On Using Twitter

Recently at the prompting of a consultant I am working with, I expanded my productive use of social media beyond my usual fare of www.linkedin.com, www.facebook.com, www.del.icio.us.com and www.plaxo.com to include www.twitter.com. Twitter, on which one tweets or twitters, is a social media service based on the premise of one communicating (in mini-blog posts of less than 140 characters) “What Are You Doing?” to their “followers” as often as they like all day. 

Now when most professionals hear this premise their immediate response is “I do not not have time or interest in letting others know what I am doing all day long”, and I agreed until I started using the service. I was informed, and subsequently found, that while most of the tweets on Twitter are rather mundane, there are “twitterers” out there, that can be found using Twitter’s keyword search, who are a running wealth of relevant information in knowledge areas that are relevant to both my professional and personal life. There are also some twitterers whose lives are humorous and entertaining by degrees. Aside from individuals, I also found that there are organizations that twitter like the BBC Worldwide (bbcworld), pharma giant Novartis (novartis). 

I have found the use of this service beneficial as a running information service, like an alternate type of RSS that is authored by individuals versus websites. For instance, the other day, I received insight into the blow by blow proceedings of a healthcare conference from a twitterer I follow, complete with relevant URL links that afford me more indepth research if I am interested.

On the flip side, I have found that my own twittering has benefited me in: 1) allowing me to compile a running diary of my own activities, insights and perceptions throughout the day, 2) contributing to the community of individuals who are “following” me as they are interested in the same things I am and 3) expanding my network beyond that I have gathered on the services I already use.

For some, this will be yet another overwhelming item they have to attend to in their busy day, and this crowd would stay away, but for those who want to offer knowledge to a “community of interest” as well serendipitously gain the same, I recommend you try this service out. Let me know what you think when you do and feel free to follow me at "cadelarge" if you do.

Time: What Are You Making With Yours?

“I don’t have time” is fast becoming one of the great mantras (and excuses) of this present age. The fact that there is a touch of truth in every lie is definitely the case here. The truth is that we have time and we don’t. The lie is in why this is the case. We say that we don’t have time (because of factors outside of us in our environment) and that is partially true because time is what we “make” more than what we have.

We have all been given the same 168 hours per week, something we can only say about time as we are all given different amounts of money, talent, relationships, knowledge, etc.. This equality is one of the reasons time is one of the most important resources we have, and what makes what we make with time, a most critical activity of life.

The fact is that everything we have from how we think to our possessions to our careers to our relationships, we have made with the time we have been given. This then obviously begs the questions of: “what time are we making and what are we are we making with that time?”

This first question is one of priority. When we say we do not have time for something we are really saying it is not a priority, and often this is justified as most of us are pursuing too many priorities to begin with. I begin to learn this lesson on September 11, 2001 when the events of that morning stopped me dead to refocus in order to make time for informing myself and to see about my community. It was so striking to me how quickly so many important things could become not so. I learned that for the rest of my life, I have a choice to make time for what is important to me because we only ever have time for what we make time for.

This second question is one of focus. It is difficult to maintain focus on what is important in the midst of all the urgent and unimportant things that come up continually. It is easy to use time to attend to the urgent and unimportant while neglecting the making of those memories, relationships, education and results that are truly important to us owing to a lack of focus. A critical factor in making “what’s important” with the time we make is learning to say no to the urgent and unimportant, and if this is a challenge for you see my earlier post, “No: The New Yes”.

Take time today to consider how you prioritize and what you make with your time. Are you making important results, relationships, memories, people, objects, etc. with your time or are you making procrastination, worry, poor plans which lead to urgent emergencies, focus on unimportant issues, etc.. As we take more responsibility for making time for what important and making what’s important with that time we make, we can move from a posture of “ I do not have time” to “ I make time for what is truly important to me”. Now isn’t that a better more powerful way to approach life? I do and am interest in your replies, pro and con.