Tips to Manage Email Overload

The other day I was talking to a colleague and he was complaining about being in a hurry. He said he was flooded with emails to reply. In fact he showed me his inbox and for my surprise he had 100+ unread emails!!  That’s just ridiculous. No one in their sane state can take care of that many conversations.

Let’s just take a step back and reflect: If one can’t manage your own email, how can she/he manage someone’s project?

So we started sharing some ideas about how to manage that information . Others joined in the chat and I had a chance to share some of my personal techniques. I thought the conversation was so good that I wanted to write about it so others could share as well.

One can manage his email as well, just like manage the twitter usage. Email is a dangerous tool, and because we as human beings like to connect, to communicate, we translate that need to the emails…but I will show you we don’t need to do this. Right-now I am working in a huge project, and my inbox is 100%processed. There are no emails for me to read or reply. This is a marvelous thing.


1st:Face-to-Face, 2nd: Telephone, 3rd:Email

In my daily routine, that’s what I try to organize my communication priority:

  • If I have something to communicate, first I try to talk to the person face to face. It is great in many ways. Makes you move, increases your interpersonal contact, works well in your engagement level. This is my first avenue to communicate.
  • If I can’t reach the person, my next option is to call. Just pickup the phone and find him/her; and…
  • only then, if I cannot reach the person and the message has to be passed, I send an email.

    This also helps me to set the right scenario for something I will mention later. In my opinion, nothing important happens on twitter, if something is really important you should try to communicate verbally. I am not guaranteeing this rule will work all the time, but for me, in my own experience, it has worked extremely well.

    And when I write the email, I try to:

  • Say what I have to say in less than 5 paragraphs and
  • Always put the question or main topic in the email in the very first sentence.

    My reasoning for that is neither I , or you or anyone should be spending too much time writing/reading emails. It is very hard to express emotionally via text, to set the context, to set the right perception. I always strive for a personal 1:1 communication above all.


    Have an Empty Inbox

    An empty inbox represents achievement for good work and discipline. Also, psychologically, sends a message to you that you are in control. And being in control is very important in our daily routine. You might not believe in this, but an empty inbox signals subconsciously that you are doing well in controlling the stream of information that hits you everyday.

    Likewise, an inbox with unread messages makes you come back to check, and check, and re-check your emails more often than necessary. By acting on it, you’re sending a strong message about a task you just marked as completed and then you’re free to do actual work. Again, never leave read email in your inbox. Check the inbox a few times a day. I check my emails about 4 times a day. If something is urgent, it will find me even if the mail server is down.

    Now, allow me to just be clear in one point here: You don’t have to read all the emails, but you must act on all the emails. Be it marking this email to read it later, or choosing to reply immediately, to choosing to delete it now etc.… the point is: every email must be acknowledged and processed.

    An unread email means you haven’t decided what to do with it. You can keep it there, that’s fine; but as soon as you know what to do with that email, act on it! and remove it from your inbox. Strive for a zero-email inbox.


    Once Reached You, Respond Faster

    Replying faster is one of the best decisions you can take everyday. Also It will help build a reputation in your professional circle, as someone who is “responsive”. That’s a great accomplishment. This is a great stepping stone to solidify your personal brand. After all, we are always selling something.

    The tricky part here is due to the fact that it is impossible to reply dozens of unread emails at the same time, but you can increase your responsiveness rate without becoming a slave to your inbox.

    From the oldest message to the most recent. If an email takes less than a minute to act on it, do it! whether is replying, deleting etc. If you can use replies like “Good idea. Thanks.”, “Sure, go ahead”, “Let’s have a chat about it over the phone. When can I call you?” it is even better. No need to make a message longer than it requires, no need for an elaborate response most of the times; just a good old phone call will suffice. You will realize that a lot of your messages fit in the minute timeframe.


    Schedule Meetings with Your Email

    Create a folder to organize messages by topics, people or projects and act on them together at specific times of the day. Mobiles, tablets, laptops etc.…We have way too many devices to check our emails that, honestly, adds more worrying and anxiety than benefits of being 24/7 connected. For a lot of people, the first thing the do in the morning is to check emails from work. Heck, people are even checking their work email in the bathrooms… in the actual office bathrooms!!

