When Twitter began getting a lot of attention with a regular audience I decided to check it out. Upon playing around with my acount, I could see how it may become pretty useful. About 1,000 tweets later it became a little boring to me – I wasn’t really captivated and certainly did not enjoy the user experience.

While thousands of other people continued to use Twitter I began to fade off. For a few reasons it wasn’t really holding my attention. Maybe if I had 10,000 followers it would have been different? Most likely, but that’s something we’ll never know. One of the main reasons my attention was drawn elsewhere is due to the time it takes away from my productivity. Yes, I know a tweet takes 10 seconds….but it’s more than just “tweeting”. I’m not one to think that everything revolves around me nor should it so I enjoy conversation, dialogue and interactions. What good is it for me to just spout out news I find and tell people what’s new with me? Bor. Ing. Instead, I need to interact by retweeting other posts, reply to tweets, follow other people, AND share what I find.

As of a few days ago Twitter began rolling out their new interface. I’m one of the lucky ones who got access by the second day…and I’m thrilled. This interface absolutely changes the user experience for the better in every way possible…in my opinion.

One of the key elements is the (nearly) non-existent page refresh. If you click on a twitter user, instead of going to their page, it opens to the right of the window – it’s fantastic. Along with that, you can follow someone’s tweets easier, follow/unfollow far quicker, navigate more smoothly, and @ mention people similar to how facebook works. Of course those are general highlights of the update.

So why did I bother to write about this? It’s simple – now I’m back in twitter and pumped to use it again. The interface allows me to be more productive than previously which is a huge help. Obviously I still have to put time into it but with these changes it certainly makes the time involvement more attractive.

It’s one of the nicest “long” weekends that many people have, at least here in the North East. The weather is typically beautiful as it’s a moderate temperature, very few clouds in the sky, and fall is in the air. Sitting outside is nearly impossible to pass up while you realize “Hey, I don’t have to go to “work” on Monday, Sweet!”. Of course there are those of us who don’t have to go to a job during the week…but you catch my drift, right?

Something that I’ve recently come to think about is how much “work” we put into our business(es). Something I will always stand behind is that we, here in America anyway, “work” too much. The typical 40-hours a week is practically a minimum now-a-days as most corporate america employees work well over 40, sometimes up to 60 hours a week. To me, that’s just insane. Better yet, I don’t even think it’s healthy. Do you think we are meant (by a higher power, or whatever you may believe in) to spend 40, 50 or even 60 hours of our lives each week devoted to “working”? I…really doubt it. Even doctors and scientists have stated that we’re generally killing ourselves.

It’s no surprise when I say stress is a bad thing, right? And how many people are stressed on a daily basis? Unfortunately we’ve turned into a “get more done in less time” society over the past decade, and while it may have helped to grow a lot of companies, it hasn’t done just as much good in people’s lives.

So, as this weekend comes and goes, I hope you take time to relax, get together with family/friends, de-stress, enjoy the good in your life, and think about time-management. Personally, I’ve spent an entire day and a half doing, practically, no “work”. As much as I’ve wanted to be productive there is a need to pause, sit down, and soak in the down-time.