I am a huge fan of productivity thoughts, tools and tactics and I firmly believe that no matter what business you are in, you can benefit from some intentional thinking in this area. All of us have more things to do than time to do it in and could benefit from a tool that would help us to organize our thoughts and tasks in a more systematic way.
I have been interested in this space since the early 90’s when the company I worked for at the time implemented the Franklin Planner as a means of increasing or enhancing productivity. Franklin Planner was a great way to start but organizing things according to their methodology was as cumbersome as the mass of binders that we had to carry around in order to manage our days.
Almost 20 years ago David Allen came on the scene with his radical ‘Getting Things Done’ approach to time and task management. His ‘mind like water’ approach is perfect for a time when to-do lists must be more flexible while recognizing the context of tasks as well. I have taken his approach to productivity to heart for almost half of my business life and thought of you who know me have heard me talk about it at least once, if not more! What I have never really found is a way to implement his thinking in a way that incorporates the best of software tools, the cloud and a platform independent approach that met my needs. Until now, that is. The tool I want to tell you about is called Priority Matrix from Appfluence.
Priority Matrix is platform independent, based in the cloud, freemium software that integrates with any email platform you’re using including Office 365, Outlook, G Suites and Gmail and it does it seamlessly and elegantly.
Here’s a brief overview:
Overview
Additional Examples…
It’s even available for smartphones!
You can find many more of these examples on their YouTube channel here.
This solution hits all my high notes around thoughts, tools, tactics and timing in the productivity space and it meets all my criteria for an effective solution. It is simple, it is powerful, it is platform independent, it is freemium and therefore it is effective. If you’d like to talk about how this applies to you, please use the contact form below!
Supplemental articles
“Benjamin Franklin didn't become one of history's greatest inventors just by sitting around. His daily schedule was pretty intense. This meticulous and rigorous routine may seem impossible to follow, but it could mean a serious productivity boost” https://t.co/Fv8oqua50lpic.twitter.com/M4eNqOExkj
These thoughts were assembled with care for the important people in my life. If you’re getting this link, it’s because you and your productivity and happiness are very important to me! I hope it benefits you…
This is the start of a series on Search Engine Marketing for small business owners.
“Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising.[1] SEM may incorporate search engine optimization (SEO), which adjusts or rewrites website content and site architecture to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages to enhance pay per click (PPC) listings.[2]”
Wikipedia
SEO takes more time than money and PPC takes more money than time. Each business owner must decide which asset — time or money — is more valuable to them and decide the appropriate mix. SEM takes longer to ‘kick in’ but longer to taper off while PPC starts immediately when you start paying and stops immediately when you stop paying.
Time and money for small business owners
If you think of SEO and PPC as an investment portfolio, this classic strategy may apply: “Here is an imperfect but workable rule of thumb: If you are investing mainly for retirement, you should “own your age” in bonds. So for example, a 30-year-old would have 30% of her portfolio in bonds, and 70% in stocks.” The lesson I extract? Have more SEO than PPC.
My standard advice to small business owners is to focus on SEO which tends to work better over time and perhaps add a little PPC to get a campaign going until SEO starts to kick in. If that makes sense to you as a small business owner, the single most important thing to do is establish a Google My Business entry for your location.
Quick, flashy marketing overview
If you still need help, please use the contact form below to ask questions or connect.
Technology has shattered the traditional pillars of leadership: position, competence, and information. Trust, the new foundation of leadership excellence requires authenticity, transparency, and vulnerability. Today’s leader must choose the path of self-discovery, self-belief, and a commitment to love oneself first as the prerequisite for leading others well. Fred Johnson is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of InitiativeOne. He has created and implemented Leadership Transformation processes that accelerate positive culture change by helping leaders become more authentic, courageous, open and human than ever before. He is passionate about elevating leaders and exponentially impacting the leadership culture of an organization. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
One of the best definitions of content marketing I ever heard was simply this; find good s*** and share it. that little beauty comes from thought leader Jason Falls and I have never found a better definition since the day I came across it.
The Divine is in the details however and it’s not the simple process of just finding good s*** anywhere and sharing it anywhere; it is developing a simple leather rinse repeat process that will get you and your ideas the attention you crave.
