On Mashable, Erica Swallow recently wrote a post on creating a personal website that received over 3500 tweets.  It was incredible that so many people were interested in this content and shared it with their networks.

On the other side of the spectrum, there’s the seminar of highly-driven professionals I facilitated last week.  When I asked how many people had a personal website, two out of 100 raised their hands.

Everyone Needs a Website

I suppose there is a perception that if you don’t have your own business, you don’t need a website.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  If you are employed anywhere and intend to be in the future, you need to have a strong online presence depicting a person who is reliable, loyal, smart, and competent, and it’s your responsibility to ensure that something great appears when a potential business contact or hiring manager types your name into Google.

Build it Simply

For this reason, it’s a no brainer to purchase your name from a web domain company like GoDaddy.com and create a visually-appealing website that expresses who you are, what you love to do, and why people should care.

Your site might include a professional biography, photo, credentials, work samples, and contact information.  You don’t need to spend gobs of money on a professional web designer – simply buying a template online and typing your content into the relevant fields will do the trick.  In fact, it only costs a few dollars a year to purchase a domain name and keep a small site running.

Go Beyond LinkedIn

Complete LinkedIn profiles are must-haves too, but they don’t produce the same level of impact as sending someone to yourname.com. If someone has already bought your name by the time you read this, try using a middle initial or a nickname (e.g. rickthompson.com instead of richardthompson.com) so that you can create an online home all your own.

Marci Alboher, for instance, does a great job of using a personal website to effectively brand herself.  Although Marci currently works full time for Civic Ventures, a nonprofit think tank, her strong online presence complete with opinion pieces and a Twitter stream has her well-positioned for future opportunities and allows readers to get a glimpse of her personality.

There is, of course, an opportunity here to be really creative. In the Mashable article, Erica Swallow features a fantastic online presence by Hagan Blount, which is presented in the form of an infographic and includes quotes, stats, and a skills graph.  Using tools like YouTube Annotations, it’s also easy to create a video component to your website that outlines your unique combination of skills and experiences in a compelling way (as PR executive Graeme Anthony does here).

Drive Visitors, Post Smart

In addition to using your site as a landing page for Google searches, you can proactively drive people to it by commenting on related websites, writing expert articles, engaging in social media channels, and placing your URL in your e-mail signature and on your business cards.

Please just make sure that you are discreet with the information you provide on your site.  If you are currently employed, you don’t want to get into hot water by posting confidential company data or anything that suggests you are actively looking for a new job.

Hat tip to Kristine Jubeck, a website designer at Pearl Street Studio who turned me on to the need for this post.

Related posts:

1. Do You Have a Personal Brand?
2. How to Make LinkedIn Work for You
3. What Does Being a Mentor Mean?

Besides selling more than 10 million books worldwide, Mackay is a nationally syndicated columnist for United Features Syndicate and is a top Toastmaster’s International Speaker. He is chairman of the MackayMitchell Envelope Co., a $100 million company he founded at age 26.

Recently he spoke with me about making a business successful today, the value of relationships and how he gets people to say “yes.”

AB: You’ve written a number of successful books over the years, and there are some common themes…

HM:  The theme of everything I write is: “prepare to win.” There are more than 310 million people in the U.S. and for those over age 15 or so – from the moment you wake up in the morning to the time you go to bed – you are a sales person. You’re negotiating, communicating, persuading and influencing others. If you don’t realize that, then that’s when you’re going to wind up being the one influenced or persuaded. That’s when you’re going to wind up second, or third or fourth.

AB: Another theme seems to be how to get a “no” turned into a “yes,” whether it’s getting a job or landing a new customer. What’s something you feel people don’t understand about persuading others?

HM:  The best way to do it is by humanizing your selling strategy. The concept doesn’t change if you’re selling insurance or envelopes. People buy from other people because of likeability. I haven’t made a cold call in more than 40 years, and neither does anyone in my company. From 40 to 70 percent of the time, you’re not going to be talking business with a customer. So what do you talk about? You go to what I call the “invisible web” and get information. Just using Google isn’t good enough.

You find out whether the person (you want to do business with) is a Democrat or a Republican, where they play golf, how much money they give to charity and where they went to school. All of this is ethical, and legal. The information is out there.

You’ll get better and better at it. Do you know everything when you go in to talk to the person? No. But you read what’s on the walls and on the desk and gain information. You talk to the guy at the front gate and the secretaries and assistants, and you gain information about the person.

