Wake up early. This is a mostly subjective issue, because some of us are morning people while some of us are night owls. But no matter what your preference is, you cannot change the fact that a workday (or school day) usually starts in the morning, and you do have to get to class on time. Waking up early gives you extra time to freshen up and eat breakfast. Breakfast will give you the energy to accomplish your goals for the day.

If you wake up early enough, you’ll also avoid most of the distractions that seem to regularly come up in college since students are notorious for sleeping in. The early hours are great times to focus and get a lot of work done.

Take care of the small stuff. Take care of the little tasks right away before they grow and accumulate. If something can be done in two to five minutes, then it’s probably worth doing right away. Just finished a mug of coffee? Wash it right away before your kitchen sink turns into a tower of plates and mugs with radioactive goo. Do you need to call or email a professor? Do it now while it’s early. When you’ve ticked off the small items on your to do list, you’ll feel amazed at how much time you’ve saved.

Do one task at a time, but group tasks by location or logistics. Human brains are not like dual-core processors that your new laptop or desktop computer has. While our brains can essentially multitask, your conscious mind can probably focus on only one thing. Therefore, it’s a good idea to focus on finishing one task at a time, especially if it’s something important. If you’re finishing a paper or report, avoid turning on your instant messaging application at the same time. When you multitask, you tend to linger on each of the individual things you do, and therefore you waste time having to refocus your mind on doing each and everyone of these.

However, you should learn to group these tasks by location or time. For instance, if you’re bringing your clothes to the cleaners or laundrymat, then you can also do your grocery shopping along the way. You save time, energy and even transportation money by doing only one trip instead of more.

Cut back on unnecessary commitments. There are always parties to attend, club or frat meetings to go to, study groups to study with, and other activities that come your way, whether academic or non-academic. Learn to say “no” to commitments that you think would take up too much of your time from the more important things. It doesn’t mean that some events or commitments are not important. It’s just that you have other, more pressing things that you have to prioritize. Be realistic. Saying “no” does not necessarily mean being rude. Decline respectfully and be reasonable and realistic in doing so.

Avoid or limit distractions. I’ve talked about distractions already but it’s worth elaborating on the subject. Distractions keeps your focus away from doing something and it leads to more time spent on that task. It’s a good idea to avoid or limit these whenever you’re trying to study, work or do other important things. For instance, when you’re in shared living arrangements, establish a personal space because roommates might constantly distract or disturb you. How about finishing your review or your paper first, and then having fun with your extra time after that?

Time management is a highly personal matter. What works for one person might not work for another person. But there’s no harm in trying some tips and suggestions and sticking to them if they work for you. While you will only spend a few years in college, these habits will be important when you work in the corporate world or run your own business full time. So manage your time wisely and free up extra time to improve your college based business.

This is a guest post from twitQA, a Twitter answer site.

Strictly speaking, of course, the answer is no. We can follow whoever we want, or nobody at all. In my opinion, though, this misses the point of social media: proactive interaction. It’s all about putting yourself out there and making new connections. Also, following others is quite beneficial in that it helps you keep an ear on the ground, which is beneficial in generating ideas for your products and services.

Another issue is the reverse, i.e. gaining followers. There are many whose main concern is purely to acquire more followers, which they regard as a measure of success in Twitter world. I definitely think it’s a difficult task to do this in legitimate ways and is an art in itself. However, we shouldn’t forget that the quality of followers you have is as important, if not more so, as their quantity. Imagine persuading industry leaders to follow you and engaging you in conversations. Besides getting their insights to your questions, @replies and retweets are great advertisements for your account among their followers.

Each of us has tried different ways to attract users on Twitter. Which was your most successful tactic? Which one didn’t work as well as you hoped?

Pertaining to College Startup readers, the internet and online business is this ‘unconventional evil’ that is subject to cries of illegitimacy.  These thoughts stem mainly from the easyness that lies in starting a web business. A domain costs $10, hosting can be had for pocket change, and sufficient design is shifting toward a commodity with blogs. What other business has such low barriers of entry that create the illusion that ‘Anybody can do it’?

None.

But these same low barriers of entry hinder most people from succeeding since if you just walk away from the business, you lose a night’s bar tab. Big deal.

While these thoughts are kind of rambling, I’m trying to get to the point that a life of nonconformity in a business and career sense is easy to get started with, but hard to maintain and stick with.  If you do get serious, a life of nonconformity is a serious possibility if you’re interested.

