Most small and mid-sized businesses have joined the content marketing chariot to further reach potential customers.

Ironically, some business entrepreneurs are still in their comfort zone.

They don’t want to take responsibility for growing their business. They don’t want to take action to expand their business.

The Internet has made it exceptionally easy to reach a wider audience. (In case you don’t know, there are people who are desperate to spend money on your products and services.)

But until you reach out to them with valuable content, they can’t reach out with their money.

I want to share 4 exceptional ways to generate potential customers and market your products and expertise professionally with SEO content marketing. We shall be looking at:

1. SEO Content Concept: the best form of content that hooks, interests and adds value to your target   audience.
2. Quality Content: Unique content will enhance the mood of your prospects and cause them to take action right now.
3. Content Timing: Proper timing helps to eliminate guess work from your marketing activities and give you a blank check to cash-in.
4. Evergreen Content Strategy: Successful businesses live for decades. Make your SEO contents evergreen and you’ll consistently achieve results, even when you’re on vacation.

1. SEO Content Concept

Search engine optimization has become the pivot of successful inbound marketing.

It’s true that you can drive targeted prospects to your blog or website using other systems, but search engines and SEO content marketing are the most efficient. The return on investment is usually high, compared to other promotional systems like Media-buying.

It’s not enough to optimize web pages to appear on search engine result pages (SERPs), there should be ways to engage strangers when they pay a visit.

It’s a total waste of time trying to sell to first time visitors; it’s achievable if you persevere.

In web marketing, it’s essential to lead organic visitors into a sales funnel, until they ‘agree’ with your theory and recommendation.

So, proper preparations of your blog or website would ensure you achieve the best results. Don’t send visitors to a homepage, they don’t want to see how beautiful your them is. They want results. Lead them into your ‘rich’ landing page and capture their email address and name – that’s the best SEO content concept used by savvy marketers – you should use it too!

2. Quality Content

Oftentimes, potential prospects are confused; the marketing offers and ads they receive on a daily basis are alarming.

All the infomercials and banner ads are not helping matters. Prospects are desperately looking for VALUABLE contents, rich and simple to entertaining.

With quality content, you can enlighten target audience, prepare their minds to receive your marketing offers and persuade them to take action immediately. When I launched my passive income ideas blog, quality content was the foundation which brought exponential growth. Focus on quality – sales will definitely come.

If you struggle to sell a product or service, I think the problem lies with the quality of contents and marketing copy used. If the perceived value is rich in prospect’s eye, they would have no other choice than to subscribe or buy.

“Quality content” has become a cliché, but we cannot ignore its importance in today’s search engine marketing. If your content is able to solve a particular bugging problem or add value to pre-existing needs, then you’ve succeeded in crafting a masterpiece.

Quality content doesn’t mean that every word or sentence is new, you can still make references or cite relevant articles – but ensure you round it up to solving at ‘least’ one problem in your niche. That’s what sets you apart – can you do that?

3. Content Timing

There are lots of guess work in SEO content marketing – but it doesn’t have to be so. You could easily leverage on hot trends and recent developments around the web to foster a unique content campaign.

If you don’t keep abreast of all that’s happening around you, the content you put out there may be outdated and worthless. Participating in social media networks will enable you stay on top news and events. LinkedIn typically alerts users on what’s going on around the world. You should be using LinkedIn to grow your business networks.

Content timing is important. Google updates are being rolled out periodically and several websites have been buried or sandboxed. You can make a difference if you focus on quality and engagement.

I can assure you that if you produce time-sensitive contents, and make references on your article, no matter what Google is rolling out in the next algorithm updates, your blog will be untouchable.

Time your content and write to engage prospects – with time, you’ll achieve tremendous success online and build a rich subscriber-list. Do you know when twitter followers are logged in? Study their activities and timelines and use it as a tweeting-weapon.

