When I was a child and told my mother I didn’t have time to do something she was asking me to do, she would shoot daggers from her eyes at me and with an uncompromising tone tell me to “make time.”

Even as a child this imperative seemed impossible, but the look on my mother’s face wasn’t one you could argue with, so I would somehow make time to do whatever it was she had asked.

As an adult, the phrase “make time” seems even more absurd. Any adult knows that you can’t create time — you are given 24 hours in a day like everybody else, and that allotment is not negotiable, not flexible.

So we come to terms with the fact that there are a set number of hours in a day; but many of us use that fact as an excuse to not be more productive. We’ve all heard and given the excuse: I really wish I could x, but I just don’t have time.

The truth is you DO have time.

“Making time,” I’ve realized, is about making the most out of the time you have. My mother knew when I told her I didn’t have time for XYZ that if I just managed my time better, I would indeed have time for chores, spending time with friends, and almost anything else conceivable.

The problem is that as adults we tend to measure productivity in blocks of time instead of by results. Just think of a regular work day: when you arrive, you base your work around certain time markers, such as a 10a.m. meeting, lunch, 2:30p.m. mail-out time, and 5p.m. close. You know you should have a certain amount of work done by each time marker and pace yourself around those blocks of time.

That kind of thinking is totally BACKWARDS.

It’s time to start thinking in terms of goals. Time is not a goal, it is a resource, so you can’t base your work on time. Instead you have to start asking questions like:

• Are you making the most of the time you spend working?
• As Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich puts it: “Is the time you spend productivity dense?”
• When you spend time, you are making an investment — what is the return on that investment?

Goals are useful because they give us a motivation to work, which is one of the key components of productivity. Think of the last project you worked on that you loved. Didn’t you find yourself suddenly extraordinarily productive? That’s because you wanted to work, for the sake of completing the work. You probably got more done on that day than you did in a whole week working on a routine project.

Setting goals is easy.

Using goals as a productivity tool isn’t a new strategy — but just because you set a goal doesn’t mean you will meet it. In fact, many people who have set goals (myself included) have done so with little or no change in behavior or productivity.

The reason is specificity. My goals weren’t specific enough to motivate me to meet them, so I didn’t. Another reason is lack of focus; being distracted while setting goals kills them. Lastly, another of the most common goal-killers is the time limit set on them. People often think too long- or short-term for the goals they are setting (mostly too short-term).

Write your goals down. Right now.

Goals should be used to motivate you, so set a goal that makes you want to work. For example, don’t just write “My goal is to finish work by the end of the day.” While time-specific that goal doesn’t give you a fundamental reason to be productive.

Examine your position and ask yourself if it’s where you really want to be. Are you satisfied being a document controller? Or did you have dreams of owning or managing?

Why is this relevant? Because looking to the future gives you a reason to work in the present. If your goal is to be a manager, write that. But not just that. Answer these questions, too:

• Manager of what division?
• How long before you get there?
• How many employees do you manage?
• How many hours a week do you work?
• What’s your salary?
• Who do you work with?
• What do you need to do to get there?

Can you see how being specific in your goal setting can make all the difference? Answering just that last question, for example, will be very helpful for productivity, because it contextualizes your everyday work into an upward-movement framework. If everything you are doing is to help you become a manager, your goal doesn’t need to be “finish work by EOD” because you know you have to finish all your work every day to be promoted.

What are your goals? Saving for a new house? Taking a vacation? Starting a family? Write them down, GET SPECIFIC, make sure to tack the goal up somewhere where you’ll see it every day, and start working toward it. You’ll find that you actually do have time for all those things you thought you didn’t when you are being productive and not wasting the time you do have. So get out there and make some time.

By-line:

Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com.

This week we feature a guest post from Christopher Wallace, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Amsterdam Printing, has more than 20 years experience in sales and marketing. At Amsterdam, a leading provider of personalized pens, promotional pens, and other personalized items such as imprinted apparel and customized calendars, Christopher is focused on providing quality marketing materials to small, mid-size and large businesses.

