The 4-Hour Workweek has another great post about productivity and how it was implemented by some other companies.  It includes a picture of a whiteboard in an engineering firm on how to stay productive:

There is also a great checklist that another company implemented on tips that they recommend for their employees.

One of the things I do personally for the past year that I have found to be most productive is checking e-mail just 3 times a day.  I check it at 8:30, 1, and 5.  Now that goes a little bit against the notion of doing something productive before checking e-mail but I felt that there were too many important things I needed to check first thing in the morning.  So I'm cheating a little bit.  All I did was create reminder tasks for 8:30, 1, and 5 everday that remind me to check e-mail.  Sometimes I just schedule a half hour around those times because I know there is a bit of stuff to go through and I use any extra time there for some administrative tasks as well.

I would recommend the original 4HWW post but if you're too Lazy to go there, I figured I would share.  

What the Wired article pointed out was that Google made $10B last year compared to $8B for Apple and on $20B in revenue, as opposed to $30B in revenue. That means that Google makes more money, and with less effort. Both of which are key if I’m trying to decide which company to put my money into.

The market valuation though is about future earnings and people obviously think Apple will throw off much more cash in the future than Google.

I’m not sure if I agree because Apple is still dependent on the fact that it needs to continue to be very innovative. After the iPod came the iPhone. Now they need to come up with something else. Today’s iPods and iPhones aren’t going to sell as well in 3 years. New versions need to replace them.

But I think with search and Pay-Per-Click, Google is much more embedded. They’re not as reliant on the next big blockbuster. They just need to continue doing what they’re doing and get better at other things.

I just feel that’s easier to do in the future - especially when you’re starting off in front.

Wondering what people look for when they go to buy a site like yours that’s for sale? There are several factors. One of the first major factors we consider is the size of your site. A larger site tends to be quite a bit more valuable than a one paged placeholder, but that’s not always the case. Another major factor we take a look at is your niche. Sure, there are thousands of websites that sell the same affiliate product, but very few of them sell insects for human consumption. The more unique and popular your niche, the more valuable your site is. The age of the site also factors into the overall price. The older the site, the more established it is, and that can prove a better deal for you. In fact, many companies won’t buy sites that are less than a year old. Your traffic numbers also factor into the price you’ll get for your site. Obviously with more visitors comes more profit, and that can make your site a bit more valuable to buyers like us. Finally, the nature of your site may make it more valuable. Business sites are, naturally, more profitable than informational sites, but there are always a few exceptions to that rule.

While the type of sites we buy vary extensively, the idea I want to leave you with is that we buy quality websites, and we’re looking to add to our list right now. If you’re making any money from your site or you have some traffic numbers, please let us know. We’re not looking for absolute junk here, we’d like a respectable business or information-based site, but if you need cash fast, we’re here to help you out. Take a moment to contact us today for an evaluation of your site. We’ve bought hundreds of sites in the past, so if you’re looking for a level of professionalism and experience, you can rest assured that you’ll get it with us. Ready to get started? Drop me an e-mail today.

Like most jobs that are challenging, Project Managing is not glorious. In fact, it is seen in the corporate world as a position that consists mostly of creating busy work. Yet, in these positions you need to know the ins and outs of all aspects of the corporation that you are working for. You need more than just a peripheral knowledge of your current advertising campaign; you need to be fully entrenched in its ideology and delivery in order to manage how it is run by delegating responsibility to those best suited, and so forth.

This is the same situation when you own your own business. The exception is that you need to know more than just one aspect of your corporation; you need to have intimate knowledge of each corner of your business in order to manage its daily affairs including task delegation, future planning, and idea generation. As the owner of a business you are the head of Accounting, Marketing, Human Resources, among other sectors. You will have staff that will look after the details, but it is up to you to hire the right people who share your vision for your organization and can deliver what you expect in a timely and organized manner.

That is why it is so essential to have the right staff to follow through on the tasks that you set before them. If not, you could wind up in a situation whereby you are micromanaging all the aspects of your business down to the most finite detail. This is exactly the situation that you want to avoid; drowning in the details and micromanaging your way into disaster.

This is where the skills of Project Management come into play. Being a Project Manager is about knowing a little bit about each aspect of your business and not being a specialist in any. You find competent people to do the required tasks, whether it be controlling, marketing, or hiring staff, but you oversee the entire process and make sure that your final stamp of approval goes on each major decision that comes to your desk. You make sure that things get done as planned and make sure that none of the details are missed and fall through the cracks.

After all, this is your business, and you will want these little details to reflect your vision for your endeavours. The key is to hire staff that you can feel confident know your vision and manage them in a way that reflects open communication of the daily goings on in their respective fields.

I know now that whatever comes into my life that I need to take care of, whether it’s for me, my family, my work, or whatever, I can handle it because I have the GTD system to assist me in managing my workload.

The GTD system is basically a no-nonsense approach to the things that we often refer to as “stuff”. You know, the clutter that we keep in our email inboxes, our desks, and our minds that we simply do not want to deal with, either because we don’t know how, it is too difficult, we are waiting for something, and so on and so forth. As Allen states himself, “stuff” is “. . . anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn’t belong where it is, but for which you haven’t yet determined the desired outcome and the next action step. [pg. 17] Allen, Getting Things Done.”