4. Evergreen Content Strategy

The last ball in our SEO Content marketing bowl is ‘evergreen.’ Evergreen is my favorite word in web marketing. For your contents to produce results consistently, creativity and in-depth market research has to come in. Evergreen plants are those plants that retain their foliage throughout the year. Your contents should satisfy Google and prospects as time flies.

Every article and post you write ought to produce better results as it gets older. For instance, if I write an article about email marketing this month and get 100 subscribers, the article is expected to produce x3. That’s about 300 subscribers or more.

Start your SEO content with long-tail key phrases. Research and keep a swipe file of relevant key terms to target.

Afterwards, research what other expert’s have written about the topic you’ve in mind – learn from their experiences and use them as a guide to craft informative, rich, valuable and keyword-rich SEO contents.

Google and other search engines would take interest and reward you every month. That’s the aim of this article and I hope you achieve it in your content marketing career.

Potential customers are everywhere. You couldn’t find them because your content isn’t optimized properly for search engines and people.

Writing for the web is an art and until you master it growing a business can be boring and slow. Plan your content marketing attack wisely and experience the surge of targeted buyers every day.

(Photo credit: SEO Target via Shutterstock)

Are you a dreamer? What are your dreams? Are they small, or are they much larger and more complex? Do you feel they have value?

“All men of action are dreamers.” – James Huneker

The dreams that you have are there for a reason: to be realized as a part of fulfilling your life purpose. If you are still trying to find your passions and purpose, you might want to start with Leo Babauta’s article on how to find your passion.

Many people have trouble seeing the potential of their dreams; they give up on them because they don’t see how they will ever come true. They just can’t see how taking the time to discover and to plan will have any impact on the dreams coming true. Have patience! Although your dream may not have come to pass yet, it can still be realized. You can still make your dreams a reality.

While you can’t force dreams to happen, you can take steps toward actualizing them. Maybe you want to travel to a specific place. Do you know anything about the culture and language there? Are you saving money each week or month toward your trip? You won’t magically arrive there. You must plan and work toward what you want. Start with a trip to the library to find some books on the culture.  Next look into a class to learn the language, make sure you have a savings account with an automatic deposit.

The same is true if you want to have a family, write a successful book, help others, move to another state, or anything else that interests you. Even if you try and fail, keep trying, take small simple steps forward. Your dreams have value; keep moving toward them, even if you face setbacks and challenges.  Moving forward with your dreams means starting with the first step, here is an article that explains how to take the first step.

Visualizing and Planning for Your Dreams

In addition to physically working to make your dreams a reality, mental preparation is important. That means you need to keep visualizing and dreaming. I highly recommend spending time using guided meditation and Zen meditation to allow you to focus more precisely on your plan.

Hold on to what you believe in and what you want to see happen in your life. Use the power of positive thinking in order to see your dream coming to fruition.

Try these techniques:

• Make a vision board where you can pin or glue symbols of what you want to see realized. (so much fun!) I still have my vision board from 2008, it still holds true today.
• Write down your dreams to keep them fresh in your mind. I have a dream journal that I have specifically created for each of my major dreams.
• Keep a journal of what you’ve done toward realizing your dreams each day or each week.
• Remember to enjoy and respect the present moment. Then you’ll be well practiced when your dreams do come to pass!
• Talk with others who share your goals and dreams to stay encouraged and excited. Every time I share my dreams, people get excited and want to join in, keep that level of passion for your dreams.

Many successful people focus on positive affirmations and meditation to help make their dreams a reality. By meditating on what you really want and how you’re going to get it, you may come up with solutions that you would otherwise not have thought about. Meditation gives your mind some quiet, peaceful time to work behind the scenes. You can create a recording for yourself that walks you through your vision of your completed dream so that you can really focus on the positive outcome.

Positive affirmations also help keep your spirits up and keep you moving toward your goal, even when you don’t really see a way. Just because the way to your dream doesn’t seem obvious to you just now, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way. Something could change in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, you’ll be able to see how and when your dream will be realized. Create your affirmations around the positive amazing feelings that surround your dreams, so that you can keep your vibes high and you can let the “how’s” go and allow the universe to take care of that for you.

