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How To Tweet in Just 5
Minutes a Week
If you’re among the Twitter addicts who update multiple times
per day this post won’t be of very much use. For those of you
who are slowly moving away from Twitter because you don’t
have the time for daily interaction, keep reading!
There are three primary reasons why users fail to update their
Twitter streams:
1. Lack of interest – You used Twitter for a few months but
never really connected with other users.
tweeting for clients that updating your own page feels
like too much work.
3. Lack of time – You invested a lot of time on Twitter back
in the day but quickly found that you spent too much time
on the site for what you got out of the experience.
In light of the near-fact that short-form text communications
are here to stay, you should consider giving Twitter another
try. Why?
• Twitter.com/yourusernamehere will always rank well on
search engines. When future employers/spouses/long
lost friends search for you online it’s a good idea to have
your primary search results display recent and relevant
results.
• As your clients embrace Twitter they’ll start looking you
up as a person to follow. Just as it’s difficult to trust
a 500lb treadmill salesperson, it may be unsettling for
clients to find your personal Twitter stream outdated and
uninteresting.
• It only takes 5 minutes a week to maintain a relevant and
up-to-date Twitter presence.
That’s right. It only takes five minutes a week. How? Try this:
1. Sign up for a 3rd party platform that allows you to
schedule tweets ahead of time. I recommend CoTweet
because its function is straightforward and the interface
is easy to navigate. TwitResponse and Hootsuite also
include scheduled tweet functions.
2. Give your chosen service access to your Twitter account
and familiarize yourself with how to update your page
from it. Make sure you’re logged in to Twitter.com to
make easy work of granting OAuth access to your tweets.
(It’s okay if that doesn’t entirely make sense to you.
CoTweet’s step-by-step sign-up process will walk you
through.)
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 3. Pick a day for your 5-minute Twitter session. Put it on
your schedule as a repeat event and stick with it.
4. Write 5 tweets. Choose from a statement, a link to
something you enjoy, a link to something one of your
followers wrote, a celebration of your followers, an @
reply, something zany you overheard, a question, or an
RT of something you find interesting.
5. Write your tweets and schedule them for the coming
week. You can work in a pattern or mix it up. Either way,
you’ll have a Twitter page that is personable, interesting,
current, and useful.
And it only takes 5 minutes.
Follow Lifehack.org here for a mix of scheduled and entirely
spontaneous tweets!
I'm an editor here at Stepcase Lifehack. I know the value
of long walks, good books, joyful repartee, and a well-made
martini. Say hello in the comments here, find me on my blog
or hit me up for a follow on Twitter.
You can stay relevant with only 5 tweets a week? I guess
it depends on what your goals are for using Twitter. If you
represent a business, I’d say you need a little more engagement
than that. I tweet for my company and try to tweet at least 10
times per day with a lot of focus on connecting with others. The
more you can get your name out there, the better. Any other
thoughts?
I like the idea, and I think scheduled tweets are good, but
I think you should get on Twitter daily and spend a couple
minutes replying to some people because it seems to me that
replying to someone a week later isn’t very personable.
You make a very important comment regarding your ‘web
impression’. But is ’some tweets’ better than ‘no tweets’? I tend
to agree with you that if people are looking for you, then it
is good to be found – provided you realise you will always be
found!
@Lauren – note that I didn’t mention Tweeting in a business
sense except for those who also use Twitter for work. This
approach probably won’t work as well for a commercial
account.
@Andrew – in this case, it’s a decision between 5mins/week
and not at all. Most don’t have the time or interest to check in
on something daily that doesn’t entirely capture their interest.
It may be one option, but it’s the anthesis of social media’s
value, which lies in engagement, authenticity, real time
exchange… Like so many things in life, you get back what you
put in.
I only tweet when I have something to rant about or want to
pass on some good info I found!
How to Feel Inspired When
You’ve Lost Motivation
Some days you wake up and right when you are going to
begin your work, you feel a presence within you that stops you
from doing so. You sit down, but you sit down quietly this
time. Suddenly, that feeling where you once were so passionate
and energized to take action just isn’t there anymore. You
try to hype yourself up but it’s not working, and everything
you do seems to be counterintuitive. You face the truth. You
don’t want to work today and you don’t feel motivated to do
anything but just escape. Without this motivation, you feel a
little hopeless, lost, and stuck.