    Keep checking emails easily eat up a good portion of your daily time. Is not the end of the world if an email sits unread in your inbox a few hours.


    Never Say ‘No, I am Busy’; Rephrase It

    As a consultant one of the first skills you learn is to never say no to a client. If someone asks you to work on a task and you think you just don’t have the time right now (because… you know…sometimes you really don’t have the time!!!), try the following:

  • Ask for more details that the person thinks you will need to know before starting the task
  • Ask when is the deadline, if any.
  • Be upfront and explain how busy you are at the moment and when you think you will start.
  • Ask when the person would like to be updated about the progress

    Something like: “Look mate, things are pretty hectic right now and I’m on meetings until Friday. Can you tell me when is the deadline for this? Are you OK if this does not need to be started immediately? If you wish we can talk again about it this coming Monday.

    Basically what you are saying here is “look mate, I just can’t do it now; and here’s why. but if you can wait I am more than happy to help you.

    It is more professional, you set the right perception about your interest and it is definitely better than saying “No, I can’t because I am busy until Friday


    Important Things First; The Rest are Details

    There is a computer science law that states: “give a computer useless data, and it will return useless response”. How about to apply the same rule to email? Write clear/quicker, expect clear/quicker.

    If you have something to say/ask, be ruthless say it first. Say it clear and short. In the first paragraph. If need more details, then elaborate them across the rest of the email. One of the most frustrating scenes in the office is having to read a gigantic email only to find out in the last sentence what it is the person who wrote the message actually wants.

  • Always start the emails with the request or main message. Every time you write an email it means you are implying something or asking for something. If you don’t know your email possible responses, don’t write it.
  • Peer-check your email. If you are unsure about how the email is going to be received, send it first to someone to peer-check the content for you. Humans are not born writers, and you will be surprised how your message can be formatted in another way saying the same thing…because absolutely everything can be written in a better, more polite, nicer way.
  • Write Subject line with laser-focus. Most of the people will decide what they will read or not by the subject line. If your subject line is self explanatory and helps the reader to reply the answer, chances are they will process your email sooner. We live in a world where perceptions and first-impressions are very important, this applies also to new messages. Every email sets a first-impression. The subject line is like a headline in the newspaper. Gran that attention.
  • Each request is a bullet point. If you have several requests never write them one after the other, sequentially, in the same phrase. Break them down in bullet points. Part of your job in asking a question is also assisting with the answer. When you separate in bullet points you are also saying to your reader: “Look, these are the things WE need to find out. I’ve already listed them upfront for you. can you help me out?” It is a more engaging conversation and also takes the responsibility from whoever is asked the questions.


    Use <EOM>

    EOM=End of message. This is a great feature if what you are asking via email requires a short answer. For example, look at the following email email-1it could be written simply like that. email-2The <EOM> marker helps your reader because it saves their time. They know that there is nothing more to the message than that. You are setting the perception that there is a lot to read but you know how busy they are and you are helping them save their time. They know the email can be replied in literally a few seconds. No need to write more than the necessary.



    Email is Not To Be Instantaneous

    There is an addiction to the “there is a new message for you” warning and we hardly can control ourselves until we go check it immediately. But truth is, email was not designed to be instantaneous communication. If you start replying emails as soon as they arrive, because you want to be perceived as ON or Proactive; don’t!

    Let the people know that email is not instant messaging and should not be used as such;  let them know if they want instantaneous response, they should call you. If you don’t do this, you might fall in the trap to create the expectation that you will always answer their emails on the spot…and guess what, if you don’t the emails will just double in your inbox.

    Don’t even check email in real-time. Do not reply anything that’s not urgent.


    We Are Born to Talk 

    Email has no sound, no emotion, no emotional context; especially quick work-related emails. You don’t know the sender’s emotions, expressions, tone by the messages. Text messages in emails can hurt feelings unnecessarily. There is no point in not being nice everyday. People can be offended. Phrases can be taken in the wrong way. If something is important to be communicated via email between 2 people, talk! No need for emails, no need to play games, no need to hidden messages or need of expectations about what you want to hear.