If you hold tight to your goals, you’ll find it easier to stay on the right track. Training yourself to observe progress can be important, too. This will help keep you motivated. Regardless of what your dreams are – however big or small they may be — you can usher them in to your life!

Simple small steps every day, moving toward your dreams will get there. Enjoy the journey!

(Photo credit: Lying Couple Dreaming of Island via Shutterstock)

Lori Lynn Smith is a passionate and an authentic teacher who shares her real life experiences about creating a more nurturing and fulfilling lifestyle. Get her free ebook and MP3, The 5 Myths of Self Care.

There’s a way for you to fly first class for free over and over again.

The best part? It doesn’t require incredible negotiation skills or dumb luck. Anyone can do it.

Let me tell you everything you need to know so you can decide if this powerful travel strategy is right for you.

How to Fly for Free

A few years back, I started searching for the best ways to travel for cheap. I wanted to get out and see the world … or at least the United States.

What I ended up finding were a small group of people that were booking free flights over and over again with a strategy that was the complete opposite of what most people do.

You see, most people know that you can book a free flight by using frequent flyer miles. And if you have enough frequent flyer miles, then you can even fly first class for free. Of course, the only problem is that it’s really hard to accumulate a lot of miles by flying.

Luckily, there is a way to get hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles without flying at all.

This travel strategy is a special process called “credit card churning” and here’s how it works…

The credit card industry is extremely competitive. As a result, many credit card companies are willing to offer you huge frequent flyer mile bonuses if you sign up for their card.

This strategy works so well for getting frequent flyer miles that a group of people called credit card “churners” have used it to earn more than 1 million frequent flyer miles in a year. They apply for card after card and churn through as many applications as possible. Then, they spend the minimum amount needed to get the bonus (for example, $1,000 in 3 months) and move on to the next card. Some people routinely have over 15 credit cards on rotation!

The good news is that credit card bonuses work just as well for normal people like you and me. By simply getting 1 or 2 new cards, you can get enough frequent flyer miles for multiple round–trip flights.

There is no need to go crazy and get 15+ new cards. Of course, if you did, then you could literally earn enough miles to fly around the world multiple times.

Regardless of how many cards you’re comfortable with getting, these frequent flyer mile bonuses are the best way to fly for free because you can use frequent flyer miles to book flights anywhere and at anytime. For example, I used frequent flyer miles to book a free flight to Costa Rica last December, which is during the “high season” down there.

Where to Get Started

Many credit card churners get their information from a variety of blogs, forums, and websites. Thankfully, there are services that can do all of that research for you.

A great one to start with is The Credit Card Fly. It’s a free email newsletter that sends you a short weekly update of the best credit card deals for earning frequent flyer miles, free hotel stays, and rewards points.

Once you know the deals to apply for, the 3–step process looks like this:

1. Apply for a new credit card that has a big frequent flyer mile bonus.
2. If necessary, spend the minimum amount to get the bonus. Many cards have no spending requirement.
3. Redeem your miles and fly anywhere.

Does this Hurt Your Credit Score?

Applying for new credit cards actually helps your score in one way and hurts it in another. Let me explain…

When you apply for a new credit card there is an inquiry on your account. New credit inquiries usually drop your score by a few points, but new inquiries only make up 10% of your overall credit score so the drop is small.

On the flip side, when you get a new credit card this also increases your overall credit limit and this will probably help your credit utilization ratio.

For example, let’s say that before your new card you were spending $2,000 and your total credit limit was $10,000. In this case, your credit utilization ratio was 20% ($2,000/$10,000). Then you get a new card and let’s say your credit limit raises to $15,000. Remember, your spending habits should be about the same because you’re only spending the minimum needed to get your frequent flyer miles. So now your credit utilization ratio is only 13% ($2,000/$15,000).

This is a good thing. A lower credit utilization ratio helps your credit score. For this reason, many credit card churners actually see their score increase over time. Many churners have 10 or more credit cards and still hold excellent credit scores in the 780 to 800 range.

