Unfortunately, I have work to accomplish. And well, if I don’t get this left brain humming, that universe of opportunity will do me no good!

With Facebook, Tweets, IMs, SMSs, emails and good ole telephone calls, a constant barrage of information can consume our day leaving us myriad half-done tasks and unchecked to-dos. Here are a few ways of making sure you are being efficient and effective with your time, while keeping your finger on the pulse of the matrix:

1. Stop Multitasking - I know we always ask our prospective employees to be good at multitasking, but unfortunately it really is less productive.Want some research to support that? It's out there.  I thought this quote nicely sums it up:“In a recent study, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages.” Fifteen minutes for a 30 second email. The moral of the story is, when you start something, finish it before you jump off to that new notification on your status bar.
2. Mind the Pareto Principle, a.k.a. the 80/20 Rule: 80 percent of the benefit comes from 20 percent of the causes. Going through your work day ask yourself, is this the most important thing I can be doing right now? Am I spending my time wisely? Don’t feel the need to be busy just to be busy, bring your focus to the 20 percent that is giving you the greatest return. Deciding what not to do may be the most important decision you can make.
3. Remember Parkinson’s Law? We learned it in college: work expands to the time available. I don’t know about you but I waited all semester to write my paper then banged it out on a caffeine-inspired all-nighter only to receive high marks. Take a look at your to-do list, what can you knock off in the matter of an hour? Do it! Then go outside and take a walk around the block to reward yourself for your hard work, and think about what you can do to capitalize on that 20 percent when you go back into the office. (A hint: if you shut off your Tweetdeck and email for that hour, you will be amazed at how much you get done.)
4. Protect the critical chain – In every process there is a set of steps that represent the minimum lead time it will take to finish a project. As you prioritize your day, keep in mind especially how your tasks affect your projects. The rule is: one minute lost for the critical chain is a minute lost for the entire system.

Last weekend, some good friends and I put this theory to work. We knew the first coat would need to dry before we applied the second coat of charismatic purple paint to the walls of my friends' new nursery. We decided that despite the fact that we were in the middle of installing the headboard, we should stop and get the critical chain rolling...and brushing, and masking. And we finished the headboard while the paint dried, adding no net time to our day of chores. Well done team.

As you tread the river of updates, be aware of your own effectiveness. Manage your multitasking by not checking your Tweetdeck every time a post comes in. Decide when to be involved with social river and when to focus on leveraging that social river. How can we tap that top 20 percent for a bigger piece of the pie?

Please, keep me posted.

Related Links:

Why Multitasking Doesn’t Work, by Mark McGuinness

The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferriss

OK, so you’ve identified your relevant social media channels and now have several  outposts within social media.   Your initiatives have proven successful at generating awareness, engaging in conversations and acquiring new relationships.  The next logical step becomes how to evolve and connect these various pieces of your social media puzzle so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of the individual parts.

You may also be interested in creating paths where light touch consumer engagement can migrate into deeper relationships, in an atmosphere that the brand owns and controls.   (See interesting advertising agency executive roundtable discussion on this very topic at Beet.TV)

Integration can have many definitions; and it’s not until you take that deep dive
that you start to achieve the ultimate end goal - improved marketing efficiency.  For example, am I using an integrated approach to social media if I create a brand site that links off to my Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels?  Short answer - no, you’re not.

To illustrate several potential integration opportunities we’ve broken the puzzle into 4 main pieces which move from light to heavy engagement:

• Social Media Channels (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)
• Brand Website or Microsites
• Customer Community or Blog (established in this example as the hub of social )
• CRM Database

Integration Opportunity #1

Customer Community or Blog with CRM – connecting consumer registration data from a customer community with a proprietary CRM database.

Getting Started – Customer data submitted in a community gets securely transferred to brand’s proprietary database.
Up a notch – Consumer behavior and interests within community get transferred to brand’s proprietary database.

Integration Opportunity #2

Customer Community or Blog with Brand Website – passing blog posts or user-generated content to a brand website

Getting Started – Enable one dataset of community content to dynamically flow into one area of brand site.
Up a notch – Enable multiple datasets into multiple areas of brand site.

Integration Opportunity #3

Social Media Channels with Customer Community or Blog (two way) -  passing content dynamically between channels and creating paths for consumers to reach deeper engagement platforms

Getting Started – Utilize xml feeds or social network apis to syndicate content between your platforms.
Up a notch – Utilize Facebook Connect to lower the barrier of engagement.

Unfortunately, there’s no ‘one size fits all’ scenario and every brand will have different business objectives, hopefully working through these opportunities will assist in identifying a logical starting point.  If a brand marketer was able to achieve all three of these opportunities you’d end up with an ecosystem that looks like this:

The roadblocks to achieving an integrated strategy are many; first and foremost it’s difficult because it often involves achieving consensus between parties or corporate functions.   Additional roadblocks could include technology platforms, agency opinions and AOR obligations, and corporate structure.  At the end of the day it takes conviction, hard word and leadership but hey, nobody said innovation and competitive advantage come easy.