Here are 12 of my favorite ways to save time, with special attention to social media and marketing. For those times when you might feel tempted by the lure of procrastination, also check out my 7 Quick Tips for Overcoming Procrastination.
The Big Picture
1. Keep your goals top of mind. Is what you’re doing right now helping you to accomplish your goals? What can you stop doing? (Check out my blog articles 
Saving Time and Effort to Free Up Energy for What Matters Matters Most and How Do You Know When It’s Time to Let Go of a Product or Service for tips.)
2. Partner with other noncompetitive organizations and leaders to amplify your efforts and compare experiences. Just be judicious in picking the right collaborators and watching your time spent.
Social Media, Marketing & Your Brand
3. Monitor mention of your brand and related keywords through free tools like Google Alerts, Talkwalker and Social Mention. If you do an advanced search in Twitter it automatically saves your search parameters make it quick and easy to repeat.
4. Staying on top of the news in your industry and profession is critical but easier said than done. Use a news filter like Feedly as a central place to read your favorite sources. Follow the topics, companies and thought leaders you’re most interested in on LinkedIn and Twitter to get quick updates.
5. Use Twitter Lists to filter your specific information needs. A Twitter lists is simply a list you set up of Twitter users. You could set up a list of media, competitors, clients, members, donors, etc. How-to instructions from Twitter are here.
6. Judiciously schedule social media posts through a free tool like Hootsuite or Buffer. Schedule your Facebook posts directly through Facebook as a number of experts say the Facebook algorithm favors this approach vs. using an external scheduler.
Scheduling Caveats:
- Be prepared to change your automated social media posts in case of a crisis or national event that inadvertently could make your tweets or posts seem inappropriate or poorly timed.
- Also, I do not recommend posting your tweets to Facebook as they tend to look out of place. In general, it’s best not to post the same wording to several social media sites as you should try to vary what you post where and word them differently suited to the tone and environment of each.
7. Focus your social media efforts on a few sites where you will best reach your most important audiences and goals unless you have staff to cover more. Spreading yourself too thin trying to cover too much ground without the resources to do it well can be counterproductive.
8. Review which kinds of automated alerts and emails you get from LinkedIn Groups, Twitter, Facebook, et al to make sure they match what uses your time and serves your needs best.
General Productivity
9. Pause and review critical emails, tweets, and posts to make sure they are accurate, sound appropriate, and are typo-free. Watch out for errant autocorrects on your devices to avoid embarrassment. This might sound counter intuitive, but spending a few minutes or waiting to send that critical email or post could save you a world of time and angst later.
10. Do your most creative, thought intensive work when you are freshest. Group similar activities together to be more efficient, such as email, social media/blog commenting, reading. Try to tackle, delete or electronically file items as you go through them so you don’t spend time on them more than once, and answer things that can be handled with a quick answer. Also group errands in similar close proximity together.
11. Put time slots in your calendar for important activities that you want to get done like networking for when it is easiest to fit it in (for example Friday afternoons). Try out a productivity tool like Evernote to organize your notes, projects, and tasks and syncs across your devices.
12. Keep a workout bag stocked and handy to make it easy to get exercise to give you more energy, a fresh outlook and staying healthy. If you travel frequently, keep your cosmetics bag stocked and ready to go to save packing time.
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