How to Know if This Will Work for You

As a rule of thumb, your credit score should be 700 or above if you’re thinking about following this credit card travel rewards strategy.

And if you’re planning on applying for a bunch of cards to get tons of frequent flyer miles, then you should probably have a credit score above 720.

No matter what your score is, this strategy will only work if you pay your balance in full each month and carry no debt on your new cards. It doesn’t matter how good your history is, if you get a new credit card and start piling on debt, then your credit score will suffer and this travel strategy is useless.

If you have the discipline to pay your balance in full each month, then you’re ready to hit the skies.

(Photo credit: Passenger Windows on Plane via Shutterstock)

One of the things I like about my job is that I can do things like watch iTunesU…and claim it’s work.

While doing that recently I came across a lecture by Dr Margaret Chesney of the UCSF Osher Centre for Integrative Medicine. It’s a long (nearly 90 minutes long) lecture ,but the contents are great if you’re trying to find tools for coping and dealing the crud life throws at you. So I’ve put together a summary in this piece.

(If you want the subtlties you’ll just have to listen through for yourself.)

There’s a lot in common with the work of people like Professor Martin Seligman’s work on confidence and happiness (and so on), but there’s a new twist to it too — which is covered a lot more in the video than in this summary.

In short…it’s based on the acronym BREATHE.

B

Be in the moment. Simple. Make a point of noticing what’s going on around you, right here, right now. Try some conscious breathing exercises to help increase your awareness. (You can have a look at almost any writing about ‘mindfulness‘ to help you here, too.) The important thing is to become aware of the here-and-now.

R

Realistic goals – set ‘em. Don’t set yourself targets that you can’t possibly achieve. That way you’re making things worse for yourself because you’re setting yourself up for a continuous stream of failure. By all means stretch yourself but don’t over-stretch yourself. Stretch shouldn’t become ‘strain’.

E

Everyday events – notice them. Dr Chesney has a lovely moment of pointing out to people that they really hate not being able to breathe easily when they’ve got a cold… and they hate it… and they notice it… but how many people notice it when they’ve not got a cold and can breathe easily? Things like ‘gratitude logs’ help here.

Or just stop, right now, and do nothing for a few minutes except jot down the good things around you that you should be grateful for.. and that you are grateful for, now you’ve taken the time to think of them! Let’s start with the fact that you’ve got eyes that work enough to read this (or something to read it for you!) and electricity to work your computer to display it…. you get the idea!

A

Acts of kindness – do ‘em! Creating positive moments for other people makes you feel better and makes you feel better about yourself. Quite apart from that, it makes their day better too!  Making the world a better place one act of kindness at a time? Cool!

T

Turn around the negatives. This one’s a challenge. It’s about reframing stuff and finding the ‘silver lining’ to your cloud. Sure it’s not easy and some things just don’t have a silver lining that you can find at the time  but a lot of stuff does. Most things in fact. Almost everything.

No one is saying it’s easy or that bad stuff isn’t bad stuff – just that trying to use the bad stuff and mitigate it with a sliver of good is better than just being a victim.

H

Honour your strengths – be true to yourself. Be true to your values. Be true to what you’re good at – and admit that you’re good at things. Make a point of listing them. Don’t pretend you don’t have any – false modesty isn’t anything to be proud of… and people see through it easily enough anyway recognising it as a form of arrogance. So what’s wrong with just accepting to yourself that you’re good at something – and then acting on it!!?

E

End each day with gratitude – check what has happened that day. Go over it and find the good in it. For those things that weren’t so good, decide what you can do about them. What can you learn; what can you do differently? If there’s nothing (really?!!?) let go. Sleep well, knowing that you’ve got a plan and you’re not wallowing in the bad…. :)

I hope I’ve done Dr Chesney justice. If you want the full thing, here you go!

