After reading Meridith Farkas’ excellent post on the the blogging/tweeting thoughtfulness v. frequency relationship, I was motivated to reflect for a bit on my own recent blog/microblog habits. I have begun to engage more regularly with Twitter (@charbooth) and find that it leads people to my blog posts via alternate routes, and I definitely ascribe to the notion that the relative ease/timeliness of microblogging reduces the amount of insubstantial blog posting I do by taking care of the quick/dirty job of sharing insta-thoughts/quips/finds. I appreciate the format-based separation it seems to be creating between lengthier and shorter reflection in professional discourse, and I also find that (particularly in the case of trending) Twitter generates a short/long-form feedback loop that is strangely satisfying to follow. Last but not least, Twitter finally achieves what I always wanted my various feed readers, etc. to, of floating interesting items I do and don’t already follow to the top of the library blog morass in real time. While I might blog only slightly less because of tweeting, I’m absolutely following the conversation more. For me, all of the above are examples of the “balance” Meridith hopes will develop between these media.
The real reason I post to info-mational less often these days because a) I’m writing so ferociously on other projects, and b) it’s that summer zombie (as in half-dead) zone in academic libraries where so much and so little always seems to be happening at the same time. In my case, summer housecleaning usually results in the discovery of tons of dust-covered projects that are totally unsuitable for the harsh light of day. I have missed blogging lately, so in order to alleviate the sensation that I am neglecting my favorite medium I’m throwing my hat in the Library Day in the Life ring: #librarydayinthelife.
I create a constant push/pull of unattainable productivity expectations and overcomittment (there are 60+ items on cascading post-it lists on my desk at the moment), so I’m going to do this on the Ideal v. Actual model. Each day I’ll outline what I thought (pretended?) I could get done, and on the subsequent day report what I actually accomplished.
Ideal Monday
– investigate citations on syllabi for clickable eReadings project (working with Education/Psychology Librarian and her faculty to create online course readers in bSpace, our local CMS)
– ask webmaster to add Library FAQ link/option to Location not found page and other admin stuff
– communicate with Political Anthro grad student about lib. instruction session tomorrow, re: topics for political object analysis assignment
– troubleshoot FAQ display/linking issues with Systems
– add FAQ items/glossary entries from staff and student submissions
– prepare for instruction session, 1-2 hours
– read through one chapter in Drupal how-to book for local study group, investigate Dupalized library sites at Berkeley
– recall/request long list of recently returned (and unbelievably late) ILL books
Seems doable, but you never really know. Posting this list is actually starting to feel like the world’s most effective productivity tool, because who wants to disappoint themselves publicly? On that note, stay tuned for Actual Monday, Ideal Tuesday.
info-mational 
i like your approach! my colleague and i play this game often: here’s my list of 20 things to do today…and over here are the 2 things i actually did.
right? the ever-humbling reality machine.
My friend taught me that you can get 6 things done in any one day. Once those 6 things are done, you can play. She was dying of cancer at the time, and I accept her wisdom. Works for me.
i totally accept your friend’s wisdom, sherri (not to mention your own). however, i semi-compulsively trend away from even numbers, so i’m going to stick with the magical number seven (which applies in many contexts).