Better To End The Hour With Twitter

Thought for the day - leave mission creep tasks, like e-mail and social, to the end of the hour...

Time management is one of the topics I always cover when I'm encouraging staff to get started on Twitter.

As a rule to get people engaged in social media I suggest they have to check in frequently, but also that they must be disciplined about getting out before too long.

My worry is that staff will get into Twitter, drop into its endless world of intirguing links, and then not reappear back at their daily routine for hours. I warn them "don't go down a rabbit hole!" By which I mean don't get lost in Twitter and suddenly find you've missed all your deadlines for the day.

How many times have you heard people complain that Twitter takes too much time and they're giving up? That's an outcome to be conscientiously avoided.

So I suggest they check Twitter every two hours, and work on it for ten minutes. I suggest they set their stopwatch when they start and be disciplined about getting out after ten minutes.

But a better solution, and one that I'm going to start suggesting is using negative time.  That is, using the spare time created by finishing one task early and before starting your next appointment.

For example, I schedule appointments at 9 a.m. and 10 a.m.  I finish my 9 a.m. appointment at 9.45 and use the remaining 15 minutes for social media updates and e-mail.

Result: less mission creep, shorter meetings, greater incentive to get stuff finished early, and more social media engagement for the station.