(Photo credit: Breathe via Shutterstock)

Simon runs a soft skills training company called Aware Plus in the UK, but is probably best known for his work as a presentation skills trainer. He's also becoming known as a speaker on emotional robustness and personal resilience... he's also a fairly proficient fire-eater!

Key to Success #1: Top Sales People Do What They Love to Do

All truly successful, highly paid sales people, love their sales career. You must learn to love your work and then commit yourself to becoming excellent in your field. Invest whatever amount of time is necessary to improve your sales career; pay any price; go and distance, make any sacrifice to become the very best at what you do. Join the top 10 percent.

Key To Success #2: They Decide Exactly What They Want

Don’t be wishy-washy. Decide exactly what it is you want in life. Set it as a goal for your sales career and then determine what price you are going to have to pay to get it.

According to the research, only about 3 percent of adults have written goals. And these are the most successful and highest-paid people in every field. They are the mover and shakers, the creators and innovators, the top sales people and entrepreneurs.

Key to Success #3: They Back Their Sales Career Goals With Perseverance

A key to success in sales is to back your goal with perseverance and indomitable willpower. Decide to throw your whole heart and soul into your success and into achieving your sales career goal. Make a complete commitment to improve your sales career and become one of the most highly-paid sales people. Resolve that nothing will stop you or discourage you.

Key to Success #4: They Commit to Lifelong Learning

Your mind is your most precious asset, and the quality of your thinking determines the quality of your sales career. Commit yourself to lifelong learning. I cannot emphasize this too often.

Read, listen to audio programs, attend seminars, and never forget that the most valuable asset you will ever have is your mind. As you continue to learn, you will eventually become the one of the most valuable sales people in your company. The more knowledge you acquire that can be applied to practical purposes, the greater will be your rewards and the more you will be paid.

Key to Success #5: Top Sales People Use Their Time Well

Your time is all you have to sell. It is your primary asset. How you use your time determines your standard of living. Resolve therefore to use your time well.

Begin every day with a list. The best time to make up your work list is the night before, prior to wrapping up for the day. Write down everything that you have to do the next day, starting with your fixed appointments and then moving on to everything you can think of.

Key to Success #6: They Follow the Leaders

Do what successful people do.  Follow the leaders, not the followers. Do what the top sales people in your company do. Imitate the ones who are going somewhere with their lives.

Identify the very best sales people in your field and pattern yourself after them. If you want to become one of the best sales people in your company, go to the top earners and ask them for advice. Ask them what you should do to improve your sales career. Inquire about their attitudes, philosophies, and approaches to their work and their customers.

Key to Success #7: They Know That Character is Everything

Guard your integrity as a sacred thing. Nothing is more important to the quality of your life in our society. In business and sales success, you must have credibility. You can only be successful if people trust you and believe in you.

In study after study, the element of trust has been identified as the most important distinguishing factor between one salesperson and another, and one company and another.

Key to Success #8: They Use Their Inborn Creativity

Think of yourself as a highly intelligent person, even a genius. Recognize that you have the great reserves of creativity that you have never used. Say aloud, over and over, “I’m a genius! I’m a genius! I’m a genius!”

This may sound like an exaggeration, but it isn’t. The fact is that every person has the ability to perform at genius levels in one of more areas. You have within you, right now, the ability to do more and be more than you ever have before.

Key to Success #9: They Practice the Golden Rule

Practice the Golden Rule in all your interactions with others. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Think about yourself as a customer.

How would you like to be treated? Obviously you would want sales people to be straightforward with you. You would want her to take the time to thoroughly understand your problem or need and then show you, step by step, how her solution could help you improve your life or work in a cost-effective way. If this is what you would want from a salesperson selling to you, then be sure to give this to every customer you talk to.

Key to Success #10: They Pay the Price of Success

Finally, and perhaps more important than anything else, resolve to work hard. This is a great key to success in life. The key to success in selling is for you to start a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little later. Do the little thing that average people always try to avoid doing. When you begin your workday, resolve to “work all the time you work.” Don’t waste time. Get going. Move fast.