We train our people that from the moment they leave a sales call, they go to their cars and begin dictating everything they learned into their iPhones or write it down.

You do all that so you build a relationship with the person. And that’s how you start to turn the “no” into a “yes.”

AB: You’ve been in business for a long time and are a self-made millionaire. What do you think is different about starting your own business today from when you launched your company at age 26?

HM:  All the skills and ingredients and traits are the same.  You’ve got to have passion and knowledge and be a self-starter. You’ve got to have the No. 1 most important thing – trust – with your customers and employees. But what has changed is how we get information. The acceleration of time is beyond comprehension. It’s urgent you’re knowledgeable about the Internet and social media and technology. So while all the principles of a successful business are the same, today you’ve got to merge it with cutting-edge technology.

AB: What do you think the No. 1 reason is new businesses fail today?

HM: A lot of people would say it’s a lack of capital, but I think that’s the second reason. I think it’s the people you hire. For entrepreneurs,  the single biggest decision they have to make is who they hire. In the first 25 years of my business, I hired every single person, from the truck driver to the switch board operator to the sales person. One person can make all the difference.

AB: Another theme in your books has been the importance of relationships. Can you talk about that?

HM: If you really dive into the DNA of successful people you’ll find that they all have the ability to build and nurture relationships.

My father taught me early that I should always be saying to myself when I meet another person: “What can I do to help you?” It’s about reciprocity without keeping score. The key is to expect nothing in return. You must be a giver, not a taker. If you live your life that way, you can’t wait to get up in the morning.

I’ve figure out what I want on my tombstone: “He couldn’t sleep fast enough.” I don’t want to go to sleep.  I was born excited.

AB: Do you think the kinds of relationships you’re talking about can be built online through sites such as Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn?

HM:  I watch my grandson text so fast, his fingers are just flying. I call it the age of thumbs and forefingers. But I sincerely believe in one-on-one relationships. I’ve made at least 10 to 15 trips of 4,000 miles each just to spend 180 seconds with someone so I could look them in the eye and tell them I’m their 911.

It’s very difficult to be “all in” with teleseminars or emails. You have to be all in. The difference between 100 percent all in and 99 percent all in is 100 percent.

I’ve never met a successful hermit.

In the next installment of this interview, Mackay will talk about building a successful career, self promotion and what lessons we must learn from a bad economy.

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When evaluating new software solutions, the purchase decision usually comes down to the product that sufficiently meets the primary business needs, has the most impressive features, is both reliable and secure, and is procured for a reasonable cost. And this decision is almost never made by the end users. The factor that likely did not come up in our example above and that does not come up often enough is the end user experience.

User adoption is a result of simple and effective application design. If an application doesn’t enable end users to complete work easily without the technology getting in their way, users may resist change, and your application will not have the opportunity to fulfill its potential for positive impact. Unfortunately, this story is all too common. With enterprise software, the end user is often faced with unnecessarily complicated workflows, irrelevant design elements, flashy-yet-useless functionality, and developer-centric design.

Many companies today have unique business processes and require customized solutions. Customizable solutions also enable application designers to craft a simpler, more effective end user experience. Here are a few simple things to focus on with application design and customization that can have a dramatic effect on positive user experience:

• Focus on the central business process. It can be tempting to try to solve for everything all at once but remember – Rome wasn’t built in a day. The end user wants to be able to complete their work quickly and easily. This can be accomplished by designing the application with their workflow in mind so there are minimal clicks, scrolling and thinking required to accomplish their work within the application.
• Put the brakes on scope creep. Often times a product is evaluated and eventually purchased based on a very simple need, but as more is learned about the capability of the new product, the scope of the new product rollout (and the amount of change required of the end user) increases. If the first iteration or version of the solution can be kept aligned to the primary goals that initiated change in the first place, end users are going to be more likely to accept and absorb the change.
• Keep it simple. For now, avoid implementing all those impressive extra features that are not mission-critical to accomplishing the main work in the application. The solution you have selected may have all the bells and whistles that you might eventually want to use, but if users don’t have a reason to use them right now, they could just end up being more of a distraction.
• Group users into like “roles” to simplify each group’s experience. Roles allow you to define custom permissions for what users can see and do in an application. Most administrators use this function for restrictive or security purposes however, savvy application designers use roles to assist with ease of use and user experience. For example, in an application for Sales and Project Management, there may be no reason to restrict a salesperson from seeing project data, but why not remove it from their main views to simplify what they see in their workflow views?
• Consider design aesthetics. Users adopt and enjoy using applications that are aesthetically pleasing. Data entry forms should flow naturally in the way users actually do their job and data fields should be arranged logically. If fields exist that users do not use as part of their job or role, create separate forms for different user roles or separate sections on data entry forms to simplify their views. Likewise, dashboards and reports should only show users the data they need to see to get their work done. (Click here for more about Customizing Forms)

The graphic to the left is an example of application aesthetics. Both graphics are from the same data entry form however, the graphic bordered in green is the form that end users find more aesthetically pleasing.