So, as we all know, this “stuff” certainly isn’t good. It is the cause of stress; it lowers productivity, stimulates procrastination, and is the kind of thing that we do not want in either our professional or personal lives. It’s as simple as that. Allen’s GTD process can be condensed in the following manner:

• Locate all of your things (Allen’s ‘stuff’) that aren’t where they should be
• Dump the items that you don’t need ever, or right now
• Always place your stuff in the correct spot
• Look after your stuff, or tasks, in a manner that is appropriate for you
• Only keep things that are truly required. No clutter!

Sounds like common sense, but how many of us wait until April to “spring clean” ? How many times have we giggled sheepishly at our own attics, storerooms, and garages? If you follow Allen’s GTD formula, you will have more self-confidence and the sense of accomplishment you can only get by have a firm grasp of knowing what is on your plate and how you will deal with it.

After living with an empty inbox for months now, I can tell you that my level of productivity has gone up, my stress levels have gone down, and my overall sense of accomplishment is at an all time high. Allen’s book is truly a stroke of genius - common sense material in one neat package that has transformed the way thousands of people live their lives. I recommend buying this book as I can clearly attribute my success in business to the reading of this book and the rise in productivity and revenue, not to mention my own happiness.

What you will need to do is to differentiate yourself in some way to the other businesses that already exist in your field. You can do this either through your marketing techniques, how you acquire customers, how you run your business, or the product itself. Your idea has to be something that not any other company or person can do. This is vital.

So, if you are trying to run some sort of an affiliate business or a web design firm, your problem is that you’re no different from the over 1 million people who do it today. Try to find something new that you can bring to the field that has not been done yet. It is so important that you don’t simply offer a copycat rendition of a business that is already out there and functioning. The already-functioning business will have many advantages over you as their competition. They will have a realized client base, experience in “weeding out the bugs” of the business and they will always be 10 steps ahead of your game. They’ve “ been there, done that“ and they have the t-shirt.
So, you need to go out there and get your own “t-shirt” as it were. Heck, get your own pair of jeans as well, while you are at it. Because when you offer something unique, something that is missing, it will open up a whole new market for your business, and you will reap the benefits.

Because this business is my heart and soul, I want to ensure that everything is done right. I want to oversee all these aspects because I know the way in which I want things done and I want to make sure that tasks are completed in a way that reflects my business and personal philosophy. This only makes sense—like most other business owners, I have saved and scrimped and fretted. The responsibility for success is most assuredly on my shoulders, so I want to make sure that success will come.
The only problem with this is that overseeing every little aspect of the business can become a full-time job in itself. I find myself staying late at night putting checkmarks on my employees’ work and ensuring that it all comes up to snuff, when I could be allocating time to the tasks that I am actually responsible for as the owner of my business. Not only does this kind of task control take over my professional life, it also hurts my personal life as well.

If I had it my way, I would have a clean list of prospective clients in our database, but the fact is that it really doesn’t matter. I can clean the list or just delete the questionable ones. Yet, this is just one example of how to I realize that I need to keep my hands out of each of these aspects of my business. As the owner of my business, it is not my job to keep a fresh list of prospects in our database, nor is it up to me to hire entry level staff and interview interns. The time that I spend cleaning something up is time that I could be spending on larger questions facing my business such as future considerations and the overall functionality of the organization.

Really, when you think about it, this micro-management style really comes down to a lack of confidence in my staff and a belief that only I am aware of how to do things the way that I think they should be done. It is a controlling style of management, and it is not the most effective personnel management style. How inspired will my employees feel if I don’t show them even a modicum of trust and respect in their decision making . They will likely not feel too eager to take initiative or to make suggestions, if they feel that I will inevitably shoot down their input, or alter it severely in most cases.

In this respect, it is important to find that necessary balance between having your say and vision obvious in your business, but also allowing your staff to work for you, not against you. You need to firstly hire staff that you believe share your vision and are capable of delivering that to your clients, and will make decisions similar to your own, in your absence. This will leave you time to focus on the bigger questions facing your business and you can feel rest assured that your staff are looking after the “little problems” on your behalf.

Like most people, I keep a budget at home and for the first time I am able to stick with it comfortably. Now, as long as I make $10K, I can do what I want without feeling like I’m skimping on anything. These are my monthly expenses that I am able to reach each month. In fact, when I have met this quota, I can rest easy and relax.

So, after I make the $10,000 goal that I set for myself for the month, then I know that everything I make after that is going to savings, a new toy, a vacation, or what have you. I can take it easy, knowing that I do not have to actually be anywhere for the next how ever many days area left in the month.

Sure, I don’t just sit back on my haunches counting my money after I have made my quota, or met my goal. I answer a few emails, I prepare for the next month. I think about the future of the business, and so on. But, I know that I don’t have to be anywhere, and that frees my time up to do the things that I actually want to be doing in my life; spending time with the kids, recreational activities, working on the house, gardening, and so on.