I hope you enjoyed this article on how to improve your sales career to become one of the highest-earning sales people in your company. If you have a key to success that has worked for you, please share and comment below!

I recently read a story about how we get pulled into yesterday each time we follow the sage advice of our parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents.

Do you ever find yourself — at 30, 40, or 50 years of age — still carrying through on that advice?

For the longest time into my adulthood I didn’t go outside for fear that I’d “catch my death of cold.”  Same with going outside barefoot in the winter.

To this day I still want to throw salt over my right shoulder (or is it my left?) after knocking over the salt shaker because Grandma said it would keep evil spirits away.

I wonder what Grandma would say about the salty evil spirits I’ve consumed?

How about the universal rule that you shouldn’t wear white before Easter or after Labor Day?

Or–you’ll go blind if you sit too close to the “television set,” but maybe that had something to do with picture tubes.  (Blindness is also attributed to another rite of childhood, but we won’t talk about that one here!)

There is no denying that we bring the yarns of youth with us into adulthood.  The question is, how much do we allow them to influence our adult lives?

Do you follow along because “it’s always been done that way?”  Or, do you plow a new field of independent thinking?

Here are nine old wives’ tales that have been debunked over the years.  You’ve probably heard them all, and may even know they are untrue.  But do you still practice them?

1. Never go swimming after eating.

Truth: The American Red Cross reports that there is no increased risk in cramping if you’ve consumed food prior to swimming.

2. Chocolate causes acne.  Truth:  No food type causes zits, although too much of any food is not good for the body.
3. Eat carrots, have great vision. Truth: I can speak to this one directly. Mom fed me so much baby carrot food that I turned jaundiced. And I’ve worn glasses since the 4th grade.
4. If you crack your knuckles, you’ll get arthritis. Truth: Not true, although my thumb joint wonders sometimes . . .
5. Eating spicy foods can cause ulcers. Truth: Spicy foods CAN irritate ulcers (again, the voice of experience), but not cause.
6. If you touch a toad, you’ll get warts. Truth:  Nope . . . warts are caused by viruses, not critters.
7. Coffee stunts your growth. Truth:  While kids shouldn’t have caffeine in their diets, it won’t stunt your growth.  Oddly, my grandfather told me it would put hair on my chest–that’s not true either!
8. If you cross your eyes, they’ll stay that way. Truth: Why kids do this is really beyond me, but again, not true. Misaligned eyes is called strabismus, but crossing your eyes does not cause the disorder.
9. Feed a cold/starve a fever. Truth: Wrong in both cases. It’s never good to deprive your body of nourishment when you’re sick nor is it advisable to overeat simply because you’re sick!

Knowing they’re not true, have you spoken any of these tales to your  children or grandchildren?  If you haven’t, congratulations!  If you have, you might want to think about how you allow your past to influence your presence AND what message you’re sending to your kids.

Words are powerful and teaching them to make good decisions based on facts rather than falsehoods is a tremendous gift to developing minds. Food for thought for the next time it rains, or you encounter a toad or the kids want to go swimming.

(Photo credit: Art via Shutterstock)

Ever have one of those days when you’re just completely overwhelmed? Too much to do, not enough time. Deadlines looming (or whizzing past), phone ringing, emails pinging.

Just everyday life for a lot of us.

And most days we manage to roll with it, deal with things as they come up, and get along just fine.

Some days, though, the clamor of multiple competing demands on our time, energy, and attention can be just too much to bear. We feel overwhelmed and out of control. It can paralyze us — dozens of things to do, and we do none of them, because we don’t know where to start. We fight the urge to just quit — crawl under our desk and hide, hoping it will all go away.

