I was recently interviewed by Gwen Bell for the Unconventional Guide to the Social Web and one of the questions Gwen asked me was how I manage to get all the many things done that I have on my plate!

My answer….you have to develop great time management skills and stay disciplined about them…and you have to manage technology instead of it managing you.

One of the biggest problems of the social web is the ease with which one can lose track of time.  We are having so much fun connecting with friends & colleagues on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks that we end up not getting any work done during the work hours and end up working ALL THE TIME.

Another problem is multi-tasking and interruptions.  Research shows that it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task when interrupted on an unrelated topic.

Here are some tips on managing your time on the social web:

1. Schedule Everything and stick to the schedule
   I use the Entourage calendar to schedule EVERYTHING…meetings, responding to email, social network presence, day-to day tasks.  But it’s not enough to schedule things..you have to stick to the schedule!
   
2. Schedule your most important tasks when you feel like you are most productive
   The most productive time is different for each person…some people are sharpest in the morning, some are later in the day.  Figure out what your magic time slot is and schedule your most important task during that time.  Sprinkle your social interactions & email management throughout the day but make sure it’s not during your most productive time.
3. Use a timer
   Using a timer will allow you to set an alarm to notify you when your current scheduled task/activity is supposed to end.  Let’s say you are alotting 20 minutes for social media interaction at 1pm…before you begin the task at 1pm, set your alarm to let you know when the 20 minutes has passed. 

   The application that I use to achieve this is Apimac Timer (mac). You can also use Xnote StopWatch if you are on Windows (there are many more you can choose from).

4. Close down the applications that you are not using
   Human nature is to respond to stimuli…so if you hear a notice that you have a new email or a new response from a friend, you have to go see what it is.  That is why if it’s not time to check and respond to email, I close down the email application…if it’s not time to interact on Twitter, I close down the Twitter application…the point is…only have the application that you are currently working in open.
5. Set and manage expectations
   Managing everyone’s expectations is the key to time management.  I think a lot of the time, the immediacy to respond is in our own head.  Training your clients, colleagues, friends, and online connections that you are not available 24×7 will allow you to respond on your own time.  And because we are all going through this information and task overload…they will more than undertand!

Did I miss anything?  Share your time management tips in the comments!

I just completed taking French classes in New York City, which set me back a few hundred dollars. I was happy to pay, because it motivated me to resume my plans to become bilingual. I have my text books from college, my recent French class, and copious notes that I continue to pour over. Still, I know that when my class finished, I had to keep up my studies. There is no teacher to tell me to finish homework and study all the verb tenses. I know that I will be relying on the World Wide Web, in addition to other traditional resources, when it comes to my continuing studies in French.

The infinite resources to be found on the Internet seem limitless, but I think I know which sites I can rely on for my language studies. In addition to a few online language lessons, I have found the complete French language series entitled French in Action, which came out in the late 1980s and was developed by a Yale University professor. As a child, I remember watching re-runs of the series, which was completely in French and was centered on a young French woman, her family, and friends in Paris on PBS. The language immersion technique is very effective, and I am very happy to have found it online so I can watch and absorb the lessons at my own pace. 

The best sites to help me with “on the spot” language learning are the online dictionaries. I usually alternate between WordReference.com and Yahoo! Babel Fish. Not sure what the future tense of the verb savoir (which in English means “to know”) is? I usually find myself on verbe2verbe.com or Conjugationfr.com to make sure I spelled my conjugated verbs properly.  I prefer the former site because it gives the most accurate definition of the verb in English. I have also found that if I spell the word wrong and there are no direct matches given, a list of other, similarly spelled verbs appears in the left-hand column. For someone who needs as much as I can get, I am very grateful for these useful additions.

If I can help it, I will not let the dust settle on my French language lessons again. With the help of my own personal resources, the library, conversations with French-speaking friends, and the World Wide Web, I may one day be able to call myself bilingual.

While the recession runs its course around the world, it is good to know that companies are taking advantage of the virtual workplace. For many industries, it makes sense to have people work from home for at least part of the week. It saves companies money and helps retain their employee base at the same time. As a contractor myself, I wonder about some of the companies I worked for in the past. While I am glad that my assignments with them are complete, I know there are those who would have liked to continue with our past employers on some level. Instead, they call people to come in for a short period of time, let them go, and then call them back several months later, if they are still available. I understand the need for seasonal contractors, but when I have observed how much some of these companies have lost money on completely superfluous expenses, it boggles my mind at how willing they are to let go of talented people as a consequence.

Companies like IBM and Sun Microsystems seem to know how to make their virtual workplaces work for them and their productivity. What I see as the ideal virtual workplace is one in which the employer and employee have trust in one another, and have no desire to abuse that trust. It is where an employee works hard, but knows when to stop each day, and the employer gives freedom to the employee to have a personal life, without compromising the work flow. I also see a good virtual workplace as one that allows employers and employees to have face time with one another, and that doesn’t include web conferences. It is easy to feel disconnected from others you work for or work with if you never see them.

So while some people might think being in a virtual workplace lacks structure and growth for a company, I saw they are wrong. Virtual workplaces are here to stay, and will continue to grow throughout the economies around the world.

What are your thoughts on the virtual workplace?

Webgrrls International often receives tickets to industry events and we have three FREE full passes to attend the BizTechDay in San Francisco that we want to offer to our members. The dates for the Conference are October 22-23. The value of each pass is $595.

If you are interested in the opportunity to attend the conference, please let us know by clicking on this link and entering your name and membership id. You must be a member to participate…so, if you are not a Webgrrls member or your membership is not current, please Join or Renew your membership now.

We will randomly determine who receives the ticket for the conference at 3:00PM on August 21. Please note that if you are selected, you will be responsible for your flight and hotel accommodations and other personal expenses.

See Conference Overview
Enter to win

Also, all Webgrrls are eligible to receive a $100 discount to attend the event. Be sure to enter discount code: Webgrrls812 when registering.

As a woman on the go, I always look for tools that will help me stay more productive.  DropBox is my recent discovery.  Dropbox is a multi-platform software (Windows, Mac, and Linux) that syncs your files online and across your computers.  The best thing about it is that it’s has a super simple interface and is very easy to use because everything happens so seamlessly.

Once you install Dropbox on a computer, all you have to do is drop the files you would like to sync & share  into the Dropbox folder and they are automatically updated and uploaded on all of your shared computers .

Here are some ways DropBox makes me more productive:

• Seamlessly synchronize my files – If I’m editing a file on one computer, as soon as I save it, Dropbox will sync this same file to all of the other computers instantly and automatically…this gives me the freedom to work on any computer and always have the files I need.
• Collaborate on group projects – Our virtual team can have access to key files regardless of which computer we are on.  We also no longer have to send documents via email attachments to each other and the built in version control will keep a history of all of the modifications to the file so we can see how thes document evolves and undo changes if we make a mistake.
  

  By default, we keep the last 30 days of undo history for all your files. We also have an unlimited undo option called “Pack-rat”.

• Instant Access to all the files from anywhere – Using the Dropbox website interface to get access to my files from any computer or mobile device.
• Automatically backup your files – Every time me or my team put a file in to the Dropbox folder it is automatically backed up to DropBox secure servers and we can be restore at any time.

Watch a demo of DropBox and I look forward to hearing your experiences with it!  Are you already using DropBox?  Let me know your thoughts in the comments section.