The Steve Rubel Tao of productivity

Steve Rubel has been my favourite online productivity Geek for a long time now. He is the senior vice president for Edelman Digital (PR agency) and has often been considered a thought leader on PR, Social media and productivity.

Some of his fantastic reads are on how to make Gmail your nerve center and organising feeds on Google Reader, a topic I love spending time thinking about, you’ll know that he’s someone who is a firehose of information by himself.

I decided to interview him in a series I call the Tao of Productivity. These are a series of interviews with top bloggers who write, blog, speak at conferences, email and still have time to come home to their kids and kiss them good night. Given that we have so much information these days, how is it possible to do all of this without killing the time for blogging and writing? Here’s Steve’s take. I’d like to thank Steve for not only being the quickest to reply but also the only one who spent a lot of time detailing his answers in.

Questions on Routine
What is a typical day for you like? What are the first things you do? Do you have any rituals you follow?
I am fairly fortunate that no two days are typical for me. I travel about seven to 15 days a month (almost all domestic) and attend lots of meetings with our teams, clients, and emerging and established technology companies who can help us advance the art and science of public relations.

My day starts with my iPhone each day around 4:30 or 5 am – weekends too. The alarm wakes me up in the morning. I go through my email first, then Twitter, Facebook and some feeds – all before I get out of bed. It’s a terrible habit I am trying to shake since a few times it has caused me to miss my train. I am trying now to get dressed first then check the Net!

Once I am ready to go I look at my calendar and my to-do list to see what I need to get done today and – ideally – when I am going to manage to squeeze it in. I am trying to master the art of doing everything on my mobile device (short of PowerPoint). In fact, some trips I leave my computer at home.

I hate carrying more stuff than I need. I would like to get to a point where I can ditch my laptop entirely. I just took a four-day trip without a computer and did fine. I have another coming up that’s seven to nine days. That’s probably pushing it, but I am tempted to go laptopless.

My days are filled with lots of meetings. Sometimes I get blocks where I can write or check in on Twitter – it depends on the day. At night I catch up on email and usually read feeds for at least two hours/day to stay current. I also try to do something new with technology everyday. My life is centered around my extended family and friends, my work and technology and I love it.

How do you compose a blog post of yours? Do you write it all down in one shot. Do you write some thoughts and then re-visit it at a later point? Do you use a notebook or a digital device?
It really varies. Sometimes, I will read something, get a whim and just go. Other times, I look down a list I keep of ideas that’s always long and pluck items off. These days I an trying to get more creative in what I do too – trying things like diagrams for example and videos.

Generally speaking I am almost entirely paperless. The only paper I have is a small Moleskine notebook, which I use only for meetings since it’s not good etiquette (yet) to type on my iPhone in a meeting. All of my other notes and ideas are in Gmail, Evernote or text files which sync across devices. I usually will fire these off as emails to myself or to Evernote.

How much of your blog posts are split between reporting and ideation? Do you have a specific number you target like Jim Collins? Or do you write whatever strikes you at that point of time?

Since I am not really writing a news blog, I don’t do a lot of reporting. Instead, I gather a tremendous amount of information – from both primary and third-parties and not always from people I agree with. I then try to pull together a POV of what I think is happening based on what I am hearing from lots of different divergent views. This leads to lists of content ideas for not only Edelman and Edelman Digital clients, but also my own presence.

I don’t have hard targets. Rather, just a general feel for if I am relevant. I ask myself this same question every morning: am I closer to extinction today than I was yesterday. The answer better be “no.”

You seem to keep great tabs on what’s going on around you, how do you track conversations? What tools do you use?

I am using RSS feeds for blogs and news and Twitter replies (although I track the latter more quickly through Twitter clients)

How important is twitter to you? What tools do you use?

It’s extremely important for us and some of our clients – today. Tomorrow we shall see. I am using Seesmic Web at home and in the office and Tweetie on the go. I like to unify all of my tools across my work PC (a desktop), my home/travel computer (a MacBook Air) and my iPhone. For the most part I am there (e.g. I use Evernote on all three) but once Loic launches Seesmic for the iPhone I will be set.

Do you maintain To-Do lists? What do they have on them?
I am a junkie for to do apps. I have tried them all, several times. My latest approach is to keep it simple. I use TaskPaper on the Mac. I have become a huge fan of Hog Bay Software’s products, especially WriteRoom. I sync this list to the cloud, where I access it from work using TodoPaper (a comparable app) and on my iPhone as a text file. I hope to make this one stick!

How do you keep track of your duties and things you need to finish with so much distraction?
My newest technique, which I picked up from Patrick Rhone (http://patrickrhone.com/2009/05/26/my-daily-log/) and Senator Bob Graham (http://thespiralnotebook.wordpress.com/about/), is lifelogging – e.g. logging my day everyday.

Another tip I got from my boss is to everyday do at least one thing I don’t want to do – that’s not so easy!
Finally, I have become a huge fan of mindmapping. I use MindManager on my PC, Mac and iPhone to brainstorm ideas and solutions to problems. I like to mindmap when I am in the air and use the time for ideation and to catch up on correspondence.kpaper list under the heading of “waiting” and check this list at least daily.

You were a prolific blogger, but now you have taken to a new sort of writing – Lifestream. Can you tell us more about this and why?

Back in 2004 to make a name for myself(!) and to engage in conversations with like minded individuals with topics I share a passion for. Today it’s really the latter – though I would like to maintain some level of brand since it helps Edelman.

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