Did you ever have someone tell you that you ought to open a restaurant because you cook so well? Do your neighbors ask you about interior design ideas, how to grow beautiful roses, proper animal care, how to revive a dead laptop, or other requests for advice? Are you the resident stock market expert on your street?

A lot of us have come to the conclusion that we actually DO one or two (or maybe a bunch) of different things a bit better than the average person, and are either contemplating sharing our expertise with the world or have already started to do so via a blog. And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT. There are literally hundreds of millions of blogs out there at any given moment. Even if you don’t aspire to be a nationally known blogger with thousands of active followers, it’s still a good idea to begin your blog with some guidelines in mind. Who knows – you might end up reaching a larger audience than you ever intended.

Here are a ten tips (in no particular order) on writing successful blogs that make sense for the beginner as well as those who have been blogging awhile.

1. If you’re truly serious about creating a business or career from your blog, then get your own website. There are plenty of imaginative domain names still available. You can register your name for around $10-$20 per year; hosting services are available for around 10 bucks a month. This gives you complete control over your content and any search engine optimization (SEO) you want to do.

2. A good blog post title should be the answer to someone’s search. If you planned your sister’s big outdoor wedding and it was absolutely spectacular, the blog post title should not be “How I Planned My Sister’s Wedding.” Instead, go for something like “Top 10 Must-Dos When Your Wedding is Outside.” Negative format titles also attract attention: “Five Things To Avoid at an Outdoor Wedding.” People love lists – they come to the article with the expectation that information will be laid out for them in a concise 1-2-3 format.
3. Keywords – I could write an entire post on the need for and proper use of keywords. If you don’t know much about keywords, take the time to learn the basics. In our wedding planner example above, wouldn’t it be fun if the search “how do I plan an outdoor wedding?” brought up your “Top Ten Must-Dos” article? Sure it would! If you want that to happen, then you need to employ keywords throughout your blog to ensure you rank well in searches.
4. Not interested in starting a business? That’s okay. Keywords can still help drive more readers to your blog, which, if you’re honest, is the common goal for any blogger.
5. Post your articles on a regular basis. For some, this will mean once a week. For others, several times a week makes sense. The main thing is to have a consistent schedule. Don’t commit to a daily post unless you can maintain that schedule.

li>Keep your posts short – 600 to 800 words is a good target. Avoid stream-of-consciousness posts and outline the main points you want to make. If you can’t eliminate points, break the post up into a series of posts. This makes your readers want to come back for the rest of the story.

6. As the saying goes, a picture tells 1000 words, so include them in your posts where it makes sense. Be careful when grabbing pictures off the web; make sure you can use a particular picture and give credit to the taker. Best way around this is to take the pictures yourself if you can. They don’t have to be perfect – this is not a photo contest.
7. Break up large blocks of text into multiple paragraphs; make it easy on the eyes of your readers. Use different fonts, italics or bolding to make certain sections stand out.
8. Have a Call To Action (CTA) at the end of your posts. This obviously makes sense for blogs that are driving business. For example: “Fill out the form below for a FREE design consultation.” But what if you’re not selling anything? Use a CTA to get readers to respond to your blog: “Your Turn! What amazing national parks have you visited recently?” Have this follow your blog post on your family’s trip to Yosemite.
9. Connect with other bloggers that cover similar topics. If you’re an amateur photographer, read other photographer blogs. You’ll probably learn something. Comment on their blog; perhaps you will have an answer to a challenge they have. Develop a relationship with bloggers and invite them to guest post on your blog. Post a “blog roll” of blogs you like on the side of your own blog.
10. Promote, promote, promote! Have your blog URL in your email signature and on any printed materials you use. If your website consists of more than just the blog itself, make the link to your blog BIG AND OBVIOUS so that people can find it. (You think this would be a no-brainer, but there are Fortune 100 companies who haven’t figured this one out yet).

Above all – have fun blogging!

Today we feature a guest post from Lindsey Wright, who is fascinated with the potential of emerging educational technologies, particularly the online school, to transform the landscape of learning. She writes about web-based learning, electronic and mobile learning, and the possible future of education.

