From the Desk of Janet Barclay

Last week I reported on the number of blogs people read per week, according to my recent survey, and today I’ll share the responses to the question How do you keep track of them?

The answers were as follows:

The numbers total more than 100% because participants were allowed to choose more than one answer. At first glance the number of people skipping the question seems high, but not when you factor in the fact that 37% of participants stated that they don’t read blogs on a regular basis.

Under "Other" a few people wrote "I don’t" and one wrote "Just through doing a search or recommendations." In addition, the following online tools were named:

• Google alert
• Netvibes
• Twitter
• Bloglines
• Feed Reader
• del.icio.us

I recently started using My Yahoo as my RSS reader and have found it to be much more efficient than using my blogroll or my Bookmarks for keeping track of the blogs I read, because:

(a)  I can see at a glance which blogs have been updated, so I don’t waste time going to the sites, only to find there’s nothing new to read

(b)  it’s my start page when I go on the Internet, so I don’t have to remember to check them

The one drawback I’m experiencing is that I can’t organize the blogs into categories. I can re-arrange them on the page, but I’d like to be able to file them on the fly, the way I can with my Bookmarks.  A quick glance at the tools mentioned by my survey participants makes me think that Bloglines or Feed Reader might be just what I’m looking for, but I’d love to receive feedback on these tools, or any other suggestions you may have.

*This post was featured in the Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival #6

As part of my series looking at how various home-based professionals structure their time, I asked Jacqui D. Barrett of Career Trend to describe her typical workday. Here’s what she told me:

I generally schedule client interviews in the mornings between 7 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. (these are my 1-hour deep consultations that complement the career branding intake worksheet to capture the essence of my client’s voice and clarify worksheet assertions).  I’ve found that clients (and I) are more articulate and focused on such a targeted, critical conversation early in the day (thus, netting more quality-focused results). 

The balance of the morning generally is spent managing email correspondence, scheduling or placing sales calls / consultations, scheduling and assigning projects with partner writers and performing other time-sensitive communications. Afternoons often are reserved for writing and editing and occasional sales consultations, and many evenings are absorbed conducting resume reviews for partner affiliates and performing other marketing-related initiatives.

This ‘typical workday’ clearly is a ‘rule of thumb,’ but truly does reflect my work-style preference. On days where more intense writing/thinking is required – true ‘manual labor of the mind,’ if you will — I will carve out time in the early morning.

It is clear to see that Jacqui is well in tune with what works best for her and has learned to schedule her work around her energy cycles whenever possible. One of the great things about working from home is having the flexibility to do this. If you’re not, you owe it to yourself to take some time to explore the best time for you to engage in various types of activities, so you don’t miss out on your peak productive times.

*This post was featured in the Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival #5

Today I’m going to share the responses to another question I asked in my recent Online Marketing and Networking Survey, How many blogs do you read one or more times a week?

Since such a high number of survey participants stated that they blog regularly, I was surprised to see that more than a third don’t read blogs at all, with a comparable number reading five or fewer per week. On the other hand, we have twice as many people professing to reading more than 10 blogs per week than are reading 6-10 per week! Of course, these numbers don’t take all the contributing factors into account. For example, someone might follow 8 blogs on a regular basis, but some of the bloggers don’t post every week, so they end up reading only 5 per week.

I have no data to support this, but I suspect that once people "get into" blogging (and by that I don’t mean just posting, but regularly following other blogs and actively participating in the blog community), the number of blogs they read increases. If my theory is correct, these numbers will change dramatically over the next year or two.

It’s certainly been an exciting month, between attending the 3rd Annual Online International Virtual Assistants Convention, and getting involved with the Virtual Assistant Mastermind Speaker Series and the Virtual Assistant and Home Business Blog Carnival! I’m looking forward to many more exciting developments in the coming weeks.

Here’s what I’ve been writing about on my other blogs:

OnlineOrganizing.com - Technology as an Organizing Tool:

• Scheduling Appointments Online
• Using Facebook to Stay Organized
• Maximize Your Time by Optimizing Your Hard Drive
• Desktop Shortcuts for Outlook Functions

Introvert Retreat:

• Earl must be an introvert
• Successful Networking for Introverts - Three Proven Strategies
• Business Networking - Extroverted Web Weaving for the Introvert
• The IntrovertzCoach

I’ve also written a new article called Is Your Schedule Out of Balance?, which you can read over at OrganizedArticles.com.

Be sure to come back later this week to read more results from my recent Online Marketing and Networking Survey!