Sometimes we get stuck in a rut. If you’re not a hundred
percent passionate about your work, then it’s impossible to
wake up everyday feeling motivated when you wake up. You
might compare it to the ocean. Sometimes you’ll wake up
feeling like a tsunami, other time you’ll feel like just barely
drifting to shore. When you feel like drifting to the shore,
understand that it doesn’t always have to feel like there’s no
hope. You can still feel inspired when there’s no motivation.
1. Connecting the Dots
“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” –Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs at a Stanford commencement speech said that
giving this speech the students was the closest thing he came
to graduating college. He’s never finished college. He recalls
that the working class savings that his parents had made their
entire life was being spent on his tuition on a college he says
was as almost as expensive as Stanford. After 6 months, he
couldn’t see the value in it and dropped out. Not knowing
where to go in life, he decided to take a class in calligraphy. He,
however, didn’t see any practical application for it in life.
Ten years later, they were designing the first Macintosh
computer, and it all came back to him. He used the ideas that
he had learned in calligraphy class, including the different
types of typography, and put it in the Mac. It was the first
computer to have beautiful typography, which has affected
the different types of typography that we use today. If he had
never dropped out in collage, he would have never taken that
calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the
wonderful typography that they do today.
Sometimes when you’re trying to reach a goal, it’s impossible
to connect the dots where you currently are. Somehow you just
have to trust in yourself, and have faith that you will reach
your dreams, despite not having the slightest clue or perfectly
laid out road to where you are going. Nobody can connect
the dots looking forward; you only can connect them when
you’re looking backwards. You have to trust that the dots will
2
somehow connect in the future; you have to trust in something,
whether it’s karma or destiny, but trusting yourself is the first
step towards feeling inspired and having the motivation to
move forward.
2. Allowing Your Environment to
Predetermine Your Mood
“There is a direct correlation between an increased sphere of
comfort and getting what you want.” –Timothy Ferriss
Tim Ferriss has always advocated the idea of using your
environment to your advantage. He believes that controlling
your environment is often much more effective than relying
on self discipline. He finds that he writes the best between the
hours of midnight and 1 AM to 3 to 4 in the morning. As he
is writing, he will put a movie in the background so it will feel
like he is in a social environment, even though the entire movie
is on mute. Next to him may be a glass of tea. This is what
puts him in the mood to do quality writing and make him so
successful.
Look around your room right now or your workspace. Does it
inspire you? Does it give you motivation? Is it noisy or quiet?
Sometimes the hardest thing we do to ourselves is try to force
ourselves to work in an area that is subconsciously telling us,
“I can’t work here.”
And when you are constantly trying to discipline yourself, you
will feel worse and be less productive. Instead try to build
your ideal workplace and ideal time. Free it from distractions.
Perhaps add a piece of artwork or a quote of your favorite
person nearby you on the wall. Maybe add a beautiful plant
in the corner to give you inspiration. If you feel more energy
and enthusiasm during the night, schedule your day to work
at midnight if you can. If you can realize the power of having
a productive environment, you will naturally feel inspired and
motivated to get work done.
3. Don’t Work So Hard
“Research now seems to indicate that one hour of inner action
is worth seven hours of out-in-the-world action. Think about
that. You’re working too hard.” –Jack Canfield
Jack Canfield was once giving a speech to an audience. He
tells of a story of a chiropractor who went into his dream
city, near Pebble Beach, and asked chiropractor associate if
they could hire them. They told him no because they had 1
chiropractor for every 8 patients. Instead of letting his external
reality which was out of his control determine his future, he
went back to visualize and think about it, and something would
come to him. He put a pen in his new office one day, and put
concentric circles that he needed to go ask people in town that
he was opening up a new chiropractor office and if they were
interested in joining.
Over 6 months he knocked on 12,500 doors, talked to 6,500
people, and gathered over 4000 names to the people who
wanted to go to his open house. He opened his chiropractor
in a town he was told there was too many chiropractor. In his
first month in practice, he netted $72,000. In his first year in
practice his gross income was over a million in income.