Often, people who have great ideas can have a difficult time organizing those ideas and getting work done. Even productive people need a push sometimes to increase efficiency and creative output to reach the full potential of their projects. The more organized you can be, the more you will get done.

A concept called mind mapping can not only help you get organized, but also help you improve your productivity. Mind mapping is “the visual representation of ideas,” and includes graphs, charts, webs, thought bubbling and word maps. These visual cues are then used to simplify ideas and make them easier to remember and explain to others. Visually representing thoughts and ideas is a practice in organization in itself, and even just the simple act of writing thoughts down can help us shift our thoughts from chaos to calm.

As a resource for online college courses suggests, making a mind map can also help organize thought. For example, composition teachers often have their students make outlines or word association bubbles to help them conceptualize their writing before they begin to write. According to the University of North Carolina Writing Center, making word maps, webs, and outlines before beginning to write will not only help you create a plan for your essays and papers, but they make arguments more coherent, help decrease writing anxiety, and allow you to see the purpose and the direction your writing will take. So, once the project begins, it is not as daunting, makes more sense, and can be completed faster.

Mind mapping works in other contexts as well, such as relaying information that has already been created or discovered. For instance, visual representations such as charts, graphs, and tables used for displaying complex findings in a simplified manner in fields such as science and psychology. Not only do these charts help readers understand the findings of each study, but they also make it easier for the scientists to explain their findings to an audience by making the experience of the study more accessible.

Businesses also use mind maps to convey information during presentations within the company, and for giving product pitches and explanations to potential clients. Not only is it useful for businesses to track expenses and productive output with mind maps in order to share those maps with employees and managers to create goal-oriented work environment, but mind maps are also great for coming up with ideas in a team brainstorming session. Mind maps help businesses communicate ideas and company progress more effectively.

In personal life, mind maps can be used to prioritize what is most important and needs to get done first. They make goals more clear, and can even work when trying to make a to do list or prioritize your tasks. Making a web of the things you need to work on, relating to the large overarching theme first and then branching out to all the to-do’s directly related to that theme can be extremely helpful. Try drawing a bubble around broad words such as “Cleaning,” with all of the related cleaning tasks or ideas branching off of it, such as “car wash,” “laundry,” “organize closet” and the like will help you see all the tasks in front of you, and choose accordingly.

Having many disparate and complex ideas rushing through our heads all at once can be disorienting, overwhelming and can paralyze organization and decrease productivity. However, mind mapping is a tried and true method for visualizing our thoughts, and help us organize and act, and there are many resources online to help you create mind maps. Whatever your daunting task or project, try mapping your solutions and see results.

Today’s post is from Lisa, a guest blogger who writes about the latest tech developments and how to get deals using Dell coupons.

It might seem like the semester has just started, but it won’t be long until you’re freaking out about midterms and once those are over, finals. If you’re looking to get a leg-up on your studies, put your Android device to good use in the fight for intellectual growth. Here are a few of the apps that might just help you bump that C up to a B.

Merriam Webster Dictionary – free

Next time you’re reading your communication textbook and the author promises to turn you into a loquacious communicator, you don’t have to sit there scratching your head for an hour or take the time to bust our your laptop. You’ve got a dictionary in the palm of your hand. Even Noah Webster probably wouldn’t have a word for how amazed he would be if he could see that his entire dictionary would fit in the palm of your hand.

Evernote – free

Evernote is an amazing app for anyone who has ever had to struggle to keep track of all their assignments and little mental notes about a class. With this app you can create reminders, notes, transcriptions or voice recordings on your mobile device and sync them with your home desktop.

Math Formulary – free

Did you ever take a class in which the teacher allowed you to create one “cheat card” that had all the formulas and reminders written on it? Inevitably there was so much to remember that you ended up running out of space and the one formula you left off the card ended up accounting for 50 percent of the test. That problem is a thing of the past thanks to Math Formulary. This app allows users to access — according to the developers — every single formula any student will need in high school or college.

