Last week I participated in the Curators Conference. As I did not want to pay $400 for admission, I decided to take what I like to call the “Hustler Approach” and volunteer for the event. To say the least it was a gruesome 12 hour day, but well worth not having to shell out the cash for the conference. Another positive was getting to experience the inner workings of running a conference, something I’ve always wanted to do.

While being a volunteer does face the disadvantage of being able to seeing every speaker, a few speakers I did manage to see stood out to me. Specifically Soraya Darabi, who is the co-founder of Foodspotting and was formerly in charge of NYTimes’ Social Media. As most speakers took the approach to talk about their company and what they do, Soraya instead, walked us through an hour by hour snapshot of her day with the apps and websites she uses daily– curating her life through social.

Her day consisted of this:

Cir.ca: News, re-imagined. (New app -not yet released.)

Path: Staying connected with family & close friends.

Reading websites: Portable, Brain Pickings, Cool Hunting

Work Flowy: Organize your brain. This tool helps organize personal to-dos, collaborate on large team projects, take notes, write research papers, keep a journal, plan a wedding, and much more.

Sparrow:  Combining email and social at the same time.

BrandYourself: Curating SEO results, your personal brand, and Google results.

Foodspotting: Visual guide to good food and where to find it.

Spotify:  Digital music service that gives you access to millions of songs.

Google + Hangouts: Video chatting, face to face.

Vimeo Staff Picks: Online videos, handpicked by the staff at Vimeo.

Art Stack: Social platform for art – the best way to discover art is through people.

Highline Park + Think + Paper: She uses this hour to get offline. Reflecting on accomplishments you made today or want to make in the future.

Brewster: Your personal address book.

Highlight: Gives you a sixth sense about the world around you, showing you hidden connections and making your day more fun.

Svpply: Online shopping. Helps you find the products you love, from the people and stores you find interesting.

This break down left me wondering– is this even true? Does anyone have a breakdown hour by hour of applications they use? Probably not, even Soraya mentions she only uses specific apps and only the most productive ones that meets her own needs. Perhaps it isn’t possible, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have productivity in mind.

Continuing to thinking about this concept I asked myself —Is anyone this organized? What is my daily routine?

Looking at my past few days, weeks, even months I realized I honestly don’t have one. I love to stop what I’m doing to help others but I haven’t really helped myself. Feeling completely unorganized with managing my own priorities, this is something I need to start changing.

Last night I stumbled upon a few TED Talks for inspiration and came across Matt Cutts’ speech, “Try something new for 30 days.”

“Small sustainable changes are more likely to stick.” I may not have a solid play-by-play of every hour of my day, but I can start by making small sustainable changes.

Things I would like to try for 30 days:

Dedicate an hour a day to:

• Writing
• Reading
• Learning Italian
• Gym time
• Personal time– Including everything I need to catch up on in life, from Twitter updates to planning my birthday trip.
• Cooking one new recipe a week
• Trying one new restaurant per week
• Meet 5 new people per week

Like Matt says, “the next 30 days are going to happen whether you like it or not, why not do something you’ve always wanted to try.”

What is one thing you would try for 30 days?