Category: Technology

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Why You Need To Mail Your List Regularly

I have a question for you. How often are you mailing your list? Do you sit down once a month to create a newsletter for your existing subscribers? Or are you waiting to reach a certain number of subscribers before you even start to mail? If so, I think you’re making a big mistake.

 

Mailing lists only work when you use them to get in touch with your subscribers regularly. If you wait too long, they’ll forget about you. When you’re no longer relevant or important to them, they’ll unsubscribe, or worse, mark your emails as spam. Yes, even if it is something they opted in to receive. People forget. It’s your job to stay on top of mind. And you do that by emailing them regularly.

 

Mailing once a week is a good start for most people. If you’re not crafting email messages for your readers regularly right now, start there. Send out a message and let your readers know what to expect. Good mailing lists are all about setting and meeting expectations. Tell them that you’re excited to kick things off and that you’ll have something fun and valuable stuff to share with them each week. If possible, set a date and time and tell them to keep an eye out for your emails. This will do wonders for your open rates. For example, you could tell them to look for a new message from you every Wednesday morning. Then deliver on that promise.

 

Meeting expectations builds trust. Not only are your subscribers more likely to stick around, open, and read your emails, they’ll also trust you when you make an offer or a recommendation. That means you’ll start to see more clicks and sales on your affiliate links, and of course higher conversions on your own product offers. Build that relationship with your target audience and move people from prospect to customer, and eventually to a raving fan by staying in touch regularly via email.

 

And here’s a little bonus tip. Ask your readers to share you with others. Every so often invite them to share your opt-in page or even ask them to forward one of your emails to people they know who may be interested in the topic. Keep it light and casual and don’t overdo it. You’ll be surprised how quickly your subscriber list will grow when you enlist the help of current readers.

 

To get started, commit to an email schedule. Start weekly and stick to it for a couple of months. Use the email schedule features of your autoresponder service to make sure it happens even if life gets crazy. Don’t miss an issue and work on building that reputation of being reliable and consistent and see what happens. I think you’ll be hooked.

How to Optimize Your Email Subject Lines

 

 

 

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How to Create Repeatable Workflows for Better Time Management

Setting up the right workflows and process are essential to proper time management and the success of your business. When you create repeatable workflows, you can better improve the quality of your work and stay consistent, saving you more time and energy in the long run. They establish proper communication habits and increase your confidence as you more easily glide through your day and accomplish more goals.

 

Establishing proper workflows allows you to more easily highlight the areas that need to be improved or eliminated—in return, saving you time to be more creative and innovative within your industry and business. In other words, repeatable workflows allow you to optimize the way you conduct business so you can more smoothly accomplish your goals without delay or frustration.

 

The following are five tips to creating repeatable workflows that improve your productivity:

 

Understand Your Full Needs and Requirements

When it comes to creating a successful workflow, you can’t miss any details. Block out time to really focus on this and list your full needs and requirements for the objectives you want to accomplish. Start with the most important areas of your business first, then work your way down not to overwhelm yourself.

 

Keep It Simple and Standardize

One of the many faults of any workflow is that it is too bulky and tries to be innovative in places it’s not needed. Trim down any unnecessary fat that causes delays and confusion and find better ways to streamline the process. Start with the tried-and-true methods first, then adapt later when you have made a consistent effort first.

 

Physically Map It Out with A Flowchart

Write down one major task required for your business in the center of a document or physical piece of paper, then draw a circle around it. For example, new customer set up or product purchase.

 

Then draw arrows out that direct you to each required step of the process, including the resources needed and who will complete the project, just like a mind map for brainstorming but with a specific direction and set of instructions. The idea is to create a visual and scannable chart so you can more easily see where you need to adjust, streamline, or add more information.

 

Document and Analyze

Add controls and benchmarks so you can measure and analyze the success of your workflow. Something certain in life is change. Businesses need to adjust at a moment’s notice to stay successful. The state of constant change highlights the importance of blocking out time to evaluate your processes, business plan, and long-term goals.

Project Management Tools to Try

The path to success requires consistent and continued action, and repeatable workflows allow you the freedom and ability to do just that.

 

 

 

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The 2-Minute Rule You Need

This is the 2-minute rule you need to finally end your procrastination or other bad habits and achieve more out of life. Procrastination and other lousy time management habits lead to many missed opportunities and chances for personal growth to build up your business. It encourages laziness and lacks accountability, in turn stalling your momentum, focus, and consistency needed for success.

 

What Exactly Is The 2-Minute Rule?

