Now is the time, one of many, that I express appreciation for all the heartwarming correspondence I've received lately. Across a spectrum of media, from IMs to notecards to gift objects to emails, I've gotten so much amazing feedback about a variety of things I've involved in. Often, it's my Video Tutorials, as I'm synonymous with being sort of a Russell Brown of Second Life, but also who I am as a person — my personality carries into the Grid, where I believe I've been able to express myself more than before I ever discovered it, and it sounds like a lot of you can relate.

I'm at a bittersweet stage right now, sweet because of the incoming communication I get, some of it so thoughtful and profound, and bitter because I can't reply to it all. I have this recurring joke about wanting a clone, or better yet, a whole army! Finding time to "play" nowadays is tough. For example, I've gotten personal invitations to so many inworld events, clothes for my avatar and watermelon-colored avies, and an outright array of kewl gadgets to try. I love the mythology that I'm omnipresent, but alas, I can't be everywhere at once.

Quite often, I'm embarrassed I can't be more responsive with IMs I get; during working hours, I simply can't stop an' chat like I used to when I started my Second Life, because I'm deep investigating a hot bug, or reviewing a fellow Linden's progress, product managing WindLight, and so many other things. More often than I'd hope, at the same time. My leisure time in SL is severely limited, and there are many "interesting problems" (as we call them) that I need to work on. For this, I am sorry, yet I'd rather communicate than leave you in the dark wondering "Why didn't Torley reply?"

If I don't reply, please presume I am thankful you took the time to reach out to me, and am buried/swamped/avalanched in what we'll collectively call "work".

There are a number of frustrations I have with the current Instant Message system which make it difficult and time-consuming for me to handle IMs en masse. Thus, I'm hardly able to reply to them anymore, be they online or offline. I've tried to summarize this tersely to save you time in my Web profile tab, but I realize there'll always be more questions. I often can't reply to notecards either; I don't get around to sorting my inventory as much as I'd like in the present, and it's a multi-step process to see Properties, bring up the creator's (who's often the same as the sender) profile, and IM them. In itself, that may not seem like much, but repeated many times, it becomes tedious. Much of how I feel now is borne from such oft-looped cycles.

(And I feel conflicted, because IMs are so quick and easy to send, but my situation is like, to use an apt analogy, how many pebbles will add up to the weight of a boulder.)

Thus, I'm mainly focusing on old-fashioned email, with my client of choice, Gmail. I've become fanatical about using filters effectively, but even then, with the hundreds of emails I get a day, many addressed personally from both within Linden Lab and from our community, it becomes a matter of crucial prioritization. Frequently-asked questions tend to sensibly get written up as FAQs — so I can easily point someone to the info in the future instead of answering it by rote each time — and eclectic questions that only I can answer get highest priority; even better if the answers benefit many people.

In order to not become a boring drone and continue driving forward in my passionate pursuits, I find myself allocating time better:

• Setting up scheduled office hours so it takes the guesswork out of where and when to find me inworld.
   
• Working in focused, concentrated bursts so I can relax later. I find I'm a lot more productive when my attention isn't split across multiple channels.
   
• Speaking into a voice recorder while typing if I need to input + output ideas faster. (This happens frequently.)
   
• Using the weekends to check out amazingness inworld. This has its flaws tho, because I could use an alt and sometimes do, but often, there's inventory items I want to check out which are non-transferrable. So rather than clunk around, I stay on Torley Linden.
   
• Soon, I may be regularly waking up as early as 4-5 AM. The reasons why can be found in a superb article titled "10 Benefits of Rising Early, and How to Do It". At this stage, it's almost a necessity.

I've reached a stage in my journey where I'm looking back, and I will have been in Second Life for almost 3 years soon. That's younger than some, older than many. A lot has changed, and some of what I do now would've been unthinkable by my late-'04 standards. That's meant in the best of ways.

Having a blog is great for voicing myself. What I'd love to do is write more regularly on the Official Linden Blog, sharing what I and my esteemed coworkers are doing at work, following up on concerns, talking about fun, celebrating Second Life. If you have strong feelings about this, please leave a comment here.