Now you may look at this and say knocking on 12,500 doors
is hard work. To you it is, but to the man it was probably
effortless. Jack Canfield says there are 2 types of action – outer
and inner. Outer action is actually going out to do the action
– whether it’s networking with people, going door-to-door to
make a sale, or just writing at home. Inner action is other
things like visualization, meditation, and affirmations.
If you’re trying to force your way into taking action, it could be
a sign that you are working too hard. Most people won’t wake
up and waste an hour visualizing, meditating, or affirming, and
the first thing they think about is asking what do I need to do
today? And when they get the answer, they feel miserable, as if
their work suddenly weighs them down. But Canfield says that
if you spend time to focus on your goals, you’ll receive good
feelings – feelings that help you feel inspired and motivated to
take real action.
Don’t try to paddle upstream. That’s just basically going
everyday saying to yourself that you need to force yourself to
work every day. Instead, paddle along the stream of the river.
Trust yourself, let your environment work in your favor, and
spend some a little bit of time putting yourself in a state before
you work. Inspiration will come to you from different ways –
inside and out – and give you the motivation to guide yourself
towards reaching your dreams.
Gerard Arcos image
Hulbert Lee writes an inspiration blog at From Bottom Up. The
people he writes about include famous entrepreneurs, famous
celebrities, and famous leaders. If there's one message that
these people can offer, he wants to deliver that message to his
readers to inspire them and to help them succeed in life. Visit
his blog here.
Interesting that you should post this. I had just written about
my recent lack of motivation on my personal blog! It seems I’ve
lost focus when it comes to my studies. Anyway, thanks for the
great writing as always. I’ll be working on applying what you
said!
It’s always good to know how to find your inspiration and
how to come up with fresh ideas. here is an interesting related
article http://blog.cyclope-series.com.....s-at-work/
The author of this article should get a bit more motivation in
the “Reading over your blog to clean up gratuitous spelling/
grammar errors” department.
This would’ve been a good article had it not been marred by
grammatical errors. It’s a shame because I think a thorough
copy edit would’ve highlighted what are relatively minor
mistakes.
‘He put a pen in his new office one day, and put concentric
circles that he needed to go ask people in town that he
was opening up a new chiropractor office and if they were
interested in joining.’
To me, that doesn’t seem clear. Like I say it’s shame because
it’s an interesting article. Perhaps someone could make a few
edits and repost it?
Great post, Hulbert! One thing you mentioned a few times is
trusting yourself and that truly is key. It’s also easier for some
than for others. I think we should all take time to think about
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what we want out of life. Once you have big goals and feel
excited about them, the world suddenly opens up to you. I find
countless sources of inspiration these days after starting to see
results from serious goal-setting. It also helps to take things
day by day.
Hey guys, thanks for all the nice comments. I know there was
some criticism here, and I wanted to say thank you for that as
well. I will definitely work on my flaws and try to make better
posts next time. Again, thank you everyone for your feedback.
Some interesting points, but the article didn’t really flow
very well. The introductory set a general theme, but didn’t
introduce the three points, or explain how they were
connected. The third point was also inconsistent in length with
the other two points. I know its a little nit picky, but this article
had so much potential.
Nice post, clever uses of quotes. Having an inspiring
environment is very important in my opinion. My work area
has to be clean, organised and happy for me to be at my best. :)
Buenas tardes. Soy el fotógrafo que realizó la foto que ilustra
esta entrada del blog. Les agradecería que, ya que la usan,
hagan el favor de nombrarme como autor de la foto, de acuerdo
con la licencia que tiene la fotografía.
A very eye opening article, made me think about my work in
a very different way. After reading this article I’m going to
move my studio into my apartment and out of this university
building that is far from motivational.
@Cgs Thanks for your critique and the points you’ve
mentioned. I will take these suggestions into consideration the
next time I write. Thank you again.
@Craig Thanks for the nice words. It’s good to hear that there
are people who support the example of having an inspiring
environment to be more effective at work.
@Robert Hi Robert, it’s awesome to hear that this article
motivated you to move out of your University building. I hope
it works out.
Gerard’s comment says that he is the photographer that took
the photo used in the post and that he’s happy for it to be used
as long as he is credited…
@Jade – Already caught that and updated the link. Google
translate is great… studying Latin will get you pretty far with
reading romance languages as well. =)