It’s a stress-free approach to starting new habits and kicking bad ones. It’s a rule designed to help you achieve more goals without feeling overwhelmed and keeps you from delaying action any longer than you should.

 

The two main concepts for the rule include:

 

  • If it only takes two minutes, then get it out of the way right now.
  • Establishing new habits or routines should only take two minutes to begin with.

 

As with most methods, if they are misused, they provide the opposite results than you intend.

 

Here’s how to use the 2-minute rule effectively to kick your bad habits and achieve max productivity:

 

Keep It Relevant and Realistic

Only use the rule if it is relevant to whatever you are doing at that time. In other words, don’t just do whatever task comes to mind if it doesn’t relate to what you are actively doing.

 

For example, if you are trying to finish your next content package for your client, it’s not a good idea to go ahead and get that email notification about your next business meeting out of the way. It is unrelated and will ultimately get you off track and prevent you from finishing your course. Instead, think, “what can I do in two minutes to finish this course?”

 

Don’t Make It Hard

You don’t need to gain success or be the best overnight. Don’t make adopting new habits challenging and overwhelming by speeding up the process. Small gradual changes make it easier to accomplish and stick around long term. For example, science proves that those who lose weight over a more extended period of time maintain the weight longer than those who lose it very quickly.

 

Meaning you shouldn’t focus on what you can’t do; rather, what you can do instead. For just two minutes, what can you do towards changing one bad habit? Then the next day, add two more minutes and keep repeating the process.

 

It’s All About Perspective

The main goal of the 2-minute rule is to change your perspective on how you see a challenge or annoying tasks. You can trick your brain into believing a task is simple and easy, even though it can be hard. Anyone can deal with something for just two minutes, and sometimes the most challenging part is just starting.

 

Give this 2-minute rule a try the next time you feel that you need to push off your work to Monday. You won’t regret giving it a try.

The Secrets to Time Management and Why You Need It

 

 

 

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If You Don’t Set Hard Deadlines, Plan to Fail

If you feel like you can never get anything done and constantly run against the clock, you are likely skipping one of the most essential details of any to-do list or 90-day action plan. If you don’t set hard deadlines, then you are setting yourself up to fail from the start.

 

Deadlines are crucial to a successful plan because they:

 

  • Ensure you complete the right work to accomplish your goals.
  • Establish consistency, organization, and a smooth workflow.
  • Clarify your expectations and responsibilities.
  • Maximizes success and productivity.

 

In other words, when you set clear deadlines and stick to them, you can better use your time to focus on your goals and achieve more in life. When you are not constantly running to beat the clock, you maintain your energy and improve productivity.

 

Here are a few ways to create deadlines you will always stick to, to achieve maximum productivity: 

 

Gain and Understand the Right Resources First

Understand all the expectations required of you, what extra materials you may need, and any other obstacles that may get in your way before you establish a deadline.

 

Make Them Urgent but Realistic

Once you fully understand the expectations set a deadline that pushes you to act without feeling overwhelmed and is realistic to the task you are doing. While also accounting for the unexpected. This step will require your full attention, honesty, and accountability.

 

If you can’t be honest with your actions and abilities, you won’t estimate the correct times to accomplish your takes. For example, if you know you usually take about two hours to do a specific task, don’t expect you to get it done in an hour, even if you think you can do it or be better overnight. If you do happen to get things done faster, take note of it, find a new task to work on instead or take a much-deserved break.

 

Make Them Personal and Meaningful

Instead of telling yourself, you need to meet the deadline simply to be on time for the project, highlight a better and more meaningful reason to complete it on time. To harness even more power, make it as personal as possible.

 

For example, “if I don’t complete this assignment on the date I established, I will miss free time with my friends and family.” Even though this isn’t about your business directly, it is precisely the motivation you will need to stay on track. If you are more likely to suffer consequences, you are less likely to fall off track.

Be More Accountable and Consistent, Share Your Goals

As you can see, the correct deadlines are there to motivate you and give you the discipline you need to get work done in a timely and orderly fashion as long as you stick to them.

 

 

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6 Habits That Are Destroying Your Productivity

Are you constantly scratching your head at the end of the day, wondering why you feel like you worked so much to get nowhere? The good news is that you are not alone, but unfortunately, there is bad news too.

 

The bad news is the habits you have adopted over time are killing your productivity. It doesn’t matter how busy you are. If you are not doing the right tasks to complete the job, you will never get it done.

