Our modern, hyper-connected world can sometimes be a real efficiency killer. We all have problems with time management. Some of us stay up until 2am trying to get our 24-hour cable tv money’s worth. That same group stumbles out of bed at 10am. Others can’t seem to get something started until a deadline is looming.

Whatever the case — if you’re serious about being a highly productive business owner or a more efficient employee hoping for a raise, you need to do something to increase your productivity.

Let’s get you started. I’ve scoured the blogosphere and listed below the 8 tips and articles I have found most helpful:

1. Stop Procrastination - “Put a star next to the essential projects and tasks. Only choose a few. Now look at all the rest, and see if you can eliminate them, delegate them, or put them off for awhile. Clear the deck for the essential stuff, so you’ll actually have time to do them.”
2. Become an Early Riser - “Are morning people born or made? In my case it was definitely made. In my early 20s, I rarely went to bed before midnight, and I’d almost always sleep in late. I usually didn’t start hitting my stride each day until late afternoon.”
3. Turn Off The TV - “The average American watches more than 4 hours of television every day. Over a 65-year life, that’s 9 years glued to the tube. Turn off the TV and you are sure to get more out of life.”
4. Always Take Notes - I am constantly writing notes. Whether it be for my blog, work, meeting, new ideas, or just basic notes, I am always jotting something down. So I started thinking about all the services I’ve used for taking notes and thought it would be a good idea to share them with you and while I’m at it, to make a list of any others that I find.
5. Learn How To Tackle Your Most Dreaded Tasks - “Do it first thing in the morning. If you’re dreading doing something, you’re going to be able to think of more creative excuses as the day goes along. One of my Twelve Commandments is “Do it now.” No delay is the best way.”
6. Learn to say “No” - We can’t do everything and therefore we must learn when to say no in order to save our sanity.
7. Trick Yourself Into Action - This might have been a one-time trick that worked for me this morning, but I think there IS something to using the body to kick-start the mind into doing things, especially when it’s lazy.
8. Micronap Your Way To The Top - I have been practicing micronapping for a while now but didn’t really think it was unusual until a colleague mentioned it to me. I work a lot between all the jobs and voluntary work I have and get about 5 hours sleep. I am tired a lot so often take a micronap to refresh me.

Am I missing anything? Discuss this entry

Some of these may be nothing new to you, others may be foreign. Either way, feel free to add on to this list below!

1. Multiple Undo/Step Backward
   Ctrl + Alt + Z
2. New Layer
   Ctrl + Shift + N
3. Duplicate Layer
   Ctrl + J
4. Save for Web
   Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S
5. Zoom In / Zoom Out / Fit to Window
   Ctrl + = “Zoom In”
   Ctrl + - “Zoom Out”
   Ctrl + 0 “Fit to Window”
6. Copy Merged
   Ctrl + Shift + C
7. Launch ImageReady
   Ctrl + Shift + M

They get my attention alright. And I’ve decided to do something about it.

Flashblock is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox web browser that blocks flash from playing when a Web page is first loaded.

Not to worry, if you really want to view a flash animation on a web page all you have to do is click on the place holder arrow graphic and you’re good to go.

The latest stable version of this extension was released just two weeks ago so get it while it’s hot!

I have come across many developers online who have simply given up too easily when it comes to automating their Wordpress installations. I can’t blame most of them though…there really isn’t a whole lot of concrete documentation on this subject. Not for novices/beginners, anyway.

The following is the method I used personally to build this site’s nav menu:

(place this code in between your head tags and edit as you see fit)

<?php
if ( is_home()) { $active = 'one'; }
elseif ( is_page('14') ) { $active = 'two'; }
elseif ( is_page('15') ) { $active = 'three'; }
elseif ( is_page('16') ) { $active = 'four'; }
elseif ( is_page('17') ) { $active = 'five‘; }
elseif ( in_category(4) ) { $active = ‘five‘; }
elseif ( is_page(’18′) ) { $active = ’six’; }
elseif ( is_page(’19′) ) { $active = ’seven’; }
elseif ( is_page(’20′) ) { $active = ‘eight’; }
elseif ( is_page(’39′) ) { $active = ‘eight’; }
?>


As you can see, css id “five” is assigned to both Page17 (Blog) and Category4 (Blog Category). Makes sense now, huh? You can add to this list or subtract from it in order to work with your blog structure.