Nonconformity living in action

For example, this post (and it’s obvious keyword of nonconformity) was partially inspired by Chris Guillebeau who runs his own successful and relatively young blog The Art of Nonconformity. From his constant travel and successful online monetization practices, Chris is living the life doing what he wants, when he wants.  He’s essentially making as much money as he wants to by working when he wants, and the strength of his brand is unreal allowing him to do so. The best part about Chris is that his site is so young (Feb 2008), which shows how it’s possible to leapfrog the competition and grow your business at a ridiculously fast rate with some real dedication.

I highly recommend reading a good portion of his site – especially his manifestos which are both inspiring and offer practical online business tips – to get a good iea of how nonconventional living from online business is possible and thriving.

Other Nonconformist internet entrepreneurs

There are tons of great online entrepreneurs out there, but they’ve been around for quite some time (funny how 3-5 years seems like a long time now for the internet). Amongst these are John Chow (his youtube video sums it up), Problogger, and college startup’s own Ryan Caldwell to name just a few.

Point in fact is that as Chris Guillebeau shows us at the Art of Nonconformity, it’s not too late to start an “unconventional” online business to support a fulfilling life spent living most of the time rather than working. Work to live, don’t live to work.

If you’ve been following the Iran protests, you might be aware of the media crackdown and Internet filtering that their government has been doing. Twitter has been instrumental in disseminating information from inside Iran to the outside world because its architecture makes it difficult to filter out. Wordwide, “tweeple” have been trying to help the protesters thru this service. Chris Anderson interviewed NYU Professor Clay Shirky about Twitter on TED.com, and I’ll quote part of it here:

Do you get a sense that it’s almost as if the world is figuring out live how to use Twitter in these circumstances? Some dissidents were using named accounts for a while, and there’s been a raging debate in the community about how best to help them.

Yes, there’s an enormous reckoning to be had about what works and what doesn’t. There have been disagreements over whether it was dangerous to use hashtags like #Iranelection, and there was a period in which people were openly tweeting the IP addresses of web proxies for people to switch to, not realizing that the authorities would soon shut these down. It’s incredibly messy, and the definitive rules of the game have yet to be written. So yes, we’re seeing the medium invent itself in real time.

This is certainly an eye-opener, not just about citizen journalism, but about how Twitter can be used by swarms of people for different ends. In business, a lot has been said on how to use social media to gain more customers or win their loyalty, but it seems like there are more possibilities left unexplored.

Do you use Twitter for your business dealings? How do you harness it differently, and what features do you think it should add to be more responsive to your needs as an entrepreneur?

For one, it’s faster. Time-sensitive decisions can be made on the ground without having to wait for you to get around to it. Of course, it also means there will be less on your plate to worry about. When the pressure to review each and every detail of transactions is shared with others, subject to checks and balances, it lowers your own stress level. Definitely more valuable time for your studies and relaxation.

Giving others a greater sense of responsibility enhances their stake in the company. They’ll see that the company’s success is also their success. Having their voices heard increases morale, fosters loyalty, and makes people more motivated to work, especially if you take the time to recognize their contributions.

Some work tasks can’t be distributed to employees, probably due to their sensitivity. For the others, however, don’t hesitate to train your team. As a former boss told me, you know you’re a good manager once you’ve trained your people to function well even without your supervision.

Three examples were featured in the article. One is a college student who earns extra money by giving drumming lessons and performing onstage. Another is a girl who made a fortune out of marketing a hair-conditioner, the recipe of which is a family secret. The last is a girl as well that, frustrated with off-the-shelf body care products, decided she’d experiment and create her own.

They all became successful, but not before overcoming difficulties, some being specific to their age. First, obviously, is their lack of experience. Be it life experience or business experience, they didn’t have the luxury of having much of either to draw from. Then there’s the tough task of juggling work, school, and other activities normal kids their age do. Finally, being young makes it that much harder to convince other people to trust you, which means you often need to perform above par just to be treated seriously.

That said, starting early gives you a lot of advantage in the long run. By running a business, you learn infinitely more compared to taking a job elsewhere. A sense of responsibility becomes ingrained as you feel tied to the work that you do. Being young, it’s also easier to accept rejection, or at least get used to it, so that you accept it as part of the learning processes. And last, teens are definitely much more tech-savvy than older generations. Being connected comes natural, and they can utilize the full potential of available technologies much more readily simply due to earlier exposure.

Have you started your own business as a teen? What were the difficulties that you encountered then?

First, beyond the simple 140 character updates, Twitter has many strengths that have been revealed in countless industry articles. So below I highlighted a few valuable business applications of Twitter, and some huge opportunities that are relevant to young entrepreneurs and college startups.

1. Network with other businesses and professionals – with so many businesses, professionals, and websites already on twitter, twitter offers a unique opportunity to network with others in your industry. Whether its direct messages, Re-tweets (RT) @a business, or just a tweeting dialague, valuable relationships and networks can be formed exclusively using the Twitter platform.

