're doing and why. A few days ago, it looked as if he was getting ready to hang it up for good -- all before his product ever officially launched.

But now he's decided to carry on, albeit with a change of procedure: he's flying solo instead of working with friends.

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

It's a tough situation to work closely with friends because the lines between casual and professional interaction -- and expectations -- can become fuzzy.

- Friends may not do what you need them to do.
- Friends may not know what they CAN do, so they overinflate their value.
- Friends may take liberties that strangers wouldn't.
- Friends may not work as hard as strangers.
- Friends may not listen.

When it comes time to make hard choices, often it's the friendship that suffers more than the business. Any business can rebound from the loss of a single employee, no matter how integral he or she is to the business structure. But a friendship is between two people, and when the connecting lines have become tangled, severing one set often means you end up severing both.

Personally, on paper, I'd never advocate working with friends. And yet I continually work with friends and acquaintances on projects large and small. Why?

- Friends already "know" me, and are personally invested in seeing me / us succeed.
- Friends know people, and can introduce me to them.
- Friends take phone calls at 3 AM.
- Friends talk me down when the going gets tough.
- Friends understand that there's more to life than business.

But the most important reason I choose to work with people I know is:

- Success feels better with a team I cherish, and I already cherish my friends.

Come Together

Not everyone I work with is a friend, but almost everyone I work with BECOMES a friend. That's because I can't help but endeavor to make a connection with someone that extends beyond paperwork and deadlines. I want to RELATE to the people I like / admire / connect with, not simply be a name in their address book.

When I started Something to Be Desired, I did so with a few friends. We needed a larger cast, so they tapped a few of their friends. With rare exception, our initial cast was comprised of people 1 or 2 degrees away from me personally, which gave us a personal stake in the series' success.

Now, our cast is so large, I couldn't possibly be close friends with everyone. But that doesn't mean we're not all "close," in a way. When you're dedicating as much time and effort to a venture as the STBD cast is, you can't help but form the kind of bond you often hear about in film crews, bands and small businesses: we're a family. We may have black sheep, problem children and estranged cousins, but we're all in it together and we find a way to make it work.

The Long and Winding Road

Sometimes, despite everyone's best intentions, it doesn't work out.

Sometimes working with friends doesn't produce the desired results. In those cases, we're faced with a decision: accept the situation and learn to work within the new realm of (lowered) expectations, or cut ties (professionally) in the hopes of sticking to the original vision.

Your decision is based upon your own desire as a leader: is the success of your idea more important than the stability of your friendship?

Your answer will vary depending upon the issue at hand and the strength of the friendship. Sometimes you need to be willing to bend. Other times, you need to be willing to break -- up the partnership.

Ob La Di, Ob La Da, Life Goes On

Some friendships thrive on conflict. One promotional team we've worked with before is comprised of friends who drive each other crazy in their drive to get things done.

"So," I asked them last week, "when are you two moving in together to maximize productivity?"

"We're not," came the answer. "She yells at me too much."

It doesn't mean they're not friends -- they were sitting right next to each other and laughed, because they both know it's true. But they've identified where their boundaries between work and friendship lie. They know how to push each other's buttons just enough to get the job done without causing personal strife.

Find those people. Find those boundaries. Find something you want to create together. Go forward.

And, should your paths diverge, wish each other the best. Leave the communication channels open.

You never know when your paths will cross again.

Battling the Lateness Gene

There's an interesting article on Newsvine about "chronic lateness," and how it's caused by something as simple as hitting the snooze button in the morning. Those extra ten minutes can wind up costing you a whole half hour by the end of your day. And that's not just your own time -- that's other people's time you're wasting.

Like most tardiness articles, it's filled with tips / strongly-worded suggestions about how and why you could (and should) always be on time. And, when meeting other people, I would advocate the same: don't make people wait (even though I do it ALL THE TIME).

But one thing the article doesn't elaborate on are the cases it touches upon in which some people DO work best under pressure, due to the adrenaline rush of being "late" or otherwise "under the gun." I'm one of "those" types.

