Social media takes up a good deal of time. Between reading blogs, visiting Twitter to check in with people, trips to Facebook and other social networks, the old tasks like keeping up with email and the like can be daunting. I’ve compiled a list of technology solutions that I thought might help you out. We can certainly add more ideas to the comments section.

Ten Tech Solutions To Improve Your Productivity

1. Get a system. I’m listening to Stever Robbins, who just put together You Are Not Your Inbox, an audio program that will help you manage your email.
2. Get a proxy. Try out Jared Goralnick’s Away Find. It helps you with a sort of virtual message manager.
3. Practice keeping your inbox at zero. (I’ve explained how I tamed my inbox before.)
4. Learn shortcuts. Here are keyboard shortcuts for Firefox, Safari, IE7, Gmail, Google Reader, and I’m sure you can find more.
5. Cut down on your browsing. Lifehacker (and Julien Smith) pointed out Freedom, a Mac application. I’m sure there’s a PC version. See also Rescue Time
6. Use computer shortcuts and launches. For Macs, it’s Quicksilver . For Windows, I found 10 Quicksilver alternatives listed here. (Disclaimer: I’m not good with Quicksilver. I use Spotlight still).
7. Don’t read blogs directly from the website. At least not first. Start in a good feed reader. I prefer Google Reader. It’s fast, has keyboard shortcuts, and is flexible in letting me bookmark, share, and email posts that I find useful.
8. Find extra time and use it. One way is to use Jott on your phone to send brief messages, to leave yourself reminders, and to take notes for future use.
9. Set up text replacement. This lets you type a few letters and get back several words easily. For Macs, use TextExpander. For Windows, try Texter.
10. Keep good notes. I’m enamored with EverNote. I’ve used it to outline documents, plan conference content, store small lists of email addresses, and even tried the optical recognition feature for photos. It’s worth checking out.

You probably have several other productivity applications to suggest. We can put together quite a list in the comments, if that works for you. What are you doing to stay more productive?

Photo credit, Freshwater2006

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Mike Gunderoy from Web Worker Daily reports that Dell has launched Digital Nomads, a site for those of us who work out of coffeeshops and airports, who drag their office around with them in a backpack, who work in our spare bedrooms, and at the beach. It’s cool to me for a few reasons.

First, it’s being written by swell folks like Lionel Menchaca, Dell’s Chief Blogger, and Dell’s Bruce Eric Anderson, but also John Jantsch and Phil Torrone, so the voices are from people we know, both inside and outside of Dell.

Second, it’s content marketing. We, as nomads can go there, participate, read things that might interest us, but we can also hear little whispers from Dell about things they’re doing that they think we can use. I like that they encourage us to take a little Digital Nomad badge with us, too. That’s a nice touch.

So, it’s a cool project to watch. I want to see where it goes over time, who contributes, who participates, and whether the project keeps up after a few months from the reader side.

And congrats to everyone involved in the launch. Good project.

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For whatever reason, I get this question all the time: “Do you sleep?” It relates to how much content I put out. I usually don’t feel like I’m any different than folks like Jeremiah, or Jeff Pulver or Robert Scoble, who also post something every day. Heck, lots of people blog all the time. But, to answer your question: no, I don’t sleep. Until I do, and then I fall down asleep like a ton of bricks.

Things I’m Working On

• Project Dogfood for work. I’m loving the project.
• A one day Boot Camp for Marketing and PR professionals coming up in September (stay tuned).
• A new newsletter for work.
• My next newsletter for you.
• A book with Julien Smith. We got the second version of the contract from Chris Webb. I think we’re ready to sign, so we’ll be able to announce that project shortly.
• A site related to the book that will contain an interesting opportunity for YOU.
• Blog posts. Because, you know, that’s what I do.
• The New Marketing Summit - my conference in October with David Meerman Scott and Paul Gillin.
• Various email requests that have come in.
• And speaking at all kinds of other conferences.

It’s not that it’s easy to juggle it all, but it’s what I do. Some day, I’ll settle down and focus on one thing at a time. But that’s not now. I’ve got a neat thing going with CrossTech Media, and I like what we’re doing through the end of this year (lots of really cool events and projects). The book will be finished in draft before Thanksgiving (November in the US). And you? I’m still loving what I’m doing with you here on the blog.

What will change?

The business part of what I’m doing will change over time. As things develop, I’ll want to work more on equipping people with step-by-step information on doing what I do. I figure that the more I do in that department, the more I can focus on custom things. I’ll give you the how-to information, and then go speak publicly at conferences and privately at corporations on the customization of that data.

Building the platforms and all that? I work with CrossTech Partners on that. It’s not my personal expertise. I’m good at telling people what to do with them, how to develop the community, how to get business value out of it.

So, as I move into 2009, I’m focusing even more on pure content and how to equip you. Seems fair, don’t you think?

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If one understands the way social networks can deliver value, they have the opportunity to do more for themselves than ever before. What used to be a fairly linear world, one with ladders to climb rank, and lines to wait in for limited resources, are now built of vast and flexible networks, some loose and some rigid. Our social networks, both the old-fashioned type in real life, as well as the new constructs created by social software, give us the ability to do amazing things for ourselves and for others. But it does require some thought and consideration. Here are some ideas for you to use as springboards.

My Best Advice About Social Networking

1. Will Companies Value Your Personal Network?
2. The Vital Importance of Your Network
3. What does Facebook actually DO for me?
4. Facebook Could Get Really Creepy
5. Threading the Social Needle
6. Social Networks- Time to Specialize
7. Starting Points for Online Presence
8. The Way Today’s Web Changes Things
9. The Value of Networks
10. Social Networking Features are Toilets

Photo credit, Spigoo

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