Staying Informed Efficiently!

Efficient strategies for staying informed provide the most value (relevant items) while spending the least amount of time. Strategies for keeping up can be short-term, project-specific or long term. You may want to set up a "current awareness search" when you are looking for new positions or filling in for a colleague in an area not directly related to your area of expertise. Long-term, ongoing strategies can be assigned to others on your staff to monitor, especially if you oversee a variety of disciplines.

Keeping organized makes it all easier. Here are some electronic organization strategies:

• Create an e-mail folder for items that aren't of immediate use, but might be useful in the future. It may be helpful to set-up automatic purge of the folder for items not accessed within a specified period of time.
• Use web browser bookmarks or favorites to store the addresses of sites you will visit frequently.
• Remember, you may still need a physical folder to collect relevant announcements or information -- not all information is available electronically.