    Be Careful with What You Write and Send to People

    Email is not private. Copies can be send to anyone. Don’t make it official controversial postures by writing an email that might come back to byte you in the future. Once you send an email, is like an arrow; it can’t be taken back. Every email is a document signed by you. If you feel the urge not to write something, don’t. It will save your time and will also avoid unnecessary emails arriving to you.


    The ‘TO Me’, ‘CC Me’, ‘VIP’ Folders

    That’s how I organize my mail box. Every time I go into a new customer the first thing I do with my Outlook or other email client is to setup these folders:


    1. TO folder: Keeps all the messages that contain my name in the TO field. These are messages from people asking things and wanting to hear directly from me. I read this folder about 4 times a day.
    2. CC folder: Keeps all the messages that contain my name in the CC field. These are generally people from my project, who wants to tell everyone about something but do not necessarily require an action from my part. Messages in this folder I read about once a day.
    3. VIP folder: I identify all the important people for my project; they are my VIPs. It is my boss at the client, people from the leadership, corporate communications, important managers etc. They have a special folder and deserve my immediate action. Messages in this folder I read according to the customer corporate culture.

    Truth is, most of the email in the CC does not reach me and can 99% of the time be ignored. Try this, you will love it and see how many people just send email to you because…just because.

    Also when I can, and when the customer corporate culture allows, I try not to read emails in the morning. This is an effective way I found to educate my colleagues about how to reach me for moments when they really need my action. The first time it will be a shock, they will come asking:”I asked you to do this, did not you read your email?”

    I then explain my reasoning and then we agree that if such a thing was really that important, I should have been contacted personally or at least via instant message. Works as a charm!


    These are some of the things I use to manage my mailbox. I hope they can be useful somehow to you as well.


  • By


    Error: Oracle VirtualBox Cannot Start VHD Machine

    If you are having troubles making your VHD image working with the Oracle VM VirtualBox (IMHO the best desktop virtualization software for local machines) you might be able to see this message when trying to boot your VM. This message display for only a fraction of seconds, so it was a bit troublesome to capture this screenshot.


    “a problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. if this is the first time you’ve seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps…”

    This is mainly because some versions of VirtualBox cannot identify the storage of the original VHD machine, specially if the VHD is a Windows Virtual Machine or a Hyper-V disc.


    If you are having this issue, here’s something you can try…

    To make it work, open your VirtualBox, and in the settings check if the VHD was attached as SATA or SCSI. If yes, remove this controller (SATA or SCSI) and attach the VHD to an IDE Controller. Make sure the hard disk is the IDE Primary Slave.


    Click OK and off you go. I hope it helped you save some time trying to figure it out “what the heck is going on why my VM does not start on Virtual Box”



    How to Protect Your Kids Online with Windows 8

    If you’re father, like myself, sooner or later you will start to worry about the surfing habits of your kids. Internet is now something ubiquitous, for a whole new generation there is no distinction between life online and offline. They are always connected. In a way these kids are like an open door letting all kinds of information come into their domain. When all the information coming in is safe and constructive, that’s awesome…unfortunately, not everything is safe for them.


    The Importance of Safe Internet Surfing for Kids

    I am not going to advocate against block all the information access. Truth is if they are curious enough, they will find in a way or the other, such is the power of the social networking. And out there, lurking in the shadows are hackers, spammers, phishing scams, virus threats, spyware threats, paedophiles.. all kinds of threats that can inflict heavy damage to a normal family like. The problem is not the kids, the problem is that they can’t most the time clearly distinguish between a nice person and a bad person (which is for all matters until we discover a ‘nice person with bad intentions’). The 2 most common types of attacks involving kids online are: (but not limited to)

    • Hacking, by using someone’s else computer to perform harm against someone of something, with or without financial gains or personal injury. Mostly the times they aim to hit the person and finances.
    • Sexual Predators and Pornography, by the easy access to pornographic content or internet chat rooms where predators can apply their techniques to lure unaware kids to their reach. Several of paedophiles were arrested in these virtual locations. Internet pornography probably one of the bigger threats to the online kids


