On that note, I guess I’ll start Twittering again.  No reason not to; like every other internet thing, it’s only as bad as you make it.  And I only read it for a couple minutes a day, so I’d be better off optimizing my Google Reader time 10% than optimizing my Twittering 90%.

Not sure about personal/professional.  It used to be all personal, but I think it’d be nice to have a professional Twitter too, so I could follow other researchers, and so I could say “Ooh here’s an interesting idea” or “I just published this paper, check it out” or whatever.  I think I’ll keep it personal, and I can add a professional one later if necessary.

At any rate: if you follow me, I can guarantee / you won’t find nobody else like me.

(side note: oh shit, actually the lyric is “if you want to leave I can guarantee you won’t find nobody else like me”, which is even creepier.  dear uncle kracker: “follow me” is what a prophet says, not a guy trying to win a lady.  this’ll likely be one of those moments when our grandkids are like “wtf 2000’s” and we’ll say “sorry, dunno.")

Anyway, about that optimizing my Google Reader time 10%: I would like more energy.  I took a class at Google called “Managing your energy”, and it’s stuck with me more than I would have thought.  The premise: it’s not that you don’t have enough time to do everything that you want, it’s that you don’t have enough energy.  (here’s a good summary.)  Think about the times that you’re high energy and positive: you can do anything.  You’ll make a to-do list and then knock them all off, one by one.  But when you’re out of energy, you’ll watch TV or surf the internet.

They (a group called the Energy Project, but I won’t link to them because their site sucks) say there are a few kinds of energy: physical, mental, emotional, and I guess you could say spiritual.  Without getting into too much detail, they build on each other like a pyramid.  I’m doing okay on all levels, but not rocking any of them, so I’d like to start with the physical and work up.  2011: the year I have more energy.

One thing I like about this approach: it’s abundance-based, not scarcity-based.  Managing your time is saying “I have X hours, and they are slipping away slowly, so I better grab on to them and squeeze out all the time I can”.  Managing your energy is like building things with bricks.  It adds and multiplies.  If you take more time to do another thing, it might give you more energy instead of taking it away.

More details later.