Work Flow

• What are the key tasks I perform online?

Email – both personal and business. My work is directly related to my email. Email is open and checked numerous times a day. My personal email is checked at least twice a day.

Facebook – daily. I often link to a page in order to keep in touch for a particular reason and then unlink when the purpose has been achieved.

Twitter – I am not a fan but as in Facebook above I will sometimes follow someone for a particular purpose. So far it has never been a long term habit.

I do lots of collating for my own and business purposes. I have a work Pinterest page and a personal one as well.

• What are my preferred sources?

For library related matters I subscribe to several organisations – ALAI, SCIS, SLV, Melbourne city library. Newsletters are full of juicy information and I often bounce off a newsletter to further research.

Google is my first stop for any search and I prefer to explore pages in their entirety.

Duck Duck Go kept coming up as a blocked site so I couldn’t compare. Bing and Ask have less advertising material.

I don’t like the limited length of a Twitter post. I like to get a more complete picture by reading a couple of paragraphs.

• How much time do I have?
• When do I access information? How?

As much as I like. Email can be checked at work or at home and my Pinterest boards are always there. However. I don’t wish to spend hours staring at a device.

• Do I need to do anything with these resources after I’ve seen them?

My technique is to keep things open in the Browser until I have dealt with them. Closing that tab means I have finished with the item. For things that are ideas related I will add to a Pinterest Board. For sites that I expect to go back to I will add to Bookmarks of whatever browser I am using (1 of 3) on which ever computer I may be on (any one of 5 devices). Of course I never seem to get back to them again. My plan is to make sure I can clip to Evernote and then no matter which machine I am on I will be able to find them again. Also I think making time to make workbooks for a topic is well worth the effort as it makes the act of finding that site again so much easier.