Sarah Wilson

***Updated Friday 5pm: News is emerging the election will be called tomorrow. The PM is saying she’ll ask the GG to delay issuing the writ until Wednesday, which means IF YOU’RE NOT ENROLLED TO VOTE YOU’LL HAVE ABOUT FIVE DAYS TO DO SO. Do it at my link here.

***Updated Friday 5pm: Latika Bourke has started this election Twitter list of political journos to follow. For more, see my list below.

I keep getting asked the best way to stay up to speed with the stuff we all need to know for the election. Honestly? Twitter. It’s taken a while, but Twitter has really settled into itself and we’re kind of getting the hang of how to best use it. It’s not really for inane “I just ate 3 Maltesers” updates. It’s a business tool. And a media tool.

Heading into the election, Twitter will play a major role. News will break on Twitter (as it did with the Abbott/Turnbull spill). Dynamic, important debate will happen on Twitter. Without spin (there’s not enough characters!). On Twitter the media/opinion leaders we all love actually share what they REALLY think, rather than the publisher line.

Before I break into a list, a community announcement: The election COULD BE CALLED THIS WEEKEND, which means you need to be enrolled to vote NOW. Not on Monday. TODAY. Got it? Once the election is called, there’s about 1-5 days (depending on how fast they move things) to do so. If you’re a first-timer, or you’ve moved, or you have kids who might not be correctly enrolled, check out my election cheat sheet. Pass her around…

It’s a fact of life: these days we have to cull “electronic friends”  to cope with Sheer Influx of Cluttery Information. I think we all accept this, right? It’s not personal; it’s professional. I keep my “following” list at 108…it’s partly an auspicious thing.

But how to clear the clutter? This little gizmo – ManageFlitter – does it sniper-like.

It works by sorting your Twitter followers list into:

• Talkative or Quite – They tweet too much or too little.
• One Sided – They don’t follow you back.
• Possible Spam – They have no picture on their Twitter profile

OK. Seth Godin just alerted me to this one. A gizmo that allows you to publish things on the interweb a little privately. OK, just a little. The best way for me to demonstrate it to… demonstrate it: This is who I had lunch with today http://trick.ly/2P3

Yeah, you got it? I’m clearly not that secretive. But you know that, I reckon.

This url shortener – trick.ly – works by allowing link access only to those who can answer an intimate question about you. Inner-circle stuff. I love that the url for the site is actually trick.ly (no dot-com).

Lunch, by the way, was ace. The company was astute and dynamic and authentic. I drank green tea and ate parmigiana. Then there was a sun shower. The end.

I’ve come to accept very recently that it is our personal responsibility to be our own information gatekeepers. Everyone around me is constantly complaining how they’re overloaded. They can’t keep up with email. Their iphone is driving them mental. Blah blah blah. It’s time, I think, we realised that the greatest challenge our generation faces is controlling how we receive information. This much we know: we WILL continue to be flooded. Unless we install our own boundaries. No one else will do it for us.

The new wisdom is knowing this. The new status is being in control of it.  The new power is having firm boundaries. Like, for instance, standing tall and proud and declaring you only check email twice a day. Or boldly deciding you work a four-day week. Or not taking your phone out with you when you have dinner with someone you wish to explore intimacy with. I’ve experimented with all this. And more.

To this end another nifty little tip for stemming the tide of group work emails onto one’s phone, from timesonline.

You might have noticed that Amazon carousel book thingo I’ve stuck on my site. It’s a bunch of books that I love, that have made my life better, and that I mention on this blog at some point. Bad idea? Annoy you at all?

To be upfront: if you buy the books via that widget I get some affiliate percentage for suggesting it to you. But I thought it might be handy for some…hmmm….

My philosophy right now: small, nice, gentle changes to the way you do things can drag you from the biggest of ruts and bored sludges. Little creaky movements to the left or right. Do-able shifts.  Like, sometimes I part my hair on the other side. Or write in a different location (yesterday I hung out at the Surry Hills library). Small, gentle shifts make life feel fresh. But keep it small, otherwise they don’t happen.

If you feel the same way,  you might want to give this little app a crack. Omm Writer is a beautiful, FREE!! download

Check out this new online gizmo. Web 2.0 Suicide Machine allows you to wipe yourself from social networking. Forever.

become as free as a REAL bird

Web 2.0 Suicide Machine can strike you off Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. At the press of a button.

As the site says,  be as free as a real bird. A 2010 resolution, perhaps? To free yourself from the relentless tinkering with and preening of your social network sites?

I am very much hesitant about why I have a Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn presence. It all seems rather counter-intuitive to my search for simplicity and LESS in all aspects of my life.