Be Productive

These days our lives are busier than ever. We work more than ever. We are more stressed and exhausted than ever before. And yet we get less done and are not as happy.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The problem is that we are overloaded with information and tasks, and we try to get everything done instead of just the most essential things. Solution: focus on only the essential, eliminate the rest, and allow yourself to get into that beautiful state known as “flow”.

And although it can be hard to give up all the busy-ness that we’ve grown accustomed to, the change will have tremendous benefits on our sanity, our stress levels, our happiness, and yes, our productivity.

Here are 10 simple ways to be more productive with less effort:

Clear your head. It’s impossible to gain perspective, and to know what is truly essential, if we are in the middle of an information stream. Take an hour, or half a day if possible, to shut off the information flow, and to get a larger view of your life and your job. The time you take off will be well worth it. Tell everyone that you are unavailable, shut off all communications, shut yourself in somewhere private, and take some time to think about what is important. What do you want? Where are you going? What will it take to get there? Another good way to clear your head, which is necessary for focus, is to write down everything that you need to do, all your tasks and projects and ideas. Dump the contents of your mind on paper, and then stop thinking about them for a little while.
Focus on the essential tasks. Once you’ve gotten your head cleared, you need to figure out what tasks are most essential. Ask yourself this magic question: “What task can you do that will get you the most return on your time?” Figure out the project that will get you the most recognition, win you awards, or get you the most business. Something that will pay off big. Not something you’ll forget about in a week, but something that others will remember you by. This is an essential task. Make a list of these types of tasks — they’re your most important things to do this week.
Eliminate the rest. Now look at your overall list. What’s on there that’s not essential? Can you just drop them from your schedule? Or delegate them to someone else? If not, put them on a “waiting list”. Then, as you focus on your essential tasks, check back on this waiting list every now and then. Sometimes you’ll realize that the less essential tasks weren’t really necessary at all.
Do essential tasks first. If you’ve got a list of things to do today, and one or two of them are truly essential, do those items first thing in the morning. Don’t wait until later in the day, because they’ll get pushed back as other urgent stuff comes up. Get them out of the way, and your productivity will truly soar.
Eliminate distractions. You can put essential stuff on your list all year long, but if you are constantly interrupted by email notifications, IM, cell phones, your RSS reader, gadgets and widgets, social media, forums and the like, you’ll never be productive. Turn these things off, disconnect yourself from the Internet if possible, clear your desk of all papers, clear your walls and surrounding areas, and allow yourself to truly focus.
Use simple tools. Don’t fidget with a bunch of gadgets or the latest and coolest applications. Find a simple notebook for writing things down, a simple to-do list (no frills) and the simplest application possible for doing your work. Then forget about the tools and think only of the task at hand. If you’re too worried about the tools, you’re not actually doing anything.
Do one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is a waste of time. You can’t get things done with a million things going on at once, pulling for your attention. Focus on the essential task in front of you, to the exclusion of all else, and you are much more likely to get it completed, in less time, with less effort.
Find quiet. In addition to a quiet working environment, you need time every day that you can call your own, where you don’t have to do work. This could be through reading, taking a bath, walking in nature, going swimming at the beach, going jogging, meditating. Not reading your feeds. Get away from the information overload and find that peace that will allow you to truly focus when you do work, and to review your day in your mind, and to get the perspective to see what is essential.
Make the most of your work. It’s one thing to write something great, or to create something fantastic. But it’s entirely another thing to make that great thing explode, to get you attention, to earn the recognition you deserve — which will lead to more business or more opportunities. Once you’ve created the Next Great Thing, promote it, show it to others, find a way to have it carry you as far as it can take you. Don’t just create something and move on to the next thing. Use your energy and talents to their fullest extent.
Simplify some more. Once you’ve simplified down to the essential, and eliminated distractions, you should become productive. But distractions and the unnecessary have a way of creeping back in and accumulating. Every now and then, take a look at what you’re doing, at the information coming into your life, at how you spend your time and the tools you use. Then simplify some more.

Condemned To Google Hell

Beginning in September 2006, Skyfacet no longer showed up on the first few pages of Google's results when users typed in search terms like "diamonds" and "engagement ring." The site's traffic vanished, and Sanar says his sales dropped $500,000 in three months.