I have been studying this process for over a decade and I think it’s time to revisit the essentials of how to use content marketing to get a following in 2018. Interested? Let’s keep going…
Today I want to talk with you about the first part of the equation — finding good s***. In my opinion it’s easy to find good s*** — what most people don’t realize is that you can make good s*** find you. There is a little appreciated technology called RSS that can make all the difference in your thought leadership world. Here is the best and simplest explanation I have ever found and even though it was done in 2007 it’s still a great explanation:
Here’s what I hope you will take away from the video above. RSS is like a radio signal and just like with radio there are many devices that can tune into that signal and take advantage of the content. There are actually three different “devices” that I use on a regular basis: the first is the WordPress Reader, the second is Google News and the best is Inoreader. In the following video I’m going to break them down and show you what I mean.
Hopefully after this video you’ll see that Making good s*** come to you can be fun and easy and it will also give you a competitive advantage. According to the Pew study on the internet in the American Life only about 11% of All American internet users know that such a technology and Tool exists. If you do the work and continue to master content readers you will always be ahead of the game.
WordPress is just one of the feed readers that are available. If you’re not using WordPress as your website, it probably doesn’t make much sense to use that as your feed reader. A far better and more advance feed reader tool is Inoreader. I have included a couple of screencasts for you here:
Some of the most popular screencasts I’ve ever done are about how to use it:
Before I continue on please let me know in the comments what questions you have about content readers.
In the early hours of the morning on December 21 something magical happens in an Irish field, the rising sun aligns perfectly with an ancient passage tomb, travels down the long corridor and illuminates the inner chamber. Go to the source to read the backstory: 5,000yo Irish tomb’s winter solstice magic to be livestreamed (VIDEO) — RT World News
Robert Wright, the best-selling author of The Moral Animal and The Evolution of God, has written a new book titled Why Buddhism is True. Don’t be put off by the audacious title, though.
In his book 1984, George Orwell detailed a dystopian world wherein a person or persona called “Big Brother” saw everything that people did and where the central government pushed its agenda through propaganda, spying, monitoring, and thought controls. That book was published in 1949. It is now 2017, and while we do not exactly have […]
In inter-personal relationships, the one playing the blame game will never really find happiness as they won’t ever fully experience their own power, they’re giving it away with the blame to someone else. So, instead of indulging in the game, here’s what you can do when the beast of blame rears its ugly head.
Good thoughts in here! Go to the source for the rest of the article…
Anxiety is not all bad. It can prompt us to take stock of our actions and life situation. It can give us a psychophysiological flick toward taking corrective, repairing action or artfully dodge oncoming peril. In these ways, a certain amount of anxious ants in our pants is helpful—it’s a major component of our in-the-moment motivation for healthy change.
The problem arises when anxiety overwhelms and blocks us. Traditional contemplative tradition refers to a pool of water (representing the mind), with anxious restlessness being the whipped up waters leading to muddiness, a lack of clear seeing to the bottom. When anxiety gets this wild inside us, we don’t see ourselves or the world accurately. We distort and react in order to stave off this internal chaos and we are hindered in our ability to relax into seeing clearly. We have a harder time focusing, and our efficiency in daily life takes a hit. Our brains juice up with the stress hormone cortisol in an ancient attempt to reduce threat, and we’re left feeling drained and depleted.
The metaphor I use for dealing with unwanted thoughts is Pandora. Almost everyone is familiar with this music service; give a thumbs up to the music that you like and a thumbs down to the things you don’t like. I don’t need to ruminate about my failed marriage – when that thought comes into my mind, I can give it a thumbs down and move on to the next thought. Perhaps author Rick Hanson says it better:
Sometimes the inner practices fail you – or at least aren’t matched to the pickle you’re in. You’ve let be, let go, and let in. You sat to meditate and it was like sitting on the stove. You tried to be here now and find the lessons – and wanted to whack the person who told you to do this. You still feel awful, overwhelmed, angry, afraid, inadequate, or depressed. Now what?
Sometimes it helps to change the channel, to take some kind of action. Watch TV, eat a cupcake, ask for a hug, get out of the house, something (not harmful) to shake things up, distract yourself, tune out, burn off steam, etc.
At some point you still have to engage the mind directly and do what you can with your situation. But there is certainly a place for respite or pleasure in its own right, plus these help refuel you for challenges.
Plus, changing channels has the built-in benefit of taking initiative on your own behalf. This helps counter the natural but harmful sense of helplessness that comes from tough times, and it supports the feeling that you and your needs truly matter.
It may be as simple as the old Perry Como song: “Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and don’t mess with Mr. In-between.”
Bright, shiny objects! 
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