Advice for editors: Time is precious; manage it carefully

This continues a series on advice for new top editors in Digital First Media newsrooms.

Time is one of an editor’s and a newsroom’s most precious resources. Spend your time wisely to move your newsroom forward and elevate your digital journalism.

The challenges of digital journalism give you – and your staff – lots more things to do without giving you any more time. To succeed, you need to manage your time – and your staff’s time – efficiently or you will certainly be overwhelmed.

To manage your time effectively, a top newsroom editors must:

• Set priorities.
• Delegate.
• Decide what to stop doing.
• Decide what to do less of.
• Decide where you can accept a lower standard.
• Identify time-wasters.
• Find opportunities to use technology to work more efficiently.

Priorities

Few things an editor does are more important than setting priorities. Decide for yourself how you and your staff should spend your time. The priorities you set will shape other time-management decisions.

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Today’s #twutorial: An update of 2010 Twitter time management tips

Rather than writing an entirely new #twutorial post this week, I have updated my 2010 post on Twitter time management tips. I put my new version on top of the old version in the same URL to avoid duplication (and keep people from reading the old one because it would be higher in Google search results). So click the link above to read my new time management tips.

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Updated Twitter time management tips

I first posted Twitter time management tips in February 2010. I updated them Sept. 4, 2012 as part of my #twutorial series. 

As I visit newsrooms and since I started my #twutorial series of Twitter advice for journalists, people often ask how they squeeze Twitter into their busy days.

At one level, the answer is simple: You make time for what’s important. In my last post I noted why Twitter is valuable for journalists. If something is valuable, you prioritize and figure out how to fit it into your workday.

But I also understand the question and the challenge. Twitter can easily suck up big chunks — or lots of little chunks — of your day. And busy journalists face so many demands in shrunken newsrooms that we have to manage time carefully even with the tools that are valuable.

The tips specific to Twitter are coming shortly. But first a caveat: You need to invest some time learning to use Twitter, especially mastering advanced search and connecting with people in your community. I’m not going to pretend you don’t need to spend some time to learn and to develop a helpful network.

Learning and connecting take some time, but keep in mind that Twitter also saves you time. I’ve already noted how Twitter helps you connect with sources quickly in breaking news stories. You also can use Twitter (once you’ve developed a large, engaged following) to save time in other ways, getting quick answers to questions and finding sources for routine stories. (I’ll do a separate #twutorial post sometime on crowdsourcing.)

Now for the tips on Twitter time management:

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