Category Archives: Productivity

What do you have to gain? Breeaking down Procrastination

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Procrastination is a great one.

To me it is a combination of misunderstandings:

It’s too hard, I can’t do it

Usually the first of these is the misunderstanding about their own abilities. The person feels that the job/task/communication is out of their skillset, the feel that even if they do perform the actions needed they will still not get it right, therefore try to avoid this ‘failure’ by not doing it. Or they want to be proved right , that they are unable to do it, by leaving it so long that they have to rush it and never get to complete it fully, thus proving they were unable to do it. (This gives them a strange self satisfied content feeling that proves they can trust their own judgement)

Need vs Want

The second is that they do not understand the true value of getting that thing done, and how it ties into them achieving their goals.  They do understand that physically that event needs to happen, write a report, do the accounts, clean the house etc, but they do not integrate that with any of their long or short term goals (and the rewards that that will bring) and therefore see everything as a chore that NEEDS to be done rather than a positive action that they WANT to do as it will get them to the point they are looking to be at.
Most people have hobbies/activities that they will always find time for, this is because they WANT to do it because they unconsciously get something from it (pleasure, satisfaction, confidence, interactions etc) this unconscious recognition fuels their want for the next time that activity occurs. (This relates/equates to the self satisfied content feeling mentioned above) Learning to identify the positive rewards from things you WANT to do and seeing if you can find these in the things you NEED to do will help you WANT to do those too.

Lack of, or incorrectly defined goals

This ties in with Needs vs Want, lots of people have incorrectly defined goals, that is to say they have not dug deep enough.
They want a too earn more money, they want a bigger house, they want a partner etc. These are all WANTS but they are not actually identify the true outcome. Earning more money does not in itself change anything, it is what you will do with it (and the rewards that give you) that mean something. Therefore look at the next step to see what that fulfils for you, safety , security, freedom, joy etc as recognising that doing something will bring you joy or freedom is a far better motivator that it bring you an extra £100.

Breatking the cycle

By addressing any or all of these misunderstanding you can break the cycle that you have been caught up in and better relate to completing the thing you have been avoiding.

Make better use of your time.

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We all receive a myriad of information on a daily basis, Text, Twitter, Facebook, Emails, even good old fashioned newspapers and book.

Working out the best way to cope with all this information, ensuring you are able to quickly and effortlessly absorb and understand it is vital to managing your time efficiently.

So what can you do about it all?

One simple solution is to be able to process it and decide if you need to know it faster. The thing you need to know from this blog post is check out the JCI Reading Speed Reading workshop on 30th June.

Where you will have your reading speed measured, be introduced to the basics of speed reading and have a chance to practice and improve your reading speed.

 

We all receive a myriad of information on a daily basis, Text, Twitter, Facebook, Emails, even good old fashioned newspapers and book.

Working out the best way to cope with all this information, ensuring you are able to quickly and effortlessly absorb and understand it is vital to managing your time efficiently.

So what can you do about it all?

One simple solution is to be able to process it and decide if you need to know it faster. The thing you need to know from this blog post is check out the JCI Reading Speed Reading workshop on 30th June

7 Habits of Highly Social Media Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

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Remember that social media is a means to an end, not an end in its own right. (Unless you are a PR agent who’s business is selling social media services)

You are here to attract new people to your offering always remember you have actual work to do. Products to sell, a service to deliver. Keep an eye on the time you spend on your social networks and ensure that it is kept in check. Set yourself timeslots where you update and respond.

Stephen Covey refers to a woodsman who is to busy cutting wood with a blunt saw to take time sharpen it (thus reducing his effort) so he continues to work hard. If he were to stop to talk to everyone that walks past about the logs he was producing he may get lots of interest but may never cut any wood to actually sell.

Sharpening your social media saw is really a case of ensuring are being efficient about what you do so that you still have ability to service your customers once you have attracted them.

References and Inspiration in 7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Intro

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Habit 6: Synergize to Engage with your audience.

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Involve others where possible, hopefully from within your organisation, or seek outside assistance to discuss and create ideas.

As the Social Media coordinator within your organisation you are may feel you do not have all the knowledge, experience or content or time to do it all. That is where others come in.

The best people to write engaging content about your companies activities are the people doing it. Get the sales people to write blogs and discuss new technologies, ask the engineers on the road to write about preventative measure that could help avoid some of the smaller problems.

These same people can then actively engage in the discussion they create drawing people to your content. This all shows that your organisation has a variety of people with expert knowledge rather than just someone with a twitter or facebook account.

References and Inspiration in 7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Intro

7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Habit 5: Seek First to Listen, Then to Be Heard

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Take a step back.

