As I write, my husband and I are on holidays in the beautiful Bay of Islands in northern New Zealand. Yesterday I had one of those memory-lane experiences that highlight the enormous changes in the way we communicate. As I strolled past a motel overlooking the sparkling waves and golden sands of the bay, I suddenly remembered visiting it in 1986. At the time I was managing a tourist booking office in the bay – a lifetime ago! That long-ago day the proprietor proudly showed me his wonderful new communication tool – a noisy, bulky telex.
Today I sit on the sunny, tree-dappled balcony of our holiday apartment. A metre away the rich evergreen New Zealand bush hides a Tui, showering the neighbourhood with its golden bell-like notes. As I soak up the serenity and peace, I’ve quietly transacted some business deals and communicated with the rest of the world – all on my trusty little laptop, and for the price of one local phone call.
While I was online I received a very funny video file by email from my travel agent. I handled some important business documents from my business partner in Sydney, Australia. There were a large number of emails to and from other friends, business colleagues and ezine subscribers in Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, the US and England. I even sent a series of articles to one of the websites I write for. And the next steps were taken with a new consultancy client – we haven’t spoken in person yet, only via email.
This seems like a good time to share some simple techniques I’ve picked up, mostly from our subscribers, to help you with this fast-paced, wonderful, and at times incredibly frustrating, technology.
Surf strategically
A big thanks to Tanya Mottl from Mottl Marketing in Sydney for telling us about Top7Business – www.Top7Business.com. This site is a daily broadcast of seven tips, tricks, secrets and suggestions designed to help you build and grow your business. They get contributions from specialists on all manner of topics to give their seven best tips on a nominated subject. To subscribe, send an email to join-top7business@sparklist.com
The issue for 11 August 2000, Top 7 Principles to Conquer the Internet’s Information Flood came from Reid Wilson, whose newsletters helps language learners with foreign languages – www.languageimpact.com. All the points were excellent, but here’s one to whet your appetite:
Point 5 – Control Impulses and Surf Strategically
Create a folder in your Inbox called ”websites to check out”. Whenever you read an email from any source that refers to an interesting website, move it to this folder instead of taking the time (and getting distracted) to access the site immediately. Then, when you have some time and/or a craving for web-surfing, use the messages in this folder for places to go.
I’ve done this and find it is a really useful strategy to keep your Inbox manageable, and not lose sight of stuff you want to research.
Empty that Inbox
There are some exceptions to the rule but most people feel overwhelmed when they’ve got a lot of mail waiting in their Inbox. That’s understandable – an overladen Inbox is as bad as a cluttered desk.
If you’re in this category, do yourself a favour and set up folders for your important topics, just as you would a regular filing cabinet. Those important enough to retain, drag into the folders as soon as you’ve read them.
As well as the ”websites to check out” folder, I also have a ”half way to delete” file – things I’ve dealt with but think I might need again. Every now and then I check back and 99 per cent can then be deleted. Ooh, the power of a good delete session – it feels great!
Bonus Tip – Get uncomfortable if you’ve got more than a screen full of messages.
Ever felt like taking a sledgehammer to a search engine?
If you’d like more education on search engines, and a whole lot of other really useful and easy-to-follow education on the web, enrol yourself in the ezine of Gihan Perera at www.firststep.com.au. In this arena, Gihan is one of the most highly skilled and helpful people I know. He translates technology into plain English!
”Getting a Grip on Time” public workshops coming soon
We”re planning to hold some Getting a Grip on Time public workshops in the next few months, at least in Sydney and Auckland, and other places if there’s sufficient demand. If you’d like to be informed when we’re ready (with no obligation), please just drop us an email.
Here’s to e-talking next time…
