Friday Fun: Business Blogging Epiphany

One that particularly stands out is the shift that occurred when I realized that perhaps even more important than knowing the right answers, is knowing the right questions to ask.

This holds true in business blogging as well. Many professionals who start a blog feel pressured to exhibit their expertise and provide well-reasoned answers to all of their readers needs.

While it is important to provide some answers, it is also important to remember that the best blogs build a sense of community and engagement.

They enable the blogger to learn about his or her readers as much as for the readers to learn about the blogger.

What questions could you ask your readers that will get them engaged in your blog?

What thought provoking topic can you raise?

What opinions can you solicit?

What knowledge could you gain that would help you build a better business and a better blog?

So for you dear readers, what are your questions for me?

• What if I told you that I was thinking of changing things up a little around here?
• What if I stopped posting on the non-productivity and workflow topics that I am interested in and put those articles somewhere else?
• What would you most like to see here? (something that you would share with your friends and colleagues)

Please let me know in the Comments, and together we will make it happen!

Gmail is a remarkable free service that offers a massive amount of storage for your e-mails. In fact, there are “ Over 6886.008202 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you’ll never need to delete another message.” What a deal!

One small problem, though, is that a free G-mail account does not have the professional cachet that an e-mail address based on your business has. This is the second small problem: an e-mail account provided by your web host probably will not have almost 7,000 megabytes of storage.  Yet you will want to save nearly every e-mail that you receive, because you can.

My new small business is In Context MultiMedia.com, but I certainly can’t put ICMM @ g-mail on a business card! (Or can I? Topic of another post, I think)

A solution to this dilemma: set up your hosted e-mail account to CC a copy of every e-mail that you send and receive to a “secret” G-mail account. In this way you can archive and search all of your e-mail correspondence without worrying about what computer you are using, or where you might be in the world.

This came in very handy for me recently when I upgraded my laptop to a newer model, and my old e-mails (stored on the hard drive) were stuck there. The transfer was a real pain, and only partially successful.

Of all the resources in the world, what are the most crucial for gaining efficiency, productivity and achievement? Now there are a lot of intangible answers—pertaining to attitude, philosophy, character, belief, faith, expectation, strategies, techniques, ideas, skills, behaviors—and we will reveal these over the many issues of SUCCESS. The objective of this article, however, is to identify the essential tools, technologies and resources to support your greater success.

1. List of Goals. The first step toward achieving your dreams and ambitions is to identify them. Hopes and dreams remain fantasies until you write them down and create a plan for achieving them.

2. Nutrition and Well-Being Plan. YOU are the most important person in your life, and your good health is your most important priority. People often list other priorities such as spouses, children, employees, customers, etc., above themselves and their health. If you are sick, or worse, dead, how good are you going to be to your spouse, children or customers? Take care of yourself first, so you can properly take care of everyone and everything that is most important to you.

Read the whole thing!

In any case, I am planning on scheduling some time to work on that summary and edit the series into a single workbook for you all. First, I’d like to request some feedback from you:

• What do you like best about the 7 Habits series?
• What did you like least about it?
• What are your unanswered questions?
• Is there one specific issue you’d like some help with?

For the new readers, here are all of the posts in the series:

7 Weeks, 7 Habits, A Better You

• Habit One - Be Proactive
• Habit Two - Begin with the End in Mind
• Habit Three - Put First Things First, part I
• Habit Three - Put First Things First, part II
• Habit Four - Think Win/Win
• Habit Five - Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
• Habit Six - Synergize
• Habit Seven - Sharpen the Saw

Leave a comment, or send an e-mail to - stephen [at] hdbizblog.com

What goes in your Calendar

Three types of raw data go into your calendar:

1. Time-specific actions - This is jargon-speak for meetings and appointments, some will be with other people and some will be for yourself. Make a habit of scheduling your Most Important Tasks for the day.
2. Day-specific actions - Less-structured than a meeting or appointment, this type of entry is for an action that needs to get done on a particular day, but any time is fine. I suggest that you use this category carefully, as your calendar should not become a to-do list. Your 3-5 Most Important Tasks will often fall in this category.
3. Day-specific information - This category of entry is for data like telephone numbers, directions, or specific information about a person you are meeting or the agenda for that meeting. If this category gets too bulky/takes up too much space, consider just writing a note in the calendar as to exactly where you can find that information.

Your Calendar is a Tool,

…not your taskmaster. Work toward the habit of limiting your calendar entries. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, keep the entry as simple as possible, (but not too simple) for you to be able to make the most of the information. A cluttered or messy calendar leads to a day of frustration!

Remember: the appointments that you make with yourself for your most important tasks are just as binding as appointments that you make with other people.

If you aren’t able to trust yourself to show up, how can you trust your system?

Where is your to-do list

I’d love to know what kind of information you are getting from your calendar, or what kind of assistance you are not getting.

(Click the links below to learn more about the specific questions)

• Does your to-do list migrate into your calendar?
• Do you use a pencil for your entries, so you do not have to cross things out when there are changes?
• Is your calendar format the right one to maximize your way of working?

Leave a comment, perhaps we can work together on a solution.