Quitting isn’t an option, though, and fortunately, it’s not necessary. In fifteen minutes or less you can take a few simple steps to retake control, overcome the panic, move forward, and regain workplace sanity. So when it’s all too much but you must get it done, try this:

1. Close your eyes for one minute and just breathe. Grab hold of your mind, block out the screaming voices of panic, and purposely focus on just breathing in and out. Notice where you’re feeling tense, and intentionally relax those muscles. Slow your breathing, calm your mind. Just take those sixty seconds to reclaim quiet and peace.
2. Clear your workspace. When we get too busy, our workspace usually reflects the clutter of our minds. Our carefully prepared organizational systems go by the wayside; we leave papers on our desk or on the kitchen counter as reminders to do something, and pretty soon the desk or counter is a mass of piles and sticky notes and reminders. Whether or not you consciously recognize it, the chaos of those piles distracts you and makes it nearly impossible to focus on anything. So take five minutes to clear off your workspace. Don’t sort or file anything unless you can do it in seconds. Toss the trash, drop the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, and stash the piles of papers in a nearby drawer or shelf for later attention. If you’re afraid you’ll forget something important, take a second to schedule an appointment to tend to those stashed piles. Your immediate objective is to create a clear, clean, distraction-free space for focused working.
3. Take five minutes to write down everything that needs to get done. Use whatever method works best for you to capture everything. I rely heavily on technology, but when I’m in this situation, I prefer old-fashioned pen and legal pad. Don’t try to organize or prioritize the tasks; just do a brain dump. Part of the anxiety you feel is a fear that you’re forgetting something, so get it all there on paper in front of you.
4. Scan the list. Is there anything there that somebody else could do? Your secretary or assistant? A colleague? Your spouse or child? This is no time to be too proud to ask for help — remember, we’re in crisis mode here. Take five minutes to offload anything that reasonably can be delegated.
5. Is there anything on the list that can be put off until tomorrow (or the next day) without knocking the earth off its axis? Take one minute to check off those tasks that don’t truly have to be done right this minute. Circle the ones that do need immediate attention.
6. Choose one of the circled tasks. Don’t spend a lot of time agonizing over priority. Just pick one. If there’s something that can be done in a couple of minutes — responding to an email or returning a phone call, maybe? — do that and enjoy the catharsis of seeing your list begin to dwindle immediately. But the main thing is to just pick one.
7. Clear everything else away, and do it. Gather the materials you need for that task, then sit down and get it done. If it will take more than half an hour or so, considering using the Pomodoro technique: set a timer for 25 minutes and work steadily until the timer goes off. Then take a five-minute break — stretch, walk, get a drink of water — and then get back to work, with the timer set for another 25-minute segment. Keep up that approach until you’ve finished the task.
8. When you finish that task, cross it off the list and choose another. One item at a time, work through the list until you’re caught up.

I know this approach works, because it’s saved my workplace sanity numerous times in my own professional life. I’d love it if you’d give it a try and then let me know how it works for you.

Related Lifehack articles:

• 10 Apps That Help You Stay on Time and Remember Things
• 29 Ways to Beat Procrastination Once and For All

(Photo credit: Meditating in Office via Shutterstock)

Laura McClellan is a lawyer, a writer, a productivity fanatic, and a tech geek. Married for 30+ years to her high school sweetheart, with whom she's raised five amazing kids, she's passionate about encouraging women in their individual journeys as people, wives, mothers, citizens. While she prepares to launch her new website, Laura blogs at I Was Just Thinking . . . and Real Estate Law Blog and is working on her first novel. Connect with Laura on Twitter as @LauraMcMom.

Imagine this: Your desk is full of paper and it’s all related to unfinished work. Also, your task list never seems to shrink – instead, it’s growing bigger and bigger.

Even if you work hard on your tasks, you have this nagging feeling of incompletion in your head. You also feel that it is impossible to meet your inner critic; you are never satisfied to your results.

You are frustrated and burnt out. And even if that’s not enough, you start to procrastinate on your tasks.

You only wish that you could leave the office at 5PM and spend time with your family. And then you look at the piles of paper on your desk.

It is going to be yet another night spent working.

There is no finish line in sight

Unfortunately, this image is way too common in offices around the world. Most people are overwhelmed by the amount of unfinished work they have.

