As for email, I understand the difference. You are using email to bring you a lot of your publishing research. Mine is mostly faux emergencies or tasks. This illustrates that as with any advice you need to tailor it to your business objectives and scenarios.

Thanks for the great comment Bruce.

As for email, I understand the difference. You are using email to bring you a lot of your publishing research. Mine is mostly faux emergencies or tasks. This illustrates that as with any advice you need to tailor it to your business objectives and scenarios.

Thanks for the great comment Bruce.

As for email, I understand the difference. You are using email to bring you a lot of your publishing research. Mine is mostly faux emergencies or tasks. This illustrates that as with any advice you need to tailor it to your business objectives and scenarios.

Thanks for the great comment Bruce.

For article research I use simple tools & techniques, but I will list in case they are not obvious. Literally they are laid out in my email or browser in priority order so I don't need to think through my process each time. I am sorry this is running long for a comment, but not sure what is obvious and what is trivial.

I receive daily google email alerts on a couple of topics of interest to me (Cadillac CTS, Caddyinfo).
I use filing by folder to segregate emails upon receipt by topic based on specific filters.
I use bookmarks set for specific sites in order of priority to scan for relevant information — Cadillac, Competitors, Other Automotive, Other Interest. For this I directly scan 4-12 automotive forums & news sites. I spiral from Automotive news, to GM specific, to Cadillac specific, to Competitor Specific sites.
I use a specific 'live' google search phrase for Cadillac with filters for non-relevant to me items that may involve “Cadillac” such as the Bucs (Cadillac William) or Tiger Woods (Cadillac Escalade).
I follow up with a google blog search in some cases using the same phrasing.
I have specific search bookmarks for ebay, cars.com, autotrader.com, etc to monitor market and look for interesting examples that may be article ready.
I use tweetdeck for twitter, with columns set as searches for Cadillac, Caddyinfo, and specific other phrases of the day — right now for the NAIAS (Detroit Auto Show) related content. So right now my tweetdeck has 7 columns across with different content scans in each.
I use twitter tools, an add-on to wordpress on my blog to accumulate and republish my daily tweets as a blog entry overnight, and to echo blog entry titles as tweets. So besides the normal tweet value, I am always conscious that I am also tweeting 'to the record' so my readers can review my tweets in digest form on the blog.
The Forums have direct RSS feeds from GM News, Cadillac's blog, and Burnout Radio for news. They also have direct RSS feeds from ebay for specific Cadillac searches.
I get email updates from subscribed relevant video feeds on youtube so I can review to determine if they are of interest.
I use online/uptime monitoring for the forums that sends me % uptime by day and alerts if the site goes down.

Once I find content of interest, some articles go to twitter only, some become new Blog posts, (echo'd to the forum and twitter), some go to the Caddyinfo Cadillac forums for open discussion. Some topics of interest go only to my facebook page for side discussion.

My goal for a single 'scan' session is 30 minutes, with tweets and multiple forum posts as an output. Longer for a blog entry, but I tend to think about them over time and then write them when I am ready to comment on a topic. So an actual blog post article does not take much time to write, although it takes time to author.

I tend to scan my email first, but I respect your choice to do research pre-email. I get email alerts if the site is down, if a vendor has a question or change needed, or if a member has a question in the forum. I also scan & respond to forum questions, blog comments, and user admin as part of my email processing.

@SalesSigma on Twitter noticed my 5 important steps seems to have grown to 8. I guess it's a little harder to keep that sales process moving forward than I first thought.

Enjoy the 3 bonus tips. They're on the house.

I think you bring up an important point: “these tasks presented when I come to the computer.” I think it is so important to have your day, tasks, or execution ready to go when we step into the office or up to our computer.

I'm curious are there any particular tools (software or manual) that you use to help you maintain this system?

Can't agree more with time away — the best part of personal branding is personality — so you should have some rich things that you are doing away from your main game / dialog to bring to the discussion. If you feel your productivity is down, go spend time away and get replenished, then come back in a burst and proceed.