Waiting on Diamonds to Play with the Rough
August 1, 2008 by Ryan
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How do I prioritize my rocks?
Earlier I posted about the overload I willingly subjected myself to and how confused I was about tackling it. In the few days it’s been since then I have really enjoyed all the interaction and new connections I’ve made now that I, as of this moment, follow 585 people on Twitter and 135 people on Plurk. How does it work trying to talk to 700+ people? It’s actually a lot of fun! I plan on posting soon about some observations, thoughts and insight from this new experience.
My question a few days ago was, “How do I process all this information?” I got some great comments of sympathy and shared exasperation, as well as great tips from very wise sources! Even though I joke a little about my dad, his advice about chunking tasks was echoed in a ZenHabits post here. As I read that today, a couple things stood out to me:
- Find your essentials
- Find your time-wasters
- Do your Biggest Rock first
The fact that I really took the time to read and think about this post came from an adjustment since starting this self inflicted onslaught. I love Leo’s posts! I get so much out of them! I’ve noticed that in my Reader I tend to put off reading my favorite sources and rip through the posts that I’m confident I can scan and be satisfied. That’s completely backwards! I’m only doing it to get that “unread” number down! One of my new friends twittered today that she had 1,000 posts to get through on her reader! And I thought I had a problem! (It’s okay Erin, my wife’s almost as behind!) But realizing I was spending the majority of my time working though information that was lowest value. Imagine if that was money! Actually, now that I think about it, we do that too! How much time do we spend on activities that have the lowest return! I guess that’s the whole 80/20 Pareto Principle!
Now it comes down to implementing these realizations into my information diet. Here’s a few questions I’m asking:
- Is this information intake inline with my goals?
- How much time am I willing to dedicate to this information source?
- How do I value this information’s ROI?
- Am I putting those with the highest value first?
I’m still in process with all of this and may revisit it again, but I’m curious how all my new “friends” are coming along. Do share!
This post is part of my Information Overload Series
- How Do You Process All This Information?!
- Waiting on Diamonds to Play with the Rough
How Do You Process All This Information?!
July 22, 2008 by Ryan
I have 28 34 (and counting) blogs that I read through my Google Reader. I follow 100 +600 people on Twitter & Plurk (thanks to ProBlogger). I find more and more friends from childhood, high school, college, etc. on Facebook everyday. How do I process all this information!?
I’ve actually cut down the number of blogs that I read (I had some that would post 5-6 times a day)! My reading of ZenHabits has got me to try and simplify. But at the same time, I just added like 80 people to my Twitter/Plurk/Facebook! One good thing is that the additions are not as demanding as the blogs. Which reminds me! I have like 5-6 books that I want to read!
I guess it comes down to priority. What priority is all of this information for me to get through? How thoroughly do I want to digest each source? It’s pretty easy to “fill up on junk food” with all the social networking. Even some of the blogs are low-nutrition! I know that I should spend more time of the information that has the best return on investment (i.e. books, quality blog posts & family info streams). Being that I aspire to income generating blogging, I also need to invest time into developing contacts and relationships. So, while there is going to be a good deal of personally irrelevant info, I do plan on spending time with my “new” friends.
Anyone else dealing with this? How do you handle it?
This post is part of my Information Overload Series
- How Do You Process All This Information?!
- Waiting on Diamonds to Play with the Rough
Discover New Music with TheSixtyOne.com
January 3, 2008 by Ryan
Just real quick…I ran across this website on Digg last night and spent a good hour messing with it:
Tons of cool music. Here are a few I liked:
It has a very cool interface (Digg-style voting, very quick music play, music continues to play while you surf).
Check it out!
More Soldiers & the Internet
November 24, 2007 by Ryan
The Eagle Scout Project that I posted about a few days ago reminded me of a program my wife and I caught randomly on The History Channel. It was called Band of Bloggers and it introduced a network of soldiers that blogged about their experience in Iraq.
The soldiers on the program talked about how being in Iraq was mostly prolonged boredom interspersed with moment of total chaos. Soldiers now have access to computers and high speed internet to help them pass the time. Predictably, they talked about how some soldiers would use that for less productive purposes. Some, however, found a outlet to share their experiences with the world. They use blogs as a way to tell the true stories that mainstream media ignores, glosses over or waters down. They have digital cameras which allows them to add a visual perspective to accompany their writing.
Be warned: If you decide to explore these sites, they don’t filter. And to be honest, I don’t think they should. War is terrible. I think it’s important to be reminded. We can’t truly understand what it’s like if we haven’t experienced. But as I read a few of the experiences, I thought about how I would feel, how I would react, and whether I could do what they did. My respect and gratitude for our soldiers has grown for what they do for us. I have two cousins, one Navy Seal & one Marine, that went to the Middle East. I am glad there are those that do it.
