background preloader

Time Management/Focus

Facebook Twitter

How to Use Evernote to Organize Your Workflow. If you've ever lost an important business card, wracked your brain to remember that website with the great design or struggled to collect three years of sales reports, the free software Evernote can help you organize your business life. "Small-business owners live and die by the volume of information they need to access," says Alexandra Samuel, author of Work Smarter with Evernote (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012).

"The time it takes to coordinate all that information into systems can become another job in and of itself. You can easily spend more time managing tools than tasks. Evernote makes accessing information as easy as possible. " Evernote works like a bookmarking tool, but instead of generating one long list of sites, it puts information from the web or your computer into notebooks. For example, if you are doing market research and find an interesting study on the Internet, you can save it in your Research notebook.

Related: How to Solve Your Biggest Organizing Dilemma Organize. Nouns, Verbs, Time Management and You. Image credit: Schoolhouse Rock Are you a “verb” person or a “noun” person? Does it matter? Knowing how you relate to the world around you does matter. In the grand scheme of things, it isn’t critical whether you coordinate your engagement with the world around you using just verbs or only nouns, but knowing which you focus on does matter. “Why?” You might ask. In the past two years, I have had more than 100 conversations about productivity with chief executives, managers and company founders. Look at the first word of each item on your “to do” list.

Related: 4 Ways to Disconnect and Get More Done Without Unplugging Completely Please note: Neither nouns nor verbs are “better” than the other. So why is your preference for nouns or verbs important? For example, people who have lots of nouns in their “to do” lists tend to be visionary, big-picture thinkers. Related: When Sustainability Starts With Yourself: The Key to Lasting Change in Your Personal Productivity Try this experiment.

Jason W. Make Room for Your Highest Value Activities. High value activities are the activities that produce your most important outcomes. These activities produce the results you are measured on, and they are the difference between success and failure. Low value activities produce outcomes that, while still necessary, aren’t nearly as important. They don’t have any real impact on your success. High Value Activities and Outcomes The high value activities for salespeople include prospecting, nurturing dream clients, making sales calls, keeping their follow up commitments, and taking care of their existing client relationships. These high value activities produce the outcomes of opening relationships, developing opportunities, executing the sales process, winning deals, and owning the outcomes that they have sold their clients.

These high value activities must dominate your calendar. Low Value Activities and Outcomes Low value activities are still important. You can’t allow your low value activities to crowd out your high value activities. Feisty Side of Fifty/Baby Boomer Women » Quell Your Inner Rebel—Take Baby Steps! As a baby boomer woman who has learned a thing or two over the years, you might still find a couple of areas in your life that need improvement.

There certainly are in mine. But I’m now using a technique that seems to be working, even against my greatest enemy to success in any venture—that, of course, being myself! In my younger years, if I decided to lose 15 pounds and get in shape, I’d immediately vow to drastically restrict my caloric intake and hit the gym for an hour a day. And I’d do it… (for a few days that is). Now, whether it’s with weight management, career goals, or any other area in my life that needs attention, I’ve learned a strategy that allows me to make measurable progress while keeping the biggest enemy of them all—self-sabotage—at bay: take baby steps! Here are a few additional guidelines that may help you get what you want in your own life: Begin with the end in mind. Be Sociable, Share!

FOCUS. Why Laser Focus Leads to Success. In 2010, Google’s Eric Schmidt said that we are creating as much information now in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through 2003. Let’s also consider the fact that man has been around for about 200,000 years. This means that every two days, we produce over 200,000 years of data. Incredible. Chances are that statistic has gotten even mind blowing 2 years later. Most people today do a lot of reading and learning. Stop intaking more information, and we fall behind. Even today, as I browse through my RSS feeds, I see titles like: 9 Things Business Owners Should Never Say10 Critical Traits of an Entrepreneur56 Resources for Entrepreneurs Even consuming content like the 3 articles above is a daunting task given the finite amount of time we have each day.

With all this information craving to be absorbed, how do we make the most of our time? Simply put, the information we’re surrounded by today causes a lack of focus. What do we do with all this information overload? In short: Focus. Tools. Www.michaelnichols.org/how-did-i-end-up-here/ Aching Confidence Self-care, who has time for that? This was originally posted on www.YourChangingDirection.com This is the second of three pieces concerning self care. If you missed last weeks, or just want to read it again, you will find it here. “If ants are such busy workers, how come they find time to go to all the picnics?” (Marie Dressler – Academy award winning actress 1868 – 1934) This week I want to address the response that can often come up when people would probably benefit the most from including self-care into their routine. Sometimes taking action in a genuine emergency can be a form of self-care in itself – e.g.

