Interaction Matters

Left Brain vs. Right Brain

Because Twitter can be such a huge time suck, the “Project Manager” side of my brain is always trying to find some redeeming qualities in it. Here’s its latest idea:

Use the new Twitter Lists feature to organize tweets into your Areas of Focus.

(If you’re new to David Allen’s Getting Things Done or GTD, “‘Areas of Focus’ would be a high-level checklist of all the areas in life and work that you want to keep your eye on, ensuring that you are doing what you need to be doing to maintain them at your standards. E.g. health, relationships, career, finances, creative expression, etc.” See David Allen Company website to learn more.) You want to check-in regularly on your Areas of Focus and make sure they are plugging along according to your own personal standards for each one.

Here’s how to use Twitter to support your Areas of Focus:

1) If you haven’t yet, read David Allen’s book Getting Things Done

2) Then, create your Areas of Focus list for both home and work. If you work in web development, for example, an Area of Focus for you may be “continuing technology education” or simply “technology”.

3) On the Twitter website, set-up your lists to match your Areas of Focus.  Continuing with the technology example, you could set-up a list and call it “technology”. (You could also break this area of focus down even further if you prefer into things like, “web design”, “tech company news”, “programming”, “linux”, “gadgets”.)

4) Now, begin adding people to the lists that mainly talk about that subject. For example, I have a list called “Financial-Money“. I simply did a web search for “finance news” on Twitter, scanned the resulting recent Tweets, and if I liked them, added them to that particular list. You could also just do a Twitter search for key terms and hashtags. If you’re a GTDer already, you could create your own GTD follow list or simply follow my “GTD” list. (If you’re short for time and/or just don’t follow a lot of people on Twitter yet, simply go to Twitter.com, find people you admire, and simply follow their lists that correspond to your Areas of Focus.)

5) Not all Areas of Focus will match up to a Twitter list. You won’t necessarily make one for “Family Time”, but you definitely could! There are a lot of Tweeters that tweet tips and ideas for family projects, craft projects, places to go, and family vacations to take. You could definitely create a list for “spirituality” and follow people that inspire you and share some of your spiritual beliefs.

Here are my lists that generally match an area of my focus:

• Technology, Media and Web Tweets
• Current Events and News Tweets – all the major news outlets from around the world as well as several key journalists and political tweeters/writers
• Getting Things Done (GTD) and Productivity Tweets – includes all the GTD coaches, David Allen himself, and several GTD Connect members (black belt GTDers)
• Inspirational Tweets – inspiring quotes, spiritual leaders and motivational people
• Food and Wine Tweets – need I say more?
• Yoga Tweets – Great yoga teachers and practitioners from around the world
• Volunteer, Philanthropy & Non-profit Tweets
• Organic, Green & Sustainable Tweets
• Job Market & Employment Tweets – This is my latest creation. I work as a technology consultant, so this helps me quickly take the pulse of the job market, layoffs and companies that could use my services.

Would love to hear if you use these tips yourself and if you create lists of your own, let me know so I can follow you, too. My right brain thanks you.

Tagged: Areas of Focus, GTD, Twitter, Twitter lists