Of course, there is only so much that can be accomplished with technology to improve user adoption. Communication with the people that will use the application is the biggest driver towards ensuring their satisfaction. Thinking about the end user experience early on in the process is likely to improve the success of the implementation. Consider a proactive approach to involving end users by inviting a team lead or veteran team member in on the evaluation and design phases to be a user voice in the process. Gaining user feedback is the best way to know how the work is currently done, what works well, what could be improved, and will eventually provide indicators on how ready users are for another round of functionality after the first implementation is adopted.

If you can customize and control the user experience in that new solution that revolutionizes the way you do business, your users will more than likely adopt it, and your implementation will more than likely be successful!

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2. Realities of Solution Change Management
3. February Release – User Customization and Conditional Dropdowns

At TwinSuns, a QuickBase Solution Provider, we’ve been fortunate over the years to work with some remarkable clients – companies that are dynamic and forward-thinking. And within those companies, we’ve been privileged to team up with the folks who are looking to make a positive impact within their organizations – we sometimes call them change agents.  Insofar as our business is developing QuickBase solutions for project management challenges, these change agents are invariably the people who are instrumental in pushing their company forward, whether it’s by moving applications and data to the cloud, driving process improvements, or influencing old ways of thinking. These key people are not necessarily in top management. They can be at any level in a company that fosters innovation. We’ve been able to discern three characteristics that these special people have in common and wanted to share them with you:

• Innovative but with focus. They don’t just come up with ideas, they know how to apply them as well.  Change agents are curious, experimental, and, as we’ve witnessed with our customers, they try to apply their discoveries to the organization’s goals.  They are not necessarily “techies,” or experts, but are more likely generalists who have the vision of what will make a difference to the company.

• Diplomatic and organizationally savvy. Rarely do we see a good change agent who is not diplomatic. They are usually very good at working with multiple groups and moving them forward. They usually have a good feel for what it takes to make something happen. Often, they will combine their diplomacy with innovation to develop a “proof of concept” to motivate and impress a cautious boss.

• Supercharged. Not hyperactive, but motivated with a purpose. With persistent determination, these change agents methodically spread their vision, achieve buy-in, and get the boss on board.  Along the way, they learn the rewards of patience. Even the best ideas can become better by listening to and incorporating the input of others.

We’ve learned that being a change agent is not specific to a job title or area of expertise.  No matter what their position, they have a passion to positively impact their organization, their way of working, and to embrace new tool sets and methodologies to achieve their vision.  We’ve been privileged to grow with these special clients.

Related posts:

1. 5 Elements of Successful Project Teams
2. It Takes Work to Make Change Happen
3. Minimize Change by Being a Proactive Team Leader

Prepare Thoroughly

Ambiguity and uncertainty is a big contributor to much of stress related to change. Increase your understanding of the situation and gather as much information as you can to ease your mind.

• Do your homework—research and study available public information.
• Be interested–learn as much about the people, culture, and business of the other company.
• Ask plenty of questions and phrase them in a way that shows enthusiasm rather than resistance.
• Consider every meeting akin to a job interview and the next few months akin to the first 90 days of a new job. Prepare and seek to impress. Network and get to know new people.
• Ensure a smooth transition for your current area of responsibility.

React Well

Keep your emotions in check. A merger or acquisition makes for a stressful time so it is understandable that you might be on edge, but take care of yourself so it doesn’t negatively affect your decisions and behaviors. Regardless of your actual feelings, display optimism (for the most part). Granted, if there are actual concerns you don’t want to brush over them, but don’t go around infecting everyone with unsolicited pessimism. Keep an open mind: instead of “this won’t work” change the tone to “how can we make this work?” When presenting arguments, especially those that may not be received well, use data and facts rather than opinions and emotions.