However, sometimes we push ourselves by treating everything as urgent. If you’ve ever done any first aid training you’ve probably had it well and truly hammered home that the first thing you do is check your own safety. Likewise if you make yourself ill by not taking care of yourself you’ll take yourself out of the “game”. Remember that what you do for self-care is something that makes a difference for you.

Love Jen. 12 Most Expedient Time-Saving Apps and Websites. I am a busy individual and I find that I need to reduce the amount of time I spend online. I find full automation to take all the fun out of connecting on social media. Any product that works with little refinement is a blunt instrument. It just won’t get you very far. Instead we need to use smart tools of automation. Technology that makes life easier by reducing complicated tasks and turning them into something simple. Here are 12 of the most expedient apps and websites I use to manage my routine. 1.

Cruxbot is a dream. 2. . ☞ Are you familiar with the fact that your computer can output symbols like the copyright sign? 3. The Curators Code is a collective effort by content curators to standardize the way we give attribution. 4. The Noun Project is another collective effort, this time by designers. 5. The Toolbox is a resource full of one-page sites that do miraculous things. 6.

Now Do This has become my favorite productivity tool. 7. 8. 9. 10. Do you use Google+? 11. Why Small Bites Trump Multi-Tasking. At a press conference early in his presidency, Dwight Eisenhower was asked for the name of his favorite author. “Harry Sinclair Drago,” said Eisenhower. The reporters looked puzzled. They obviously hadn’t heard of Drago, even though he’d written several classics of western fiction, including Suzanna: A Romance of Early California and Whispering Sage.

So they asked Eisenhower for his second favorite. “Bliss Lomax,” replied Eisenhower. If nothing else, this proved that Eisenhower was consistent, because that was a pen name used by, you guessed it, Harry Sinclair Drago. Drago used at least eight additional pen names. When Syracuse University announced that it would be the custodian of Drago’s papers, the thing that seemed to fascinate reporters the most was the amount he wrote.

“Four pages a day,” replied Drago. One Bite at a Time Harry Sinclair Drago knew that, often, the secret of accomplishing big things is to break the big task into lots of small tasks. Answer: “One bite at a time.” [Ed. Pest control. Your doctor now spends more of her time doing more non-medical tasks than ever before. Dealing with insurance companies, lawsuits, other doctors, partners and yes, marketing. My doctor's office probably has a special button on the phone system for each of these (okay, not lawyers, but you get the idea). Just about all of us face the same thing when we engage with the world. The world wants to engage back! Every interaction leads to a response, maybe three.

That's not news to you. A big part of doing your work is defending your time and your attention so you can do your work. No one is going to do it for you and it's not easy or fun. 12 Most Productive Things to Say at Work Instead of “No” We’ve all been there: tired and stressed, with a desk full of work and a calendar jammed with more to come. But, when a colleague asks for help — even if the first instinct is to say “no” — that might not be the best answer. You might need reciprocity later. The team might really need to make this client happy. Your boss might notice your extra effort. Next time, try one of these instead of “no…” 1. This is not only a reasonable response, but it’s also an effective one. 2.

This ramps up the scrutiny of the question in #1. 3. Now, this query gets at the heart of things. 4. A more nuanced way to assess the importance of the task at hand, asking this helps uncover how the work fits into the bigger picture. 5. With this approach, you show you want to help brainstorm a solution. 6. This approach is similar to #5, but the question is different. 7. With this response, you are almost suggesting that you will help. 8. Here, you are offering qualified support. 9. 10. 11. 12. Becky Gaylord. Take Back Your Life in Seven Simple Steps - Tony Schwartz. By Tony Schwartz | 7:51 AM May 29, 2012 In my most recent blog, I wrote about how we’ve allowed technology to take a pernicious toll on our attention, and in turn, on our creativity, our resilience, our relationships and, ultimately, our productivity. This week I’m turning my focus to how to wrest back control of your attention, so you can make conscious choices that provide long term satisfaction rather than instant but fleeting gratification.