2. Connect with your market. Super Niche, local, and intimately- If you’re a young entrepreneur or in college, chances are your target audience is also young and Twitter offers a great opportunity to really define your target audience and interact with them directly and intimately

4. Monitor Ad and promotion performance – Both offline and online promotions or ad programs can be monitored and tracked with Twitter, revealing a lot of valuable data to better market your product or service.  For example, offering promotions only through twitter makes your performance very obvious.

Additionally and possibly even more powerful would be requiring your market to interact with you on twitter after seeing offline promotions like fliers or billboards. So essentially Twitter would make offline, old fashioned ads work much better and much more effective.

5. Rapid News & Blogs - Twitter is turning into one of the best sources for news with its trending topics and search abilities. In addition to the rapid reporting made possible with Twitter (able to come from any user in the US that can talk and use Twitpic),  Twitter is the new feedreader for people following blogs and online news sources to get their information.

Opportunities – The opportunities that lie in Twitter are still almost endless.  Services like StockTwits really show how communities can be formed around a specific niche topic, and until all those niches are covered there could almost always be some opportunity for small college-ish startups. So there is huge potential in forming communities on and around twitter, or aggregating similiar tweets to creaste an authoritative news feed.

Twitter’s exciting, and the possibilities and business potential around it are just being found and recognized. So get familiar with it at the very least and develop a Twitter campaign for your business, projects, or self today.

by @nickochsner

* Threshold amounts are the amounts at which income becomes taxable. 2006 teen employment thresholds are: earned income, $5,150; unearned income, $850; self-employment (SE), $400. (Most amounts are adjusted annually.)

* Earned income is ANY income or wage earned from a job. It includes cash as well as any income for which the worker receives a Form W-2 or Form 1099-MISC.

* Unearned income comes from investments such as savings accounts, dividends from stock and mutual funds owned in custodial accounts, and capital gains for the sale of stock or mutual funds. Students with more than $850 of unearned income owe federal income tax.

* Self-employment (SE), social security (FICA), and Medicare are all considered SE taxes. Self-employed teens must pay SE tax on any net income over $400 and report their income and SE taxes on Form 1040. Frequently additional forms and schedules are required as well. “However,” notes NATP member, Dawn J. Renner, CPA, from Minnetonka, MN, “Teens under age 18 who work for their parents’ business are not subject to FICA or Medicare tax unless the business is incorporated, a partnership (unless each partner is a parent of the child), or an estate.”

* Teens who are household employees do not owe SE tax; however, income is reported on Form 1040, Line 7, broken out from any W-2 wages. The household (also called domestic services) income amount should be indicated with a code of “HSH”. Household employees are housekeepers, maids, babysitters, gardeners, and others who work in or around private residences as employees.

For more of these and a study of certain scenarios for clarity, head on over to her article at TaxProfessionals.com.

Networking. Nothing beats having a lot of friends and acquaintances to point you to certain opportunities and recommend you to their own friends. Don’t miss out on gatherings that can expand your network. Remember to smile and establish eye contact.

Posters. Use catchy designs and brightly colored paper if you can. Often there are billboards around campus that are reserved for students so you may want to try placing some posters there. Don’t forget to include your contact information.

Flyers. For a more proactive approach, try handing out flyers about your services in crowded places like outside the canteen, the mall, the park, or any other relavant sites. You can also drop them in household mailboxes.

Newspapers. If you can to broaden your scope, why not place an ad on the local paper? This will probably work best if your services target an older demographic. Do this on the day of peak readership to make it cost-effective.

It may be a high tech world but low tech promotion still has its uses. Try the methods above to get your business going, all of them at the same time in a blitz for maximum effect.

If your startup is a one-man operation, and you prefer to work that way, then the trusty pen-and-paper combo can be a big help. Thinking about the pros and cons will tend to get you going in circles. Write things down to make your ideas concrete and your problems clearly defined. It’s easier to evaluate the risks and rewards when you can look at something tangible in front of you. In effect, you are your own confidant, and that’s not as crazy as it sounds. Trust me.

If you already did my suggestion above and you still can decide, talk to someone you trust. It could be your friends, your business partner, an employee, or a mentor. Consult with them one-on-one, via phone, or email – whichever is most convenient. Explain your situation and ask them for their point of view. It’s good if you have someone to bounce off ideas with, more so if that person is readily available when you need them, like your roommate or your best friend.

Quick, confident decisions can only be made once you’re able to study all the angles. Your confidant helps immensely in that department. Sometimes, though, you already know what to do, and all you really need is someone to agree with you.