Add Value

Mergers and acquisitions create new opportunities not only for the organization but also for employees who are willing and able to act on them. New systems, new people, new processes, new responsibilities because available. This can allow you to enhance your skills or position yourself for a promotion.

To exploit the opportunity, take on additional responsibilities to demonstrate your competence besides what was required of your immediate position. Take the lead in change management. Most of us are at least somewhat resistant to change, but it is inevitable, so don’t fight it. Help strategize, plan, and develop new products and processes. Get others on board with you. Don’t forget to also keep lines of communication open about preferences, assumptions, and plans.

As with most things, when you approach the situation with curiosity, positivity, and an open-mind, you put yourself in a better position than if you remain defensive, hostile, or obstinate.

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If you know someone who’s relatively inexperienced but smart, driven, and generally awesome, consider acting as an informal mentor and doing the following:

1. Invite them to sit in while you do things—interviews, important meetings, strategy phone calls, and so forth. Talk to them afterward, and explain why you said or did particular things.

2. Talk to them about dilemmas you’re facing in your own job. Explain the options you’re weighing and the various factors you have to take into consideration, and eventually what you’ve decided and why. Over time, this will help them start honing their own instincts.

3. Talk to them directly about their goals. Actively look for ways you can help them move toward them. And if they’re not sure what their goals are or should be, help them talk through the options and figure out where they want to go.

4. Give them greater and greater responsibilities. In particular, give them things they’re not sure they can handle, and talk them through it. Help them figure out how to tackle it, and afterwards talk over how it went.

5. If you can, give them an intern to manage. Then talk with them regularly about the management challenges that arise and how to handle them—everything from how to feel comfortable exerting authority to addressing careless work to what to say when the intern shows up in flip-flops.

6. Give honest and direct feedback. Tell them where they’re doing well and where they could do better. Having this kind of objective assessment from someone who has their best interests at heart can be hugely valuable.

7. Give them the confidence to take on more by making sure you tell them how great they are. Early in their career, outstanding people tend to think they’re merely average. Help them recognize when they’re capable of more.

8. When the time is right, promote them or help them find the next step in their career—even if that means losing them.

Related posts:

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2. How to Choose Between Equally Great Candidates
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1. Recognize that your interns are working for no or little pay and find out what they’re hoping to get out of the experience – and then think about how you might be able to help them. If they’re hoping to get some experience writing and you wouldn’t normally have them doing any writing, see if there’s a way to allow them to write a few small things (which you’d then edit). Of course, sometimes this isn’t practical; it depends on what exactly they’re hoping to get experience doing. Most often though, interns are simply looking to get “experience” and that can mean anything from answering phones to proofing a policy brief.

2. Assume that your interns won’t know some basic things about how offices work and give more guidance than you might with a regular employee. Make sure you’re your expectations and goals for their time with you are really clear, and check in regularly to monitor how their work is being executed so you can make course corrections if needed and act as a resource.

You also might need to explain things that would go unsaid with someone more experienced. I’ve even had to explain to interns that they need to call if they’re unable to come in (not just not show up without notifying anyone). Keep in mind that a lot of the value of an internship is that it’s how students learn these basics about the work world — so that when they’re in a “real” position, they already know how things work. Ideally, you’ll be someone who enjoys teaching this kind of thing; if you’re not, at least see it as part of the “pay” you’re providing them in exchange for their work.

3. Don’t cut your interns too much slack just because they’re not being paid much. You probably won’t be holding them to precisely the same standards you’d hold your regular staff to, but you should hold them to something close to that — because otherwise the time that you put into hiring, training, and supervising them won’t be worth it to you, and they’ll lose a lot of the value of the experience themselves.

Sometimes managers feel like they can’t hold interns very accountable or give them direct feedback about problem areas because they’re not getting paid much, but because of the time investment on your side, it’s generally better to have no intern at all than to have one who you can’t rely on or whose work is so careless that it has to be redone.

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Except it’s not.

Your boss has mentioned more than once that you need to get your constant procrastination and disorganization under control. Co-workers seem perplexed that you don’t remember things correctly afteryou’ve been told once, and must be told again and again in order to get it right.

When you get home after work, you find that even though you meant to spend only a few minutes checking in on Facebook, hours go by before you realize you’re still at the computer and haven’t even eaten dinner or changed out of your work clothes.