What follows are seven steps, but you’re vastly more likely to succeed if you limit yourself to one or two at a time. 1. Begin by getting a notebook or a pad. At the end of three hours, you’ll have a clear picture of how intense the pull is on your attention. 2. 3. 4. 5. I download everything from “to do’s,” to ideas I’m having, to people I need to email or call, to issues that are bothering me. 6. 7. Above all else, build back into your life stopping times, finish lines and boundaries. 6 Time Management Strategies for Startups. Many startups seem to be powered solely by excitement over the new business (occasionally mixed with some Red Bull and Starbucks).

Startup founders typically devote every waking moment to their companies, and probably even dream about it too. But while pure passion can propel entrepreneurs 24/7 for a while, eventually even the most committed startup teams need to learn to manage their time. Burnout is one obvious danger of poor time management. But even more important is the risk that something important will fall through the cracks. If you fail to respond to a potential partner or prospect in a timely fashion because there’s too much on your plate, you could be blowing a make-or-break opportunity.

Time management is one of the top challenges for every entrepreneur I know. After years of experience working with entrepreneurs and business owners, I have learned a few tricks for getting more done in the 24 hours we all have. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Image courtesy of Shutterstock. My Generation - Boomer Edition. » The Magical Power of Focus. “Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” - Qui-Gon to Anakin, Star Wars Episode I Post written by Leo Babauta.

Follow me on Twitter. The quote above, as cheesy as George Lucas’ writing often is, contains a nugget of Jedi wisdom that I’ve repeatedly found to be true. Your focus determines your reality. It’s something we don’t think about much of the time, but give it some consideration now: If you wake up in the morning and think about the miserable things you need to do later in the day, you’ll have a miserable day. This may seem simplistic, but it’s completely true. Let’s look at some of the ways you can use focus to improve different aspects of your life. “All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” - Buddha Focus on a Goal In my experience, focus is the most important determination of whether you’ll achieve a goal or stick to creating a new habit. Why does focus matter so much? This is why I am constantly advocating focusing on only one goal at a time. 12 Most Innovative Tips to Get into Your Creative Flow. Creativity is a fascinating topic and one that I love to discuss.

It is a personal thing and a universal ideal at the same time. My creativity isn’t your creativity but in some ways our brains function in a similar manner. I wrote a post about creativity on my own blog and explored this topic with some of my friends and generated some interesting conversation. What is the flow? The ultimate goal of the creative spirits. When your creativity flows and you lose track of time — ideas and images flow feverishly from your brain to your fingers. The term emulates water flowing as your ideas are born. Maya Angelou said “You can’t use up creativity. 1. Clear your mind of any tasks that need to be completed by writing them down and not thinking about them while you are focusing. 2. Some Jedi wisdom from Star Wars “Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” If you can’t maintain your focus, you won’t achieve the goal, unless it’s such an easy goal that it would have happened anyway. Clearing the decks. SwissMiss points to a great infographic about how professional photographers actually spend their time.

Part of the magic (and the risk) of the internet is that if you want to, you can use your access to tools, markets and media to go even further in the direction of the chart on the right. You can become your own booker, accountant, publicist and more. Hey, it's free! You get to keep all the money! Of course, it also means you don't get to spend very much time at all doing what you set out to do in the first place, which is shoot pictures, or write music or coach or whatever it was. The other thing you can do is find the guts and resources to move even more to the left. Hire other people (at huge expense) to do all those things you certainly could do on your own, so you can actually do the work you were born to do. The Personal Strength of Initiative - Overcoming Procrastination and Writer's Block.

7 Things Highly Productive People Do. 7 Effective Time Management Techniques. Personal Productivity: Can Checklists Be Fun? Marketing advice & marketing tips for small businesses & entrepreneurs. | Jim's Marketing Blog. Entrepreneurs: Know How to Set Priorities and to Follow Them. 5 First Steps to Prioritizing Your Work. The 80/20 Rule – Zig Zag Principle #37 | BootstrapBusiness.org | How to Start A Small Business. How To Quickly Find The Best Filtered Material To Blog About Everyday! | Th... Time Management Tips - How to Use Strategic Questions to Reduce Procrastination, @paulaeder. How Do I Make Time For Me When I Have Too Much On My Plate? The filter hierarchy. How to Manage Your Time Better in Your Small Business. All About Living With Life: Are you Living Your Life Effectively like Managing a Business. Early To Rise | Politically Incorrect Time Management.