Wolfram Alpha – $2.99

Have you ever been stumped to remember the name of the guy who first proposed the heliocentric theory of the universe? Ever spent 10 minutes during class trying to remember the name of the guy who started the Protestant Reformation? With Wolfram Alpha, the “computational knowledge engine”, you can figure those things out in an instant. Wolfram (or Wolfy as I sometimes call him) makes Siri look like a bumbling college intern.

Accounting is indeed a quintessential mechanism which most small businesses employ. In the modern day, it has become a veritable tool to determine the vulnerability of your business. Simply put, it helps one answer a basic question- Is your business making profits or are you incurring consistent losses? Not only this, but accounting is also considered to be a vital measure that aids a business in setting up a future course of action. Nonetheless, its importance for the music industry, in particular, is manifold. This is primarily owing to the fact that the music industry, unlike other businesses, does not have well defined means of authentication or record. Here is how you can go about it.

Research and collect

The first thing to do for setting up appropriate accounting measures is to undertake an extensive research. Look at the varied accounting options that are available on the web. You can even subscribe to the initial versions of different accounting software and evaluate their manner of functioning. However, do not disregard the accompanying features of the software. Make a choice which is, collectively based on quality, affordability and adaptation.

Select a Method

Depending upon the needs and requirements of your business, choose an accounting method, which would help you reap the maximum benefit. Broadly, you can either settle for the cash method which involves instant transactions or go in for the accrual method, which records expenses via invoice. Nevertheless, considering your business is a small one the former would definitely prove to be a better option as it assists you in keeping an account in a precise & continuous way.

Form correct records

Make your record entries with complete accuracy and finesse. Divide them into various readable parts like the date on which the payment was received or made, the amount involved, the service rendered and the transaction number. This would facilitate your software to gauge a set pattern and make entries accordingly. More so, it would induce a sense of simplicity and ease in your business.

Conform to rules

Make sure that your accounting system conforms to the law of the land. Check and double check the state regulations in regard to taxes, deductions and pay rates. Inquire with the officials whether your music business would need a business license. If it would, apply for it to avoid hassles. Moreover, keep updating your knowledge of the rules as and when they are transformed. This would assist you to be on the right side of law.

List it out

Maintain separate lists for almost everything that you deal with in order to lend transparency to your music business. For instance, make a list which details your music assets and liabilities. Record the general products you put up for sale along with the prices they are sold for separately. Also, keep an updated list of frequent customers and regular vendors. This will ensure a hassle free and uncomplicated run for you.

By keeping the facts above in mind, it would become easy for you to set up an appropriate accounting mechanism to deal with the needs of your music business. After all, accounting is the only way to neutralize and balance out your deals.

About the author: Rebecca is a blogger by profession. She is fond of Black Pearl Earrings. These days she is busy in writing an article on 3g Tablet

After my freshman year in college I discovered, to my horror, that the bookstore would only buy back the books at a minimal price, then sold used ones for a huge markup on the buy-back!

I learned to beat them at their own game by starting with used textbooks, then selling them to underclassmen myself! However, I was lucky, because I had a group of underclassmen at hand in my fraternity house. And it was before the Internet made it even easier:

Via: Sell Back Your Book

This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of online courses.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: angelita.williams7 @gmail.com.

Great work in the creative industry, from advertising to graphic design, is fueled by powerful inspiration. And while workplaces in the creative industry make an effort to foster a dynamic environment from which employers can draw inspiration, they might have to look outside their workplace to get their creative juices flowing. Indeed, it should come as no surprise that places that actively try to inspire creativity do just the opposite by trying to control such a variable and personal process.

