Buying a new car is supposed to be exciting. Ask anyone that’s bought a car recently and they’ll probably rave about it and how much they love it.

The process of actually buying the new car? Not so much.

Car salesmen are notorious for being sneaky, manipulative, and making you feel like you’re being ripped off. That kind of takes the fun out of it, don’t you think?

So if you’re thinking of buying a new car, just follow these tips and it will minimize all the aggravation. They helped make my recent car purchase (the car is awesome!) as enjoyable as possible (it could’ve been a lot worse).

#1 Buying a New Car: The Basics

If you’ve never bought a car before, you need to know the basics:

• You should never pay the MSRP price
• There’s something called the invoice price. Your goal is to pay less than the invoice price
• Sites like TrueCar can help with figuring out what the invoice price is
• Shop for your own financing—going through the dealer limits your options
• If you’re trading in your current car, find out what value it might have by using Edmunds.com and CarMax
• Use a payment calculator to see how much you can realistically afford before you fall in love with any car
• Don’t forget you’ll also need to add taxes, plates, transportation fees, etc. These can add up quickly

#2 Do Your Research

This goes without saying. There is so much information out there and if you don’t take advantage of it, you’re asking for trouble. Start by reading reviews (Consumer Reports is a great resource) and getting a sense of which car is good for you.

A simple search for “[car you want] reviews” will get you started as you try to decide which car you want to buy. Ask your friends on Facebook and you’ll get some honest feedback.

I also highly recommend going to the official site of the cars you’re thinking of buying—that’s usually the best place to view all the different trims and options that are available.

We created a spreadsheet with the features that were important to us and put in the 6-7 cars we thought would be a good match and compared them that way (FYI, our rows were price, trunk space, and leg room).

#3 Test Drive First

Be very clear when you show up at a dealership that you aren’t buying a new car on that day—you’re only test driving. We left the door open to potentially buying “if we got a great deal” thinking that would improve the service we got.

Bad idea.

The dealer wouldn’t let us leave and called us several times trying to close a deal we knew would never happen. It ended up becoming a huge hassle.

When we were up front about not buying a car the dealers were very helpful and didn’t pressure us at all.

#4 Pick the Car You Want

What can I say? This could be the hardest part of the whole process. Pick a car you can afford, that meets your needs, and you can get excited about. You’re going to own it for a while (hopefully).

#5 Use the Power of Email

Once you’ve picked the car, it’s time to get down to business. Here’s what you do:

1. If you’re trading in your old car, take it to CarMax for a quick, 20-minute visit. They’ll give you a number that’s good for 7 days and is great leverage once you show up at the dealership
2. Find dealers within 100 miles of you that sell the car (use Google Maps or the car maker’s site)
3. Send them all the same message/e-mail spelling exactly the trim you want with the features you want. Be VERY specific!
4. Ask them for their best “out the door” quote (includes taxes, fees, etc.)
5. Punch these quotes into your spreadsheet
6. Once you hear back from all of them, email them back and ask them to match the lowest number you got, making it very clear that if any new numbers pop up later in the process, you aren’t going to do business with them
7. Pick the dealer that gave you the best price and print out all the emails you had with them
8. Got get your new car!

Our dealer tried to pull some funny business at the end, and I just kept pointing at the emails he and I had gone back and forth on. He still tried to interpret his words differently (so it’s important to be VERY clear in them), but inevitably that’s what got me the deal I wanted.

#6 Buy the Car

You’d think that once you do all that work, you would just show up to pick up your new car, right?

Wrong.

Now you have to face the actual dealer. There might be “complications” and meetings to “work out the numbers.” Just point at the emails you brought with you and say “I want the deal you promised me.”

If they resist, walk out the door and tell them you’re going to dealer #2, who also matched the deal you sent out.

They’ll try hard to keep you there, so stick to your guns and you should be OK.

Bonus Tip: Find Underground Sites

One of the best things I did was discover two sites specific to the car we were looking for: the Subaru Outback. One was a forum of Outback owners (Subaru Outback Forum) where owners and potential owners discussed all kinds of really useful things, and the other was run by an Outback dealer in Seattle that ran a “behind the scenes” look at everything you could ever want to know about buying one (Cars 101). Thanks to those two sites, I had a wealth of information specific to the car I wanted to buy:

• How much others payed for their car, including which features they added
• How they negotiated with the dealer
• Different aftermarket vendors they used for things like leather or sound systems
• Things they would’ve done differently when buying their car
• Random tips to help you make your decision on which trim is right for you
• Special deals in effect from the car maker
• Insight from the dealers themselves on what they’re trying to get out of a deal

Image by NRMA New Cars

The post Buying a New Car: Avoid the Hassle appeared first on The Writers Coin.

One of the best ways to boost your career is to consistently go beyond your everyday duties at work.

While I still think that it’s great advice, I think a lot of people are a little confused because it’s not very specific. I’ve written about Google’s 20% policy and how effective it can be to use that mentality to stand out.

But, again, it’s not very specific.

So today I want to share one very specific way that anyone can stand out at work.

Duh, It’s Digital

Every Company has a Website

This is a fact. You can’t argue with it.

If your company doesn’t have a website, then you have it easy: kick your boss’ door down and be like “Seriously? SERIOUSLY? WTF???”

That should be enough to make your case.

For every other company that’s already online, here’s something you may not want to hear: your site probably has a lot of problems.

In fact, it probably sucks.

But we Just Redesigned Our Site!

Did you do any user testing before you decided which elements you wanted to change? Did you ask any of the people that actually use your site before you made the changes?

Here’s how most redesigns work: marketing and product get into a room and agree that the current site sucks. That it needs to be updated. That they need a “fresh start.” So people start throwing out ideas:

Make it like an iPhone app!

Change the color scheme!

Let’s do that cool parallax thing I saw on this one site!!

It has to be responsive!

HTML5 is a non-negotiable…it has to be modern!!

A few weeks later, some poor designer has to take all this noise and turn it into a few different designs for the new site. Everyone gets back into a room and fights for their favorite.

Eventually, whoever is the loudest and pounds their fist on the table the hardest gets his or her way, and the new website has been chosen.

That is not how to build a new site.

How You Can Help

• Go to Usertesting.com and sign up
• Run a usability test with five users (you’ll save $49)
• Wait a day or two
• Reap the rewards

What did you just do? You ran a usability test on your company’s website.

That means five people will visit the site and run through a series of tasks that you outline for them. It usually takes about a day, but in exchange for your hard-earned cash you’ll get five videos of each user navigating the site while they talk their way through the tasks you gave them.

The first time you do this, it’ll blow your mind.

It’s called usability testing, and it’s how you properly build a website.

What to do Next

Walk into your boss’ office and say, “Here are the top three things we need to fix on our site.”

“How do you know? You’re just a lowly copywriter.”

“BOOM!” And you slam a USB drive on his/her desk with the videos on it. “Here’s why.”

No arguing. No subjectivity. Just real results from real users. You’ll be the hero of the day for bringing some sanity to the otherwise chaotic process of trying to re-do your company’s site.

One More Thing: A Helping Hand

A lot of you won’t feel very comfortable following the steps I outlined above. And that’s OK. That’s why I started Make A Better Site—it’s a service dedicated to running these usability tests for you. You hire us and we’ll take care of all the details.

Not only that, you’ll also get:

• An SEO review of the site
• A PDF with all the issues that were uncovered and a series of recommendations on how to fix them
• We can also create a splash video that sums up the 60+ minutes of video into a nice, concise 2-3 minute spot that you’re boss will actually watch

If you’re interested, you can reach me here and we can get you up and running in no time.

Image by Kennymatic

The post Boost Your Career: Improve Your Company’s Website appeared first on The Writers Coin.

I won’t lie—spending money can be really fun. Acquiring new stuff makes us feel good because it triggers the same chemicals in our body that make us feel good when we do a good deed, when we fall in love, when we eat chocolate.

Over the holidays, M and A and I flew to Guatemala to spend some time with my family. The sense of Zen I found there was for another post, but there was one other thing that happened: the airline lost our luggage.

We got it two full days later, which was NOT fun. Instead of being flooded with dopamine, my synapses were flush with (insert chemical that makes you angry).

I complained, I followed up, and I complained some more. Eventually, I held them to their own policies. And because I was civil and polite in my quest, I wound up with twice the amount of compensation I was entitled to: $200 in cash.

Was it worth the hassle of not having clothes for two days? Of course not. But you know what? I’m over it (for the most part) so I’ll gladly take a couple hundred bucks for my troubles.

And now that all the hard work of collecting my just reward, I have to figure out how I want to spend it.

[interlude]

Here is where I tell you that I’m terrible at spending anything over $100. That’s why I needed my wife’s permission to buy my first smartphone and buying a Wii. It isn’t about “permission” so much as I need someone to tell me it’s OK to spend serious money on something you don’t really “need.”

I just can’t seem to pull the trigger without an endless amount of hand wringing and internal debate.

It’s the curse of the cheapskates.

[/interlude]

So I got $200 in what’s essentially found money. I’ve been wanting to buy a tablet for a while…one that costs $199. So this is perfect, right? Buy the tablet you’ve been researching for months now that you have this found money.

You won’t feel the pain of depleting your cash on a trivial purchase. Done deal, right?

Wrong.

I’ve already sent it into my ING “New Car” account.

Just like that, the excitement of having $200 to spend is gone. Do I feel great that our New Car account is growing and that eventually we’ll be able to buy a new car without dipping into our savings?

Sure. But it means I’ve repressed that instinctual urge deep in all of us to spend, spend, spend. And every time I do that I can feel the tension increase. Eventually, I’m going to want to blow off some steam and unfurl that compact little ball of repression.

Like when I bought a Wii. And a new phone. And my MacBook Air (which I’m typing on now and has been a fantastic purchase…that should be another post).

The MacBook air was the last big purchase and that was on Black Friday of 2011, so it’s been a while.

I need some unfurling…

Part of me wants to just say the hell with it and buy the tablet. And not just the $199 tablet but to go all the way up to the iPad Mini (retail: $329) to make up for lost time. There are tiny little voices inside me saying “Do it! You’ve earned it! You deserve it!”

We all know those voices.

Eventually, I’ll buy something. I know I can’t keep repressing this feeling forever—I don’t have the stamina to fight it for much longer.

Am I the only one out there that feels this way? How are you dealing with this constant feeling? Why do I feel so guilty spending money? I guess it’s better than the alternative but it’s still kind of annoying that I have to go through all this mental gymnastics and internal debate to just buy myself a stupid gadget…

The post Letting off Some Steam: The Most Boring Way to Spend $200 appeared first on The Writers Coin.

There’s a scene in Fight Club where the guy constantly reminds himself to find his “happy place.” This place is different for everyone, but for him it was a cave with penguins in it.

The idea has always appealed to me. To be able to escape whatever stress or anxiety you feel and go to a “happy place” seems like a great way to handle the less pleasant parts of our lives.

It’s better than being as asshole to people.

Over the holidays, I spent 10 days in my native Guatemala. As usual, we all had a blast. My daughter got to play with her cousins, see her aunt and uncle, and catch up with her grandparents.

M and I got to hang out and relax while enjoying the natural beauty that Guatemala has to offer.

Then the trip was over and we headed back to the States. To work. To our routines.

Besides the gifts and the pinky swear to never fly Aeromexico ever again, I brought back something else.

My happy place.

Only I was lucky enough to actually be there. In it. I experienced it for real and now can trigger it at will whenever I need some peace.

Here’s where it was.

Picture a sugar farm. Sugar cane as far as the eye can see. No buildings. Everything is flat. Now picture a large, open space smack in the middle of all that sugar cane. It’s covered in lush, green grass. It’s sunny and warm, but not uncomfortably hot. It’s cool in the shade.

There’s a simple, wooden house with a wraparound porch on the second floor. Very simple, very country.

There’s a hammock on that screened-in porch.

We had arrived the day before and I had just put my daughter down for her nap. For whatever reason, I was exhausted. 
So I stood up, told my parents and my sister and M that I was tired and wanted to go lay down in the hammock.

I hadn’t laid in a hammock in years.

So I laid down, gave myself a push, and started rocking gently from side to side.

My eyes eventually gave way and I went into a light, relaxing sleep.

Over the course of an hour, I woke up a few times, turned my head, and gave myself another push.

Here I was, in the middle of nowhere, in a place surrounded by sugar cane, surrounded by my family, taking a delicious nap in a hammock.

It was awesome.

It made me realize a few things. Work can be stressful, yes, especially when you care a lot about doing it as best you can. But no one is going to die. No one is going to cry (maybe some will cry). Nobody’s life is going to be miserable because something does or doesn’t happen at work.

It’s just work.

Whenever I start to feel that impending sense of anxiety about how a project will go and how I can do a better job, I think of my happy place.

Me in a hammock in the middle of nowhere in the southern part of Guatemala.

Image by Meagan

The post Finding Your Happy Place, Zen, and Hammocks appeared first on The Writers Coin.

Here is Travis on his top career advice:

What’s the number one piece of advice you have for young people starting out in the workplace?

Don’t stay inside a box. Think creatively.  Volunteer to do things that are outside of your scope of duties. Prove early on in your career that you are going to become a leader. What about established people who have been at a company for a while? Never be afraid to challenge the norm. If you are thinking about looking for new career opportunities, look inside your own company first.

You will be surprised to find that employers want to keep you and may get inventive in finding you something that will keep you with the firm.

Any favorite tips or insight when it comes to these topics: Interviewing, applying to a job, social media, and getting a raise? 

Interviewing – Do your research. This article referencing Google’s Laszlo Bock is a great lesson to be learned on the importance of doing research prior to interviewing: http://on.wsj.com/LQJnPH. Applying to a job – Find a way to “skirt the system.” By system, I am referring to the applicant tracking system.

Do your best to find a personal connection. LinkedIn is an excellent tool to request professional referrals to someone within a perspective employer. Social Media - Assume most anything you post can be reviewed by a potential employer. Be certain to manage your online brand with tenacity. Getting a raise – Prove that you are adding value during your review and do competitive research to see what others in your field are making.

What’s the biggest no-no when you’re considering a candidate?

Mistakes on resumes. That is the easiest way to eliminate someone from consideration. Have at least two people other than yourself go over your resume with a fine tooth comb. Someone who is interviewing should always have a few prepared questions for everyone they meet.

Are there any skills that are especially in high demand out there right now?  

Anything IT. The digital space in my industry is particularly hot right now.

Any advice for college students out there about to enter the workplace?  

Have internships under your belt. If you are struggling to find employment, volunteer somewhere that will allow you to gain experience in the field/industry you are looking to pursue.

There’s a lot of people out there saying that university/college degrees aren’t worth what they were used to. That you can save yourself the money and get that same education in other ways: starting a company, reading books yourself, starting work right away, etc. What’s your take on the idea that college degrees (and advanced degrees as well) aren’t an absolute must right away?

I personally put a lot of weight on an undergraduate degree. You are not taught business in high school, so I think the idea of starting a business of your own without an education in how to run a business is not necessarily a good idea. That is not to say that it can’t be done, but I personally would not recommend it.

For advanced degrees, I feel there is some need to have space between your undergraduate degree and advanced degree. You will get more out of the program and bring more to the table to contribute yourself. Further, advanced degrees give you an opportunity to change fields or professions, so without knowing what you might want to do 10 years from now, you may want to hold off on the advanced degree for the time being.

Any favorite sites/blogs/publications that deal with career topics that you especially like?  

I think this is very specific to individual and the profession you are entering. Ron Kulp, for example, writes a great blog for entry level PR professionals and I find his advice to be spot on for students in our field of study. What about twitter folks to follow for great career advice?  Same for Twitter. Search for professionals that are in your industry vs. people who give general advice. That said, you are welcome to follow me on Twitter @traviskessel. I shout out #JobSeekerTips on a very regular basis.

The post Career Advice from a Recruiter appeared first on The Writers Coin.

Today I’m super excited to feature an interview filled with great career advice from Steve of BripBlap, a site devoted to finance and career success. I first heard of Steve (like so many others) through his very successful post, 8 Steps to a Six Figure Career. He’s had a ton of experience working all over the world as a consultant in the financial industry and has some fantastic career advice for people looking to boost their career prospects.

He’s also lost over 100 pounds, which is not just interesting for people looking to lose weight, but has given him interesting insights on systems that apply to almost anything you want to achieve.

In all, I’m super excited to pass on some of the best career advice I’ve ever featured here on The Writer’s Coin.

Without further ado:

1. One of your most popular posts is 8 Steps to a Six Figure Career: Do you still feel like that career advice applies today? In other words, would you give that advice to you kids as they grow up?

I feel that advice still applies today. Roughly, I’d summarize it as pick a “good” major (leave your love of French lit for your spare time and get a degree in accounting), get an advanced degree or certification (because a BA is unfortunately the new high school diploma), but most importantly take big chances: change jobs aggressively, move to bigger cities, go overseas, do something unusual early on in your career to distance yourself from the pack.

[editor: this is great advice...be bold early on and make yourself unique]

I volunteered to go work in Russia for my employer in the mid-90s, for example, and ended up staying several years. That has given me a white-hot resume point for the past decade: employers and clients always view that as a risky, bold, ambitious decision. It sets me apart from my peers. So yes, I’d give that advice to my kids, with one caveat: the job market is changing faster now than ever before.

It has changed radically since my parents’ generation (my dad had one employer his whole career) to mine (I am a professional contract consultant for financial controls and systems) and I’m sure that my kids will wind up with a different job model…I certainly won’t steer them away from entrepreneurialism, for example. But since the basic idea is do a little bit extra early in life to set yourself apart at the beginning of your career, I don’t see how that’s ever going to change.

2. Losing the amount of weight you lost is incredible, can you tell us how you stuck through your weight loss? Was it just perseverance or was there a tipping point that got you to commit?

Well, I started it when I got winded walking up a single flight of stairs. I realized that clutching at the handrail after taking about 16 steps up and needing big gulps of air was not a great way to live. It was easy once I latched onto a system (I was on Atkins). Plus it was easy because I did most of it when I was single: I had no “cheat foods” in the house.

Unfortunately I’ve put a little bit of the weight back, but I’m still far, far healthier and fit than I was before. Losing weight is simple: find a system that you enjoy and commit to it. Experiment with a few different ones—I tried low-fat and vegetarian before settling on Atkins. If it’s Atkins, being a vegan, paleo, whatever: you have to enjoy it and it has to be a simple system.

[editor: love this...don't bang your head against the wall by "trying harder," just find a simple system that works for you]

Anything that requires meticulous record keeping and complex tracking seems unpleasant from the get-go to me. Here’s my go-to tip these days, which is a VERY simple way to start losing weight: look at the ingredients before you buy it. If it has “high fructose corn syrup” or any variation on “corn syrup/sweetener/goo” don’t buy it, ever. Not because that’s the most awful ingredient—it’s not—but because it only exists in highly processed foods. That one little step will cut out a huge amount of unhealthy and unfilling food from your diet.

3. With the state of the job market today being pretty grim, what career advice do you have for newly graduated people starting off in the “real world?”

Well, as I mentioned above: take the biggest risks you can early in your career. It is much easier to separate yourself from the crowd early on. Take the weird job assignments. Pick up and move to a bigger city. And most importantly, whether you are an employee, a consultant, a freelancer or even unemployed: concentrate on YOUR development.

Early on you need training, extra responsibilities, chances to learn. If you aren’t getting those, move on. Don’t be loyal to bad companies. Early in your career you should be on a job search non-stop, even when employed. I’d take any job where I felt I had a chance to learn new skills over a job with a chance to make an extra 5%. And live as simply as you can while you are young, single and mobile. Having a lot of money in the bank gives you options. Desperately needing your next paycheck to make rent doesn’t.

4. Right now you’re a part time consultant. How is that lifestyle different than working for a company? How different is the money?

I do contract consulting. If I work for an hour, I get paid for an hour. So week to week my work’s not all that different from an employee’s: I come in, do my work, leave. The big difference is that I seldom work overtime (because then the company has to pay me for it).

I also get to focus on work and results instead of corporate politics. I’m usually at clients for a year or more, so I have outlasted “regular” employees many times. But most importantly, I’ve got time for a family life, a personal life and a side business (my blogs) which I never had as a senior manager for a multinational corporation. And the money’s about the same annually, but on an hourly basis I’m far better compensated now than I was when I was working 70 hour weeks. And as a family man, I’m happy that I can count on my fingers the number of nights in the past six years I haven’t been home to read my kids a book before bedtime because I’ve had to stay late at work.

5. Are you willing to share how much income you derive from your online pursuits? 

This is something that has varied wildly over the years. It took me a long time (more than a year and a half) to start making money with my blog, and even now I don’t make a huge amount. A good month might be $2000. A bad month might be $400. The online money-making business is changing rapidly now that SEO is dying and social is on the rise.

I’ve expanded my online “media” and I’m continually experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t. I’ve never made enough to seriously consider going full-time, but it’s certainly nice to have money rolling in from more than one source.

6. What has been the most successful way to earn money online for you?

Well, for years it was affiliate income (mostly services like Prosper, Lending Club, credit cards and other financial products) and Adsense. I’ve stopped using Adsense altogether these days, and affiliate income seems to be drying up as people spend more time on social media (I don’t think they want to click away).

I get most of my income from direct ad placement—a company will simply pay me to display an ad. I am convinced that going forward the only reasonable way for individual bloggers to make money will be to sell products they’ve created. And readers will only buy those products if the blogger has developed trust with the readers, through engagement on social media, through email subscriptions, through their blog, everywhere.

I’ve got a good idea about where to go with that, but I need to put more effort into that rather than “traditional” income I’ve leaned on for years like affiliate income. I’m in the process of winding down most advertising on my blogs while I try to concentrate on building a wider audience.

7. What do you think is the most valuable skill in the workplace today? Software development? Marketing? Curious to hear your thoughts.

The most valuable skill is now, and will be for the forseeable future, the ability to solve problems—particularly for consultants and freelancers. I have been successful as a consultant because I can listen, I can read and research, I can analyze and I can write. I can look at complex problems—no matter what they are related to—analyze them and come up with solutions.

Sure, I know a dozen software platforms, all about accounting principles for 5 different countries and several different coding languages, but you know what? So do thousands of other people. I know SQL quite well for a finance guy, but you know what? There’s a SQL guy out there who’s an expert, so while knowing it is helpful for me, I can’t base my career on it.

Work on your problem solving skills. Learn how to solve puzzles. American education is highly focused on rote learning and teaching to the test, because corporate America needs armies of white-collar factory workers to process transactions. So you set yourself apart by being someone who can answer the question, not just repeat it.

8. If there’s anything else you’d like to share, please do so!

I’d just like to thank Carlos for the opportunity to be interviewed, I enjoyed the questions. And I’m always glad to hear directly from anyone with questions, so feel free to get in touch!

