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Friday Productivity Tip — Get Some Silence

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Quiet the Chatter

Today when you’re trying to get that last minute work done, and someone comes in to “shoot the breeze,” “talk your leg off,” “chatter like chimp,” or be a “bird in a box.” You might try this.

  • Look up from what you are working.
  • Slowly glance left and right, as if to be sure no one is watching you.
  • Quietly invite your visitor to come close to view your computer screen.
  • Then click this link and say, “Isn’t this the coolest thing you’ve ever seen?”

Then just stay silent and stare at the screen. As a bigger treat, you might offer your headphones so that your guest might listen even more silently.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Friday Productivity: The Monkey Rule

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Not Just for Fridays

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Problems don’t only happen on Fridays. It only seems like more of them do. That’s probably because what we’re looking for is a clean desk and a walk out to the weekend.

Instead what often happens is that folks stop by to hand us an issue that “just can’t wait,” and suddenly a Friday seems like it is piling higher and higher in front of that door that says ESCAPE.

Here ‘s a rule I use to keep control of my Fridays, Thursdays, Wednesdays — actually every day — come to think of it. [Read more…]

Critical Skill 5B: Sparking Spectacular Ideas

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Spectacular Ideas

Future Skills

Do you recognize where we are? We’ve been here before. This is the place where I tell you that ideas are already in your head, that it’s a matter of letting yourself have them — not shutting them out. It’s when I remind you that you can be an idea magnet again. I tell you that ideas are waiting for you. I ask you if you’ve started seeing and hearing them.

Whew! Now that the déjà vu is over. We can get on with sparking spectacular ideas.

Caution: Now Entering Liz Think Zone

[Read more…]

Critical Skill 5A: 3 Parts of Spectacular Ideas

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Originality

Future Skills

When I compiled this list of ten critical skills, it was an original list — the list came from my head not from the Internet, not from some book. I’ve done continuous work on thinking skills for years so it wasn’t a huge hardship to think some more on the skills I consider critical. Is any one idea original? No. Not one on that list is unique or spectacular. The value-added is that I put them together and pointed the need to have them for success.

Originality Versus Spectacular

Originality is often how we look at things. The most original thought I’ve encountered — that hasn’t been around for years — was my six-year-old son’s drawing of the solar system as if he were standing on Pluto, looking in toward the sun. Even that was just a new take on a picture that’s been around for a long, long time.

True originality –a brand new idea — is hard to come by, but that’s okay. It rarely works in business. True originality is expensive and rarely sells. As good as I am with ideas I’ve learned if I find one that has been done before, tha it’s because of one of three reasons. [Read more…]

Ideas in Your Refrigerator

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You Know You’re Procrastinating When . . .

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. . . cleaning the refrigerator takes on a new and miraculous sense of urgency with a heavenly glow.

Go ahead give in and do it, but don’t lose to procrastination. Turn that refrigerator chore into an exploration for ideas. Here are three things you might think about.

  • What is your customer experience of the products that you are tossing out? Can you use those experiences to seed an article for your blog?
  • Refrigerators are filled with products. How do the companies who make those products promote them? Can you twist any of their ideas into ways to promote your business or your blog?
  • Is there a brand in there you are attached to? What do you value about that brand? Can you put your feelings into words? How can you use that brand value you feel to strengthen your personal brand and the brand experience people have when they meet you?

Procrastination just became an idea session, and on top of that you’ve cleaned your refrigerator! That’s productivity where you could have been doing what I’ve done — standing in front of an open refrigerator door thinking about how the light goes on and off.

Bet you can think of more ideas to find inside of that Big Box. How about sharing some with us?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Don’t Fear the Blank Screen — Be a Miner
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Eye-Deas 1: Have You Started Seeing Things?
More ideas in the Idea Bank category and in Writing Power, Thinking Outside the Box, Customer Think, and Brand You Series on the SUCCESSFUL SERIES PAGE

Stop. Listen. Hear that Idea?

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It Happens Constantly

Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

I can almost count on it happening. When I’m stuck on how to write something, when I really need some direction on how to frame a concept, I just start listening for one. Sure enough in a day or two, someone will say something.

I was working on the post for Critical Skill 5: Originality — no small task I might add. How do you talk about being original? I did my usual walking and thinking, but most of my way to original thinking is intuitive, hard to explain in words.

I like challenges, but sometimes they make my head hurt. So I put my question to the universe and left myself open to any answer it might bring me. Sure enough, it did within a couple of hours.
[Read more…]