If any of these scenarios sound familiar, it could be that you are one of the 10 million adults in the country with ADHD. Symptoms of ADHD and attention deficit disorder (known as inattentive ADHD or ADD) include difficulty paying attention; being easily distracted; trouble finishing paperwork; fidgeting; talking too much; and procrastination.

If you were not diagnosed with ADHD as a child, you may feel you can’t possibly have it. Or, you may fear getting a diagnosis of ADHD will be the kiss of death for your career, especially if your boss hears about it.

But not taking action to help your condition may lead to you losing your job anyway because of poor performance. Personal and work relationships also can be harmed because those with ADHD often miss social cues and inadvertently hurt or anger someone with their verbal blunders or behavior.

While it may be that you will be prescribed medication to treat your condition, be aware that you have to do more than that to cope with the disorder in the workplace. You’ve got to monitor your own symptoms and see what kinds of situations are most difficult for you, and get input from friends and family who maybe able to spot problem areas. You also may need to work with a coach to improve some skills.

If you have ADHD, there are some ways to help you improve your work performance. Among them:

• Getting an assistant. College students or virtual assistants can be important in helping you organize your time and provide structure. While there are online tools to help you with your schedule, even a simple kitchen timer can be effective in keeping you on track.
• Being honest. Children are being diagnosed with ADHD more today than ever before as teachers, parents and physicians begin to recognize the symptoms. Be upfront with your boss and co-workers about problem areas and ask for their help when you need it. Chances are good they’re going to be understanding because they personally know someone with the condition.
• Eliminating distractions. In a meeting, try to sit closest to the person leading it, or sit on the front row during a seminar. Get an agenda beforehand so that you can follow along easier. Some people with ADHD say playing music while working helps keep them focused. It also may be helpful to keep your workspace free of anything but the materials you’re currently working on so that you’re not distracted by a tray of paperclips or a new magazine, for example.
• Looking for variety. Not every job is going to be exciting all the time, but you should look for jobs that perhaps allow you to move from task to task without forcing you to do one thing for long periods. If you find it hard to sit still for any amount of time, then a telemarketing job might not be right for you – but working in a busy warehouse might be ideal.

If you’re unsure of whether you may have ADHD, talk to your physician or a trained mental health professional about the issue. For more information, check out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/.

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What is adaptability? A few years ago, some research funded by the U. S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences compiled the following attributes as dimensions of adaptability:

• Handling emergencies or crisis situations
• Handling work stress
• Solving problems creatively
• Dealing effectively with unpredictable or changing work situations
• Learning work tasks, technologies, and procedures
• Demonstrating interpersonal adaptability
• Displaying cultural adaptability
• Demonstrating physically oriented adaptability

Adapting your leadership style to meet the needs of a changing business environment, the needs of different people, and a variety of opportunities is bound to be more effective than staying in the comfort zone of a singular leadership style.

Adaptable leadership is about being ready for change. While you may have an end-goal and a basic strategy to reach it, the path that you plan to take is not set in stone. This allows appropriate responses to the demands of the moment. Detours and unforeseen circumstances are welcomed and viewed as opportunities. Adaptable leaders make the most of such change and take advantage of variety.

Tips for developing an adaptability mindset:

• Quit following the rules. Do you refer to standard operating procedure on everything? When is the last time your process changed? Do something differently once in a while.
• Think twice about saying no. Stop yourself when you find yourself rejecting a new idea or feeling pessimistic about an initiative. While in the moment, ask questions rather than expressing disagreement or negativity. When you have a minute, reflect on your immediate reaction and challenge yourself to find positivity in the situation.
• Start your day differently. If you have a typical morning routine—same wake up time, same breakfast, same route to work—change it up. Routines tend to flow into one another so you might be going through the motions at work too. Starting your morning differently will trigger openness to doing things differently for the remainder of the day.
• Be an early adopter. Rather than resisting change, be the first to embrace it. Find a helpful new technology, system, tool, software, or process that is relevant to you and your organization. Learn it inside and out and then introduce it to others.

Small ways to weave adaptability into your leadership style:

• Adapt to personalities of employees, coworkers, customers. To achieve a goal of communicating better and working with others more effectively, adapt your own interpersonal style to complement theirs. For example, with some you may want to be more direct. You don’t need to change who you are, just how you sometimes behave.
• Adapt to skills and weaknesses of employees. Delegate work based on interests and skills. Learn about who is good at what and who needs to develop what. When hiring new talent, seek to fill gaps in knowledge and competencies.
• Adapt to the time of year. Most businesses and departments go through cycles of activity. One quarter is busy while another is slow. Plan ahead and take advantage of down-time to pursue long-term objectives. 