Look to see what people actually get from your service.

The old adage of sell the sizzle not the sausage has never been more true. Listen for what the end user will find interesting rather then the bit you want to talk about. Yes the yield to cost ratio of a blah blah blah may get you excited but having enough money in 2-3 years to pay for a child’s university education is what someone is more likely to be searching for when they find you. (If you do it right)

Once you understand what people are willing to listen to you can then ensure you talk about what interests them. Including all the correct keyword hooks that tehy want to hear.

As soon as someone is interested they will actually listen to what you have to offer, and how it will help them at that point your message will actually be heard.

References and Inspiration in 7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Intro

7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Habit 4: Think Win/Win

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Win/Win is social media is just the same as in business,
– Lose / Win – you give all your knowledge away and people do it themselves.
– Win / Lose – you use the hard sell, links to product pages over the place, you may get some orders (you win) but there is no real benefit to the general listener
– Win / Win, you post useful info to inform and encourages people to engage with your subject (they win) , you become a recognised expert (you win) as people begin to use your snippets (they win) ultimately they recognise they can not do it all themselves and as you are their go to expert they ask you for your services (you win) you both grow an ongoing business relationship (win/win)
Note the order this happens in, They Win first, you give, they gain. Then you start to win too.

References and Inspiration in 7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Intro

7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Habit 3: Put First Things First

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You need to cover all your bases, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube to name but a few, the advantage you now have is that you are using a single source, your website blog, so you already have the content that you can point all of these towards (thus reducing your overall workload).

Now, analyse your response, look where you get the most activity and give that some focus, however activity is often confused with results, take a second look. 10,000 followers on twitter, but only 100 clicks, maybe one purchase. 1000 people in your LinkedIn group, with  50 clicks and three purchases. Look to where your results come from and give it some real backing. You maybe surprised as to where you get your results.

There are plenty of tools for this,
Google analytics – Web analytics
Bitly – url shortener with analytics
Plus many more.

References and Inspiration in 7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Intro

7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Habit 1: Be Proactive

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Get out there!

Do something and do it regularly. Effective Social media relies on consistently providing snippets that engage and/or entertain. Providing these regularly ensures you are kept in the forefront of your readers awareness. They naturally remember you when your subject is mentioned.

Therefore decide that you, or your organisation, are actually going to do it, and be serious about it.
If you go into social media half hearted, you are wasting your time (and therefore money). If you only dabble, you are likely to get minimal results, you may make some interesting contacts and hopefully get the odd bit of business, but you are unlikely to get the fantastic results you have heard about and were hoping for.

References and Inspiration in 7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Intro

7 Habits of Highly Social Media – Intro

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Following attending a multitude of social media events recently I thought I would try to put some business perspective onto how to integrate a social strategy into your business.

To this end I have borrowed the ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ from Stephen Covey and put a light-hearted social slant on them to give us the ‘7 habits of highly social media.’

Habit 1. Be Proactive
Habit 2. Begin with a blog behind.
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Listen, Then to Be Heard
Habit 6: Synergize (Engage with your audience)
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Reference and inspiration from
Stephen Covey – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®
Graham Jones at JCI UK Inspiration Day

Google analytics – Web analytics
Bitly – url shortener with analytics
Harry from Minimoko (at Tea and the Zen of Social Media )
Kathryn McMann (at Tea and the Zen of Social Media )
Sinead Mac Manus from 8fold (at Tea and the Zen of Social Media )
Lee Smallwood from digicoms


Habit 3: Put First Things First

Making the most of technology

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I have known Positive computing for several years now and have always turned to them as a source of advice and equipment. So was really pleased to see that Julian Lewis has started a regular newsletter to inform people about changes in technology. I strongly recommend you sign up to the Positive Newsletter to enable you to keep  up to date.

In this issue Julian covers a variety of issues, a couple of which I can give testimonials for his advice

Dropbox, an excellent solution for keeping multiple pc’s/laptops in sync, while providing you a remote repository that is effectively an offsite backup.

Having been introduced to Dropbox by Positive around 12 months ago I now use it as my primary document location. This allows me to switch between a powerful desktop replacement laptop and a Dell netbook depending on where I am going and what resources I need on at the time, safe in the knowledge that I always have the documents I need.

Social Media, a great recommendation for Hootsuite, and advice on finding the right media strategy, ties in nicely with a couple of blog articles I have written recently about ensuring you have the correct message for your business. As Julian says in his newsletter there are plenty of Social Media Experts out there so talk to them about the how to do it. I would also add make sure you know your own message that you can then publicise about through the social media.

There is much more in the newsletter so go check it out.