Even though daylight savings came earlier this week, somehow my days are not getting longer.  I know we’ve all been there - where does the time go?  How are we supposed to cram more into each day when we have already scheduled out each waking moment?  Add the demands of unforeseen doctor’s visits, car repair needs, family obligations, and sometimes the best we can do is just keep the boat of life moving forward without losing any passengers overboard. Too often putting your head down and plowing through your days means there is little time for personal and professional development.

Life moves fast, yes, but the speed of innovation in technology passes it up in the right lane while life sputters along with it’s blinker on for 25 exits.  I live and breathe technology in my job and when I think I’m up on the latest and greatest I stumble upon (ironic reference to StumbleUpon here) another service, application, site, company, and/or device has come along that requires investigation.

Even though tech advances every nanosecond, you can leverage some basic services to keep abreast of top trends in your respective line of work.  If you don’t have an RSS reader, check out my post here on how they work.  You can quickly sign up for sites of interest and manage all the content in one place.  This saves you visting multiple sites several a day to catch the latest news.  You see snipits and can easily choose what to read and what to ignore.  Using social media for news has become popular as well.  (Don’t worry, I’ll dedicate an entire post to social media next time.)  For now, if you haven't already go sign up for twitter.  You know you’ve wanted to - just go do it!   Spend some time searching for top influencers and publications in your field and Follow them.  (Of course, follow @_workingmother_ too.)  You don’t have to tweet at all if you don’t want to, just use it as a way to connect with information you’re interested in.

Using these simple tools can help you stay on top of what's happening in the world and your profession without requiring a lot of nonexistent time.  I hope you find them helpful.  If you have any other tips to share, please post in comments!

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