Managing Digital Overload

I never thought I would say this but I am tired. I am tired of my BlackBerry, my iPhone, my work laptop, my home laptop, my netbook (well not really mine), my gaming desktop, the cable remote, the fan remote, the Playstation 3 controllers, the Wii controllers and Wii nun chucks, the Nintendo DS, my digital camera, my two flip video cameras, my wireless router, cable modem, and the list goes on … (well, actually it doesn’t - I think I covered just about everything in my home).

I am tired of blogging. I blog here, here, here, here and of course here on the Digital Nomads community. All this activity, coupled with team meetings, conference calls, 1:1’s, e-mails, tweeting, IM’ing, phone calls and voicemails are taking a toll.

Ok seriously, while it is taking a toll, I have to admit; but I am not really tired of any of the above. In fact, my passion is all about technology and being connected to the Internet all the time. I was hard wired that way and it’s in my DNA. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I am addicted to the Internet, seriously. I am online about 18 hours a day: at work, at home and on my Blackberry en route to one of the two. No kidding. E-mail me and I’ll respond in milliseconds. Poke me and I’ll super-poke you back. Add me as a friend in Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and I’ll reciprocate faster than you can say “dang, that was quick.”

So how do I manage all this craziness?

Well, it’s quite simple. I don’t answer e-mail, blog, twitter or do anything that requires some type of technology from the hours of 12:00 midnight to about 6:00 AM. Yup, that’s my secret. Sleep is very important to me and I couldn’t care less about “being connected” during this time. Ringers are off too!

I also have to give some love to the San Jose Airport. Their Wifi connections reach all thorough out the city of Santa Clara; so when I take my daughters to ballet, swim and gymnastics class I can connect! This saves me so much time!

Are you tired? If not, how do you manage your digital overload?

Trackback URL for this post: http://www.digitalnomads.com/2009/02/managing-digital-overload/trackback

Comments (2)

by Rod / February 11, 2009

I suffer from “too much stuff to do!” syndrome too, so emphasize big time with Micheal’s posting. I have tried to enforce some rules that help me and may help other readers…

0) Plan 4 days of your working week and leave day 5 open. It *will* get filled with what you didn’t expect. Expect the unexpected (and BTW don’t make day 5 Friday- if you do that you are just asking for trouble.)

1) Do email when you get up and after lunch and give it a 1 hour cut-off. Anyone (except someone way way above you) who expects you to respond to email within 24 hours is misusing the technology and should pick up the phone. Teach them!

2) Get email on your phone! There is no reason why your 2 hours of email filtering need to be spent at your desk. Don’t have down time when you travel (unless you find traveling a Zen moment). If you are on the tram, train or plane you can probably get through 75% of your email and tag the important ones for closure when you are in the office or need a full keyboard.

3) Have *one* phone number and voicemail box. All your numbers should go to one place which you can access from wherever you are in the world. The last thing you want to do when you arrive somewhere that is a 12 hour time shift from home is remember to dial some bewildering rune of digits just to see if someone might have left you a message.

4) Turn stuff OFF! when you are alone and working- just get on with it. The world *can* wait. You would turn your stuff off if you were in a meeting with your boss wouldn’t you? So why is *your* time less important?

5) Do Lunch with *someone*(if you aren’t totally isolated). Get out! Get away from what you were doing. Meet someone from the industry. Meet someone who isn’t from the industry. Talk, exchange views, exchange checks, plan to do it again when you have new info. Come back to work refreshed. Folk who eat at their desks for 20 minutes and then just carry on, don’t recharge, don’t renew.

6) Lastly, acknowledge that we aren’t machines and can’t totally follow the rules above. Neither does the world outside of us! The “stuff that we really must remember to do” pops into our heads at the most random points in time (not just when we are in front of our PC). So we need to be able to record our “stuff to do” quickly, anywhere and not worry about forgetting to record it (my personal biggest stress point). I wrote about this in more detail a couple of weeks ago on my blog here: http://mobilemissives.blogspot.com/2009/02/web-20-pensieve.html
by Pat Moorhead / February 17, 2009

I go through different cycles, but what is key for me is focus. Fires are a natural part of life and in high-tech, but don’t let them take you off-track. At the end of the day, you have your objectives you are held accountable to, and that’s what needs to be hit. If fighting the fires helps you hit your objectives, even better. Be responsive, but don’t be a slave.

Rod has some real good tips here. I would like to add one more. Email. You don’t need to respond or read every email that comes your way. Prioritize them. If you have Outlook, it’s easy. If you manage teams, challenge them on whether emails need to be sent and whether they need to be 3 pages.

I actually like the Twitter 140 character rule and may ask my team to follow it.