But you will find, as I do, that once you have met that quota, you actually want to keep working and making more and more money to save for that rainy day. The difference is that you don’t have to; it isn’t an obligation, it’s a choice, and that is the kind of freedom that few have, and most want. This freedom will inspire you to make changes in your business, make it better, more efficient, in short—more enjoyable. It is a very different experience altogether to be able to choose whether or not you want to invest more in your business, and yourself than simply waking up every day to go to a job each day that will make you just enough to meet your monthly expenses.

I find that most months, I keep working once I have met my goal. However, having that choice makes all the difference.

As a business owner, it is quite easy to fall into the trap of taking on more and more work for the following reasons:

1) You can do it better than most people in the business

2) Delegation takes a lot more time than actually doing it

3) Cost saving in man-hours as you are doing most of the work yourself

4) It is a matter of habit

The fall-out of this attitude can be listed as follows:

1) Too many items in your TO-DO list leaving you harried most of the times

2) Too little time for pro-active business management activities

3) Employees do not learn nor take on added responsibilities

4) Results in stilted growth of the business

5) Creates a poor impression on customers ( imagine a customer always getting to speak to the business owner for support, billing and account managing issues)

Agreed that this is a vicious circle but luckily it is not one that you cannot get out from. If you have already realized that you are doing too much in your business which in turn is creating the problems listed above, then it is time for some change. Here are some suggestions on what you can do to reduce your micro-management activities and focus on the BUSINESS.

1) Delegate smartly. I have seen many business owners delegating to their juniors…some of them do it well and some of them….well they end up delegating their own work to the employees as well. Smart delegation means explaining your employee what you need to get done, defining the goal well and giving helpful suggestions on how the task can be completed. If you give broad instructions (Let’s work towards increasing sales), you are unlikely to see any results and suffer from wasted man hours.

2) Departmentalize clearly. As a growing business, you need to ensure that you have clear departments which can handle the growth as it happens. Making departments with clear demarcation of duties is likely to help you grow lot faster than your competition. Review each department’s progress, their problems and recruit good people to lead these efforts ( I know this is easier said than done, but there is really no other way out) .

3) Direct more. As a business owner, i feel the most important thing I do is direct my team. In measurable terms. Giving timely feedback and responses to employees, showing them the direction in which the business needs to go and tackling overall issues of managing the business.

4) Put in systems. Automation is the next best thing since sliced bread. I am serious, I mean it. You can now take mundane tasks and automate it. You can even take complicated tasks and automate them intelligently! Not only does this reduce the time you need to do some pieces of work , it helps mitigate the risks you face when an employee leaves. Automating accounting, HR, Customer service and sales are just some of the things which help you grow well. The initial costs may be high, but automation tends to pay for itself with 12 to 24 months of implementation.

So the next time you catch yourself doing multiple tasks in the business, stop right there…and delegate it to the right person.

There was a time when I would wait anxiously for my email client to download my emails every few minutes and add to the list of unread emails in my inbox. With a bit of self analysis, i realized that not only did it cause me un-necessary stress, I got little else done in those moments (and after them) when I would wait for the email to download and then start replying them right away. A few tips from my personal experiences are likely to help you get the better of the EMAIL MONSTER!

1) Set a time to check your email. No one is expecting you to answer an email as soon as you get it. I now check my emails three times a day (that accordingly to some people is also a bit much) but when i check email, i ensure that I am dedicated to responding to them as well. Not only am I able to do more during work hours, the quality of my email responses are lot better than before.

2) Organize. And then organize some more. With such wonderful tools like Windows Mail, and Microsoft Outlook available to you, make it a habit to organize your emails into proper boxes with the right message rules. Not only does this reduce the clutter in your inbox, it lets you get to the important emails faster.

3) Avoid creating email chains. His really has to do with he style of answering emails but avoid creating chains wherever possible. You can also use the phone to sort out simple issues rather than create a flurry of emails which go back and forth. Also try and delegate email tasks to those who are directly responsible for the work rather than micro-manage on email.

4) Long emails are not only tedious to read, they are largely ineffective. In order to get compact and to –the –point responses to your emails, you need to write smaller emails yourself. Remember, emails are not good tools to communicate emotion so keep it simple!

5) Use a spam controller. I am a person who does not believe in overdosing on software, but with spam overtaking mailboxes across the world, it has become essential for regular email users to use a spam controlling tool. You can download from the various tools available online and use the one which suits you best. Junk email costs businesses billions of dollars every year so do remember it is taking away some of your precious time as well.

6) Nothing is more productive than going back to an inbox with no un-read emails. It is like entering a clean room, which you like to keep clean on an ongoing basis. Avoid leaving un-read emails in the inbox as that is going to reduce your productivity and usually keep you behind with your responses.

7) Archive if not delete. Non-critical emails should be sent off to the Deleted Items as soon as you are done with them and you might like to create an archive of important emails for record keeping. If you are checking emails on both a handheld as well as a desktop, then don’t think twice before deleting emails on the handheld…they are only likely to eat up the limited space on the hard disk.

I guess I can go on and on about increasing your productivity and not being a slave to email..try the tips I have mentioned above and I am sure you will find yourself on the path of email-nirvana!