The Big Challenge is OVER, Keep that Energy Going ON

Filed Under Inside-Out Thinking, Productivity, Successful Blog | 6 Comments

Sometimes Timing Is Everything

This week’s challenge in the the b5media Business Apprentice Team Challenge . . . Kay’s finally settling into her role as entrepreneur. Kay hardly has time to read the whole web. What one blog post or article might I recommend that will help her move forward at this point?

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In the apprentice story, Kay has made it through her first, and hugely successful, Christmas rush. Now Christmas is over and I’m guessing that Kay is only human. Sometime, win or lose, a big push in business can cause a dip in enthusiasm about the business we love.

The sheer investment of energy can leave feeling like we need a rest. Moving forward to face the next challenge can seem like something we have a right to put off. Unfortunately, a business won’t stand still while we’re resting and refueling. If we stop to do that we can find ourselves in crisis mode again when the new challenge rolls around.

The best business advice for a time like that is to have great habits to fall back on. An article over at LifeDev is just what this situation needs. It’s a simple method for time management. Simple is the key because, at a moment of regrouping, the way to entice ourselves back into involvement is by accomplishing little things that mean a lot.

Time Management, Simplified: How to Be Productive With No Worries simplifies the system and streamlines David Allen’s Getting Things Done for folks who want to reduce the time spent learning and maintaining Mr. Allen’s system. Leo Babauta who wrote the post says:

The fewer tasks you have, the less you have to do to organize them. Focus only on those tasks that give you the absolute most return on your time investment, and you will become more productive and have less to do. You will need only the simplest tools and system, and you will be much less stressed.

Boy do I agree.

In fact, that’s just what I’m going to start in today.

How do you keep your momentum going? Has a blog post ever made it easier for you?

Only 8 blogs are left in the Apprentice Challenge if you like my choice and this post, would you give Successful-Blog a vote in the poll in the sidebar at TAXGIRL?

The Blogs remaining in the challenge are:



–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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Working Smart or Working Away the Time of Your Life?

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 12 Comments

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Whoa! Look around us!

Everyone is so . . . busy. We’re almost can’t see each other.

We’re juggling, talking, typing, scanning instead of reading, talking instead of thinking, putting off time with our family and friends. We all know so much about productivity, goals, keeping connected, and following our passion to build the business that we love. It’s enough to make a brain shut down into auto-mode.

I know I occasionally find myself staring out from a glazed look, walking into walls. How about you?

Being determined, motivated, set on a path with a laser beam focus is a good thing. . . . right? It is, if every now and then, we check that our destination is still where we want to go and that we’re enjoying the ride on the way.

The Going Not the Getting There

I see it in clients. I’ve felt it in my friends. I’ve done it myself. It’s a heads down sort of thing that takes over our thinking. We become so aware of time, so time-managing, that we manage to set aside anything that might, even possibly from far off, appear to be construed as doing nothing.

What’s wrong with doing nothing or better yet doing something just for fun — not balance . . . F-U-N? What’s wrong with enjoying the folks we care about as we move through our lives?

Nature has no straight lines.

Our priorities can get so straight that they become twisted and upside-down. We can get so focused on our destination that we forget to pay attention to the journey and the people who make living our lives magical, meaningful, and worth living.

Way, way back in the olden days, Harry Chapin sang this in a song.

It’s got to be the getting there, not the going that’s good. –Heads and Tales, Greyhound

We’ll never get this moment back . . . oops, it’s already gone!

At the end of my days will I regret the work I didn’t do or the time I didn’t spend with my husband, my son, my dad, my mom, my brothers, my nieces and nephews, my lifelong friends, the new exciting people I’ve just met?

If you knew that your time left was only tonight, what would you do then?

I’m going with Bruce Cockburn’s answer . . .

If it was the last night of the world, I’d have champagne with you. –Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu, Last Night of the World

Yep, that’s what I’d do.

I’m making a sign and putting up right above my monitor.

Will you make a sign too? It’s the time of your life.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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TOO Busy? Find Out in Less Than a Minute

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 30 Comments

Got Less Than a Minute?

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Sara asked, “Are We Really That Busy?”

Are we?

We seem to have so much to do and so little time.
We don’t even have time to think about the time we don’t have.
It feels dangerous, but if we stop, we’ll never catch up. . . .

Are we TOO busy? Are we squandering the time of our lives?

It’s easy to find out for yourself. Let’s have an experience. It won’t take long, I promise. After all, it’s about being busy. This simple test will only take as long as you’re willing to invest in yourself. You can do it in less than a minute.

Take the Test

Ready? Will you try this? I’ll give you two links. For each link, follow these quick, simple steps.

  1. Read the word that is the link anchor text as you click the link.

  2. Put your dominant hand on your forehead as you look at the site you land on and say the link anchor text word 3 more times.

  3. Leave the site you land on when you feel you’ve gotten what you need from it.

Ready? Here are the links.

Link 1 anchor text: time poor

Link 2 anchor text: time rich

Decide for Yourself

Well, what do you think? Really. After all, as we think, so we are. [that concept predates our calendar The words we choose affect how we think and the way we perceive our lives.

Were you too busy to even click the links? What does that say about how you value your time?

If you did click the links, which made you feel in control of your life?

Are we really that busy?

OR do we only think we are?

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Business Rule 17: Do You Do Things Right?