    How Windows 8 Can Help to a Safer Online Experience

    Microsoft has a long story of fighting the online crime and threats. They are also probably the company that spends more investments in online safety in the world, beating even specialized online security companies. Windows 8 has all the online security tools that you need to technically protect your devices against malicious behaviour: A top-class firewall, built-in anti-virus, access to encrypted connections and the most advanced data encryption you can find…however all this is not enough if you don't educate your kids about online safety. You can do this in many ways, I am going to enumerate 2:

    • Teaching them, in an open conversation, about the real possibilities of a malicious element
    • Monitoring what they do online while they learn their ways in the internet.


    How Can Windows 8 Help You Monitor Your Kids Internet Surfing

    Before we go ahead, the monitor word might sound too heavy for the new generation. Monitoring normally is associated with: big brother, cut in civil liberties, prison etc… so let’s make an agreement upfront: When we talk about monitoring, is the same kind of monitoring you do when your kids are crossing the street to go to school, or the same kind of monitoring you do when you are teaching your kids to ride a bicycle. Monitoring as mentoring and advising.

    When you get your PC, tablet or device with Windows 8 installed go to the Charms and select “Search”. Type “Users” and when the options come up, select “Users”. This will lead you to the create new user option. The idea here is to create a new user to be used by your kid when he/she access the internet.



    You are going to create a user for your kids. Windows 8 requires to associate a valid email to everybody. If your little ones don’t have an email, create one for them with a secure password.


    That’s it. Next time your kids want to surf the web, let them use their own user, not yours. You are still the administrator of the computer and you will have all sorts of tools to monitor their online surfing.


    Family Safety Online Reports

    From time to time you will then receive an email with a report about their usage.




    This will give you access to an incredibly powerful tool to monitor your kids activities online…and Free. With that tool you can do all sorts of configurations to adjust their behaviour to their usage profile without your kids knowing. It tells you:

    • which websites they have accessed
    • how many times,
    • which searches they did on google, bing, yahoo etc


    Family Summary

    with the same tool, you can have access to a Family Summary, which gives you access to all the accounts in your family and access to their usage report. I do recommend that as soon as you can you make yourself and your partner the administrators of your kids accounts.

    Also the report will tell you not only all the computers used by them at home, but also if they have accessed by mobile or other tablets. All the usage data will be centralized into a single location.



    Activity Reporting

    This is the higher level report which groups all the family members and their activities online. From here you can drill-down to get more details. At first this report will show you:

    • all the websites accessed during the week, when they were accessed (with time and date) and if the website had any malicious content,
    • which application was used to access the website (chrome, internet explorer, etc..)


    If something looks suspicious, like for example an application with a dodgy name you never heard about it,  you can in choose to block that application immediately for only that person (your kids) or for everyone at home, if you think is the best decision.



    Time Limits

    This is probably my favourite feature. Here you can enforce time limits for your kids internet usage. If you have kids and tried to tell them to stop using the computer, or the videogame or the TV you have probably realised how difficult to manage this can be. Which can vary from little crying to powerful-royal-tantrum-throwing.

    Here at home, I enforced that my kids can only use my tablet 3 hours per day. No more than that. So, it means that when I arrive at home from work I give them my tablet and then I go to make dinner, shower, watch some TV etc…and they might be entertained with the device….however when the time is up, it is up! They are automatically locked and they cannot use the device. It works as a charm because they don't see this as your fault, but as a computer’s rule. and while they can argue with you, they cannot with a computer. Kids stop surfing, you stop worrying. Win-Win!


    additionally to that, you can establish not only how many hours they can use the computer everyday but also which days they can use and between which hours they can use. This is truly marvellous. A curfew for your kids online surfing, Anything outside these times, and they cannot use the computer at all.


    All these computer systems usage controls are extremely valuable and found in very complex enterprise systems, and now Windows 8 is making them available for us at home.