Party's Over -- Whoops, Out of Time

I never studied in gradeschool, and rarely in high school. I didn't need to. Then I went to art school, where my procrastination led me to finish nearly every project the night before it was due. Instead of changing my habits, I realized I could still maintain solid grades (As, Dean's List, etc.) with less and less prep time... so I used that extra time to do a lot more outside of class.

I'm sure I could have gotten the work done FIRST, and THEN had a life outside of school, but that isn't the way my brain works. Over time, I've come to realize that:

a) I do much better when I'm running late and NEED to take action, and
b) I almost always need to be doing something OTHER than what I'm SUPPOSED to be doing.

Each observation fuels the other: I'm chronically running late because I'm never doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and yet I usually do well at everything I do because I subconsciously ENJOY doing the "wrong" thing at the right time.

Time to work? I'll take a break. Time to go home? I'll stick around and work. My mind is uncanny.

The Politics of Punctuality

One trend I detect in the comments on that article, and among punctual people in general, is that people who endeavor to be punctual usually expect it of others, and are personally offended when they're on the receiving end of latecoming. (Hell, I'M offended when someone I'm supposed to meet is late, and I'm the king of being late... which means you must REALLY be bad if I'm waiting for you.)

But the people who decry the snooze alarm as the root of all human problems seem to fall into the same category as people who have unreasonably high expectations of everyone else in the world, and who fail to understand that everyone works differently.

One commenter on the article mentioned that he'd feel incredibly stressed out if he wasn't at school at least half an hour before classes start, and an hour would be better. He wonders how some of his professors can walk in with only 2 minutes to spare before the class begins. How can they prepare? Do they just ad lib?

Possibly.

Or perhaps they approach time from a completely different standpoint, and aren't stressed out because they're "only" on time instead of early.

The more strict we are with our own expectations, the harder it is to make allowances for others. That doesn't mean we shouldn't all strive to be the best we can be, and to be on time. It just means we shouldn't expect the entire world to adhere to our own, possibly narrow or limiting, estimation of what's "right" -- ESPECIALLY when it comes to time.

Now, if I could only cure my actual tardiness, which traditionally sees me show up more than 20 minutes late for meetings, I'd be much more content...

I Went and Done It

I activated my Twitter account...

Now the world can breathlessly follow my story as I... um... do pretty much what I always do...

Or do MORE...

The Three Elements I'm Most Interested In Exploring

1. HOW DOES A ROVING 'AWAY' MESSAGE IMPACT MY LIFE?

- Will I come to enjoy leaving updates?
- Will I feel burdened by the oversharing?
- Will I feel the need to do more interesting things in order to justify the time it takes people to read my updates?

(You could apply that last sentence to pretty much any phase of my life. Or yours.)

2. WHAT CAN TWITTER DO FOR ME?

I know Twitter can help me keep in touch with everyone on my list. But I could already do that through other services. This is just one more wrinkle along the corduroy information superhighway.

More interestingly:

- How can Twitter be hacked to become productive? (Christopher Penn has a good idea.)
- What information can I gather from Twitter that I can't gather elsewhere?
- How will what basically amounts to a neverending passive-agressive chatroom morph into a valuable font of real-time feedback?

3. WHAT'S NEXT?

- Will Twitter expand its operations to other services?
- Will hacking (or open sourcing) enable users to turn Twitter into MySpace 2.0?
- Will social networking as a whole become a new lifestyle we can't imagine living without?

We shall see...

Simplify

I realized yesterday that I have too much on my plate.

I can't focus. Things fall by the wayside.

I need to simplify.

Do Better by Doing less

You'll never be able to do everything that comes your way equally well. If you want to be a jack-of-all-trades, that's perfectly reasonable, as is being a specialist. But regardless of how much you WANT to do with your time, the bigger question is:

How much time do you need to feel you've done your best at the things you do?

