The Internet and Personal Productivity

Don’t have time to read all 115 billion web pages?

Maybe you don’t need to.

I do a ton of work on the web: research, analysis, collaboration, connecting. You probably do too. How to best maximize our time? I:

  • Keep my Inbox to ~20 ‘must do’ items.
  • Set up tasks for items that can be scheduled or are reliant on others.
  • Read and ‘handle’ (even if only flagging) email in my Inbox only once.
  • Read only the latest mail in a long-running thread.
  • Ensure that I’m not the roadblock (if others are waiting on me, I move actions to the top of my queue).
  • Open search results in new tabs so I can refer back and forth whilst finding the best answers.

What do you do to ensure your online time is well spent?

Thanks to LifeHack for "Does the Internet Really Increase your Productivity?", a post with tips on how to be more productive when working / playing on the Internet.

About Michael Coates
I am a pragmatic evangelist. The products, services and solutions I write about fulfill real-world expectations and use cases. I stay up-to-date on real products I use and review, and share my thoughts here. I apply the same lens when designing an architecture, product or when writing papers. I am always looking for ways that technology can create or enhance a business opportunity .. not just technology for technology's sake. My CV says: Seasoned technology executive, leveraging years of experience with enterprise and integration architectural patterns, executed with healthy doses of business acumen and pragmatism. That's me. My web site says: Technology innovations provide a myriad of opportunities for businesses. That said, having the "latest and greatest" for its own sake isn't always a recipe for success. Business successes gained through exploiting innovation relies on analysis of how the new features will enhance your business followed by effective implementation. Goals vary far and wide: streamlining operations, improving customer experience, extending brand, and many more. In all cases, you must identify and collect the metrics you can apply to measure your success. Analysis must be holistic and balanced: business and operational needs must be considered when capitalizing on a new technology asset or opportunity.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: