Productivity, Performance & Proficiency Lies and Your Solution

When it comes to productivity, you may think you have it mastered. You check tasks off your to-do list, multitask like the best of them, and stay insanely busy from morning until night. But it turns out, your so-called “productivity” may actually be a jumble of popular myths that make you think you’re getting more done than you actually are. Think you’re using your time wisely? Check out these four lies you might be telling yourself about being productive—and how you can free yourself from that false reality.

The Lie: My Day’s Full of Activity, So I Must Be Super Productive

These days, there’s no shortage of digital time-fillers that can make you feel productive. You can easily spend all day emailing, playing on LinkedIn, searching, instant messaging, texting, and whatever else it takes to stay in the online loop. But while your fingers are busy typing and your eyes busy reading, all you’re really doing is getting hits of information—over and over again—instead of working toward a goal.

Or, you might pack your schedule to the brim—coffee meetings in the morning and networking events after work—which forces you to spend all night responding to all the emails in your overflowing inbox. But are you really getting anything significant done?

The Logical Solution: The Done List
To make sure you’re actually accomplishing substantial tasks each day, keep a “done list”—that is, a list of tasks you’ve completed instead of things you have left to do. When you stop to recognize each day’s accomplishments, you’ll be able to reflect more constructively: Did you spend your time wisely? Did you make any significant progress today? Which allows you to reevaluate how you’re spending your time.

The Lie: The inspirational multitasking guru
Multitasking can trick you into feeling like you’re a productivity superhero. After all, if you have the skills to simultaneously compile a budget, listen to a podcast, and catch up on your email, you must be running circles around your single-tasking co-workers, right?
Actually, studies show that multitasking can make you perform worse in whatever you’re doing.

The Logical Solution: Dial in the Focus
Try focusing on one task at a time. Why should you work against what you believe are your natural multitasking talents? Yes, it might feel less productive to work on one thing at a time, but extreme focus will bring out your best.
To help you get out of your task-juggling habits, work in ones:

• Keep one simple to-do list.
• Complete at least one significant task toward the beginning of your day.
• If you’re really up for a challenge, try working in only one browser tab!

When you single-task, you’ll boost your brainpower and since you’re not spending partial attention on multiple tasks, you’ll get the task at hand done faster.

The Lie: Go with the flow? Planning & Schedules
Don't hold everything in your head. You may think that having a flexible and open schedule can be conducive to creativity (and it can be, to a certain extent), but that doesn’t mean all forms of scheduling should go out the window. A little structure can help you clarify your goals and think more clearly—so you won’t waste time trying to figure out if you overlooked anything from your mental to-do list.

The Logical Solution: Rhythms & Timetables
Create a reliable rhythm for yourself. Instead of scheduling your day down to the very last detail and task, try working with broader goals in mind.

With this strategy, I still recommend to-do lists—but not necessarily filled with specific tasks. Instead, list categories of what you’re working on.

This will allow you to work productively toward your goals without locking yourself into turn-by-turn directions. Then, set aside a dedicated block of time for you to work on each category, so you can minimize distractions and focus on actually producing.

The Big Lie: The Tomorrow Excuse
The power of procrastination is a powerful monster. Without much thought, the top task on your to-do list can get pushed to tomorrow, and then to the next day, and then to the next. And in your mind, you truly believe you’ll get to it eventually—but “eventually” keeps getting pushed further and further away.

The Logical Solution: Find an Accountability Ally
The root of procrastination is often a lack of accountability—if no one knows what’s on your to-do list, no one knows that you’re not actually making any progress on it. To stay on track, partner up with a co-worker or group of peers—people who are committed to helping each other do what they say they’re going to do—and plan to check in with each other at least once a week.

If you can’t find an accountability partner, technology can help you become your own coach. Check out apps like iDoneThis, Lift, and Email Game, which keep you updated on your progress toward specific goals and which can help keep you on track and motivated to stay productive.

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10 Steps for Using Social Media in Business And In Sales

Here are 10 steps to being social:

1. Getting Started: Locate your professional headshot and/or business logo. Create a summary about yourself, work, skills and expertise. Take that information and go sign up and complete your profiles on the following networks:
A. LinkedIn
B. Facebook
C. Google +
D. Twitter
E. Blog
Note: These sites are cataloged by Google, Bing and Yahoo and will not only make it easier for people and brands to find you, it will also BOOST your organic SEO rank and help your websites rank.

2. What Comes Next: Follow the favorites in your industry, join popular groups, and connect with key influencers and referral partners.

3. Friends, Invitations & Connections: Send personalized invitations to connect to your network and suggested friends.

4. Testimonials Written & Received: Request recommendations and favorites politely and return the favor (that's good LinkedIn etiquette). If your LinkedIn profile is completed, you will have skills listed for easy endorsements and your connections can endorse you easily with a click-of-a-mouse.

5. 1 Time Per Day Rule: Update your status 1 time daily. Facebook is a bit tricky and shouldn't be posted on multiple times on a daily basis until you have many fans that are actively engaging with your posts (like, share, comment). If you're not sure about the best way to use Facebook for business, review information on how Facebook rates your activity called "EdgeRank"

6. Interacting: Share and comment on other people’s posts at least once per day.

7. New Connections: Send invitations to connect to new people at least one per day. Just make it a personal invitation, like you are shaking hands or being introduced at a Chamber event.

8. How to Get Noticed: Comment or answer questions in groups 3 times per week.

9. Getting Brands & Businesses to Engage: Cross-promote your other profiles, email newsletter, and website or blog once per week.

10. And What About the Competition? Spy on your competition, research potential clients, and help referral partners.

Saying "Yes" to Success with the "Yes" attitude

The "yes" attitude. That means that your default response to requests is “yes.” Consider the movie, Yes, Man, played by Jim Carrey. In this movie he says, "yes!" to everything. This doesn’t mean lying, and it’s not a risky practice because most requests at the beginning of a relationship are simple and easy.
Responding to conversations with a "yes" buys you time, enables you to see more options, and builds rapport. Creating good networking practices is always thinking about how you can help the people when you meet them.

Which leads to the "no" response and the reactions that 1 word creates. A “no” response stops everything. There’s no place to go, nothing to build on, and no further options. You never know what may come of a relationship, and you will never know if you don’t let it begin. At least, try thinking with a “not yet” response instead of “no.”

30 Ways To Use LinkedIn and Get Business

LinkedIn truly is a social media tool that when harnessed correctly will help individuals, brands and businesses succeed. The site isn't a personal favorite of mine - It is however, a tool I strongly suggest using to everyone because I have seen it work time and time again. Once you understand the key principals you can make the network work for you with a minimal time investment.

If you're like many people I speak with that has a LinkedIn account that mostly sits idle (signing in to accept connection requests or review endorsements) you should know that there is much more that you can do and should be doing. LinkedIn is the social tool that will promote you as an individual, grow your business and brand, maximize your relevancy and reel in new leads, clients and testimonials. In short, used LinkedIn for ROI. Here are 30 ways to effectively harness the social network successfully:

1. Start with your profile. It needs to be filled out completely and honestly. (Great SEO opportunity here!)
2. Use widgets to integrate other tools, such as importing your blog entries or Twitter stream into your profile. (Great SEO & branding opportunity here!)
3. Do market research and gain knowledge with Polls.
4. Share survey and poll results with your contacts. This goes into your contacts activity feed and builds your credibility.
5. Answer questions in Questions and Answers: show expertise without a hint of self-promotion.
6. Ask questions in Questions and Answers to get a feel for what customers and prospects want or think.
7. Publish your LinkedIn URL on all your marketing collateral, including business cards, email signature, email newsletters, web sites and brochures, so prospects learn more about you.
8. Grow your network by joining industry and alumni groups related to your business.
9. Update your status examples of recent work.
10. Link your status updates with your other social media accounts.
11. Combine your social media approach: when someone asks a question in Twitter, respond in detail on LinkedIn and link to it from Twitter.
12. Use the search feature to find people by company, industry and city.
13. Start and manage a group or fan page for your product, brand or business.
14. Research your prospects before meeting or contacting them.
15. Share useful articles and resources that will be of interest to customers and prospects.
16. Don’t turn off your contacts: avoid hard-sell tactics.
17. Write honest and valuable recommendations for your contacts.
18. Request LinkedIn recommendation from happy customers willing to provide testimonials.
19. Post your presentations on your profile using a presentation application.
20. Check connections’ locations before traveling so you can meet with those in the city where you’re heading.
21. Ask your first-level contacts for introductions to their first-level contacts.
22. Interact with LinkedIn on a regular basis to reach those who may not see you on other social media sites.
23. Set up to receive LinkedIn messages in your inbox so you can respond right away.
24. Link to articles and content posted elsewhere, with a summary of why it’s valuable to add to your credibility.
25. List your newsletter subscription information and archives.
26. Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event.
27. Post discounts and package deals.
28. Import vCards and contacts from other applications to find more connections.
29. Export your contacts into other applications.
30. Find vendors and contractors through connections.