    Downloads and Parental Content Classification

    One of the most important features for modern TVs and programs is the implementation of parental controls in the TV Show itself. It allows people to configure the TV to automatically block any content based on their classification. Today you can for example configure your TV to automatically do not display TV shows that have sex scenes, nudity, violence etc. You can control this because the TV show itself brings the classification and parental control in the signal.

    Now, all Windows 8 applications have a signature for classification and parental control as well, and Windows 8 can filter content based in that signature. The screen below shows the current classification of the Australian Broadcasting Authority. It means that every thing that’s downloaded from the internet store only can be used by your kids if the parental control allows. That’s helps us to have piece of mind.



    Ad-Hoc Restrictions

    and to top it all, you can still select to block any installed application, regardless of the reason…simply because you can! If you think something should not be used by your kids, just block it.



    In Conclusion…

    Clearly Microsoft is continuously to invest in this area since the frontiers of work and play are more and more blurry in our connected world and more and more kids are living their lives connected via multiple devices, weather is via tablets, laptops or mobiles..

    I completely understand that “to each head, its sentence” and that online safety means different things to different families. Some parents just want to have a chat with their kids and ask them what they do online and trust them; some parents wants to have full control of what they do or don’t do online…and I am not going to discuss such merit here, but what I have to add is that a safer online experience for kids comes down to awareness and education, and IMHO having access to such features in Windows 8 really makes our lives easier.




    Videos do Lancamento Mundial: Windows 8 e Surface

    A Microsoft comecou uma blitz mundial. Campanha de marketing pesada anunciando o Windows 8 e Surface. Se vc tem acesso a internet, foi praticamente impossivel ficar indiferente ao marketing massivo da Microsoft. Tenho certeza que pelo menos alguem comentou ou voce viu alguem comentar sobre eles hoje.

    Aqui os comerciais lancados da campanha! Parece que finalmente a MS aprendeu a fazer comerciais interessantes.

    Esse ganhou premio de melhor comercial do ano (batendo Apple, Samsung etc.)



    Windows 8 Picture Password Demonstration

    Here’s the windows 8 picture password being demonstrated by a 3 year old Aussie.

    Come on!!! If she can use Windows 8, everyone can as well :-)



    How to: Managing My Twitter Usage

    (This is the first version…might be enhanced with new ideas, questions)

    First of all, let me say here that twitter is hardly a productivity tool. It is great fun, nice to communicate short, to the point messages, but honestly rarely add something new, important or indispensable to the lives of people who use it. Someone mentioned the other day he “could not understand what I want read from twitter” (?)

    It is a perfect valid point and the short answer is: I do not take twitter seriously. I mainly use to read random news…and sometimes help contribute with some content which I produce in my blog. I don't aim content at anyone. I have no expectations of content from anyone…but I try to align my current interest around subjects.

    If you want to know the whole point then the long answer is below.

    Is All About My Quality Time

    First of all, a bit of a background for you. My Wife, kids and I live in a foreign country. No relatives are around us. We have 2 small kids and we don't have a nanny. I do a lot of consulting travel and when I am at home it is paramount for me to spend quality time with my family. I want to have time to BBQ, to go out with kids to the beach, to relax with my wife…. I am telling you: it is hard!! Not always this time is available. We always have to sacrifice something..TV series, movies, something…and twitter does not help! as a matter of fact, if you leave it twitter will suck the life out of you (and Facebook as well probably)

    Is this a reason for you to stop using twitter? I say 'no' you still can use it as long as you don't fall in the common challenges. I identified some of them and I explain my solutions for them: (again, this is just my format…they are not necessarily also good for you)


    Mind What You Say

    Twitter has a 140-characters limitation. The capacity to express an idea or opinion in the right manner is extremely reduced. Words can very easily hurt people and fewer words add a ‘cold’ tone to your message and how the other people will perceive it. Remember that behind a twitter avatar, there is a real person. If you meet someone at a supermarket, or at a party would you go immediately throwing inflammatory comments at them? so why you do it to people online?

