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We spent a few more hours on my new rig today, which is really starting to take shape.  The very fact that I can now visualize a large part of my work and social activities as a big mindmap/flow chart makes my life simpler.  I feel better being able to see what I have built and how the different areas inter-operate and form a sort of ecosystem.  All the logos below will have "baseball card" type hover over's explaining the site with a hyperlink directly to my profile on that site, or to the site itself if a profile is not applicable.

In case you are wondering, we are using Adobe Flash to design the rig.  Visio, SmartDraw and other programs like them do not have the versatility to design something this custom.  I can't wait to launch the website w/ the completed version!  Estimated time for the launch on WillFranco.com is less than 2 weeks, in the nick of time for the Infusionsoft Conference.

Once the visual is complete and launched, I can really see just how much it is going to help me explain how social media works.  The visual will also help me explain my strategy for managing 3 sets of social profiles and activities on my own.  In short, above the way everything is woven together - I leverage technology to automate or streamline repetitive tasks, and batch the tasks that have to be done manually.

Here is the 2nd draft of my rig.  Below it is the 3rd.

2nd:

3rd:

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I am almost done creating my new "rig" of social profiles and blogs together.  While I am using more social sites, I have simplified my workflow significantly.  The goal is to morph WillFranco.com into a live mindmap/workflow picture, connecting to my respective RSS feeds and linking to each of my social profiles.  It must be a new concept b/c I have not seen anybody doing anything like it before.  Sure, I have seen Lifestreams and they are cool, but they do not explain how information flows from collecting to publishing.  I guess what I am doing is combining GTD and Lifestreaming into a live website.  Other than enjoyment, my reasoning for building this rig is to explain how you can connect online social activities together into an efficient and effective structure and workflow.  What I am building is version 2.0 of what I feel should be everyone's homepage.  My rig gives easy access to both my business activities and areas of my personal life that I choose to share. 

Here is an inside-look at the 2nd draft I made w/ mark-up of the graphics for the rig:

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I love reading blog posts where people tell you what tools they use and how the use them.  I always learn something new by seeing how someone else does it.  Initially, I intended to keep my blog post about how I manage my online environment brief.  After spending a couple of hours drafting the outline, I realized just how useful the post I was creating would be for me and potentially others (you).  So I spent about two days detailed nearly every aspect of my online environment and went the extra mile to explain how it all connects together. 

The post is called My Rig: Connecting the Dots. 

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The Goal - Reduce Email Haze When Using Gmail
I need to automatically segment non-critical emails (e.g. notifications, newsletters, etc.), but the "multiple inboxes" Gmail labs feature confuses me.

The Solution
Use Gmail filters, creatively!  Create a filter in Gmail that will auto-archive and place the types of email I wish to filter into labels.  Now they will not clutter my inbox and distract me, but I will still be able to see the unread count to detect spikes in relation to each label, and so I can spot channel partners that I have been in discussions w/ signing up.  Once I read the emails within the label, I then remove the label [this is key].  In this way, I have created multiple inboxes.  The only downside is that labels do not show in mobile phone email clients.  So, if you mimic this system, only create filters and auto-archive to labels for non-critical emails, if you use or intend to use a mobile phone in conjunction w/ your computer.  In my case, we have a customer support team that address our order notifications, so these emails are non-critical.

The system is:

1. For the emails you wish to segment away from your inbox, create a filter;
2. Auto-archive to an appropriate label;
3. Remove the label upon reading the emails, this puts it in Gmail's regular archive and removes it from your label which you are using as an inbox.

It would be easy to let a system like this get cluttered, so I am going to keep my labels to a minimum.  At present, I have the following labels: Disqus (blog comments); Facebook; Order Notifications; Newsletters. 

Staying focused throughout the day is critical.  By removing non-critical emails from my primary inbox, I am reducing the amount of information I personally need to filter through during the day.  This improves my focus!  Since I am batching non-critical tasks, I am being more efficient.  Plus, in those times when there are not enough hours in the day, I can prioritize easily by not reading Newsletters and Facebook notifications until the weekend.

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