Dos and Don'ts of Efficiency

I love the Internet in about a million ways but one of the best things I did late last year was subscribe to Digg. I added the Digg Toolbar and with it comes a setting whereby you can be notified of popular posts for whatever categories you choose. I have found some fascinating stuff this way - like this video. I had to Google it to find out more and here's what I found out:

Minnesota storm sewer overflows during heavy rain and launches giant manhole cover onto freeway where a pickup truck hits it. This is where East 35th street crosses I35W in Minneapolis.

Isn't that incredible? I had to watch it several times.

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I am also loving Facebook and especially Twitter. Facebook also has a notification setting, which I'm enjoying. My friends pop up in the lower right corner of my screen with their little post showing. I don't know that Twitter has a notification thing but since there are literally hundreds of Twitter-related applications, I'm sure one of them does.

(Edited to add: I just downloaded Tweetdeck because Vickie recommended it highly. It's like a dashboard of your own Twitter, arranged how you want it. Pretty cool.)

The irony is that a year or two ago, I turned off my email notification at work as part of some research I was doing with one of our managers/my mentor. We're both into workplace efficiency, using technology to be efficient, etc. We both found that simple thing of turning off email notification to be extremely helpful in reducing distractions.

The irony of that is that shortly thereafter, I received a second monitor to use at work. Side, by side, joined via a specific dual cable and software setting so I can have 2 full-view applications visible at once and can drag windows back & forth between the new monitors. Not to overstate it, but it's been life-changing! My mentor had read that such a set-up increases productivity by some impressive number. Almost everyone in the building now has 2 monitors. In fact, my boss just went that route this past week and wonders why he didn't do it sooner. Especially at this time of year when he's working on the budget for 2009, he's always moving between spreadsheets and he's found this so much easier.

So my irony point is that I stopped the email notification window from popping up but now I keep my email open on my right screen. It's usually covered up by other applications, but I can still sneak a peak at it far more often than I should. I should just minimize that window but just can't (won't!?) bring myself to do it.

For the last 6 months or so I've really been working on staying focused on one task at a time. I proved how well it works when focused on Pine Tree Designs work at home so I figured, what the hell, might as well give it a shot at the place I depend on to earn a living.

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