by Jared Goralnick
Above you’ll find a video from Jonny’s Partay, where I was interviewed on Wednesday, July 9 at 9pm.
There’s a bit of talk about AwayFind, some news about DC, and of course much of what I’ve been up to. From lifehacks to batching email to mobility and travel, hopefully this’ll keep you entertained.
by Jared Goralnick
Tonight I’ll be interviewed by Jonny Goldstein on Jonny’s Par-tay. He’ll have some questions but half the fun is where you take the show in the live chatroom. If you can’t be there tonight at 9pm EDT, just leave a question in the comments and I’ll be sure to answer on the show, which will be recorded and posted here.
by Jared Goralnick
The following is a short video that explains why I created AwayFind (and touches on how to batch your email). I delivered this as a presentation to the School of Blogging Conference in Chicago (under the parameters of 20 slides presented in 5 minutes). I hope you’ll enjoy this, and will participate in the private beta. Feel free to skip to 0:42 for the meat of the presentation…
by Jared Goralnick
I recently switched applications for my personal email, and have since been on a filtering rampage to improve the quality of the stuff that makes it to my inbox.
My motivation was a change in email tools, but after just a couple weeks of creating filters (taking a grand total of 15 minutes over that time), my inbox is much better than before.
by Jared Goralnick
A big thank you to Frank Gruber of SomewhatFrank.com for posting a video interview of me, which you can find below, discussing the difficulties of staying focused at work with so much email, and how AwayFind can help. This video came at a time when the blogs are aflame with discussions of email management –I address some of the challenges of processing email below.
In his post, which you should check out, Frank describes the AwayFind product, and references an article that’s been getting a lot of attention–Michael Arrington (of TechCrunch) discusses getting too much email.
by Jared Goralnick
Six months ago I turned off automatic email downloading on my phone; it was one of the best decisions I’ve made.
Having access to email on the go is helpful (as is web access), but downloading email automatically does more harm than good.
by Jared Goralnick
In this post I’ll offer advice both on how to cancel an appointment and how to show that you respect your own time when people cancel on you. In this world of instant electronic gratification and RSVP’s with “Maybe” categories, etiquette sometimes slips by the wayside. This advice is designed to facilitate better use of your time and demonstrate that you care about the person you’re meeting with.
Caveat
First of all, don’t cancel an appointment unless you really have to. Do you think of yourself as someone who sticks to their word…as someone who people can count on? Then don’t cancel on people unless you’re sick or out of town. And if you’re out of town, let them know the minute you find out about the trip. If you must cancel because you’ve got some “big client meeting,” then it had better be a week in advance or more.
If you must cancel, here’s how to do it:
Here’s a skeleton message that’s both apologetic and to the point. It also will serve to minimize the amount of back and forth by being very clear about available dates: Continue reading…
by Jared Goralnick
On my personal blog I wrote of my hopes for 2008; here I’ll explain how they relate to “lifestyle design,” a concept made popular in The 4-Hour Workweek. I mention them to you as I hope you can look to 2008 as a chance to not only accomplish things but really make life easier and more fun.
Here are my ambitions, as I mentioned on dancingwithwords:
For my sanity and social life:
- A sense of completion on a daily basis
- To buy fewer books (and better figure out what I should be reading for fun and work)
- A trip abroad
- To entertain every other month
For my work and dreams:
- 5000 users of AwayFind by 2009 (still in private beta)
- To be invited to speak at a national, non-local conference
- To have someone else handle the majority of sales and proposals for SET projects
- To blog (or have someone else working with me to blog) three times per week (mostly on technotheory.com)
Sense of completion: The first ambition is my most important one–every day I need to feel that I’ve accomplished things. There are times when responding to emails, managing others tasks, and making phone calls gets in the way of thought-intensive, tangible accomplishments. If I don’t have something concrete I’ve finished, then I’ll typically keep working and working and never feel good about it. Shutting out the outside world to get more accomplished sooner should help me with that immensely…and I’ll be a much happier person because of it. Here’s some advice for how to pull this off…
Fewer books: Continue reading…
by Jared Goralnick
The only thing less productive than reading an email three separate times and not responding is misreading the message and responding right away. Some people come off either illiterate or disrespectful with their correspondence. Worse yet, I think it’s because they’re attempting to be productive and responsive–but both of those aims are best achieved when doing something right the first time–which both saves you time and is more professional. Working faster is not the only goal.
I ran into an old acquaintance at a business function who suggested getting together. In each email correspondence he missed something I said earlier in the message thread, forcing me to repeat myself and him to respond to many more emails. The worst part: though we both restated the date numerous times in the message, he showed up on the wrong day. When I notified him on the day-of our meeting (which was a week later) he had to cancel because he never realized that he was at fault all along and at that point didn’t have the date available. It was both a laughable taste of his own medicine and doubly frustrating for me.
This is not the first time something like this has occurred (I have so many more stories, and I’m sure you do, too). So here’s my advice, with a smattering of both productivity tips and etiquette: Continue reading…
by Jared Goralnick
I keep updating my tools, profiles, and sites. Why do it–is it worth it? Is it helping my life or my business? What’s next?
Today I’ve decided to begin moving all my photos to Flickr (well, it’ll be some time). We’re launching a web application in the next few months. SET’s website redesign (with almost all new content) will be completed by year end.
In January of 2006 I moved to WordPress (from Blogger, and before that just HTML) for dancingwithwords.com, redid the layout, and launched technotheory.com (also WordPress). I also sorted through about five thousand photos from My Image Gallery and kept about a thousand, which were then migrated to Coppermine.
I can spare you from the discussion of how I made it to My Image Gallery from Dreamweaver’s photo pages and of my failed conversion to Greymatter and/or B2′s blogging software. And of course the moves from Friendster to Facebook, the trials and tribulations of MySpace, and the simultaneous development of relationships on LinkedIn.
This stuff takes a lot of time. Why do I do it?
My online participation is primarily for three reasons: self-expression, maintenance of relationships, and business. When I put up a website in ’95 and a blog in ’00, it was for self-expression (and having a technology project seemed like the thing to do). Over time it became a way of keeping in touch. In just the last year I’ve started to see business come out of it.
But is it really worth it?
I am Jared Goralnick, Founder and CEO of AwayFind, a web startup that helps people to stop checking their email.
Productivity, the future of email, and building ecosystems are my passions. I organize Inbox Love & Ignite DC, and mentor at 500 Startups & Founder Institute. I'm open to speaking opportunities.
0