 

Here are six habits that are destroying your productivity that you must end today:

 

Doing Everything at The Same Time

Most tasks require your undivided attention to get done and get it done well. Stop multitasking and expecting too much from yourself at all given times. You are not productive. You are only causing unnecessary stress, confusion, and poor-quality work.

 

Avoiding Technology or Using Too Much

Are you still keeping track of your bills, inventory, and tasks on paper? That is slowing you down too. Utilize technology where appropriate but be sure not to overdo it. Technology can be great until it becomes a distraction instead.

 

Not Following A Schedule or Routine

While it can seem like a business owner waking up and going with the day’s flow would be fabulous, the truth is, it’s not great for business or productivity. Routines and schedules make your day easier and help guide you in the right direction. When you have a clear idea of your goals and what to do next, you can get it done faster and with more confidence.

 

Poor Sleep and Diet Choices

It’s not something anyone wants to hear or admit to, but your diet and exercise routine has a direct reflection on how you perform throughout your day. Your work, business, relationships, and mental state are all affected by what you do and eat, negatively and positively. You’ve already heard the common phrase “you are what you eat,” and it’s true. Too much sugar and not enough nutrients from your diet leads to mental fog, body pain, and fatigue that can negatively strain your overall performance.

 Avoid Burnout: How to Exercise and Sleep More

Poor Communication Skills

Too much back and forth and confusion takes away the time you need to get work done efficiently. Not only that, poor communication means it’s likely not getting done correctly either. You are only pushing your schedule back and getting you off the path.

 

Poor or Distracting Work Environments

Working at a coffee shop or home is a dream come true for many entrepreneurs, but they quickly learn it comes with many challenges. If you are easily distracted, your work environment needs to be completely free of distractions.

Being busy and thinking that busy means productivity is also a bad habit. That thought process must be changed. Break your bad habits now so you can work less and do more.

 

 

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Get Your Goals into Your Calendar

Accomplishing your goals requires action. Stop waiting for the perfect time. You can create the perfect time. Pick a time relatively soon and realistic to your goal needs and put that goal into your calendar.

 

This means you need to:

  • Pick a start date and time for your ultimate goal
  • Set proper and realistic deadlines
  • Fully understand the tasks needed to reach your goal
  • Then schedule times and deadlines for each task required to reach your ultimate goal.

 

Adding your goals to your calendar forms a sense of commitment and re-establishes your sense of purpose or direction. It develops healthy routines and habits that inspire you to stay on track and keep you working towards your goals. It’s a great way to create instant motivation. When you can see it, you are more likely to want to get it done.

 

Essential Things to Keep in Mind When Goal Setting:

  • What is the end or ultimate goal?
  • How much time do you need? Have you timed yourself doing these tasks before? What if you don’t get as much sleep?
  • Are there things that could protentional go wrong or get in your way?
  • Who needs to do it? Can you complete each task or do some things that require help from others?
  • Group similar tasks and utilize technology to work more productively and save you time.
  • Get the most crucial items out of your way but keep in mind that little tasks add up over time.
  • Once you set a time, stick to it and don’t permit yourself to change it.

 

These are important questions and tips to keep in mind so you can pick the right deadline for your goal. You don’t want to create the opposite reaction and turn your goal into a nightmare because you took on too much work too fast. Slower is better than rushing it and pushing out shoddy quality work or products.

 

Research shows that more time is better for creativity anyways; however, just like too little time can have the opposite reaction, so can too much time. You must be realistic and take the time to evaluate. On the other hand, get going. Don’t wait or sabotage yourself any longer.

What Methods Work Best to Ensure You Make Your Goals?

The most productive and successful people utilize their calendar any moment they can.

Overall, the number one tip to achieving your goals and improving your time management skill and productivity is setting deadlines, adding them to your calendar, and then sticking to them. The more you schedule, the more you will achieve.

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Learn to Create Realistic Schedules

Take a look at your schedule right now. Are your goals listed yet? Do you even use one? If not, you should be. They improve your productivity, organization and help you achieve your goals both personally and professionally. However, adding them to your calendar is only the first step, you must think realistically too to be successful.

 

Keep in mind the tips and tricks when creating realistic schedules:

 

Define Your Goals and The Resources

For every goal and main objective, there are little tasks or to-do lists needed to get there. Highlight each one and then list the resources required to complete the work. For example, do you need to purchase specific equipment, or can it all be done from home?

 

Always Include Breaks and Vacations

Schedule your breaks, or you won’t take them and cause yourself to burnout. Burnout, fatigue, and lack of motivation won’t allow you to work efficiently no matter how much time you schedule yourself to work. It’s a myth that breaks are only for lazy people. The most highly productive people take breaks, and they take long ones too.

