I have been using Twitter  for quite some time now and now i have realized that it actually makes me less productive. Sometimes hours are wasted reading to each and every tweet, searching etc. However Twitter turns out to be an addiction and you cannot neglect it in any way.

So how do we keep a balance between Twitter and stay productive at the same time. Here are some of the methods that will save  your time while you are on twitter :

Twitter for Busy people

Visit Twitter for Busy People and enter your twitter username. You will see a list of maximum 500 people you are following. Hover over a profile and you can see the latest Tweet of that person(See example).

You can even see an entire conversation thread. The site also offers a bookmarklet so that you can easily check the latest updates from your Browser.

Its interesting to see the tweets being categorized into “Tweets in the last hour” and “Tweets in the last day” so you can quickly absorb the tweets and carry on.

Do not ignore Followers with Less updates

When we are busy, we can’t really afford to be active on Twitter all the time. That means you miss out the updates of your less active friends.

To solve this issue visit Twitter100 to see  the most recent updates of a maximum of 100 of your followers. Hence, you don’t miss out those followers who tweet less. The page will auto refresh in every 3 minutes.

Clicking a profile takes you to the follower page where you get to see the tweets of that profile with the same concept.

Use Tweet deck and sort Followers in groups

There must be a wide number of people whom you follow on Twitter. Some are your friends, some may be bloggers, some may be web services and some may be “A Listers”. So it makes sense to group similar people together on Tweetdeck and read the tweets in batches. Saves a lot of time and also helps in choosing what to read and what to skip.

Use a Fake account to Consume Tweets

If you are using twitter to Consume tweets  and gather information, it may be a good idea to create a dummy account and follow everyone there.

At the end of the day you can just scan the tweets in that Twitter account and consume the content. Use your personal account to connect and network with friends and use a dummy account to consume information. This method has Saved Me hours. (Tip: best sites to share music on Twitter)

Post your Blog Updates automatically

You can use TwitterFeed to show your blog updates or updates from an RSS feed automatically as tweets. Saves a lot of time and if  you are offline –  it takes care that your blog updates are shown in your twitter account. If you use Windows live writer, then it might be a good idea to ping Twitter from Windows Live writer )

Get your tweets as an RSS feed

You can create ego surfing Feeds on twitter and get the rss feeds of your tweets in your RSS reader. So at the end of the day you open your rss reader and if there is any mention, you get them as Feeds.

See recommendations with  Mr. tweet

If  you want to see recommendations of whom should you follow try Mr. Tweet. Based upon your tweets, Mr. Tweet recommends you the people you should follow. It also shows you a list of people who are following you but you aren’t following them.

Schedule a Future tweet with TweetLater:

TweetLater allows you to schedule tweets at a later time, send welcome and direct messages and auto follow those who follow you.You can also track keywords with TweetLater. But basically I use this one when i have a future update to be delivered and i am away from the computer. A similar service is Twittertise.com.

Tip: How to schedule emails at a future date

Social too- Automatic Twitter Tool

One of the Best automatic tools for twitter. Once you sign up and complete the procedure you can configure Social too to  – Follow those who follow you , unfollow those who unfollow you and  send an automated direct message to your followers. You can also get daily email messages about who followed or unfollowed you.Just set it up and forget the issue.

Use twitter from Email

If you are a gmail user and prefer doing stuff from email then you should integrate Twitter into your Gmail account. This helps you check your twitter updates and tweet within Gmail without requiring another desktop application to manage the Tweets.

Integrating twitter into your Gmail requires an Add-on to be installed. A simpler procedure might be using  TwitterMail. Just sign up for an account to get your Twittermail email address.Save this address in your contact list and whenever you send an email to  TwitterMail the message appears as a tweet in your twitter account.The added benefits are Sending photos and posting future updates. But I would still prefer using the Gmail Gadget instead.

Tweet From Feeddemon

If you use Feeddemon to read RSS feeds from Windows, why not tweet from Feeddemon, read and reply to tweets and manage your twitter account.

So instead Of checking all your tweets every now and then,process them in batches and you will end up saving more time.

What Web services or tools do you use to save time on Twitter ?