IM Overload

I find myself with 2 sources of overload these days (in addition to all the meetings that are normally in my job): email & im. email overload is nothing new. it’s been the state of affairs for me as long as i can remember. seems to be getting worse for me lately — i find myself doing e-mail every single night until pretty late. i think that at least part of it has to do with the fact that i’m doing a lot of work with Japan recently. so today, sunday in the US, i spent probably 3 or 4 hours doing e-mail trying to get stuff communicated before monday morning in japan (about superbowl kickoff time here in the US), and now starting to respond to a flurry of monday activity as i sit here on sunday night. i don’t really mind it — actually, i’m really enjoying starting to do work with Japan, and the learning that i’m doing lately is totally amazing. but it is a lot & the time zone exacerbates things, certainly.

i’ve also noticed, just in the past few weeks, massive IM overload. i have probably 50 people that i IM with during the week — i know a lot of folks who have a lot more than that. but i get sidetracked at unpredictable times during my day, for unpredictable lengths of time. again, i generally am happy to talk with whoever i’m IMing — and, in fact, i’ve been getting so much of my work done via IM lately that it’s becoming important for me to have tools that archive & are searchable (adium for the mac is, in fantastic ways).

i think i just need to develop some new disciplines — maybe i need to actively manage my IM availability message more. need to think about that….