Official Spring Cleaning 2.0 Week

To the great fear of my friends and colleagues, I was expected to return from Podcamp NYC 2.0 with an increased fervor for all things Web 2.0 (believe it or not, I've not yet hit max zeal). Headed into the last session of the day, I was inspired by what I had learned from presentations by my social media heroes, like Laura Fitton, Christine Cavalier, Chris Penn, and Chris Brogan, and hallway conversations with fellow PR pros facing similar challenges.

With a half-dozen options for the 4:00 session, I knew Drew Olanoff was the best choice to snap me out of the food coma from my late lunch. Titled, "Bringing it all together: Using social networking tools to your advantage and not to your distraction," this seemed like a fitting choice to wrap up the day.

Drew starts by taking away our cellphones (collecting quite a valuable pile of gadgets) and surveys the room to find out how we're spending our online time. Then, he shares a story about how he recently cleaned out his Gmail inbox with over 2000 unread emails (gasps from crowd, an empathetic laugh from me and my 1200 unread): Check select all 'unread', and click 'archive'.

After a brief moment of panic, I realized he's right: If I didn't read it yet, I'll never read it. 99% chance that its list-serve spam anyways. And even if it did warrant a response, the sender likely gave up hope on a response. Yes, I have unread emails dating back to September 2007.

Next he asks about browser use, and I'm sitting in the front row, so I offer him a glimpse of Opera with about 20 tabs open. (This number, by the way, pales in comparison to my browser activity during an average workday.) At that point, I set myself up for ridicule, and Drew shows no mercy. He referred back to my Vaio a few times to show my Twhirl ("dog sh*t flying at your desktop"), reference the thousands of unread feeds in Bloglines, and to show an example of how you can't possibly be productive with all those tabs and apps open at once. Looking directly at me, he asks, "Are you productive?"

Good question. I think I'm very productive in spite of myself, and definitely suffering from information overload. Grabbing bits and pieces it flies at me… catching as much as I can… letting the rest hit me in the face… or go whirling past. Information collected is archived in email/Tumblr/Twitter, saved to my hard drive, or open as tab in one of three browsers on two PCs. Is this anyway to live?

My mom would say no. Drew was starting to sound like my mom when I was 12 (or 13 or 15 or 18) and my bedroom looked like a tornado ripped through it on daily basis. Oh wait, my bedroom looks like that right now, mom's just not around to whip me into shape.

But here's the difference between real-world and virtual clutter:

If I can't find the shirt I want to wear tonight because it's hidden under a pile of laundry, I'll wear something else. Sure, I might waste a little time searching, and be slightly disappointed to settle for a less-than-ideal choice. And it's slightly embarrassing for guests to witness my untidiness, but there are worse vices.

On the other hand, if I can't find the document due to my boss, the article I need to reference, or the person I promised to follow up with, the result is inadequate work or missed opportunities. The repercussions are a little more serious than ill-favored barhopping attire.

So, in the tradition of the season, I'm declaring this week, April 27 through May 3, 2008 "Official Spring Cleaning 2.0 Week."

Here's my plan:

• Inbox (0). Starring items for immediate follow-up, select all 'unstarred' and 'archive.' Over the week, I hope to go back and search for certain terms and tag emails.
• Unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe. Sorry retailers and social networks, if I want something, I'll come to you.
• Minimizing tabs. Choosing one browser, and getting down to 3 tabs (hey, it's progress and realistic), including a landing page (iGoogle).
• Utilizing a bookmarking tool. Rather than keeping tabs open, I can tag a site, blog post, or article to read later. I probably have a del.ic.ious account from 2006 that I've barely touched.
• Trimming the crap. Deleting feeds from my RSS reader. Dozens have gone unread for months (I analogize this to donating a shirt to salvation army if I didn't wear it in the last six months).
• Unfollowing. This is less about spring cleaning, and more about making more effective use of Twitter. More on this in another post.

I accomplished the first task today, and it was exhilarating! If you haven't experienced a clean inbox recently, do yourself a favor and take an hour to make it happen. Trust me, it's worth it. Over the next five days, I'll be sharing my progress with these other tasks, and expanding upon how I'm tackling each one.

How about you? If you can't think of one way that information overload is making you less efficient, then I'm insanely jealous and want to hear how you do it. Think you're worse than me? Share your numbers - how many tabs are open your browser? How many unread emails in your inbox? Even if you're well organized in these realms, I bet you can find one network or application that could use some spring cleaning, right?

updated: If you're sharing your cleaning elsewhere, tag it SC2.0 or something like that