Getting Things Done® How a Few Changes Can Boost Your Productivity
draw, write, and think? One of the most compelling things about Getting Things Done is that it frees up your brain by getting all of those items written down somewhere — a notebook, an app, a tape recorder, or a Word doc. Then, all you have to do is break those tasks down into simple lists. First is the “in” list, which is a master list of anything that you have to do or want to do. The “in” list includes everything, from getting the mail to opening a new bank account. From there, you need to process the items on the list. The very first question to ask yourself is, “Is this actionable?” If you can do something in response to the task, ask if you can do it in under two minutes, like replying to an email. This is called the two-minute rule, and it allows you to clear out tasks that are easy to handle now, instead of putting in unnecessary effort to carry them forward. If the task would take longer than two minutes, ask, “What is the next action for this?” Then add that specific action to a “next actions” list you refer back to regularly. For example, if you need to join a gym, the next action is to stop by the gym near your house after work. Just asking about the next action to take will dramatically improve how much progress you make on your goals. There’s more to Getting Things Done® than just these strategies, but try implementing just this much. Get all of the to-do items out of your head and start classifying them by which ones you can take action on. For more on productivity, check out www.GettingThingsDone.com !
Let’s not beat around the bush. We all know how to do things.
The real question is, what’s happening in our psychology that gets in the way of peak productivity? Fortunately, David Allen’s Getting Things Done® methodology can help. You may not realize it, but your brain is full of lists right now. That bogs down your brain, which isn’t really designed to remember a lot of things. If you need proof, try to remember that thing you said you’d remember two minutes ago, then promptly forgot.
Put another way, if your brain were a white board, would it be covered with a bunch of to-do lists and reminders, or would there be a lot of blank space to
Annoying Online Marketing Are You Guilty of These Awful Tactics?
Pop-ups, autoplay videos, and keyword-stuffed content — these are among the most annoying strategies in the digital marketer’s toolkit. And calling them “strategies” is a stretch of the imagination. While these kinds of tactics can work to drive traffic to your website or a select landing page, they do so by unscrupulous and annoying means. Pop-ups are designed to be accidentally clicked. Autoplay videos or audio files are meant to grab your attention — and hopefully deliver a message before you can click mute. Keyword-stuffed content is written to garner the attention of the web-crawling bots of Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines in the hope that content will appear higher in search results. While you might think using these tactics is counterintuitive, many businesses continue to do just that. They use them because, again, they can work. But just because something can work doesn’t mean it should be used. These tactics are why more people are installing ad-blocking software on their web browsers. People — your potential customers — don’t want to be accosted by ads or sales
pitches when they browse the web or check their email. The days of impersonal marketing tactics and intrusive advertising are over.
What should you do instead? Start by getting personal. Consider one of the golden rules of selling: People want to buy from people they like. Don’t annoy potential customers, embrace them! Start by looking at your online copy and the content on your website, blog, or social media pages. Who is it written for? SEO bots, or living, breathing human beings? Then look at how you are advertising on the web. If you are running a campaign with a third-party service, scrutinize their tactics. Make sure they aren’t cutting corners or using shady tactics to get you results (for example, black hat SEO, which relies on keyword stuffing, URL redirects, link farming, and more). All of your online ads, regardless of what service you use or your approach, should paint a positive picture of your business and what you offer. Your ads shouldn’t intrude on the web browsing experience of your customers — they should complement it.
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