Successful Blog

5 Ways to Leverage Other People’s Success to Fuel Victories of Your Own

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A Good Wheel Already Exists.

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I had a problem with my computer. The operating systems wouldn’t recognize the CD-DVD player. Every time I tried to reinstall the drivers, I received an error stating that my attempt to install the drivers was unsuccessful. I put to work my problem-solving skills. I tried various and sundry fixes. I approached it from every direction I knew.

The situation went on for a few days — or was it weeks — until a day came that I needed to use the CD-DVD for a project. I was serious now. Again I tried in my usual problem solving approach. Then, when I’d decided the whole endeavor was taking too much time, I turned to Google asked the question. Found an answer. It worked. I did a victory dance and moved on.

The I remembered something I already knew. The kind of common sense that we commonly forget.

The answer had been waiting while I suffered though all if my testing and trials. I’d been thinking that I had to do everything alone, solve every problem myself. I’d ignored perfectly good answers.

Never let a good thing pass you by. Charlize Theron.

I’d been letting those good answers pass me by, because they weren’t my own.

5 Ways to Leverage Other People’s Success to Fuel Victories of Your Own

Now, let’s be clear, I’m not proposing that we shift the burden of doing our own work to someone else. When other people hand us their work, we don’t learn. Rather, I’m suggesting that we take advantage of work that’s available to help yourself. Leverage the success of other people to reach success of your own.

Many people have discovered answers to the problems we’re facing, with a little creativity in our thinking we can save time and get to successful solutions by finding out what they did. When we find their solutions and apply them to our problems we still learn, but with fewer random guesses along the way.

Here are 5 Ways to leverage other people’s success to fuel victories of your own .

  1. use Google to find an established model or solution. See who’s solved the problem or built a process already.
  2. Ask your networks, including Linkedin, Quora, and Twitter, WWhat’s your best advice for doing this?

    3. When people answer be sure to explore what doesn’t work too.

  3. Look at how the “big guys” do it. Email several people who are more experienced than you are. Ask each to answer the same question — one that gets to the solution you’re trying to find. Compile and publish their answers into a single blog post so that others looking for that solution find you.
  4. Look at how it’s done in other domains and other industries. Ask yourself, How would a mathematician, a scientist, a painter, a dancer, a chef approach this problem? What other industries
  5. Find a mentor, join a community, or take a class. Experience is hard won and valued by those who’ve earned it. It’s hard to top the feeling of being asked to share what we’ve learned. Give someone that great feeling by choosing an experienced teacher, mentor, or friend and Inviting him or her to asking them the

Time IS money. Knowing how is good. Knowing how to find the answer quickly save time. When we need an answer to what we might never need to know again it’s time to leverage other people’s success to fuel our own victories. Getting help with problems that are peripheral can keep us focused on what we truly need to learn. Getting help with what we truly need to learn can keep us moving forward toward our most important goals.

Put the two together — focus on what we need to learn and moving forward is powerful fuel for a business, a career, and a life.
Leveraging other people’s success can make our work easier, faster, and more meaningful. And you know those are keys to unliking the irresistible.

Bet you know more ways to leverage other people’s success to fuel your own. Will you share them?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Kick in Peak Productivity Immediately to Win

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Great Weeks Reek of Productivity

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Ten days ago I offered a Productivity Checklist for the best way to end a Friday. Key to the process was setting up things at the end of day — ordering tasks by priority, putting things where you most often use them, and planning the first thing you’ll accomplish on Monday.

Did you try it? I thought perhaps not, but even if you set a plan that ended your Friday neatly and optimized Monday for productivity, take care that you don’t walk in to your workspace and undo all that you’ve set ready to start this week in a great way

Start with Peak Productivity

Being able to kick in peak productivity on a Monday or any other day is function of focus and few steps found in this checklist.

    1. Start your “real work” a hour later on Monday. Most folks don’t want to interact with you first thing Monday. Invest in yourself and your own productivity. Make a commitment reward yourself as soon as you accomplish the simple steps of this checklist. When possible, avoid setting up meetings before 10a.m.

    2. Allow yourself 10 minutes for an office check. Organize everything on your desk. Put things away. Lay out things that still need attending to. Are the things you use most closest to where you use them? If not, move them, so that they will be. Are the files you access most on your computer only one click away? If not, as you work, move them so that they will be.

    3. Allow 10 minutes more to scan your incoming email. Look long enough to know whether a dire emergency is waiting your response. Schedule a time in your calendar to answer the rest.

    4. Make a realistic plan for the week. Plan no more than 3 important tasks per day. Schedule no more than 5 hours of independent work. Leave 1 hour for your social networking investment. You’ll have the other two hours for the inevitable interruptions, phone calls, emails, and meetings that steal time during your day. If you find extra time at the end of the day, you can use it get ahead on tomorrow.

    5. Order tasks what you can get done fastest first. Two reasons support this: It starts you with a quick sense of accomplishment and you’re able to pass on what you’ve finished –which means that someone else can be starting on what was your task one as you move to your task two.

