I’ve been a little overwhelmed recently with all the projects I’ve taken on. With these projects my email load has increased. Along with this increased email load, I’ve also become overwhelmed with RSS feeds, tweets via Twitter, and Skype calls coming my way.
In a few months time I’m likely to drop a lot of these projects and focus solely on this blog, though at the moment I’ve felt the need to get into a slightly better shape before I make any changes down the line.
Last weekend I sorted through my entire machine, applications, and web services in order to try and cut down on “digital noise & clutter.”
Friend Updates and Communication
I’ve sifted through my Twitter friends and deleted some who I don’t know, and others who haven’t updated in months and months. I also changed my update frequency to show me new tweets every 60 minutes, rather than every 5. This will help me keep on task, without the distracting “Tweet” noise every few minutes.
Inside Mail, I finished cleaning up my 3 actionable folders. To-Do, Reply, and Hold. With these folders empty I have a clean base to start from.
To-Do’s and Tasks
I’m currently using GoPlan for project related tasks, and iCal for personal tasks. Previously my personal tasks have been scattered all over, on various pieces of paper, and TextEdit documents. I’m still waiting for OmniFocus which will replace iCal for my personal task management in the future, but for now iCal seems to be working fine.
GoPlan for projects related tasks. iCal for personal tasks.
RSS & Newsfeeds
RSS is one of the things I’ve decided not to cut down on any more. As long as I’m under the 100 feed mark, I’m relatively happy with everything. When I come to a point where I feel overwhelmed by the amount of data coming in, then I’ll cut down.
Currently I’m happy with what NewsFire brings in for me, I’m always up to date on the latest happenings on dozens and dozens of sites online. The only change I made in NewsFire is setting the update frequency to 60 minutes, rather than 15 in order to cease distractions.
Is anyone else out there feeling overwhelmed with all these web services these days such as RSS, Twitter, Skype, etc?