 Avoid Burnout: How to Exercise and Sleep More

Schedule Extra Time

Add around ten to fifteen more minutes to any scheduled task for things you can’t predict. Over time, little tasks you weren’t aware you were even doing, but are required to survive – like go to the bathroom – will add up and steal you away from doing the important tasks. To keep you on track and still complete what is required, expect to use a little more time than you believe you need, just like showing up to work fifteen minutes early, for example.

 

Be Aware of Shortfalls and Potential Snags

Each task you need to get done will likely have different variables or expectations, such as driving time to various onsite meetings or working with clients with different time zones. These examples can cause different kinds of delays that you are not used to or even aware of.

 

Commit to Distraction-Free Work

When you schedule tasks, you need to commit to the work time. If you don’t, you will only permit yourself to work over your breaks or other essential duties. If you commit to distraction-free work, you can ensure you get your job done on time every time.

 

Expect Change and Variability

Planning is only there to support you and guide you. It is not full proof. Don’t expect it to be.

 

Reevaluate for Accuracy

To improve any systems, you must schedule a time to review where things go wrong and where they went right to do even better next time.

 

Don’t Forget About the Little Things

Little tasks build-up, even five minutes or two minutes here and there, which could affect your schedule.

 

Don’t let the best productivity tool lead you down the wrong path. Use these tips and tricks and take the time now to rethink your schedule so you can achieve all your goals and aspirations quickly and productively.

 

 

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How to Use the Right Tools and Technology for Your Business

Around 77% of all small businesses in American use technology for personal and professional purposes. There is no surprise or shock to this as technology provides many incredible and different benefits.

 

As a small business, you should always take advantage of tools and technology for the following reasons:

 

  • To earn twice the revenue or more.
  • To save time, energy, and other resources.
  • To have more energy, momentum, and focus on producing higher quality work.
  • Provides you the opportunity to improve or be the leader in your industry.
  • Ensures proper communication between your customers, you, and your business team or both depending on your company’s size.
  • To make your life and business more manageable, more organized, and productive.

 

This is only a shortlist of the many benefits that technology can bring to your business. However, to reap these rewards, you must find the right tools and technology for your business and needs. Just because a tip works for everyone else doesn’t mean it will benefit you too.

 

The following are a few things to keep in mind when using and choosing the right tools and technology for your business:

 

Be Mindful of Your Pain Points or Frustrations

What areas of your business provide you the most pain and discomfort? When having trouble organizing all your projects, customer information, or delegating tasks, for example, project management systems such as Trello or Basecamp, will keep you and your team on track.

 

What Is Taking Up All Your Time

Are there tasks that need three hours or more of your focus at a time? Accounting and other administrative tasks are the first spots to look at in this case. These tasks are often time-consuming and require a lot of concentration and understand to get done correctly. QuickBooks helps keep track of your inventory, invoices, projects, customers, bills, and more.

 Benefits of Creating Processes and Systems

Be Aware of Your Workspace and Workplace Requirements

While there are many tools and technology that can benefit you, they may not be best suited for your workspace or environment.

 

What Are Your Weaknesses and Strengths?

Your lack of skills can be made up for with proper use of technology—freeing you from stress, frustration, or taking away your time trying to learn something you don’t want to or care to know. Just because you own or run a business doesn’t mean you have to be a mastermind or an expert at every and all skills.

 

Ask Your Customers or Employers

The best information to help is directly from the source. Your customers and employers want to use technology that makes their life easier too. Opening up this line of communication also shows your audience that you care and want to provide value.

 

As you can see, tools and technology can increase your productivity and provide many benefits. Find your weaknesses, pain points, and frustrations, and let technology do the work for you.

 

 

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How to Create an Effective To-Do List

To-do lists are the most popular and widely used time management strategy and essential productivity technique adopted by many successful entrepreneurs and business owners.

Lists

It is even a great way to achieve your own personal goals. However, not just any to-do list will do. Each to-do list you make must be designed appropriately and strategically to be successful.

 

Here are six tips and tricks to implement when developing an effective to-do list:

 

Tip #1: Choose the Right Medium

Choose the proper medium you enjoy, such as paper, a phone application, or simply a word document. What you pick doesn’t matter as long as you understand it and enjoy the process to inspire your creativity and get you working. The medium you choose only frustrates you or has a high learning curve. It won’t be helpful.