    6. If your habit is to get in early to stop by the water cooler or spend some time on Twitter, keep your investment working for you. Put fences around the time you’ll be spending getting inspired by socializing or you might find that it undoes your performance energy.

The biggest part of kicking in productivity is knowing what we want to do and when we want to get it done. Taking time in the morning to plan a productive day immediately can put us in the mindset to our world flying high for the win!

Whether your workspace is in another building or in your kitchen, you’ll find that peak productivity will kick once you’ve outlined the tasks you want to accomplish in a realistic fashion that fits that time you have to do them. Once you get into the habit, you might find that a 30-Minute Strike Force Strategy may be enough to keep you going.

What’s your best tip to kick in peak productivity immediately?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Work with Liz on your business!!

Improving Productivity – Meeting Madness

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Adria Saracino

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Meetings are often cited as being unproductive – either because they run on too long, are unfocussed, fail to result in actions – or indeed just because you find yourself attending so many of them you haven’t got time to get any actual work done.

Fortunately help is at hand – Simply Business has pulled together this productivity infographic detailing solutions to common productivity problems with meetings:


Click image to open interactive version.

Want to keep your meetings short, on-track and productive? Check out our tips below:

Do you feel like meetings are a waste of your time?

Marissa Mayer from Google holds an average of 70 meetings a week – so you can be sure she knows how to run meetings effectively – check out her tips:

  1. Set an agenda ahead of time which outlines what needs to be discussed and accomplished within the meeting.
  2. Ensure someone is taking minutes and capturing actions.
  3. Micro-meetings. Mayer slices longer meetings into 5-10 minute segments to discuss specific projects. This keeps even longer meetings tightly focussed and on-time.
  4. Don’t politic, use data. This is particularly pertinent when looking at design. Mayer doesn’t believe in making decisions based on ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ – instead data/metrics should be used to make decisions rather than personal taste or gut feel.

Do all meeting attendees come away with defined actions?

If not, they probably didn’t need to attend! That point aside, the prompt circulation of meeting minutes is critical. Apps like Minutes.io allow you to quickly take and circulate meeting minutes plus it works online and offline.

Everett Sizemore from SeOverflow likes to do a quick round up at the end of a meeting:

“A meeting strategy I often use is to sum up deliverables at the end. I don’t speak out everyone else’s list, but I always reiterate what it is that I am taking away as a responsibility. I have found that other people in the meeting generally follow-suit and before long it becomes the norm. Something is wrong if you regularly have meetings from which nobody leaves with a clearly defined to-do list.”

Are your meetings too long?

Try counting down the remaining time with a stopwatch – that’s what they do at Google. Or if you need to send a more powerful message check out C.O.M.A.. This app calculates how much your meeting is costing your company – ouch! Alternatively you might try initiating stand up meetings instead. Yep, that’s right, no more sitting comfortably around a table. With everyone standing the length of meetings drops drastically as no one wants to stand around for long.

Do you waste time traveling to meetings?

Sure meeting face-to-face is great and you’d never want to do away with meeting in person entirely, but do you really need to spend quite so much time on the road? Think about how much more you could get done if you weren’t spending time traveling to and from meetings.

Make use of tools like Google Hangouts or Skype video chat to get that face-to-face meeting vibe without the traveling.

Got some tips of your own to keep meetings productive? I’d love to hear about them via the comments!

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Author’s Bio:Adria Saracino is a marketer and blogger. When not consulting on business strategy, you can find her juggling fitness, graphic design, and writing about style on her personal fashion blog, The Emerald Closet. Follow her on twitter @adriasaracino to stay in touch.

Thank you for adding to the conversation!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Productivity – The Best Way to End a Friday Checklist

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Great Weekends Start with Productivity

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Friday! Finally!
On a short week, it can seem to take even longer to get here and we can end up with a Friday that seems jammed packed with things we’re still trying to get done. And before we know it the weekend will again be upon us …

Don’t let it sneak up on you!

Rather than fall into this weekend still working, start a new productivity habit.
Set a plan that will end your Friday neatly, get your Monday optimized for productivity in the very best way so that your weekend can be your own.

It may take some practice to get it down perfectly, but if you get the habit of this checklist, you’ll find that you start your weekends and your Mondays more sweetly.

Productivity – The Best Way to End a Friday Checklist

    1. End your “real work” a half-hour early on Friday. Most folks don’t want to interact with you late on Friday anyway. If you need that half-hour to finish your work, start next week by planning to finish a half-hour earlier.

    2. Use that half-hour to organize everything on your desk. Put things away. Lay out things that still need attending to. Mark what needs to be done. Make a to-do list, if that’s your way.

    3. Make a plan for next week–at the least, decide what you will tackle first on Monday and what your three most important goals will be.

    4. Do an office check. Are the things you use most closest to where you use them? If not, move them, so that they will be. Are the files you access most on your computer only one click away? If not, move them so that they will be.

    5. Order the Monday tasks by putting what you can get done fastest first. Do this for two reasons. It will start your week with a quick sense of accomplishment, and you’ll be able to pass on what you finished–that means that when you move on to task two, someone else can be starting on what was your task one.