    Everything can be said differently to avoid confrontation. The other day I shared some article about tech. Immediately I received a reply saying “BULLSHIT! bla bla bla…”. This is officially a troll. Trolling is replying/engaging to someone in a conversation that starts already from a negative point of view, with inflammatory opinions which has no purpose other than drag you to a long, time-wasting bashing and potentially hurting scenario. Sorry mate, I don't have time for that.

    I try to reply to every tweet I receive. Except from trolls. If you receive a tweet from someone, if the communication is with good intentions and a genuine conversation I suggest you to engage in the conversation. You never know, the next person might be just the networking link you were looking for…and besides, a new good friend is always a good thing.

    It amazes me how people on twitter ignore genuine, rich conversations but are ready to reply immediately to abuse and provocation.

    Think this way: If you are in a party where you know nobody. You see someone alone, you approach and talk right? Likewise, if you are in a party alone and someone comes to have a chat, you would not look at his/her face and go away, right? so why do this online? Use the capacity that twitter has to bring new people to your life and engage with them.

    My View: I don't take twitter seriously. To me, nothing important happens on twitter. But I do take what I say/write seriously. Every time I write a tweet I think:”How would my son (or daughter, or wife, or mother) would read this?”

    We all have an online reputation to care about, weather we like it or not. Be nice when communicating with people, try to make new friends, ignore those who engage with inflammatory conversations. Finding the right things to ignore is as important as finding the right things to associate.


    I am Just Re-twitting you; Not Agreeing With You

    Another great mistake is that people confuse re-tweet (RT) with their own words. Person X says “I don't like this…” then someone does a RT and all of sudden people immediately assume you are agreeing with that person. You can have many rules regarding this, my rules is if I do a RT, it does not mean I am agreeing with that idea; instead it means “hey, I saw this opinion and I would like to share it with you…what do you think?” This is similar of my behaviour outside the virtual world. When I go to barbecues, parties, social functions, I do not only talk about things I agree. If I see a stupid comment on TV, next time I meet my mates I’ll bring that up for discussion….why? well, because that’s how we bind ideas, by discussing it.

    My Solution: I do RTs from everything I find it interesting or worth sharing for discussion. Do not necessarily agree with them.


    Our Friendship Is Stronger Than “Me Following You”

    I understand We are humans. We do marvellous things and achieve great feats. But we are also creatures of vain and desires. We love attention as much as we love saying sour things to each other.

    Now, I do not necessarily follow all my friends. It does not mean I don't like them, it only means that if I have to follow all of them my twitter timeline would be so flooded that I would do nothing except read and reply tweets all day. That’s not their fault, that’s Twitter’s fault. It was designed like that. One does not have to follow their friends on twitter to see what they are up to, you still can check what they are saying without having to follow them.

    We have an endorphin shot when someone follow us, try not to get addicted to that. think about it, what’s the point? Try to think this way, I follow the Gartner Group report, but I don’t follow my brother. t does not mean I think Gartner is more important than him.

    I do not use any other advanced twitter features, I have a mortgage, kids, bills to pay, work etc…already way too many things to manage daily; twitter lists? IMHO, I don’t think I need yet another thing to manage without giving me any benefit at all except “list things”.

    My Solution: I do not follow people, I follow subjects. Ideas that can potentially help my day to be better or bring and different perspective on things. We are still friends, weather twitter says we are following each other or not. If someone gets mad because a friend stop following them…well, man up! I am following something now, but I might not be tomorrow.


    Your Time Is Your Time, Is Your Time

    Some people literally spend hours on twitter. They feel the need to reply to everything and to comment on every bit of information. Whilst the occasional vent is ok sometimes is borders the twitter addiction. And worst, they do this during their working hours. IMHO, your time is your time and one can do what ever they feel like; I wouldn’t.

    Having said that, every July for 1 week I tend to go crazy on twitter during the tour de France. I just love interacting with my cycling community. I am also lucky that this happens during the night when I am at home and kids are already sleeping. So I still feel guilty free here. Another moment when I tend to go bananas on twitter is on Monday nights during my favourite political TV show “Q And A”, extremely popular with the twittersphere in Australia. but again, this just happens once a week and from 8 to 9 PM.