What happened? Sanar isn't completely sure. But he does know that his site has been condemned to the supplemental index, a dreaded backwater region of Google search results that goes by another name in online marketing circles: Google Hell.

Google Hell is the worst fear of the untold numbers of companies that depend on search results to keep their business visible online. Getting stuck there means most users will never see the site, or at least many of the site's pages, when they enter certain keywords. And getting out can be next to impossible--because site operators often don't know what they did to get placed there.

Google's programmers appear to have created the supplemental index with the best intentions. It's designed to lighten the workload of Google's "spider," the algorithm that constantly combs and categorizes the Web's pages. Google uses the index as a holding pen for pages it deems to be of low quality or designed to appear artificially high in search results.

Those pages are scanned far less frequently than those in the main index, meaning that once a page is marked for Google Hell, it can languish there for as long as a year before Google even deigns it worthy of a reappraisal. And as Google tries to manage an explosively growing Web, more and more sites are finding themselves thrown into the search engine's digital dungeon.

If that makes the world's leading Web-crawler sound judgmental, consider Google's difficult position. The search juggernaut is faced with the endless task of reading and ranking the ever-expanding Web's billions of pages, the equivalent of putting the Earth's population in order from tallest to shortest every few minutes. Meanwhile there are growing numbers of pages filled only with junk text and advertising, designed solely to fool the engine. It's Google's task to sort out the trash from the worthwhile, and to do it better and faster than competitors like Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ), Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ), or InterActiveCorp's (nasdaq: IACI - news - people ) Ask.com

The Success Formula

Every year, hundreds of thousands of businesses are started. Most will fail, some will muddle along, and a few will thrive. Which ones thrive, and why? The reason some businesses experience spectacular sales and profit growth from the start isn't because they had a lot of money at the beginning. Their fast growth can be attributed to the fact that they were put together the right way.

In every instance, the founders either had or acquired the experience and knowledge they needed to start up and run the business. They recognized what their weak points were, subsequently nurtured alliances, and acquired the skills they needed to start their company off right. They also understood how the various parts of the business fit together to form a total structure and knew that if one part was missing, the total structure would break. For example, they knew that a successful sales plan is directly dependent upon support from the marketing and promotional plans, and that the strategic business plan acts as the glue that holds all the sub plans together so that they work in concert.

DEVELOPING IDEAS
Clever product and service ideas are a dime a dozen. Everybody has one, and most of them never get implemented. The successful entrepreneur starts with a basic idea. This idea is first tested to staying power. Can it be used to grow a customer base, and will it be profitable? The pseudo-entrepreneurial itch often ends before the basic idea gets tested. Studies show that a high percentage of people who open new businesses do so because they are frustrated with their current job. They'll jump into any business venture that comes along without first checking it out. Ninety percent of this group will go out of business in their first year.

Those that make it are smart enough to recognize the symptoms of their emotional state. They are acutely aware that they may be in a vulnerable position. As a result, they may hang on to the security of their current job and start a business on the side. They'll make the move to become a full-time entrepreneur when the time is right for them and after they have thoroughly checked out their business venture ideas. There are three basic concepts to keep in mind as you develop and refine your business start-up ideas.

Be Creative
The opposite of creativity is rigidity. Entrepreneurs are not rigid in their thinking. If you cling to the old ways of doing things because "that's the way we have always done it," you'll never come up with the new solutions that are demanded by today's small businesses. To test your creative ability, practice finding ways to tie together seemingly unrelated ideas.

Resolve Problems
You must have a clear understanding of what it is you are trying to achieve and be able to identify the obstacles that stand in your way. Break each problem down so that you understand it and know what you need to do to eliminate it. For example, the problem may be that you need more space. Why do you need more space, and what are the alternatives? An alternative may pose a new set of problems, but if they reduce the magnitude of the original problem, the alternative may be a more viable option.

Brainstorming
When you come up with a solution to a problem, brainstorm the solution with as many qualified people as you can find to avoid judging your own answer. Accept modifications that make sense, and be prepared to replace the solution with a totally new and better alternative. The key to the brainstorming process is to be objective. Brainstorming is an excellent way to come up with a new set of ideas for new products, services, or improvements that could accelerate the growth of your business.