The following is also my column in next week's AdAge...
Three Tips for Managing the Stream Before it Manages You
Tweets, texts and feeds - oh my. It's enough to make any one go batty if it lets you. But like it or not, as I mentioned in my last column, we need a new set of skills to "keep up" and manage our streams (vs. letting it managing you). Here are my three favorites...
1) Find a Digital Curator You Trust and Stick With It
Years ago I met with one of the more influential thinkers in the social media space. I asked her how she keeps up. Her answer surprised me. She only reads the Social Media Smart Brief, a daily digest newsletter. I too find myself turning to curators like the SmartBrief as well as TechMeme, Tweetmeme and Regator. Find one that tracks the verticals and people you need to follow.
2) Don't Subscribe and Read, Archive, Search and Skim
In the personal productivity world, some eschew sorting documents and emails in folders in favor of just throwing them into an archive where they can be easily searched later. The same approach works well for managing your stream.
Use a tool like Google Reader to subscribe to lots of content, including say all your friends on Twitter. However, view it as a personal, searchable database rather than another collection bucket you have to read and clear.
3) Make Unusable Time Usable Again
Since I got my iPhone two years ago, I can't remember the last time I was bored. Time that was once wasted - waiting on line at the DMV, riding the subway, even waiting out a rain delay at a ball game - is now once again usable.
One site that I rely on more than any other is Instapaper.com. You add a special bookmark to your browser that can be used clip any article on Instapaper for later review. Then, pull up Instapaper on any mobile phone and it will present you with a lightweight versions of those articles . There's also an iPhone app that makes all articles available offline.
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