The key to living well isn't to do everything simply because it's there. It's about doing a few small, manageable things extremely well. Once that becomes comfortable, changes can be made. New projects can be added. New challenges can be engaged. Eventually, you can become a jack-of-all-trades who does well at numerous things, or a specialist who excels in his or her field.

But you won't do it all at once, right off the bat.

You need to prioritize.

Understanding the Order of Things

How much work do you NEED to do in order to earn enough money to love comfortably?

How much work do you WANT to do in order to have a creative outlet, or build a new business / project?

How much time does that leave for personal enrichment, socializing, travel and relaxation?

If the answer is "none," then something needs to go.

If the answer is, "how could I find time for a creative outlet with all this WORK?" then something needs to go.

If the answer is, "how am I going to pay my bills?" then something needs to go.

Trim the Fat

Cut out ONE thing that's getting in the way.

What's consuming too much time in your life compared to the reward it provides? What actions are you taking merely out of obligation, or tradition, or because "no one else will do it as well as me"?

Stop. Scale back. Turn it off. Delegate.

There are 24 hours in a day. Make the most of yours. That includes doing less than you're currently doing, in order to do better at the things you DO do.

For me, that means agreeing to less favors that don't make me money.

By and large, I tend to consent to every request made of me because a) I don't like letting people down, b) I don't like thinking there are things I CAN'T do, and c) I feel obliged to sample every reasonable experience that comes my way.

Given the amount of work on my plate, and the day-to-day needs of my lifestyle, I can no longer spend as much time being altruistic as I'd like. I need to buckle down and get the important things done. I need to build on small successes, rather than widespread attempts that fall short.

I need to prioritize.

What's one thing that YOU can do less of -- or cut out completely -- that will free up your time, your money, your creative resources?

How can YOU simplify?

How Do You SEE Time?

Everyone has 24 hours in their day. But not everyone divides those 24 hours the same way.

For some actions, an hour is sufficient. Others may take minutes, while still others take all day.

But if you begin to understand WHEN you're most productive, and what time of day you're best suited for certain tasks, you may also find an unusual stumbling block: instead of not having ENOUGH time, you may not have the right KIND of time.

Hickory Dickory Dock

I like to start actions at the top of the hour. Whether it's a meeting, a class, a lunch break or a load of freelance work, starting a new action at the top of the hour makes me feel as though I have a long stretch of time to work uninterrupted. In fact, I'm so keen on the top of the hour that I've trained my brain to see this part of every 60-minute cycle as an optimal time of day.

Conversely, starting an action at the bottom of an hour, or anywhere else in-between, agitates me.

The same work that I can dive into with abandon at 3 PM becomes a case of the blahs if I get started at 3:10. Somehow, my mind has already begun to write off this hour as being underproductive. Already, my brain aches for 4 PM, to get a "fresh start."

This explains why I prefer to round up to the nearest full hour whenever I take naps, if possible.

Eight Days a Week

My preference for the top of the hour extends to the calendar week as well. Mondays are huge days for my mental success. If I can get a jump on the week on Monday, if I can execute my list of things to do for that day -- or, heavens be praised, work ahead -- then it's smooth sailing the rest of the week. Even if I dawdle by Thursday, my brain assesses the week as a positive because of the strong start.

Meanwhile, if I stumble on Monday and don't get to the meat of the workweek until Tuesday, the entire week feels like a wash. I could actually be twice as productive as I would be in the previous week's example, but my brain would register it as a failure because I was always working to catch up.

The Solution

I doubt I'm alone in this chronal oddity. Everyone has their own idiosyncracies in life, and their perception of time should be no exception. (If that were the case, I doubt David Allen would be making millions off the Getting Things Done movement, which is proof that none of us has a mastery of his or her own time.)

One of the ways I combat this mental attrition is to schedule my workday in a consistent manner:

- Start a new action at the top of each hour, when applicable.
- If that action is done early, find a similar action to take next, so it feels as though I'm working on a related arm of the same project
- Try to squeeze showers, naps and lunch into the timeframe when my computer is busy doing something else (capturing video, awaiting email feedback, etc.), so I don't derail productive time and end up with a handful of stray minutes... like, say, 55 of them...