Filed Under Business Life, Successful Blog | 3 Comments

Do It Right, Do It Over

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In they army they have a saying, “Hurry up, and wait.” In business that same saying can be, “Hurry up and do it again.” In textbook publishing, we had our own version, “The project is over, time for the prototype to begin.”

Meet Hurry Up Harriet.

Harriet is the boss or the client who calls at the last minute to announce that she needs something done right away. She’s clear and concise on what it is, . . . if you’re lucky. She’s sketchy and rushes through the details, if you’re not.

Either way, Harriet is precise about one thing the exact time and date that she needs the work complete — 48 hours sooner than any human has performed such a task.

Because it’s your job — and you’d like to keep it — you set forth on the quest of making Harriet’s impossible happen. This requires a significant investment of overtime and work at home, but you do it. Through some miracle and no life, you come through with 7 seconds to spare. You feel like a wrangler at a rodeo. You throw your hands up to check the clock. You’re about to give your perfect, checked-over-three-times document to Harriet, when you get another call.

It’s Harriet on the line.

She says, “On that document I asked for, I’ve been thinking, could you also include . . . ?” She adds three or four things.

“I can wait for the new version until Friday,” she sings.

How would you feel about that?

Based on the three previous projects that went the same way, you realize that Harriet will repeat this behavior at least twice more before the current project is over.

On some projects, we never have time to do things right,
but we always time to do things over.

It’s hard enough having to do work for a Harriet.
What’s worse is the days when I act like one.

Do you have Harriet days too?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

25 Ways to be Jazzed about Productivity

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Perfect Virtual Manager, Successful Blog | 16 Comments

Jazzed Yeah!

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Ben started a writing project on productivity. I had to get productive to even particpate in it. I might have had too much on my desk. I think I might have missed it. Kim asked me to tell about productivity. She even said that sometimes she got mean about it — no, no, not really, well, at least it didn’t seem so. She’s the Kim who is desparately escaping adulthood with Jason.

Still, I can’t let the concept of productivity sit there. So here are 25 ways to get Jazzed about productivity.

  1. Get up early when no one’s around. Nothing’s more fun than working without interruption.

  2. Look out the window to greet the day with a few minutes for yoursef before you begin. Then you’ll be ready to dig in.

  3. Clean off your desk before you start working. If you haven’t done for a while, clean your computer screen too.

  4. Make sure that the tools you use often through the day are close to you.

  5. Make to do list. Divide according to what you can move most quickly to get someone else working too.

  6. Review your calendar for deadlines you have meet. Determine what has be done and how much time you have to do it. Plan for when and how and include breaks.

  7. If the work takes longer than the time you have, find the work that anyone can do and let anyone do it. Don’t ask for help — delegate. Find a partner, a pal, or an apprentice who wants to learn what you do. Barter their services.

  8. Don’t multitask. Research shows it’s not productive.

  9. Choose a task and a move it forward one small step. Then decide if you’ll move it two.

  10. Choose appointed times during the day to answer email. Every two hours might do.

  11. When an email or other tpiece of paper bearing a task comes your way. Assign it to a pile — Do it. Delegate it. OR Dump it. If you set it aside, you’ll only have to pick up and go through thinking about it again. That last pile is the waste basket.

  12. When you are interrupted, learn to say, “Do you mind if I take a minute to finish this?” Then do. Having to start up again will steal the time that it take for you to find your place again.

  13. Before you make call, know what the outcome is that you want and know how much time you allot yourself. Then at the beginning of the call share the time limit with the person on the other end.

  14. Know the job and routine of the person or persons you are working with. Understand how your work and decisions impact theirs. That will avoid making work for them, which would, inevitably, make work for you.

  15. Take a break for 3 or 4 minutes every hour to walk around, giving yourself a change of view.

  16. Ask a child to solve a problem for you. Better yet have 10 year old organize your supplies.

  17. Start in the middle of a hard task. Usually we know what the middle of anything we want to do will be. It’s the beginning and end that confuse us.

  18. Organize a large document by laying all of the pieces of it on the floor and literally looking at it while standing above it with a top-down view.

  19. Quit thinking poor. Buy the tools you need. Get the best quality you can afford. For those tools you use every day calculate how many pennies per day it will cost you. Then calculate how much time you will save by using the new tool.

  20. Pick one hour a day that you will not take any outside interruptions — no email, IM, or telephone calls. The hour after lunch is good. Clean your desk before the hour begins and place a task that requires focus on it. Ready for when the hour begins.

  21. Have a routine for writing that suits the time of day that you write well and get the least interruptions.

  22. As you begin each task, allot a time to it — how long it will take you to do it. If you find yourself falling far behind at the half-way mark, stop to re-evaluate your understanding of the task.

  23. Do a sample for every new job and every new task to ensure that what you heard is what folks really want.

  24. Learn to say “no,’ when you don’t have time. If you can’t say “no,” at least schedule requests for a time when your schedule will allow them.

  25. Leave one task at the end of the day about 20 minutes from finished. That way when you begin the next day, you’ll be able to accomplish something quickly and start on a roll.

Whew! 25 ways to get jazzed about productivity. Some a little and some are much larger. Every one of them will have its own impact in your life. Choose the ones that work for you. Leave the rest on the proverbial table. A proverbial person just might come along. That proverbial person might find that those you left are exactly the right fit for a problem he or she has been staring at for months.

What gets you jazzed about productivity. . . Ilker, Daniel, Jason, Singhania, Katiebird?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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