There are really four reasons why this is happening:

First, it’s because the amount of distractions. They don’t have a chance to work in a focused manner and their work performance slows down.

Secondly, it is because working on too many things (tasks, projects, etc.) at once. When they work like this, they are unable to get anything properly completed.

Third, they don’t have an organized way of handling the workload; they have issues with prioritization and they don’t know what tasks to focus on next. This in turn may be caused by a non-existent day planning.

Now, even if those three previous conditions are met, there is still one thing that causes people to procrastinate and be overwhelmed: It’s the unfinished work and the fact that they are never 100% percent satisfied to the quality of their work.

When they are unsatisfied to their work quality, they keep tweaking and tweaking the results but they are unable to finish anything. This is a sure way to overwhelm their selves and generate unnecessary stress.

It is also a sure way to make other people angry – especially if their performance is dependent on the person who is never capable of finishing his/her part of the task/project.

If it’s not perfect, it is not ready!

Inability to let go of tasks and never finishing them are symptoms of perfectionism.

The fact is that you are never going to satisfy your inner critic because you think that there is yet another tweak that you have to do until you can let go of the task.

What is causing all this?

It’s the underlying fear that is holding you in its arms; the fear that others label you as a failure if you release something imperfect. The fear that you are letting yourself down (and not meeting your standards) if everything is not 100% perfect.

Well, I have some news for you — perfection doesn’t exist!

I admit that in certain circumstances (for e.g. professions) you always have to be striving for perfection, for example when you are an airline pilot or a surgeon.

But in 90% of other cases perfection is not serving you. Instead, it is slowing you down, making you procrastinate and increasing your stress levels.

Let’s talk Scrum

If perfection is slowing you down, help can be found from a surprising source; from the world of agile software development and Scrum.

“Hmm… Scrum? What is Scrum?” you are asking.

Scrum is a software methodology that software developers use and one of its components is “Definition of Done” (DoD). It describes what a development team has to have ready by the end of the development iteration (also known as sprint).

When the team declares something as done, it means that the new functionality is fully tested, documented and could be even put to production.

Even if the DoD is used in context of software development, it can be easily applied to individual productivity needs as well.

Definition of Done describes clearly and explicitly what needs to be achieved until a task can be declared as done. And when you define your “done”, you can get rid of your perfection bug.

What is your definition of done?

Let’s take the concept DoD, simplify it a bit and put it into the context of personal productivity. To create your definition of done, follow these steps:

1. Define a task you want to accomplish
2. Explicitly describe (in written form) what requirements have to be met before it can be called ready
3. Mark a task as checked when it’s ready
4. When all the rows are checked, that particular task is done

Let’s say that you are blogger, you want to define your “done” regarding a new blog post. In that case part of your DoD could look like this:

Writing a blog post:

• Outline a post [checked]
• Write a post [checked]
• Proofread the post [ ]
• Create a compelling headline [ ]
• Find a accompanying picture [ ]
• Schedule the post in WordPress [ ]
• Write an email message to your autoresponder [ ]
• … [ ]

The previous DoD is clearly explaining what has been achieved so far and what still needs to be done.

To make your DoD even more effective, share this with an accountability partner if you have one. This way you can make continuous checks on how you are progressing with your work and if the individual tasks have been accomplished or not.

If you still try to strive for 100% perfection, your partner can remind you of the agreement that you have created (your DoD). This way you are not endlessly wasting your time by making irrelevant tweaks to your tasks.

Conclusion

I have been guilty of striving for perfection and this bad habit has slowed me down on my projects.

However, once I started defining my “done” (in a written form), I was able to see clearly which parts of the project were finished and which still required my attention.

Once the item on the list is checked, it’s done and I can move to the next task or project.

How do you handle perfection?

(Photo credit: Program code on a monitor via Shutterstock)

Timo Kiander, a.k.a. Productive Superdad, teaches WAHD super dad productivity for work at home dads. If you want to get more productive in your own life, grab 222 of his best Tips for Becoming a Productivity Superstar.