Of course, no approach is foolproof. Every day, precious hours are sliced into sections due to previous engagements, transportation woes and other exterior obligations that disrupt my ideal timeframe. Instead of a full hour to complete a mid-sized task, or 4+ hours to devote to something major, I often find myself with 28 minutes here, 90 minutes there.

So the next-best solution is to identify tasks I can knock out in lesser amounts of time and still feel productive. Is there a blog post I can write in 20 minutes? Are there pending emails I should be responding to that would only take 10 minutes? Does something in the apartment need to be cleaned and reorganized in the next 45?

Now that I'm coming to grips with HOW I see time, I can better schedule my necessary actions to better fit within all the fractured hours my day provides.

How do YOU see time? How does that impact YOUR workflow?

So Much for a 24-7 World...

Have you noticed that the web tends to slow to a crawl on the weekends?

Does anyone else find it ironic that the internet, which is used to connect people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, operates primarily under the guise of a 9-5 workweek?

What a lot of people forget is that the web is powered by the same people who live a life beyond their monitors... and those peolple tend to need a break on the weekends, too.

In a way, this is a good thing, because the people who READ the blogs and USE the websites need just as much of a break as the people who generate them. Otherwise, we'd all be sailing into information overload.

On the other hand, this still limits the ability of new information to inlfuence us in real time. Just like the frontpage of USA Today's Friday edition usually looks antiquated by Sunday night, many of the conversations we generate during the week seem like completely different animals the following Monday. By the time we've had a break from the norm, our motivations have had a chance to wind down as well, and it can take a huge effort to restart that same energy all over again.

So: what's the solution? Stay connected throughout the weekend and allow the momentum of ideas to continue along their course? Or unplug for the weekend and remind ourselves that there IS a real world?

Breaking My Own Heart

As I mentioned on the STBD blog today, I will NOT be attending PodCamp Toronto this weekend.

Boy, am I upset about that.

Why?

Because a PodCamp in Toronto is already a near-perfect storm of events for me. Toronto is one of my favorite cities, and one I haven't been to in almost a year. And PodCamp is always a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and new, exchange ideas and be part of a thriving creative community. To mix both is amazing, but the fact that my best friend is ALSO heading up to Toronto this weekend for an Our Lady Peace concert is almost too much fun to have in one weekend.

So, as per Murphy's Law, I'm staying put -- due to my own misallocation of time and money.

What Dennis Johnson Can Teach Us About Time Management

As an avid sports fan, I check Sports Illustrated's website multiple times per day. Yesterday, breaking news informed me that former Boston Celtic guard Dennis Johnson had passed away at the relatively early age of 52. Later, it was verified that he'd died of a heart attack. One moment he was standing outside, talking with the PR person from the NBDL team he's currently coaching, and the next he'd fallen over and was en route to cardiac arrest.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Dennis Johnson's premature death is a signal that we should all be thankful for every moment we're alive on this planet, and to try to maximize all of our time while we're here.

But the deeper lesson is WHY Johnson's death is being so widely reported. After all, aged athletes pass away on a regular basis, just like retirees in any other industry. Due to having worked in a high-profile occupation, their deaths usually warrant a brief national news item, but rarely does the obituary of a player who is not a Hall-of-Famer (and Johnson is not) merit front-page mention in a national sports publication.

The reason Dennis Johnson is so fondly remembered is simple: he worked his ass off.

DJ was never the most talented player on a team. (He wasn't even a starter in his senior year of high school.) The fact that he's remembered as a "Celtic great" while having played on the same teams as future Hall-of-Famers like Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish and Bill Walton is a testament to his work ethic and his willingness to do whatever it took to get the job done. In fact, statistically speaking, Johnson was more productive as an individual player before he joined the Celtics. Only afterwards, when he was no longer required to be a go-to guy, was his true value as a blue-collar, do-it-all contributor allowed to flourish.

