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In a worldwide study sponsored by Nortel, IDC found a considerable number of what it calls "hyperconnected" users -- those using at least seven devices and nine applications. The survey covered nearly 2,400 working adults in 17 countries.

The hyperconnected accounted for 16 percent of the population in the study. They are using gadgets ranging from phones to laptops to PDAs and even car-based systems. Applications being used on these devices include Web 2.0 applications, such as Twitter, Second Life, and wikis. Also prominent are applications like text messaging, instant messaging, and Web conferencing. Behind the hyperconnected were the "increasingly connected," who use four devices and as many as six applications and account for 36 percent of the population.

Dan Sullivan (The Strategic Coach) teaches us about three types of days: Focus day:  A day when 65-85 percent of your time is spent during your work day doing activities that generate income. Buffer day:  This is a day where the majority of your time is spent handling the "behind the scenes" or administrative functions necessary to support your income-generating activities. Free day:  This is a full 24-hour period during which you do NO work or work-related activities, including checking voice mail or email.

1. In order to plan an activity, I consciously think about WHY I am doing it. Here are some questions that I ask myself: Is this activity moving me towards or away from my core goals for the year? Will this activity generate income? Is this activity a necessary part of supporting my core activities? If this is a support activity, is it something I can delegate to someone else so I can have more free or focus time?

Web 2.0 may look set to conquer the world, but it has yet to win over the 69 percent of Americans who failed to qualify as "elite tech users." That's the message from a Pew Internet & American Life report that came out today and provides a glimpse at how people in the US—not just techies—use and feel about the technology in their lives. The report, titled "A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users" (PDF), breaks Americans into three general categories: elite tech users (31 percent of adults), middle-of-the-road tech users (20 percent of adults), and those with few tech assets (49 percent of adults). Pay particular attention to that last number; though technology marches on, half of all Americans use it only lightly or not at all. When the numbers are broken down further, a full 15 percent of all US adults have neither cell phones nor Internet connectivity.

Those with "few tech assets" make up 49 percent of the US adult population. Many of them have some form of access to the Internet, and most have cell phones, but technology "does not play a central role in their daily lives." Instead of being liberating, constant connectivity is "annoying," and many older users have trouble even navigating the Internet. The 15 percent of Americans who don't use cell phones or the Internet tend to be in their mid-60s with lower levels of income and education, according to the report.

The rate and density of information flow has been rising exponentially since the end of the Second World War. The arrival of television networks, electronic printing presses, satellites, cheap data routers, the computer and the internet have meant that information flow and processing have never been faster, easier, cheaper or more far-reaching. Whilst this potentially increases news flow, diversity and opinion, in reality the counter-pressures of market forces and corporate conglomeration, which has led to a virtual media monopoly where only a handful of multinationals now own and control the vast majority of mainstream media outlets, have meant that there has actually been an overall contraction in information diversity and opinion. Mainstream media is now almost invariably mass-produced, corporate-friendly, nationalistic and unchallenging, hooking the audience with a riveting milieu of banality, fear, violence, hatred, and sex.

How much of the information we process every day, and the communications we participate in (with varying degrees of engagement), actually provides us with useful (actionable) knowledge and useful capacities? Very little, I would argue. Just as most of our processed and 'fast' foods give us mostly empty calories and nothing of nutritional value (and lots that is toxic), so too, most of our information 'diet' is empty entertainment, designed to make us feel better without actually making us intellectually 'healthier' (and sometimes making us intellectually unhealthy).

After a bit of thinking I came up with a little surprise. Consider your rate of inputs ("I") vs. rate of outputs ("O"). We have these possibilities: I >> O (far more coming in that going out) I > O (a bit more coming in "") I ~= O (approximately equal) I < O (a little less coming in "") I << O (far fewer incoming than outgoing)

Drowning and desperate. This is that "utterly out of control" feeling, the sense that you'll never, ever be able to catch up. This is the source of big backlogs of email and paper. Work is falling through the cracks, and you have a reputation of "Better follow up in person or it probably won't get done." Grievously unsustainable Sinking (maybe slowly, maybe fast). This is the sense of "I just can't quite keep up," and leads to an overall anxiety about work. Your inboxes are increasing, with occasional "binge" emptying happening. Unsustainable Steady state, but brittle. You're just able to keep up if it's "a good day," but the slightest lag in work means you start falling behind - a day or two, say. And vacation or a trip? You'd better block out a good chunk of time blocked out to pay your "vacation tax." Brittle (one of the 10 GTD "holes" I identified) Smooth sailing. You've got some amount of buffer built in to your life. You can afford a few days of letting things pile up, and emptying is not usually a problem. Sustainable Couch potato/proactive monster. You have plenty of buffer. You can take off a week or two, say, and catch up with no sweat. Coasting