Day 111 – I told you how to kill the meeting and conference call time vampires. Today I ran across these great tips on how to kill the Internet time vampire.
Turn off IM. Unless you have a compelling reason for real-time IM’ing with someone–for example, you are communicating with a colleague on an airplane and IM is the only choice–turn it off. IM is simply an invitation for people to interrupt your work and ask you trivial questions.
Check your email only a few times day. Email is asynchronous–senders don’t expect an immediate response. Take advantage of this by turning off your visual and audio alerts, and checking it just a few times a day.
When I do check email, I have a rule that I respond immediately to every email as soon as I read it, unless it’s an email that needs no response at all. This discipline forces me to send short emails–because I want to get to the next message–and never causes me to read an email twice. The result is much less time spent on messaging. Ditto for texting and checking voicemail. Have 30-minute meetings. With the exception of formal meetings, anything useful in a meeting can be accomplished in 30 minutes, especially when phones, email, and IM are not allowed.
Schedule time for social media. Keeping up with the news is crucial, and maintaining a social media profile is important for professional purposes. But do it wisely. Make it something you schedule time for. I do it as soon as I wake up, and if possible, while I’m eating lunch. Once it’s a scheduled activity like anything else, it doesn’t become a filler that takes up your entire day.
- Wesley Donehue
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