[editor: you can reach Steve via his blog, BripBlap. To get more great career tips like this one, sign up for the Ninja Employee Newsletter]

Image from Macrickguitarsx

The post Career Advice That Kicks Ass: A Six-Figure Consultant Speaks Up appeared first on The Writers Coin.

Job interviews can be very stressful: you’re trying to give the interviewer an accurate picture of who you are and what you can do while “selling” him/her on the idea that you’re  a great hire—not an easy balance.

It’s tough, especially since most people only interview when they’re in a position of weakness. They either don’t have a job or are desperate to leave the one they’re at.

Talk about zero leverage.

Practice Your Job Interview Skills

When you aren’t desperate to get the job, you’ll notice a huge difference in how you approach a job interview. You’re more calm, you answer questions easily and without hesitation, and you aren’t nearly as nervous.

You become more confident, and that makes you look a lot better. 

You’ll be surprised at how confident you feel when you’re interviewing for practice. Instead of focusing on saying the right thing or trying to hit every checkbox that the interviewer is trying to fill, you’ll find yourself asking some questions about the company and the position. Is this a place you would even want to work at? Is this someone you would want to work with?

I’ve gone on several interviews that started out as “practice” for myself and ended up as really interesting opportunities. That’s the other interesting bit of this experiment: you never know what you’ll find out there unless you’re looking. And as a good friend of mine once told me, “I’m always looking.”

Another reason I like this exercise is because once you get a company showing some interest in you (whether you intend to leave or not), your current job will be easier. I’m telling you, there’s nothing like going on an interview and feeling wanted and valued by another company to make the stresses and annoyances of your job go up in smoke.

It reminds you that you don’t have to be there. You don’t have to deal with this stuff. You could leave at any time.

It’s a very empowering feeling.

Let’s recap all the advantages of interviewing for practice:

• Confidence booster
• Improves/sharpens your interview skills
• Liberates you at your job
• You might find a better job

Image by bpsusf

The post Job Tip: Go On An Interview appeared first on The Writers Coin.

Think of all the tasks you have to accomplish throughout the day. Some are quick and easy, while others are longer and more involved.

And when it’s time to start, do you ever stop for a second to regroup and make sure you’re going in the right order?That you remember all the steps?

When I left my job in publishing four years ago, I gave two weeks notice like everyone else. But I also wanted to make sure whoever was hired in my place could contribute as soon as possible. I wanted to make life easy on my boss and my coworkers because I liked them and because I’m so goodhearted.

So I started writing down every single task that came with my job, along with detailed instructions about how to do each one.

All the little tips and tricks I had picked up over the years went into this “manual.”

That awesome checklist I made during my Google 20% time? You better believe that was in there.

By the time my two weeks were up, I realized that this manual summed up my entire job, along with every task that came with it.

And I wished I had it while I was working because it was very clear and organized. I realized that having that manual around would’ve made my days a little smoother and less chaotic.

Imagine you have a manual that has 30 checklists in it. And every time you have to get something done, you just bring up the checklist, put it next to you, and make sure you go through each step.

This does a few things:

• It lets you focus on the quality of each task so you’re not thinking in the back of your head, “Am I forgetting something? What do I do next?”
• You avoid distractions. Instead of hunting through emails or documents for answers to whatever questions you have, the checklist has it all. You’ve basically created a nice, simple flow:

Task is assigned -> Follow checklist instructions

If you don’t believe in the power of lists, you’re missing out.

It may seem tedious to do this and some of you might be frightened that a manual like this can make you expendable, but don’t worry about that. You don’t have to share it. You don’t have to show it off.

Just do what’s in the manual and keep it to yourself.

Image by quacktaculous

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Finding a problem and solving it shouldn’t be hard, right?

I know the finding a problem part will be a little too easy for most of us, but your true test will come in finding a solution that helps make that problem smaller.

Types of Problems

What we’re looking for is anything that affects the bottom line. Things like:

• Paying too much for something
• Paying for something at all (can you get for free?)
• Spending too much time on a task
• Using something solely because you paid for it
• Having an inefficient process

The list could go on and on, but what you’re trying to solve for is something that takes up too much time or requires more money than it has to. If you can save money or time, you’re going to be a hero.

