Julie Bestry | | You're already a social networker. Whether you focus solely
on Ryze or divide
your efforts among Twitter and Facebook, Ryze and
Plurk, MySpace and LinkedIn, the basic
principles for maximizing time are the same. The
elements necessary to maximize time depend on knowing our target
audience and the
purpose(s) for which we are networking (i.e., marketing,
finding strategic partners, etc.), and then designing our
efforts to fit these networking goals.
In
preparation for teaching a teleclass on time management for social
networkers this summer, I found that the biggest obstacle
to effective time management in social networking came not from
procrastination or a sense of overwhelm, as I might have expected.
No, the biggest difficulty solopreneurs had with social
networking was STOPPING!
Yes, in many ways, social networking is like eating just one potato
chip. A taste is fun, but "betcha can't eat just one!"
It's understandable. Social
networking is seductive
because it lives at our fingertips and it's generally
free.
In the real world, we limit our in-person networking efforts to those
that best fit our financial
and time budgets.
If we joined the Chamber of Commerce, Business Networking
International, NAWBO, the Rotary Club, and every third "lunch &
learn" group, we'd be broke from paying dues and meal fees, we'd be
hugely obese because of all the breakfasts, lunches and cocktail hours
we'd be attending and we'd have no time to actually spend working
with clients, because we'd be spending all of our time trying to get
clients. Real world networking has built-in limits.
In cyberspace, however, most networking sites are free or have a
nominal membership charge, so there's no built-in financial boundary
to make you go "uh oh". Second, we don't have to change out
of
our bunny slippers or fill our gas tanks to get to these online venues,
so it seems
effortless to just log in.
If it were raining, you might think twice about shlepping all over town
for various networking events in one day, but if you're already at your
desk, especially if you don't schedule some firm time commitments and
limits, it's like someone has said "oh, just stay for one more drink".
Because of the timelessness of cyberspace, there's no temporal boundary.
So, given how seductive social networking can be, it's essential to create firm limits
on the time you assign for social networking. How well do you
do that? What measures do you take to start and stop
(generally) as planned? Today, we're going to focus on two
key efforts: creating temporal
boundaries and content boundaries
(i.e., wasted posts).
Since the biggest danger to social
networkers isn't setting aside time to work on social
networking, but scheduling
time to stop, it's important that before you
ever log in, you decide how much time you're going to spend in a
session, and then find an appropriate way to alert yourself when that
time is up.
--If
you've got great
willpower and never hit the snooze alarm, keeping an
eye on the clock may be enough for you. But for most of the
rest of us, a
kitchen timer,
the alarm on
your cell phone, or a task reminder in Outlook
that
says "hey, move along now" can mean the difference between an hour of
efficient networking or an afternoon wasted on
Facebook.
--If you tend to be in lots of
different locations during the day, texting as you go, and you
receive Twitter alerts while
mobile, Twitter can help you put a pause on the action. In
other words, you can use social
networking tools to stop
networking.
Go to http://twitter.com/timer
and
"follow" it as if it were a real person by clicking the "follow"
button. Then, any time you want to be alerted to do (or not do) something,
you can
make Twitter Timer send you a direct (i.e., private) message, parroting
back
that it's time for you to stop networking and pick up your kids or
leave for a meeting. Timer
is one of several Twitter "bots" that allow you to request information,
either by subscription or via an ad hoc request. To
find more, check
out http://www.retweet.com.
You can also sync Twitter with sites like I Want Sandy and Remember the Milk
that we've discussed before, or use various
reminder sites (independent of Twitter) to separate yourself
from your social
networking excesses.
--If you aren't skilled at keeping
track of your time and tend not to notice alarms, dinner bells or fire
engines, consider using sites like Rescue Time or 8AWeek to monitor
the time you spend on various sites and online tasks. Their
little
reports back to you about your habits may give you the reality check
(and motivation) you
need to limit your time spent on networking.
Self-monitoring
of your thoughts (to eliminate wasted effort on unnecessary posts) is
important, too. That's where my W.A.I.T. RULE comes in.
In
sales professions, W.A.I.T. usually stands for "Why Am I
Talking?",
and salespeople are urged to listen more than talk, to get a sense of
their prospects' needs. In social networking, my W.A.I.T.
RULE is
a great mental cue for managing your time successfully, because it asks
you to consider "Why Am
I Typing?"
Seriously—consider having your reminder system make the words WHY AM I TYPING? pop
up periodically on your screen. Make it a habit of asking yourself
what you hope to get out of that long reply you've written or
your 15th Twitter tweet in a row unrelated to professional
content. Are you offering your expertise in a way that positions you as an authority,
or are you just showing off, or showing up the other person?
Are
you posting in anger, (worse yet, publicly), because someone else has
said something offensive? Are you aimlessly squandering your networking
time gabbing or using playful applications to do silly things?
It
might sound funny that someone who writes such lengthy posts as mine
would
advise people to pay attention to what and why they post. But
the truth is that for every post that I put up on Ryze, I've probably
started (and even finished) ten more. This past weekend
alone, I
started replying (and stopped myself from finishing and/or sending)
almost a dozen posts. Some were political in nature, and I
was
tempted to point out factual flaws. In one
post, an author made claims regarding the incidence of Autism in the
Amish community based on a study that has since been
disproved,
and I started to post links to updated information. As the
weekend went on, earlier and earlier in the wasted effort timeline,
I remembered to ask myself "Why Am I Typing?" and got a grip on myself.
I just kept reminding
myself of what my goal(s) were for networking, in general and here on
Ryze. I've chosen to (generally) narrowly focus on my areas of professional
expertise.
Sure, I have opinions on a wide variety of social and
political
issues, and sure, I could spend the next six hours debating the finer
points of Star Wars vs. Star Trek vs. Stargate, but that's not why
I'm on the web (during
business time).
Some of this is just good manners, but it's amazing how good manners feed good
time management. Don't talk at people, but with
them, and make sure that what you post, if it's proactive, is
potentially leading to a discussion, and if it's reactive,
is taking the discussion in a direction you wish to go. So,
before you start a flame war or even just add the networking equivalent
of parsley (i.e., something neutral and unimportant), ask "WAIT, Why Am
I Typing?"
Whatever you're doing, if it's not serving your end-goals, you've got
three alternatives:
• Keep
posting anyway, and risk getting a reputation as a
blowhard or a bore.
• Stop posting, delete your message
and be proud of your ability to police yourself.
• Refrain
from posting, but save
your message to a blank email to keep in your draft folder in case you
ever need that brilliant turn of phase.
Threads
may go cold, but messages, unlike food in the fridge, will never
spoil. If you come back hours or days later and still want to
stir things up, you'll have at least taken the time to ruminate on
whether you wanted to send THAT message, and whether you really wanted
to go public with it.
So, embrace social networking, but make
sure you firmly limit your time, and then ask "Why Am I Typing?" to
save your
time and reputation when your focus starts to blur.
Happy networking!
--
Julie Bestry, Certified Professional Organizer®
Best Results Organizing
"Don't apologize. Organize!"
organize@juliebestry.com
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