[charleshmorse]

To be overly simplistic and aggressively reductive, balance the value of networking using this:

http://smg.media.mit.edu/library/Granovetter.WeakTies.pdf (coupled with the probabilities of value for each connection, among many other things) -

with the value of working at that moment (maybe with consideration of diminishing returns at the day goes on, seeing as networking events happen later in the day).

And you'll be at the start of quantifying the trade-off.

Then realize you just spent a whole bunch of time, and wasted productivity calculating that, and the next time just promise yourself to make a spur of the moment decision based on mood, feelings of social isolation, how many 'good' friends you have at the moment, how 'included' you feel, and all the other computation reducing techniques your brain employs via intuition and emotional well-being and instead go off of that.