The power of micro blogging applications such as Twitter lies in the fact that it is less intrusive yet very collaborative. I am able to shrink my messages to 140 characters or less, thus making it a concise and to-the-point communication tool. I am able to share reviews about a book I am reading or an article that I stumbled upon.  The objective is to share with the belief that someone somewhere read it and it helped.

I have seen that it has always been a struggle for the leaders in any organization to create a culture of collaborative teams; for employees to openly share best practices, lessons learnt, queries, ideas, and thoughts; amongst fellow team members, across project teams and departments; in a common, efficient and non-intrusive way. But If micro blogging works globally to bring people together from the corners of the world to collaborate on a common topic, in an efficient non-intrusive communication channel, while building a knowledge-base on the fly, and easy to maintain… then

WHY NOT use micro blogging as a tool within the firewalls of an organization to achieve the exact same results?

Stay tuned for “The Microblogging Workplace – Pros and Cons” - Coming Soon!

A few weeks ago, you heard my cry for help with my post called “Help Me Help You Help Me“. I was calling out to you to help me change, be more productive, get things done with some discipline in my life. I thank you all for your wonderful encouraging life changing comments. Yes, I am being sarcastic. Yes, that’s exactly why.

So, here I am thinking all hope is lost when I stumbled upon a fellow AOC2 author’s e-book ‘Time Management for Creative People’ <– click that link to read/download the eBook.

The eBook by Mark McGuinness is very well written making it an easy and quick read. It is very motivating and some of the techniques can easily be put to practice. What intrigued me the most was the part where he talks about avoiding the “Sisyphus” effect and the “Do it tomorrow” idea. Interesting.

Sisyphus is a figure from the Greek mythology who was punished for his deceitful crimes. His punishment was to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, which he failed every time. Before he could reach the top of the hill, the rock would roll back down, and he has to begin again.

I think we are all descendants of Sisyphus. Don’t we all have upon us the curSe of Sisyphus to continuously battle with those never ending to-do lists, those huge rocks we want with to get rid of, only for it to find its way back to our inboxes, into our lives?

Did Sisyphus ever get out of that? I would have to dive deeper into the Greek mythology to find out. But we can. “Do it tomorrow” is how. I am trying it out and if it works, I write about it. Until then, I suggest you click on that link above and read Mark’s eBook. I highly recommend it. Let me know how it goes.

In this competitive world, it is important to be efficient. To be efficient, one has to be productive. The question is: Are we disciplined enough to be productive? The best of tools don’t help us unless we’ve discipline. But I waste time. I procrastinate. I laze around. I wait for the 11th hour to work on that task. Then I rush to meet the deadline. My perfect ignorant world turns upside down. I somehow manage to meet the deadline and I deliver.

Maybe I get an adrenaline rise from managing chaos and during those final chaotic hours, I am at my efficient best. Maybe I don’t deliver as best as I would have if I had prepared; if I am disciplined. Maybe you cannot identify with me. Maybe you’ve made it work.

How? Tell me ONE thing you do that helps you make the best use of your time.

I remember the first day we got introduced. I was on a road trip – a vacation with my family. At first, it was curiosity. Soon it became a necessity. It changed my life.

There was a thrill to it, when I received that first email. I couldn’t wait to reply. It was just the beginning. More emails, messages…. and I kept replying. The relationship grew stronger. I was addicted to my new life. I felt somehow obligated. I couldn’t avoid it. My perfect life fell apart.

Today, two years after it all began; my life is back to normal. Everything is perfect again. My affair with my blackberry has ended and I’ve learnt an important lesson… that my blackberry should never take over my life.

The blackberry is a great gadget. It’s a dream-come-true. It makes me more productive. But I should not let it dominate me by allowing it to divert my attention to every email I get. If I do, it’ll interfere with my time – the time I would share with my wife, family and friends. So today, I keep it on ‘Phone Only’ mode and I’ve set intervals to read emails because I know if it’s really that important, they’ll call.

I track my time on an excel spreadsheet. I call it TimeTracker. Excel is easier because I’m always around computers. I can never get used to carrying a notebook or scratch pad with me at all times, to log my time. Nope. I am the geek. I keep my TimeTracker mobile with Google Documents so I can access my online tracker @home, @work, @whereever.
My objective is to be better at time management; to be a productive manager, to find more time for my family, to be able to plan vacations, to never run behind deadlines. It’s not an easy fix because it would mean I’d have to change. How much change? That’s what the tracker will help me find out. The tracker will tell me how productive I am and how much time I waste.

I’m glad to see that I was able to track almost every important activity last week and derive some meaning of it. I can see that I’ve clearly wasted around 15 hours that I could have put into something productive while I’m proud to see that I was able to give my personal life a priority on Valentine’s day. In the beginning it may seem tedious to jot down everything. Do as much as you can. Don’t give up because you missed some entries or had to be less accurate. It’s ok. It takes a bit of getting used to but you will notice a perspective change almost immediately. You will start to value time, be proactive, spontaneous, etc – all qualities of an effective manager of time.

As for me, a small change I am going to introduce next week is to spend 1 hour for PmP studies (also a goal for this year) and resume 1 hour of work out – a total of 10 hours daily that I intend to put to productive use. I guess that’s good enough for a start.