Written on 18th December 2008
9 COMMENTS 
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Following everything must be great. The all-seeing eye, yeah! Never miss anything worthwhile. Be the first to know. I’m signing for it.
Such a beautiful utopia, but oh so dangerous to strive for. Though there are plenty of tools that will help you getting you there. Turn on a sound effect every time you receive an email or tweet. Wear your head set all the time. And…, install an Adobe Air app which keeps you up to date about all the latest articles in your feed selection.
Snackr is such a service. After installing it on the Adobe Air platform, importing your OPML file, and placing it in the preferred corner – your RSS feeds are always available. Right there, in the corner of your eye.
I’m running the RSS reader while I’m typing this post, and man, it drives me crazy! It keeps asking for my attention. Like a TV screen in a bar. The design, features, and usability: it’s all very well-executed. – but using the nifty little program will mean the end of productivity for me.
But hey, maybe you’re the kind of guy/ gal who needs a little bit of distraction. If that’s the case, don’t hesitate and click here.
Written on 11th August 2008
11 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Although some hardcore Twitter fans might oppose, I think it’s fair to say Twitter is bad for productivity. The last ten minutes, I received eight “new Tweets” alerts. That’s 48 every hour, meaning I have 384 distraction moments during an ordinary 8-hour work day. And I only follow 151 people. How will I be able to focus on my blogging with the distraction monster called Twitter roaring in the background?
So after reading David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) a couple of months ago, I decided to determine standard times for Twitter. After a while I found this was called batch-processing. Darren Rowse advises in an excellent post how he discovered that most of the work that he does can be ‘batched’ in one way or another. So a 30-minute writing batch, a 20-minute email handling batch, and.., a 15-minute Twitter batch. I have been doing this for quite a while, and in terms of productivity, it works really well.
There’s a disadvantage to batching Twitter though
Although I’ve been writing more, thanks to controlling the Twitter-beast, I feel like I’m missing out on a great number of interesting conversations. If I open Twitter at 1pm, it’s too late to participate in an interesting “why blogging sucks”-discussion of 8am. The moment is over. Moreover, I don’t wanna be the guy who only sends stuff.
Tweetdeck to the rescue
But now there’s Tweetdeck. The service launched in beta early July, but suffered from Twitter offline time. When Frederic Lardinois from ReadWriteWeb reviewed the service, he wrote that with Twitter’s track function still being offline, Tweetdeck wouldn’t be suitable for everyone.
But the grouping feature got me excited (I already begged for it in March). The thing is, thanks to the batching, I noticed that specific people added the most value to discussions, posting interesting links or well thought over replies. What if I would make some sort of A-list? A really exclusive list of people of which I’m sure they post things I want to read right-a-way. I already have an A-list in my RSS reader, so why not on Twitter? Thanks to the handy column feature (see example below), I can take a look at my A-listera and save the other Twitter updates for later.
Screenshot from the website of Tweetdeck. See how the columns allow you to group your Twitter contacts.
This is how Twitter became GTD-friendly for me
Ok, let’s use a bullet list to explain the way I Twitter now:
- I check my A-list of Twitterazi after I’ve finished a batch. Most batches take me 20 minutes, so I won’t miss any interesting discussions in which my A-listers are participating.
- I also check my replies column, as I want to respond asap
- My regular Twitter-batching habit stays the same. I still check the feeds of all my Twitter contacts three times the day.
- Whenever I feel like I missed an interesting discussion, I’ll add the person responsible for this to my A-list
- The result? I pick up interesting stories pretty quickly and find myself interacting more with my Twitter contacts
Although the mention of an A-list brings up associations with arrogance and endless lines at fancy clubs, it’s got nothing to do with that. It’s just a way for me to become a better blogger. I’ve shared it with you, so that you can use Twitter as a GTD-friendly tool as well.
Thanks Yaron for the tip!
Written on 24th July 2008
12 COMMENTS
Joop Dorresteijn, East Asia correspondent
I am not a particular fan of GTD contextual todo lists, they make me grumpy and busy; instead I apply the just-on-time principle: I write down the five most important things in the evening on a paper, and try to accomplish that the next day. And with New York based Jakob Lodwick’s new web application now do this, I can put it online with ease.
Nowdothis.com is surprisingly simple, the online todo is environmental too. Simply go to the site, add the things you need to do in the list, and click “done” when you finish something. It works on any browser, including the Iphone. When you close the browser, your todo will be saved on your particular device/computer.
We have seen simple concepts as Tumblr, Twitter etc. to become highly successful. nowdothis is so simple and effective, that it’s an excellent example to many complicated websites out there. It might be the easiest web 2.0 service out there, what do you think?
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