Power of Checklists

I used Google’s 20% rule to make my job easier by tackling a problem that nobody really cared about except for me and some of my coworkers. It was annoying that our two software systems weren’t totally in sync and we had to manually make a bunch of changes, but what else were you going to do?

Spend some time trying to figure out and spin your wheels when the damn things are sitting there waiting to get done?

That was the risk I took: I spent time doing something that wasn’t my job—working on an alternate solution to an unspoken problem—to try to make my own job easier.

I wound up creating a checklist that turned a three hour task into a 10 minute task.

Excel is Your Friend

I’ve long touted the power of Excel as a way to become more efficient, so I would recommend you learn some of the cool things Excel can do.

Disobeying your boss is rarely recommended, but that’s what I did when I was tasked with a tedious, boring project: pasting a bunch of emails into Excel.

I found a workaround that included Outlook, Access, and Excel that took a 4 hour process and squeezed it down to about 6 minutes. I wrote up a manual on how everyone could do it and told my boss the good news.

Hero? Me.

Check out Chandoo.org for help on mastering Excel. And make sure you keep up with the different software that’s available out there in case you ever need to lean on a program to hack your way through a problem.

Work Gloves

I’m reading a great book right now called Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, and one of the stories is about Jon Stegner. He discovered that his company was buying 424 different kinds of work gloves at varying prices (from $5-$17, even though they were essentially the same glove).

He was able to make the change and the company saved hundreds of thousands of dollars over time thanks to this tiny fix.

You can read more about Jon Stegner here.

Share, Obviously

If you are able to solve a problem, small as it might be, you have to tell people about it. Start with a coworker to make sure your solution is as great as you think it is. Double check it again.

When you’re ready, share it with your boss and recommend the best places it should be adopted. Again, if you can put numbers on it, that’s even better.

People respond better to “This will save us three hours every week and $15,000″ instead of “We’ll save time!”

The post Find a Problem, Solve It appeared first on The Writers Coin.

The day-to-day stuff tends to bog us down at work, especially when things get crazy busy. When we’re trying to dig out of our inbox as fast as we can, we tend to lose track of the big picture.

We forget about our long-term plans, how and why we feel, and which direction we want our career to go.

The big picture is important.

So I recommend you put this task on your calendar once a quarter (or once a month if you can): write up a quick status report about where you’re at with your job, how you feel, and what you want from the future.

I’ll be honest: I try to do these every couple of months and sometimes it just has to get pushed back. But lately I realized it doesn’t have to be very long to be effective.

Even five minutes of typing up how you feel can make a world of difference. The goal is to take a snapshot of how you’re feeling and what you’d like to do in the future and keep it for future reference.

I like to fill in the blanks to these kinds of thoughts:

• Today I feel like___ , mainly because of ___
• Right now I’m working on___
• The most stressful part of my job right now is___
• My favorite part is___
•  I can see myself working here for___ more years and then I’d like to___
• I’m learning this skill right now___, but eventually I’d like to learn how to ___ so I can ___

That’s just to get you started: I usually just free write whenever I’m feeling like I have a lot on my mind and then email it to myself wherever I am.

How it Helps

It’s the same basic concept of keeping a journal, but just focusing on work-specific feelings, plans, and thoughts. When I read some of my old journal entries, I’m often surprised at the things I was feeling and the things going through my head.

With work, it’s crucial to make sure you don’t forget these thoughts.

It’ll make it easier for you to learn from your mistakes and get better and more efficient at work. When you move to a new job or are even thinking about moving on, reading these status reports can help give you guidance about what you really want to do and which direction you should go in.

It’s almost like having a counselor helping you out, giving you some reasonable advice and insight on your situation. Only instead of a counselor trying to give insight into your situation, you have a first-person account from someone who was there the whole time.

Image by ErinKphoto

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