This is a guest post by Hannah Katsman. Hannah and Hadassah Levy gave a fabulous presentation at the Kishor social media conference on Tips and Tricks for Social Media Time Management, and I asked if she would write a guest piece for this blog.

In our talk to Jewish professional women on time management and social media, we wanted to address two contradictory concerns: when it comes to social media some people don’t know where to start, while others can’t seem to stop! The concept of social media, or just learning one new platform, can be overwhelming on top of an already hectic schedule. But once you do get the hang of it, social media may eat up time needed for other important work.

No one is an expert at every platform, and it’s essential to allow a generous amount of time for learning. But once you become comfortable, you can set aside time to update status and respond to contacts. Time spent on social media should be devoted to building relationships, making connections, and answering questions.

Social media like Facebook and Twitter can be compelling and even addictive. One attraction is anticipating a response to an email, comment or status message. This anticipation keeps our adrenalin up and prevents us from focusing on more productive work. While some important discussions take place in real time, when we sense the adrenalin going up it may be a signal that it’s time to turn off the software or website. The response will wait until we get back.

Tools are important.

If you find yourself repeating a particular task, chances are that someone has invented a way of automating it.

Women, especially mothers, are used to multi-tasking. Writing a grocery list while waiting for a doctor’s appointment is an effective use of time. But when we switch between windows and tasks on the computer, our minds take time to adjust. Answering an important email makes us feel like we accomplished something, but it costs us our concentration. Frequent responses to email and status messages makes us less productive, not more.

To minimize distractions and multi-tasking, I suggested a technique called Pomodoro. Spanish for tomato, the name recalls a standard kitchen timer. Pomodoros are uninterrupted 25-minute blocks of  time. Large tasks are broken down into a number of pomodoros. For a lengthy blog article you might need four. Smaller tasks, like replying to emails or updating Facebook, can be combined into one. Tasks that come up in the middle of a pomodoro get noted and added to a future one. At the end of the day, you have a written record to analyze how you spent your time.

Other speakers emphasized a point often mentioned by Debra: To get results from social media, you need a strategy. This is the best time-management tool of all. When you sit down at the computer, keep your goals in mind. Use the tactics and platforms that generate results for your business or non-profit, and drop the rest.

Hannah Katsman (pictured) was born in the US and moved to Israel nearly 20 years ago. She writes on parenting and life in Israel at A Mother in Israel. In her newest project, Cooking Manager, she helps home cooks save time and money in the kitchen. You can find her on Twitter at @mominisrael and her fan page, Facebook.com/CookingManager.

Hadassah Levy of Jewish Ideas Daily helped prepare the talk, and designed the Powerpoint presentation.