I have a suggestion if you’re feeling low on inspiration in your workplace (or in your life generally)—look around you. It may sound cliché, but you’ll find no dearth of inspiration in your community, regardless of your city’s size. Consider one of the following remedies for creative block.
Keep track of local art events

An easy way to discover local creatives is to keep up with the local art and music scenes in your community. Usually these will be community meeting places focused on nurturing a unique artistic identity for the city. You can find many of these hubs for right-brained people in locales off the beaten path, in independent coffee shops, music stores, art galleries, and even retailers. These local supporters of arts and music will serve as a great starting point if you’re searching for inspiration. The coffeeshops and music stores will likely have walls dedicated to flyers and posters advertising local art events, any of which would likely yield rich material to draw from in your work.
If you don’t want to hunt around for events, you can always look in your cities local publication, or peruse local art and music blogs that cover current events in your area. A simple Google search along the lines of “local art events in (your city)” would bring up more results than you’d expect.
Get involved in a community group of creatives

If you’re looking for collaborators or partners in a creative project, you won’t have to look further than your local community to find help. Just as I said that you could find art events by browsing the flyers at common meeting places, you can similarly find advertisements for photographers, writers, designers, and general artists looking either for work or for other creatives with whom to network. In fact, you can capitalize on such advertisements by putting up your own ad (in a coffeeshop or online) for a collaborative artist. Most local artists would probably be overjoyed at the prospect of work with a fellow local. Who knows, work with another artist could drum up some of your best work!

Draw inspiration from the city itself

If you’re not keen on networking among fellow artists, nor in joining any creative communities, you can at least search for inspiration in the raw geography of your city. Whether your aesthetic is more pastoral, seek out the less populated areas in your city, those not taken over by urban sprawl or fast food chains. Take the time to be among the natural environs of your city and use it as a lightning rod for your creative process. If you have a soft spot for urban landscapes, city architecture, and the angular beauty of human civilization, take a day to unabashedly explore your city. Walk around neighborhoods that you’ve never visited, travel to areas you’ve always meant to visit. Get acquainted with your surroundings, connect with it, and let the inspiration come to you.

Share your thoughts in the forum.

Today we feature a Guest Post by David Gerrard from Boards Direct, a leading online stockist of whiteboards, glass boards and other high quality presentation products.

In this age of constant digital distraction, organizing and focusing on tasks is not always the easiest exercise to accomplish. I, for example, will probably check my Facebook, e-mail and Twitter at least a couple of times before I finish writing this article. Or at least, I would have, were I not using the incredibly useful and productive tools listed below.

Intended to help you organize, remember and execute your tasks as quickly and effectively as possible, these simple tools will serve you well in the battle against procrastination and help you to increase your productivity in the future.

Remember the Milk – http://www.rememberthemilk.com
As the name suggests, Remember the Milk is an online application designed to help you organize the little tasks that you would usually write on post-it notes or scraps of paper, such as remembering that ever-evasive milk.

Offering a minimal and easy-to-use interface, you can categorize tasks by type – such as ‘home’ and ‘work’ – and set individual details such as due date, repeat date and time estimate. Additionally, you can tag each task, a feature which becomes incredibly useful if you need to search through a vast back catalog of already completed assignments.

There is also hope for the forgetful among us and you can easily you can set-up reminders which notify you of your task via mobile phone, instant messaging service or e-mail.

Focus Booster – http://www.focusboosterapp.com

Employing the famous Pomodoro time management technique which breaks down periods of work into 25 minute intervals, Focus Booster is an application which is essentially times these stretches of work. The thinking behind it is that if you work solidly for 25 minutes, have a short break and then continue to work for another 25 minutes, you will get more done than if you just solidly worked through a long period of time. This is because frequent breaks supposedly improve mental agility.

If you can get on board with the Pomodoro theory, Focus Booster is available to download, or if you don’t fancy that, you can use a simple online version right in your browser.

LeechBlock – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock

A Firefox extension which allows you to block time-wasting websites, LeechBlock is the perfect tool for preventing procrastination. Whether your online vice is Facebook, Reddit or simply aimless browsing, you can set LeechBlock to impede your attempts to visit designated websites within a number of versatile time parameters.

At this point, cynics would no doubt hasten to point out the fact that you can disable Firefox extensions at any time and with no-one else to stop you from returning to your time-wasting ways, the tool is largely pointless. In order to combat this, LeechBlock allows you to password protect the application, so if you get a friend or colleague to set the password, then you should be sufficiently deterred from making the effort to disable it.

WriteRoom – http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom

A full screen word processing application, the purpose of WriteRoom is to eliminate the distracting environment of your cluttered desktop and ensconce you in a world where writing is your one and only focus.

