As I wade deeper into digital citizenship (or at least dip a toe in the shallow end) I’m learning a lot and mostly liking it. I revived my Twitter account which was created in 2012 (@sfrudnick if you’re interested) and have been utilizing it to start to develop my PLN. So far I haven’t found too much content related to my professional field (research administration) but I’ll continue to search for it and am hopeful that a conference I’m attending in August will help me connect with some potential network members. As much as I’m enjoying exploring the digital world and developing my own identity I find myself feeling overwhelmed. Every person I find to follow has dozens/hundreds/thousands of tweets to read, many with links to follow which of course I want to read along with associated hashtags which I want to delve into as well. Now imagine this multiplied by every digital interaction I have with every individual or piece of digital media I consume. How does one avoid falling down the rabbit hole and separate the beneficial (whether that’s entertaining, thought-provoking or informative) from the time suckers? What tools help you to be a savvy digital consumer and not a glutton?
Digital Pedagogy, Identity, Networks, and Scholarship
I try to set time limits for social media. I loved Katie Black’s blog post on the Kenyon digPins page about setting specific goals for digpins work and wonder if a combination of concrete goals and time limits might help in managing the potential overwhelm.
Seconding Shan’s time limit. I’m currently halfway through my morning “Pomodoro” during which I do email/twitter/facebook/Instagram (although not always all of those). If you’re not familiar with the Pomodoro timer, here’s a brief overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
The tldr version is 25 minutes of work, 5 minute break. Repeat for four cycles (2 hours total) and you get a 25 minute break. I’ve got an app for my desktop and one for my phone as well.
I use a similar technique called “speed dating your tasks”: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/productivity/organization/stop-procrastinating-by-speed-dating-your-tasks
I certainly couldn’t sustain this level of work all day, every day but it works when I have 8-10 things hanging over my head that need to get done. I make a list of the items and then, work on each for 5 minutes. Then, if I complete them in 5 minutes, I cross them off the list. If not, I move on to the next one. The creator of this method suggests 10 minutes on each task in the second round but that feels to long so I normally increase to 7 minutes and then, 10 minutes on the third round.