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Managing Your Media Diet – Bit Literacy Tips

by cindy on September 13, 2008

We reviewed Mark’s book. There are some more points I wanted to go deeper into over the last three posts.

Of course there are other methods to improve your productivity. I don’t necessarily think Bit Literacy offers the best methods. It’s just that its good to be reminded every now and again that we need to clean up our response to our information overload. Web marketing through information products requires good productivity tools.

Bit Literacy has one big advantage: it’s simple (and you should buy the book!).

Get On A Media Diet

One of the things Mark presents in his book is a very effective style of handling what he refers to as your Media Diet. Your media diet is the information avalanche that you live under right now.

How many different types of information media are calling for your attention right now?

This list is not counting the movies you see and books you read for entertainment.

Your Media-Diet Suppliers

Magazine & newspaper
TV & radio
Newsletters & mailing lists
Websites & new media

If you live in a digital world you will have these, at the very least, in your media diet. Some people also have a private email or two. These essentially double the amount of newsletters and other online direct mail you have cluttering up your media diet.

In order to use any of this information effectively, you need to reduce the volume and manage the rest. You need ways to skip, scan, defer, prune and delete the excessive sources of information.

You have three options to handle your information overload.

Either you do nothing, and remain where you are right now (bad choice).
You can opt-out of everything, just stop reading and live knowing that ignorance is bliss.
You can practice bit literacy and create your own media-diet.

To Create Your Media-Diet

Take what is important to you and serves you
Ignore the mass of information
Keep things as pertinent as possible
Keep things as small as possible

Your media-diet must contain as few sources of information as possible. At the same time as reducing the information you process, you still have to get all the information you need.

Learn to skip items in your media diet that don’t serve you. Scan and prune the media to find exactly the parts that are important to you and don’t be afraid to delete or ignore information that will not help you.

Categorize

Categorize your information the information you get. This helps to manage your time.

Star

A star is the information that we would all like to find. It is that one thing which always gives us the best information and will help us the most. This should be the core of your media-diet.

Scan

Information you only need to scan will probably make up the majority of your mail. This information comes from appropriate sources to your needs. Almost every time you read them you get something useful out of it. The downside of a scan is that an eight page newsletter will give you only one or two pieces of information that can be used and the other seven pages are probably going to be deleted.

Try Out

Only take on new sources of information after trying them out. Be choosy, intentional, and international. Remember that your list can only get so big. It is important to keep up to date and the only way to do that is to try new things. Don’t get buried here by trying out too many things at once.

Maintenance

Always ask ‘is this worth my time?’
Do you trust the source ?
Do you need the source?
What can you gain by continuing to read this source of information?

Ask yourself these questions and you will learn to manage your media diet so it gives you all the key information you need without taking up all of your time.

Mark Hurst’s book, Bit Literacy – Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload, gives you a series of simple approaches to get things done well. They are easy enough for just about everyone to implement.

Let’s look at how Mark handles his inbox tomorrow.

Here are a few more Uniquely Cindy Sunday Book Reviews:
- Website Optimization by Andrew B. King
- How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders By Catherine Seda
- Mastering Online Marketing By Mitch Meyerson
- How The Internet Works By Preston Gralla
- Dotcomology The Science Of Making Money Online By Stone Evans
- The Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy By Ed Rivis
- The Culturally Customized Web Site By Nitish Singh And Arun Pereira
- Letting Go Of The Words – Writing Web Content That Works By Janice Redish
- Landing Page Optimization By Tim Ash

Here is another Uniquely Cindy article on Productivity:
- Mind Mapping Makes Life Easier

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Managing Your To Do’s A Partial Book Review Of Bit Literacy

by cindy on September 12, 2008

We already reviewed Mark’s complete book later we will be going deeper into Mark’s Bit Literacy by going on a Media Diet and Inbox Management. Today let’s do the To Do List.

Here is one more simple way to improve your productivity.

One of the things Mark presents in his book is a very effective style of handling the long list of things you have to do.

The “To Do” List

First you need to create a “to do list” or a “To Do”. There are several products available, but Mark recommends choosing one with about the fewest features possible. Mark offers his software that is an inexpensive online tool as being the best solution because it was built to do exactly this.

Here are two important guidelines:

To Dos are action items.
To Dos are not intended to be lists.

An action item can be Go Shopping. You need to create a separate list associated with the Go Shopping action.

Bit Literacy cover

To Do Actions

Each To Do is assigned to a specific date
You can create To Dos by email
Each To Do is ranked by priority
Each To Do can contain a summary

Set The Date

Each To Do is allocated a specific day to be done. They can be moved as far into the future as possible so you don’t think about them until you have to. If you have a cake to pick up in 10 days, any time thinking about picking it up beforehand is as waste of time. If you have time available and choose to, you can start on the To Do list for future tasks.

Use Emails To Yourself As Reminders

Users should be able to create To Dos with their email. There are tricks you can do, such as emailing yourself at a future date. If someone tells you to call back in 3 months, it is possible to place an email in most systems with a future mail date. Forward yourself the email to arrive in your inbox just before the date in question. This keeps you totally on top of all situations.

Set Priority

You must give each To Do a priority. You should list your daily To Dos in the sequence of importance. This way if you do not accomplish all your actions, the least important is the one that is missed.

Summary To Follow Up With

Create an appropriate follow-up and completion process. Every To Do that you delegate must be confirmed as having been accepted by the person in question. The person who receives a To Do must send a completion notice.

This may see like micro-managing at first, but if you assign a To Do and the action is not completed, it is you that will probably have the problems. Assigning a To Do that is due in 3 weeks deserves a follow-up if the person assigned the task has not replied on time. That length of time will differ depending on each circumstance.

A To Do System Helps You Get Things Done

If you spend a little time to select a good system you will find one to help you get more things done.

Mark Hurst’s book, Bit Literacy – Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload, gives you a simple approach. It is easy for just about everyone to implement.

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On Managing Email – Bit Literacy Tips

September 11, 2008

Bit Literacy – Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload is a book written by Mark Hurst. It covers many different tips to help improve your productivity in today’s age of information overload.
We reviewed Mark’s complete book earlier this week. Let’s continue today with some advice that you will probably only consider in [...]

Read the full article →

Bit Literacy Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload By Mark Hurst

September 10, 2008

Bit Literacy – Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload is a book by Mark Hurst.
Who Should Read This Book
I think this book should be mandatory for people that are starting out in the corporate world.
Any company whose business depends on email should spend a day training everyone in the practices outlined in [...]