This is why his death at an early age is so profound -- not because it was unexpected (the man was never a prime physical specimen) but because it hammers home one key point:

You may not be able to do everything in life well, but if you work your ass off, you may be able to do everything you want to do -- even if you don't have as much time to do it as you'd like.

If Dennis Johnson accomplished more in a shorter amount of time than some others, perhaps it's because he knew he needed to pack in as much as he could into whatever time he had. Who wouldn't want to be able to say the same thing about himself?

Which Brings Us Back to PodCamp

Not to belabor a point, but the fact that I'm sitting here ruminating about time management instead of doing the work that needs to be done is telling. It means that I'm the one to blame for missing an event that I would, on paper, "never miss in a million years."

So now I have a choice: I can either continue to fritter away time each day and never quite live up to my potential... or I can work my ass off to ensure that I never have to sit here again over a weekend, owning up to my own culpability in missing out on something I had my heart set on.

What do YOU have circled on YOUR calendar? What NEEDS to be done to ensure that that circle doesn't get erased?

When Are You Most Productive?

I'm nocturnal. I can't help it. Every time I try to adapt my schedule to do more work earlier in the day, I end up falling behind.

Conversely, I can stay up until 4 in the morning without fail and get much more work done with a later-in-the-day start than most human beings would think is acceptable.

Why?

Because I know when my mind is ready to tackle certain tasks.

The Day Is Not Equal

At certain times of day, or when in certain mindsets, I can do some types of work much faster than others.

For example, in the early morning, I'm great for answering email, searching for clerical information or editing video according to an easy-to-follow script. Anything that doesn't require much independent thought, basically.

But when I'm fully awake, recharged and relaxed, that's when my mind automatically kicks into overdrive. That's when tackling larger projects, creative brainstorming and problem-solving, and multi-part objectives become much easier to navigate.

This isn't a matter of "getting enough sleep," because even a full tank depletes throughout the day. This is a matter of understanding when I'm best able to achieve what I need to accomplish during the average day.

Mentally Homeless

A recent survey by Jim Citrin found that most CEOs in mega-successful corporations are up and running well before 6 AM. In fact 6 AM was the latest any of those he talked to directly said they wake up; some are on the move as early as 4 AM.

This illustrates the problem with nocturnal folks like me: the bulk of humanity is trained to operate on a daylight-driven, 9-5 workday. Evenings are for relaxation with friends and family. This is endlessly frustrating to me because I'm at my creative and motivational peak at about the exact same time that the rest of the world just wants to curl up with a good book; meanwhile, when they need something from me, I'm usually too incapacitated to be much help. (Ask my girlfriend.)

This leads to a "homeless" feeling, as though I'm living on the fringe of society. I'm never around when I'm needed, but I'm never needed when I'm around.

The 24-7 "Solution"

For better or worse, the workday has been steadily evolving over the past century and is now almost universally recognized as neverending. I tend to go to bed just as the CEOs of the world are waking up. This means that exchanging important emails or project specs at 1 AM is increasingly common, as more and more people begin to realize:

a) Different parts of the day are better for various tasks, and
b) The ever-increasing pressure to "get more done" means we're all working more hours every day.

I'm not so sure this is the best approach. I've never been a fan of the "Dude, I just pulled an 18 hour workday" Hercules mentality. It seems that working MORE isn't the answer, so much as working smarter.

I also wonder if people aren't working more hours because they're more distracted than ever before, AND because they're trying to force themselves to be productive at non-optimal times.

Think about it: how much work do you ACTUALLY get done in the average 9 hour workday? 4 hours? 5?

What if you could start your workday whenever you wanted to -- say, 11 AM -- and work until YOU felt you were "done"? What if you could accomplish in 4 or 5 hours of steady work -- when you're at your creative and cognizant peak -- what it currently takes you 9 or 10 or even 12 hours to accomplish, every day?

Think of what you could do with all those extra hours!

It's your day. What would YOU like to do with it?