Now what?

How can I guarantee I’m not missing anything?

A couple of posts ago I ended with a question related to Friendfeed…”how can I guarantee I’m not missing anything?”

Well, reading Susan’s post on Connection vs. Purpose I think I found my answer…it doesn’t matter.

Quoting Susan:

The consistent, ongoing nature of the updates is a great screen for the fact that I am wasting time doing something that feels purposeful, but isn’t. Or, to put it another way, giving too much attention to tools that support social network sharing and monitoring is a way to feel like I am *doing something* that has very limited results.

So the ongoing challenge is to not feel too bad about ignoring this stuff - going to try to take deeper, but less frequent dips into the feed pool.

update on 10/26: related to these thoughts of “feels purposeful but isn’t, there’s Merlin Mann’s recent post on consuming “better” content, which drives home the point about:

“making mindful decisions about the quality of any input that I check repeatedly — as well as any “stuff” I produce. * identify and destroy small-return bullshit”

A difficult (or not) balance

First off, wanted to thank Susan for the very kind (and unexpected) shout-out…looks like Friendfeed officially launching is helping to drive traffic.

Related to Friendfeed, et al - there’s a problem with webland….it’s too damn interesting (see: I feel crazy! I am paralyzed!) People are starting to notice that if you don’t occasionally shut this stuff out it’s impossible to get real work done.

But the problem is that web devs are only getting better at creating the world’s most popular timewaster, and shutting off your instinct to click on a potentially interesting link is either the easiest or hardest thing to do depending on your perspective.

So here’s how I’m going to try to reign things in and hopefully get more real work done:

• Step 1: Only check Friendfeed once a day (using their email digest)
• Step 2: Categorize Feeds in Google Reader - created a “read first” folder and then everything else has it’s usual tags….this way, if I’m wasting time at least it’s on high quality, read first, items.
• Step 3: Continue reading the Now Habit. Less than 100 pages in, but already well worth the cover price.

Any other techniques/suggestions? (maybe a twitter support group that has a seinfield-esque “master of your domain” contest?)

update after Day 1: definitely checked Friendfeed more than once…I don’t trust their email feed….how can I guarantee I’m not missing anything :)