This is a guest post by Chris Goddard from Affilorama.com – an affiliate marketing training site.

Technology has a habit of embedding itself in our lives – so much so that we start working by its schedule, rather than by our own.

Unfiltered, social media can be too much to handle! image: theVanCats

There isn’t a single application or service that, in my mind, does an excellent job of aggregating multiple social feeds into one manageable interface. (Sorry FriendFeed fans… but I’ve never been satisfied with you!). Hopefully one day there will be, but for now we have to rely on our own time management to navigate the insurmountable torrent of information that passes over our screen and mobile devices each day.

So how do you do it? How do you stay on top of social media without it being all you do?

I follow three basic processes:

1.) Segment

With so many sources, the trouble is knowing what to listen to and what to ignore. One option could certainly be to just block out some of those sources – follow less people, blogs, etc. But that kind of defeats the purpose! Instead, I segment sources by relevant topics and by my level of interest. Applications like Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader all allow you to create sub-lists or “groups” of people or sources.

There are people on my Facebook who I really don’t need to hear from all the time – or people that I’ve added, like old school friends who I’ve accepted mainly to be nice and not out of any real desire to keep in touch. By adding these people to common lists, it’s not only possible to remove them from the stream, but you can also set privacy settings across them so they can only see limited information about you – this is particularly good if you don’t want your boss or new business partner seeing those drunken photos of you in the Santa suit last Christmas.

Twitter is a little trickier. While a lists function has been added it still has a few limitations – mainly that many Twitter apps have yet to support Twitter’s lists – with the exception of Tweetdeck 0.32 and a few others. I rarely use Twitter’s web interface anymore, opting for the in-browser plugin EchoFon (great for receiving updates while you’re working). Once more apps like these incorporate lists, then sifting through Twitter feeds will become a lot easier.

2.) Prioritize

Some sources you want and need to hear from throughout the day, whereas for others once a day is enough. Things like breaking news, new releases, new trending topics, etc, are temporal and are “need to know now,” where as more in-depth analysis, commentary, entertaining and personal can be a once or twice a day thing. The hardest part is disciplining yourself to only look at the segments you should – however I find that by checking my top lists every hour or so, I feel sufficiently “plugged in” to satisfy my appetite for information while not taking too much time to do it. While if I try to go cold turkey and abstain completely – then I just get frustrated! A little moderation is easier.

3.) Follow Well-connected Influencers

Finally – find the people who make staying plugged in easier for you. These are the people who collect information from a variety of sources and republish it. In digital media some of the best examples would be some of the big ‘news services’ like @Mashable, @Techcrunch, as well as a few individuals like @copyblogger, @philipnowak and @rebbeccakelley. These 5 probably account for 80% of the important updates that I get – and therefore are the first 5 that I check. Follow these influencers and you are letting someone else do the work for you.

At the end of the day, the flow of information is too vast and overwhelming to catch it all – it’s like trying to divert a river with your hand. Instead, focus on grabbing the few important bits that are floating by and you’ll stay informed while still being able to achieve something else with your day!

How do YOU stay productive and manage information overflow?

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