Now that you’ve assigned each page/category an “ID”, let’s write out some CSS that will go right underneath the above code in your header template:

#<?php echo $active; ?> a:link {
background-color: #333333;
}
#<?php echo $active; ?> a:visited {
background-color: #333333;
}

This appends a “#” to the css ID of the current page.

Your nav list should look something like this:

<li id="one"><a href="http://www.domain.com/">Home</a></li>
<li id="two"><a href="http://www.domain.com/products">Products</a></li>
And so on...

Hope this helps! If you need more help, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try and help you out.

Community support for Wordpress is outstanding! I stumble across a new plugin or two everyday! Now, not all plugins are created equal and neither are websites.

Scalability Matters

Wordpress may not be the best Content Management System on the planet right out of the box, but with some tweaking you can create some really special things.

With that said, I’ve compiled a list of the top 8 plugins I absolutely must have activated as soon as I publish a new Wordpress site:

1. Optimal Title - This plugin allows you to have your site’s name added to the end of your page title — rather than before it (wordpress default setting)…this should be #1 on your list if you’re serious about establishing an SEO-friendly foundation.
2. Akismet Comment Spam Killer - The name speaks for itself! Although this plugin comes pre-installed with Wordpress, a lot of users neglect it and leave it deactivated. Bad, web user! Bad! Trust me, it will make your life a whole lot simpler.
3. Feedburner Feed Replacement - This plugin will direct all of your feed traffic right through FeedBurner, ensuring that you will always receive accurate statistics about your subscribers.
4. RunPHP - This one is for coding maniacs or those who only want certain plugins or pieces of code to take effect in a particular post. I find it highly useful, but casual users may not.
5. Google Sitemap Generator - As a web professional, the word “Google” gets your attention. Now it’s time to get theirs! This plugin will generate a brand new sitemap for Google to use every time you update or add fresh content to your site.
6. Wordpress Database Backup - This is another one that comes pre-installed with Wordpress but is often ignored. *Smacks bad webmaster on the head with a newspaper* C’mon you should know better! Backing up your vital data has never been easier. Simply activate the plugin, select “Backup” under the “Manage” tab and select the desired method of backup. You can even schedule Wordpress to automatically do this every hour, day, week, month…whatever you like.
7. Sociable - You can see this plugin in action right below this post. This plugin can be very useful in getting your content out there for more users to read.
8. The Excerpt: Reloaded - I use this a lot when I need to specify how many words *exactly* a certain post preview needs to be. This is especially useful on some homepages where you’re pressed for space.

This is a really easy way to stand out from the crowd…just follow these simple steps:

1. Open Photoshop or your favorite graphic editing program
2. Create a small 16×16 pixel GIF or PNG image that is relevant to your site
3. Save it as “favicon.ico”. (If using Photoshop, you way need this plugin)
4. Once you’re done, upload the image file to your website’s root folder and add the following code somewhere in between the head tags:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.domain.com/favicon.ico"> <link rel="icon" href="http://www.domain.com/favicon.ico">

Just switch out “domain.com” for your site’s URL and you should be good to go!

“Today we have two security-related releases available for both users of our main 2.2 branch and the legacy 2.0 branch. As these releases include only security and minor bugfixes they should not cause any plugin or theme compatibility issues, so you have no good excuse not to upgrade.”

Visit the Wordpress Blog for further details

Feel free to add to this list..

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Where are all of these “web designers” coming from?

In 2005, Genma Stringer Holmes, founder of Holmes Pest Control in Nashville, hired a Web designer she’d met through her church. She wanted him to create two Web sites to boost sales for her 11-employee, $500,000 company. Holmes wasn’t looking for anything particularly fancy—she just wanted an informational site about her company that would include the latest news about pest control. Two years later, she says, she’s stuck with two sites that can’t be updated. Since the designer registered the names himself, only people he designates can change them. Holmes can’t shut the sites down or have another Web developer redo them. The Web designer hasn’t returned her phone calls or e-mails since February, 2006. (He did not return calls from BusinessWeek SmallBiz.) Says Holmes: “I was naive and didn’t know what I was doing.”

Source: Business Week

In my opinion, the biggest problem here is that there are way too many part-time designers out there. People whose livelihood doesn’t rest on the shoulders of their web-based endeavors will often times just not stick around.

Small business owners: Do your homework!

It may be the most economically viable option but it almost never makes good business to trust your company into the hands of your uncle’s-cousin’s-next door neighbor’s-son-who-kinda-sorta knows good web design.