Getting Things Done

Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You…Maybe

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In this day and age of Social Media and online communications, I find it quite disconcerting when someone feels the need to actually call me on a phone. It could just be my anti-social side, but I would much rather a text, email, or even a message on a micro-blogging service.

How many times during the day do you just look at the caller-id and not bother to answer the phone? Especially if it’s a number you don’t recognize. I know I send those straight to voicemail and I’m pretty sure I’ve been sent to voicemail on quite a few occasions.

Not only are phone calls sort of old-fashioned to me, but they take time I think could be spent being more productive. People don’t know how to get off the phone once they get you on it and waste time conveying information that could have taken a fraction of the time by using other means. This can be a serious hit to your productivity.

3 Ways To Avoid Phone Calls

• Instead of immediately returning the call or listening to a voicemail, send an electronic message as a response. Email, SMS, or whatever. This can save time and still allow you to figure out what’s going on.
• If the caller does leave a voicemail, listen to it at a time that is convenient for you. Don’t interrupt your workflow.
• Never answer unknown numbers, ever. You don’t know what’s on the other end of that line. It could be an annoying telemarketer or mother-in-law. You can’t risk the time or stress to investigate, so send it to voicemail.

What To Do With Unknown Numbers

If you don’t recognize the number, you can always use Caller Base.com to figure out who it is. This is a cool service that will look up the name and address of the caller. Now, you can make an educated decision as to whether they’re worth your time or not.

With Caller Base.com, you can look up land-line and cell numbers within the US and Canada with 100% confidentiality. This is great for tracking down pesky bill-collectors, telemarketers and prank callers. This will definitely help you get a leg up on any disruptive phone calls.

How I Keep Up With Identi.ca, FriendFeed, Twitter, Kwippy, and Rejaw

This is quick video showing how I keep track of multiple micro-blogging services using Pidgin, Launchy, and Ping.fm. I basically send everything via Ping.fm and recieve everything via IM.

One thing I forgot to mention here is that I can also “post” to Twitter from TwitterSpy (which I mentioned in a previous post).

How I Keep Up With the Micro-Blogosphere–>

Make FriendFeed Slightly More Productive

FriendFeed is becoming more and more central to my online activity. I feel I have only scratched the surface of what can be accomplished with it. Even at this early stage, I know that I have accelerated the development of relationships, and the growth of my personal knowledge just by being a regular FriendFeeder.

A recent discussion started by jeff(isageek), got me thinking. I really should have tabs for web apps I want to keep tabs on right there in FriendFeed. I mean…I’m always in it anyway, might as well try to get things done while I’m there. You may remember Duncan Riley creating a slew of scripts for adding various tabs to FriendFeed, but there were a few missing that I still needed.

You can’t be productive without access to your Calendar and your Task List, so I created a couple of quick and dirty Greasemonkey scripts based on Duncan’s.

• FriendFeed Tab for Google Calendar
• FriendFeed Tab for Remember The Milk

And, just for good measure, let’s go ahead and add a tab for Identi.ca:

• FriendFeed Tab for Identi.ca

Another script that I find I am using a lot is the FriendFeed Read Later script. I don’t see how anyone survives without it. It will allow you to mark an item as “Later” and creates a “Read Later” tab where you can view all of the items you marked. I primarily use it to follow discussions I find interesting without having to hope they resurface or searching for them. I also use this feature to mark items I may want to blog about later.

How do you keep up with your FriendFeed? How do you make sure you stay productive while using it? Enquiring minds want to know. Leave me a comment.