Internet Efficiency

I have wasted a lot of time in recent years on the Internet. It only got worse when Mike got me my own ibook last summer and I didn't have to share with him. Over the last two months I have come up with some things that have allowed me to read blogs, email, write this blog, facebook, myspace, flickr... without loosing so much quality time with my family.

1. I read this great post on email efficiency at SimpleMom. It has saved me a lot of time in emails.
2. I found that on the bottom of blogger I can write several blog posts at once and set the time and date that I want them to post. This has helped me think ahead and plan what I want to post.
   
3. I joined Bloglines. Instead of checking each blog on my bookmarks one at a time (which I spent SO much time doing) I entered them into my Bloglines feed and now I have to go to one place online to get all of my blogs. The best part is that it updates for you. So that you don't have to go to each individual post hoping that it has been updated only to find out it hasn't. It lets you know what blogs have new posts!
   
4. Generally, I get on the Internet for only 30 minutes at a time 2-3 times on weekdays and I am trying to write my blog entries when Mike is working on Sundays. That was a loose rule I had to set for myself because it was very easy for me to spend D's entire nap time on here or an entire night.
   

I said earlier last week that I had heard a wise women say that when you work on one discipline in your life it can't help but spill over into other aspects of your life. This is another example. I have more time to play with Dorothy, talk with Mike, read, pray, clean house and sew! Who'd have thought?

I hope these ideas bless and help some of you. There are other "blog readers" out there for blogs. Google has one and so does Yahoo. I tried Yahoo, but personally didn't like it as much.

Let me know how you are Internet efficient!