How to be more efficient and productive

Seth Godin posts about the “productivity divide” and lists some some qualities that can set you apart.  I’ve pulled out a few here:

Can you open a link you get in an email message?

Do you read more than five blogs a day?

Do you have a signature in your outbound email?

Do you have an RSS reader?

Do have a shortcut for sending mail to the six co-workers you usually write to?

Are you able to find what you’re looking for on Google most of the time?

Do you know how to download a file from the internet?

Do you back up your work?

Do you keep track of contacts using a digital tool?

Do you use anti-virus software?

I would add — because you know I will never shut up about this — that one should always transmit information in the most appropriate medium.  So, for example:

• If you need to make contact with several people, email, don’t call call.  (A colleague of mine once confirmed an interview with a producer.  Meanwhile, the host called me to confirm and when I didn’t pick up the phone, called my colleague, who coincidentally was also away from her desk.  We then both called back the host.  This could all have been avoided had the producer responded to my colleague and copied all parties.)
• But if you do email, email only the people who need to see the message.  It may be appropriate to Reply All on an interview confirmation; you probably don’t need to do that just to say “Thanks.”
• Any time a lot of names and addresses need to be exchanged — which happens frequently in publicity — this information should be transmitted in an Excel document because then the information can easily be imported / mail merged to make letters / labels / etc.  Typing names into a Word document is like writing a book in Excel.  (If that sounds familiar it’s because, yes, I’ve said that before.)