Related posts:

1. Tips for New Managers from QuickBase Sales Leader
2. Gain Self-Awareness as a Leader
3. Minimize Change by Being a Proactive Team Leader

Perhaps it was the one about eating healthy. (Who can resist the double chocolate chip cookies someone brought to the break room?) Or, maybe it was your determination to be nicer to your irritating co-worker – until she asked if you had gained weight over the holidays.

Whatever your track record on resolutions, there is still plenty of time to make important ones regarding your career and business success for this year. If you’re a little worried about making your resolve stick or don’t know how to plot out your success, consider these ideas from others:

Deborah Shane, a career branding strategist and author of Career Transition: “I don’t make resolutions. I create intentions and then set myself up for things to happen. For this year, I’m going to qualify my time even more and say ‘thanks for thinking of me, but no.’”

Jason Seiden, co-founder of Ajax Social Media and author of Beyond Social: “I am going to get actionable. I looked at every aspect of my business and attached specific numbers to any area that didn’t already have them.”

Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding and author of Me: 2.0: “My big new year’s resolution for 2012 is to meet new people, get a new hobby and join a few organizations. When you run a virtual company, and you’re introverted, it can be hard to remove yourself and meet new people in real life.”

Many career resolutions can center around such ideas that will work for anyone, no matter the industry. Consider these as part of your plan this year:

1. Step outside your comfort zone.

Schawbel is known for his social media savvy, but his resolution is aimed at not only helping his professional life by making more face-to-face contacts, but enriching his personal life as well.

“My transition from hermit to socialite won’t happen immediately,” he says. “I’m slowly getting myself out there by paying for local events, which will force me out, and committing to go out during the week.” He’s even planned for potential backsliding on his new plan, and will join a few groups with longer commitments “so I don’t just hide behind my computer after a few weeks of being outgoing.”

Don’t look at networking as something where you just “wing it.” If you create a plan – to join your local chamber of commerce or attend an industry event to meet certain people – you’re much more likely to follow through, especially if you commit to an event on a certain day. Registration fees and airline tickets that are nonrefundable are a good way to force yourself to attend an event.

2. Don’t sit on the sidelines.

Shane says she has already nabbed a couple of projects for this year, but plans to be more proactive in going after work. She says she will ask those she already interacts with “to hire me to do things that I specialize in that they might be thinking of outsourcing.”

Seiden says he also plans to be more focused in his business. “The last few years have included a lot of wheel spinning. January for me has been a rework of my strategic plan, including the delegation or elimination of anything that isn’t related to my No. 1 priority.”

Amanda Krauss, a web developer, says she has decided to also revitalize her business by reorganizing her web presence, continuing to learn more about mobile design and making more use of Twitter. And, oh yeah, “translate a joke a day from the Philogelos,” a 2,000-year-old joke book written in Greek. (Krauss is a former Vanderbilt University assistant professor who taught cultural history, humor theory and Latin.)

3. Find time for you.

The last few years have been stressful for everyone, even if you have had a good job or a successful business. Admit it: Didn’t you sometimes have nightmares that the whole thing fell apart and you couldn’t earn a nickel? (Or maybe the dream was that you were standing in the unemployment line. In your underwear. Whatever…it’s your dream.) The point is that no one can keep up that pace without cracking at the seams. As Seiden notes: “Starting a business is stressful, but stress never solved anything. I work better when I’m relaxed. So I’m committed to my workouts and family time – no more calendar creep!”

Schawbel says that he believes getting away from his computer and meeting new people “is going to have a great impact on my life, both personally and professionally. I feel like it will inspire me, give me more points of references for my articles, and more experiences that will make life enjoyable.”

4. Get the right things done.

Are you driving across town just to use a 25-cent coupon? Do you have items in your laundry basket that say “hand wash only?” Now consider whether these activities are the best use of your valuable time. If not, ditch them. Shane says she plans to be ruthless in unsubscribing from those who put her on email lists without her permission. If you have difficulty eliminating time wasters from your schedule, consider using time-tracking tools such as Toggl.

Remember, even if you don’t succeed in meeting all your new year’s resolutions, don’t forget there’s no rule that says you can’t make them throughout the year. It’s never too late to spur yourself into greater career and business success.

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