I’m in Bismarck tonight for the NDCEL Fall Conference tomorrow, where Mike Eslinger and I will be doing our security presentation not once, but twice. It’s been a long time since I’ve stayed at the Comfort Suites here, but in the mean time they’ve added free WiFI access in addition to the wired broadband they’ve had for a while. Nice work – I’d much rather be relaxing and using my laptop on the bed instead of begin tethered to the awful chair they have at the desk.
Today happened to be the birthday of John, my supervisor, so a few of my coworkers and I went to a local Mexican restuarant for dinner. I had a really good time. I don’t get to see them very often, so when I do, it’s pretty fun.
This week I’m taking a few steps to help my productivity and reduce the “clutter” I’m encountering every day. One example is my RSS subscriptions. Bloglines currently has my feed count at 226, although not all of them are public and updated on a regular basis. Still, 200+ RSS feeds deliver a ton of content every day, to the point that information overload has again become an issue (reducing it was one of my reasons for using a news reader in the first place). So, taking a suggestion I read on 43folders, I’ve started to put some of my feeds on probation. After a day or two, I’ve got 25 of them in a “probation” group that I plan on scan on occasion before marking everything as read. It’s already made a noticable difference in my reading – less noise equals less stress. Next steps: Try out some of the other tips on 43folders and Lifehacker and get back on track with Getting Things Done.