    My Solution: I try to limit my tweet times to some very specified moments:

    • When I am commuting to/from work
    • When I am at home trying to kill some time watching some TV (which I do not do much), after lunch etc
    • When I am participating in some event where people are socializing

    I never/rarely do twitter during working hours or when I am with my family. Twitter NEVER comes first in my daily routine. Twitter is NOT important to me. As a matter of fact, the importance I give twitter to my personal life is the lowest possible…which takes me to what I said before…


    Nothing Important Happens on Twitter

    If something is really important, if something will affect your life or those around you…You WILL know, regardless of twitter. I have a colleague who does not watch the news on TV and he says:”I don't watch the News, I let other people see the news and if something is really important, this something will find me”.

    And also this has an interesting effect of re-tweeting. Follow people who aggregate what you are looking for. There are some people who JUST retweet. I must say that I used to think less of them because they do not express any opinion, but then with the time I realised they are just what we need to help us free time and be more productive.

    In the beginning, I used to have more than 200 tweets to browse in my timeline. I’ve been slowly decreasing this number by following some and (mostly) following others. Now, I have about 30-40 tweets in my time line when I check it every morning. Unfortunately I discovered I don't have lots of free time to read a timeline of more than 60 tweets and since I found that I noticed my productivity increased a lot. I suggest you to do the same, unless social media participation is really your thing.

    My Solution: Try not to check twitter more than 2-3 times per day. Nothing important happens on twitter that if you miss it will affect me/you. Stop following every one and every thing. There are people out there who do that task and filter the news for you. Find and follow them. Reduce the noise in your timeline.


    Throwing Letters from a Building vs. Writing on a Book

    From time to time, I want to express an opinion on twitter…and sometimes I have to do it more than once. I found that I was wasting my precious time doing that. So instead of having to reply to every one my opinion I discovered that if I wrote a blog post and reply to them with the URL I would hit several goals at one go:

    • Set the right perception: without the limitation of the 140-characters people would understand where I come from and my reasoning better
    • Help to build a more intelligent internet: Twitter is great for sending quick and short-lived updates, but is almost doing a disservice on content creation by offering a below par search capabilities. A few times I wanted to share again something I saw in twitter and I had incredible hard time to find that information again. With a blog, it is a no brainer; create your content, share the link on twitter and let Google, Bing etc do their job.
    • Saves me a lot of talking. I write once and can be reused as many times as I can; if I change my opinion in the future, I just revisit my blog and refresh it.


    I Can Only Show You The Door

    To me Twitter, like Facebook, is just a tool. Being or not fun, productive or destructive is all up to the user; and Twitter is awesome to share the instant , something that just happened and you just can't hold it only for yourself. That capacity to share information snacks is what makes twitter attractive.

    When I first joined, I was not sure what to make of the tool. Like everybody else, I guess. Then together we experienced several phases: from using twitter to say 'good morning, is there anyone here?' to 'hey, look at this awesome link I found'.

    In many ways, I've grown to enjoy twitter, and this acknowledgment is important. It represents a shift in the way things are delivered to the crowds. The power of simplicity and focus. I must say I even learned how to deliver a message using fewer words, a constant exercise in productivity.

    Twitter is in many scenarios the minimum common denominator of the communication. It allow sharing of content to hit millions. It has evolved to become a political issue. It covered the USA elections from the people's point of view, it was blocked by governments during times of crisis.

    My take on this: If you are not on twitter already, jump in; if you are, try to make it sustainable, from my part I try not to use it as content creation but as a tool to make content reach people. I would say, share things that are meaningful to you and surrounding without any expectations. Sometimes like a turning a TV at 3AM on a Sunday: I don't expect to watch anything, I just expect to see what’s going on. Nothing more, nothing less. If there is content that’s going to better me, great! If not, I just turn it off.

    One caveat here: I am opposed using twitter and Facebook integrated with professional tools like LinkedIn. Think about how your professional network will see when you post religious content, pictures of your meal or screams about your sporting team winning in their timeline. But of course, you do what you feel like doing :-)

    If you have ideas on managing your twitter timeline and other point of views of its usage, feel free to reach me out.