 

Tip #2: Use Your Schedule to Guide Your Day

Before you make a list, look at your schedule. Do you have any important meetings or assignments that must get done first? For your to-do list to be effective, use these times or important objectives to guide you. Therefore, don’t make a to-do list for a goal that requires more of your time if you know you will be interrupted.

 

Tip #3: Make It Clear and Precise

Don’t use too many words or go overboard with the tasks. While breaking it down is necessary to highlight the actions required, you can go overboard and overwhelm yourself. Be a realist and make it scannable.

 

Tip #4: Make Deadline or Time Limits

For each task on your to-do list, make time requirements or schedule deadlines and add it to your calendar. This way, it becomes a commitment, and you won’t forget about it either.

 

Tip #5: Limit Your Daily Tasks

Remember being busy doesn’t mean you are productive. In other words, you don’t want to break it down so much that each and every little task is highlighted. This can overwhelm you and require too much time to set up in the first place. Highlight the most important information such as times and what exactly needs to be done. You don’t need to include every time you might go to the bathroom, for example.

 

Tip #6: Add Ways to Keep Track of Your Progress

Seeing the work that you finished is a great way to motivate yourself to get even more done. This way, you can get yourself back on track if you notice you are not getting the work done.

 

As long as you make your list clear, direct, time-driven, and aligned with your goals, you’ll improve your productivity exponentially.

 

Hope you are having a very productive Day!

Here is a Great Speech from Art Williams. Very inspirational.

You must be Tough and Never Quit!

Just Do It Speech….

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Free and Low-Cost Automation Tools You Can Implement Today

Now that you’ve read a lot about automation, you may want to give some a try. The good news is you can test out a few options for free. This list is not comprehensive. There are free trials for most software these days, mostly cloud-based, so do try out the free options for the solutions you want to try before investing your money.

 

  • Google Docs – Even if you are using the free Gmail and Google and not the paid business version, you can use Google Docs to keep your documents organized and easily accessible and shareable via the cloud.

 

  • Trello.com – You can use Trello.com for free to organize your business and manage your employees or contractors. Set it up so that your clients can assign work for you and set up projects.

 

  • Join. me – If you want to host online meetings, this solution might work for you. It will work great for discovery calls and onboarding new customers, and it’s free.

 

  • Zapier.com – This works on the “if this, then that” process just like the next offering. Combine them both so that you can take advantage of using the free zaps to get more done each day.

 

  • IFTTT.com – You can use this solution to set up applets or little programs to perform repetitive tasks for you. For each account, you’ll get a few free options, but you may have to pay to get more. It’s not expensive, though, and it’s more than worth it to automate those tedious tasks.

 

  • PayPal and PayPal Invoicing – Most online business owners must get a Paypal.com business account anyway these days. It’s the number one payment method, and it’s free for anyone to set up. They have impressive invoicing capabilities, too, including recurring invoicing.

 

  • Invoicely.com – It’s free and allows you to manage more than one business using this amazing platform. You can see all your finances in one place, making it a lot easier to keep track. Not only that, you can track time, expenses, and so forth while also accepting online payments from anywhere.

 

  • Apptivo.com – This all-in-one solution offers CRM, project management, invoicing, and more for your small business. They offer a free starter account for up to 3 users, with a more advanced lite version opening up to more members soon.

 

  • Mybrightbook.com – This 100 percent free accounting software is made for non-accountants, so it’s easy to set up. You don’t have to know what you’re doing, and you can automate your entries and more. Free.

 

  • Salesautopilot.com – While not free, you can use this system for less than 100 dollars a month, and it has a lot of amazing features such as dynamic landing pages, scheduled campaigns, behavior-oriented triggers, and so much more.

 

  • Recurpost.com – This app will automatically share any post that you want on a recurring basis. You already know that if you want people to read your content, you must promote it multiple times. This system can be set up to share on a schedule you choose automatically.

 

  • Hubspot.com (CRM) – You can use HubSpot CRM free with an easy-to-understand view of your entire sales pipeline. It even has unlimited users, and there is no time limit. You can use this system for free if you’re alone or have a large team.

 

  • Metigy.oglecom – This platform will help you plan and collaborate on your marketing calendar, content and assets, account management, and more. It has lots of learning resources to help you learn more about online marketing too. They have a limited free plan that you can use for up to 3 social profiles. You can stay free forever, but for about $25 a month, you can upgrade to the professional version.

 

If you use any of these solutions or another one, please comment below on what you use and why you like it. Sharing solutions that work for you is good for the entire community because there is so much out there to try that no one person can really find it all.