Then consider the week closed, leave the office at work, give your brain a break, and have a weekend. What a great way to promote yourself and your brand to anyone who walks by on their way home for the weekend. It says a lot for your personal brand — almost everyone wishes their office looked like it could be in a magazine . . . Even if the only one it says it to is you — that’s plenty.

Whether you work in a building away from home or in your bedroom, a productivity boost will find you on Monday walking back into a space that’s ready to work in.

The idea is to end work on Friday so that if you open your on the weekend you might actually be refueling — talking to friends or watching a movie — rather than cleaning up details left over from the week you just left. Having a headstart on Monday can free the mind space to enjoy Saturday and Sunday.

How do you amp your productivity to mark the end of a Friday?

Be irresistible.
— ME “Liz” Strauss

You Are an Investor

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Rosemary O’Neill

Yes, you are a big-time investor. Like, Warren Buffet big. What? You don’t see it?

Every morning you wake up with 24 hours to invest. You’re rich beyond compare.

That 24 hours has a value that can’t even be measured. When you stack up a whole week of those, you’re talking about 168 hours!

Will you invest in Facebook? (No, not the stock shares, the status checking). Will you invest in your children? Your business? Will you choose to invest in yourself?

There’s a reason it’s called “spending time.” It feels like an unlimited resource, but it’s truly not. We all have an unknowable limit.

Sometimes people get caught up in believing that social media is “free” because Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ don’t charge our credit cards. But in fact, you are investing a far more precious resource when you use social media—your own time or that of your staff.

Furthermore, by choosing to invest your limited resource in social media, you are de facto choosing not to spend it elsewhere. Should you ignore your customer newsletter to post pictures on Pinterest? Only if it’s getting you an outcome you want. Should you cancel your sponsorship of the local 4th of July fireworks display so that you can record a YouTube video?

When you manage your time, whether it’s putting together a life plan or a business plan, remember that it’s all about where you choose to invest.

If you invest wisely, you’ll see dividends!

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Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

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Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

Getting Organized Without Wasting Your Time

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Ann Smarty

Binders in a row
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A System to Save Time

When you run a blog, there are some things you can’t help but spend a ton of time and energy on. Coming up with new posts, fiddling with the template, talking to readers, publishing videos of funny cats you found on YouTube and just had to share…these are the important elements in the life of the average blogger.

Certainly, the last thing you want to waste time on is organization. Yet every time most of us set out to organize things, we tend to spend all day on the process. Getting sorted turns out to be more of a hassle and hour eater than remaining in a frazzles state of chaos!

This is one of the biggest traps that bloggers tend to fall into. What you need a system in place for organizing things in a timely matter. Here are some tips to help you do just that.

  1. Create a List – When you have a list to follow, you will be less tempted to veer off into unnecessary or unimportant areas in the name of organization. This will keep you from wasting time you don’t have where it isn’t needed. Try to keep your list of goals sorted from most to least important, and never move from one item to the next until you have completed that goal.
  2. Set A Timer – Calculate how much time you can dedicated to fulfilling that list, and stick to that time. If there is too much to do, break it up over the course of several days or even weeks, and follow by that schedule. You don’t have to get everything done at once, after all.
  3. Don’t Allow Distractions – I am a huge procrastinator. I can’t help it, as I tend to have the attention span of a fruit fly. Sometimes I start doing something else without even realizing I have taken my eyes off my work. A simple way to avoid this while organizing is by using a program like LeechBlock or StayFocused. This will keep you from surfing the web and getting distracted while you work.
  4. Have Background Noise – This might sound a little silly, but I have always found it much easier to remain focused if I have the right kind of background music playing while I do my task. Whether it is better for most to have something classical in the background for its gentle tones and lack of lyrics, anything that motivates you and lets you think can work. Try a playlist site, like 8Tracks or Last.fm.


  5. Keep Things Organized – The easiest way to keep from wasting time on organization is by keeping things organized. Spending a few minutes here and there making sure everything is as it should be has the same effect as spending fifteen minutes cleaning an area a day. It keeps it from getting overwhelming.

Three Tools For Organization


  • Evernote – Keep track of clippings from anywhere on the web, and view it in your browser, on your desktop or on your phone. Easy to use, and it can save small bits of text, pictures, links or full pages.
  • HootSuite – Monitor all of your social media accounts, stats and followers in one place. This is a social media dashboard that can save a lot of time and effort.
  • Pocket – Originally called Read It Later, this is a plugin that works by saving pages you wanted to read for when you aren’t busy. You can access it through your browser, on your phone or any media device connected to the web.

You don’t have to spend a whole lot of time organizing your blog. It just takes a bit of planning and thought, and you will be done quicker than you thought possible.

Author’s Bio: Ann Smarty is a blogger and guest blogger with 6 years experience. She is a control freak and she loves when she is busy, so her hands are always full. One of her largest projects is My Blog Guest, the free community of guest authors and blog owners who preach the “high-quality” approach to guest blogging. Follow Ann on Twitter at @seosmarty and Google Plus


Thank you, Ann, for this Monday motivation!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!