A year ago I posted Why I Won’t Like You in 2011 before I post some thoughts for working differently in 2012 I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look back and see how I fared against the 2011 version.

See the original post for a detailed explanation of each item

1. “Like” Less Often – I didn’t count the number of times I clicked Like in 2011 vs 2010, but I believe I used the Like button less and commented more, something I hope to continue in 2012.

2. Inbox Zero – so the goal was not really zero it was to end every workday with the inbox not scrolling.  There were months at a time where I managed to stick to this goal, and months at a time where I wasn’t even in the ballpark. In 2012 I have to continue to manage the inbox and make sure the items requiring my attention can be found and focused on.

3. Comment More on Blogs I read – again I don’t have absolute numbers to compare, but I know I made an effort to comment when I found something helpful, or had a different opinion.

4. Share Differently – one of my goals was to consolidate more posting to one place (posterous) which I think I accomplished (135 posts to posterous in 2011 vs 38 in 2010).  I definitely allowed this effort to be somewhat derailed when Twitter introduced their own photo sharing service earlier in the year, which I have to admit I am a fan of, have to think a little more about when Twitter is the right place to upload a photo and when posterous is more appropriate.

The best new tools of 2011 for me were

ThinkUp – providing me with a personal archive of my Twitter, Facebook, and now Google+ Activity.

Buffer – an easy way to spread sharing of links out over time

ifttt – if this then that, I shared my favorite ifttt recipe a few weeks ago, look for more about ifttt in my 2012 post.

Spool – I blogged about Spool in November, I no longer use Instapaper at all, Spool is my only tool for saving items to read later.

Did you change any habits in 2011? Find any new tools that saved you time? If you did please share them in a comment.

This is not a New Years resolutions post, these are just some ideas I have to change the way I share, and work in the new year.

1. “Like” Less Often – I know Facebook is on a mission to place a “Like” button on every page of the internet (yes including this one).   I almost never use the Facebook Like buttons outside of Facebook, if there is something I “Like” I generally prefer to share it in to my stream, usually with a comment.  On Facebook though it is a different story, the Like button has become a cheap substitute for actually commenting, I want to try to “Like” less and comment more (I am referring more to Statuses and Links, than Photos here)

I really prefer the Follow term used in Lotus Connections 3.0, when I Follow something I indicate I have interest in it, where as Like indicates I have something to say I am just not saying it.

2. Inbox Zero – it’s not realistic, or even in my control, so I am not even going to try.  Last year I tried to keep my inbox to less than one page (i.e. “no scroll”) I know I was successful for a good few months, then it all fell apart.  Having spent time at the end of last year restoring my inbox to sanity, I would now like to keep it that way.  A few things to try to help me

• Unsubscribe from any legitimate e-mail I get but don’t read
• Block more subjective SPAM with my personal Lotus Protector block list
• Use mail rules to block or folder messages I can not block for various reasons but don’t read
• Use Conversation mode more and eliminate repetitive messages

3. Comment More on Blogs I read – along the lines of number 1 above, be better at taking time to leave a comment on a blog to thank the author for help, agree, respectfully disagree, or otherwise.  It is easy to read and move on,  more difficult to remember to stop and give feedback.

4. Share Differently – one thing I keep noticing is that I am spreading content all over the place, here on my blog, twitter, Flickr, Google Reader, Twitpic, Posterous (aka curiousmitch.net), just to name a few.  This is what drove me to create my “Lifestream” site last year.  While I haven’t really promoted it (I guess I am now), I use it as my site URL in some of my online profiles, and now have it linked on the header of this site.  While I need to find more time to work on it, I intend it to be a one stop shop to capture my online activity (minus Facebook). 

In addition to bringing all the activity together in one place, I also want to re-think how and where I share stuff, for example Twitpic, most Twitter clients do a terrible job of attaching the Tweet to the photo, so you wind up with a bunch of photos with no context.  I could switch to another photo service, and spread stuff to yet another service, something I would prefer not to do.  Another example is certain links, cartoons, articles that get shared on Twitter, some really are intended to be tweeted, and gone in an hour but other content I would like to have saved as more than a tweet.  I also don’t want to clutter this site with every photo, cartoon, etc that I want to share.  I am going try to use Posterous more for this type of sharing.  As I mentioned when I migrated to WordPress, I thought about moving to Posterous, but did not feel it was ready (though since I migrated they have released an Android app), and while you could argue that I am creating “just another blog” I am going to use the Posterous site (aka curiousmitch.net) more for sharing photos, etc, and this site for the content you are used to seeing here.  I hope this will help limit the number of places I share data, and make it easier for myself and others to go back and find something later on.

I am also playing with Memolane, I see that as more of a personal search and history, rather than a public one at least for now.  Trunk.ly is another new site which does a nice job of collecting your shared links from Twitter, Facebook, and Delicious, into an easily searchable format, these are excellent tools that are aggregating existing content, not a place to create new content.

That’s all for now, there are a few more ideas rattling around my brain, but I will let them rattle a little longer.   Would love to hear your thoughts on these items, and any other ideas you might have to change the way you work or share in the new year.