Organize IT

So March has come and gone. Stats went up with more visitors, subscribers and comments so thanks as ever for all the support and continued interest in what I write. One significant update last month was my foray into social networking. You can now catch me on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. If you are on any of those sites be sure to connect, befriend or follow me (delete as appropriate).

A few months ago I wrote a piece about riding the waves of life. It discussed how our energy levels (and our productivity, happiness and motivation levels) fluctuate on a regular basis. Whether it is monthly, weekly or even daily, these fluctuations can have a very considerable influence on the way we live our lives. At the end of that post I declared I was going to experiment with ways of trying to influence energy levels so that I would have less dips, more peaks and greater balance. It took several months but here, finally, are my suggestions:

Organize IT recap for 28th March 2008.

• I’m on Facebook now, so if you are interested in connecting with me then become a friend. Hopefully it will be a useful extension of this blog.
• I’ve done a few guest posts over the last month that may be of interest to those who are into their blogging. This week I appeared on Daily Blog Tips discussing post types that can expand your blog content, while last month I covered five things you shouldn’t worry about when blogging over at Dumb Little Man. Hope you like!
• If you are a regular gym goer then this guide to gym etiquette may be of interest. Mainly common sense but it’s surprising how many people don’t follow it (I’m talking to all you grunting, sweaty, machine hoggers).
• One of my favorite shows is the US version of The Office. US News has taken a semi-serious look at applying career lessons to the staff of the hit show. Intriguing stuff.
• Completely unrelated to Organize IT but I found this theory on Lost (the TV show) via Digg and it’s so clever I just had to share it. It’s a little out there even by Lost standards but if you are a fan of the show it’s a great read.

Right, so I’ve gone and done it. I’ve sucked up (most of) my reservations and got myself a Facebook account (check out my profile and become a friend). Those reservations have not exactly been proved unfounded because after only 24 hours of being signed up, I’ve wasted more time than I want to on tweaking my profile, searching for people and deleting vast amounts of email notifications.

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Email. It’s great isn’t it? All those spammy messages to process, all the time spent on trying to get your inbox to that mythical empty status. Yeah, email is great… Because it is such an easy and quick medium, people can also get very sloppy with it. Much like showing manners when eating a meal, there is a certain etiquette a person should adopt when sending emails. If we work together to improve our email manners we can all benefit from the time we save. Dream on!