Instead of responding to your e-mails and constantly checking to see if your followers have retweeted your latest musings, you can fully concentrate on the task in hand and immerse yourself in the huge, whiteboard sized canvas. Described by Virginia Heffernan of the New York Times as the “ultimate spartan writing utopia”, it takes minimal to a whole new level and will have the same elevation effect for your productivity too.

Buffer App – http://www.bufferapp.com

Rather than swamp your Twitter and Facebook feeds with article and website suggestions during your morning blog check or manually enter posts at regular intervals, BufferApp allows you to automatically update your account periodically throughout the day.

By adding pages to a Buffer queue, you can set them to post at regular time intervals, giving the impression of activity throughout the day and not concentrating updates too heavily in one period, a practice that could certainly lose you followers.

Another useful aspect of BufferApp is its ability to records statistics. In the case of Twitter, for example, you can see how many people your tweets reached, how many clicks it received and how many times it was retweeted. Statistics such as these can help you figure out which time of day is the most effective time to post your updates.

Suggestions?

If you have any suggestions of more tools that will aid your productivity and stave off the woes of procrastination, please let us know in the forum.

Today we have a guest post on tips for creating a small work-area in your home from Laura Backes:

Turning your home into your workspace isn’t as daunting of a task as it sounds. Whether you need the space for work or to tackle hobbies, you have many options. The key to making a space in your home an office is creativity and thinking outside of the box…or room.

Stake your claim:

The first step is to find your spot. This may be your hardest task in this process. Search high and low for a space in your home that isn’t being used to its full potential. Four common spaces are: a bedroom, corner of a room, dining room and a closet/pantry.

The spare bedroom down the hall that has become your storage closet for things you ‘may need later’. Face it; it’s just going to sit there another six months. If you want that room for a guest as well, consider a nice pull out sofa or a day bed that can act as a lounge sofa.

Do you have an empty corner in your kitchen or living room? Instead of dust bunnies collecting in the corner, visit stores like IKEA or Home Depot and find/build a desk to fit the ‘L’ shape corner. You will have enough space to work and be out of the way of the hustle and bustle of these rooms.

The dining room is that room most families use twice a year for holiday dinners. Dining rooms are something your mothers and grandmothers needed but this day in age, consider moving your family dinners to the kitchen area.

Even the smallest spaces like a closet or a pantry can be used for home offices. Remove the doors and instant space! With proper lighting and some paint you will forget you are working in your old food pantry.

Organize and assess your needs:

Keep in mind that your new work space is limited and you don’t want it to become the kids’ toy box or the post office. Make it clutter free with bookshelves, rolling file cabinets, wall mounts and drawers. Places like The Container Store and Target have great options. Now get your necessities that best suit your needs: a phone, computer, printer, desk and chair.

Remove all distractions and add privacy:

Screaming kids, day time television and whining pets can take you away from an important moment. Prevent interruptions by adding curtains, wall partitioners or consider creating ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs. If children are a problem make a friendly sign to hang, for example: “Dad is trying to bring home the bacon…please tip toe and whisper”.

Author Bio:

This is a guest post from Laura Backes, she enjoys writing about all kinds of subjects and also topics related to internet service in my area. You can reach her at: laurabackes8 @ gmail.com.

Today I would like to announce that the first video in the Social Media Literacy Project has been published. You can see it here on the Facebook Consulting page.

Social Media Literacy

Social Media is the future of communication and will soon become a required skill at home and in the workplace. So many of my clients and business-people that I meet at networking events simply do not know how to use the tools of Social Media in an effective way to promote and expand their business.

We are creating a resource to help anyone who needs it to learn about what Social Media is and how to best take advantage of these new tools and communities. In this economy you cannot afford to ignore marketing opportunities that you do not understand.

Please visit the Social Media Literacy Project home page to register for email updates. The resource site will go live in early 2012 (in Beta).

New videos, podcasts, and interviews will be coming online soon.

The team looks forward to any feedback that you may have. Please send an e-mail.