Welcome back! It's good to see you again. Please note that I am now publishing all new material at my hub site: StephenPSmith.com

My friend Marina Martin [ Sufficient Thrust ] has a terrific resource for setting New Year’s Resolutions that you should take a look at. I used this little booklet last year and it made an amazing difference in my effectiveness, in fact I accomplished all but two of my goals!

In my work here as a Productivity evangelist I have tried, experimented with, and discarded a ton of applications, methods, and practices for setting goals and getting them done. This one works. Martin says:

I’m the very definition of a Type-A personality and have worked as an efficiency consultant for years, so making lists and plans is second nature to me. Something I’ve come to believe strongly is that Type-A personalities perform best when we have specific action steps, as opposed to paragraphs of theory. The blogosphere is certainly full of posts about resolutions, but I couldn’t find anything that satisfied my craving for step-by-step success — so I made it myself! I use this exact same process myself whenever I have a goal to achieve, with great results, and I’m excited that others have benefited from it too.

Since I am such a laid-back, relaxed person this type of system appealed to me. How does this resolution-defining system work?

The Perfect New Year’s Resolution

The #1 reason why people don’t achieve their resolutions is because their resolutions weren’t really resolutions at all.

It’s no secret around here that I’m big on goal-setting. However, New Year’s Resolutions are a very specific kind of goal.

A New Year’s Resolution has to meet the following criteria:

* It must be achievable by 11:59pm on December 31 of that calendar year.
* It must be measurable AND specific. In other words, a complete stranger should easily be able to objectively determine whether or not you’ve achieved it.
* It should positively impact your life, if only indirectly.
* A process of events should be required in order to achieve it. “Visit Kenya” doesn’t count if you normally travel and it’s within your financial means and comfort zone. It would count, however, if you had to come up with some way of financing the trip, or if you moved there for a month, or if you were having an existential crisis about hippos and were going there to confront your fears.

Martin recommends creating 4-6 specific, actionable goals for the new year, and provides a resource for breaking those goals down into action steps. For example:

A lousy Resolution: “Lose weight”
A better one: “Lose 20lbs”
A really good example: “Weigh 134lbs naked on the morning of December 31″
And simply awesome: “Run three miles without stopping wearing XXS Aerie sweatpants”

The awesome version of this resolution not only incorporates two common goals — losing weight and exercising more — into one, but it also focuses on one of the real reasons we want to lose weight: to fit into a smaller clothing size. It doesn’t matter what number the scale shows if your pants won’t fit!

Read more about it and download the Ultimate Guide to New Year’s Resolutions here. And let’s all give Marina a big hug and thank you for sharing this resource with us!

For more help in keeping up your motivation and getting some accountability, you may want to get involved with Leo Babauta’s new 30 Day Challenge forum.

If you need even more help, or just want to discuss how to make 2009 your best year yet, feel free to drop me a line: Contact Stephen.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/8syo2y. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

This may not look like an actionable productivity workflow post, but it is. In fact, I think that it is a very important post for three reasons:

1. It is about learning some new things that you can put into action right away.
2. It is news about one of those chances that only comes around once in a while.
3. There is a contest for all of you at the end!

I am not usually one to use hyperbole, but this is going to be good. I am going to take this course. Why?
Because I just started a new site and I want to stop working for other people (I want to just work for you, dear readers)! Also, I have been working on a media site/e-learning product of my own, and I have learned some very valuable marketing lessons from Naomi, lessons that I have been able to put into action right away.

In fact, here is my own receipt information, I just signed up myself:

Thank you for your order.

Order Receipt:

Order ID: xxxxxx331
Date: Fri Sep 05 08:57:35 -0400 2008
Payment Type: Visa
Order Status: Accepted

Self-promotion for people who hate self-promotion
$205.00 X 1 = $205.00
———————————————————————-
Product Total $205.00
———————————————————————-
Grand Total $205.00

Call this post Marketing in Context

Naomi and Havi are starting a new teleconference training course. It’s about Marketing and Promoting your business. If it’s anything like her SEO Ninja course you’re going to want to jump on it.

The course starts next Wednesday, 10 Sept, and is about:

This is a 6 week power course for creative types, small business owners, and people who are (understandably) too busy freaking out to properly live their dreams.

Six weeks of learning, soothing, ass-kicking, fear erasing, question answering, and some other things that end with “ing”.

It’s a course for people who want to get their business — sometimes referred to as “that thing that you’ve always wanted to do and maybe you might get paid a living wage for it someday but it’s not really, you know, a business business” — rocking and rolling.

It’s for people who are ready to clear out the crap that’s standing in the way of their awesome life and start having more fun and making some money doing it.

As you know, I only link to products/services that I have actually used and can personally recommend (like these [link]). Obviously this course has not happened yet, so I have not used it. But I am going to take the course. Because I know Naomi, I read her blog to learn internet marketing, and I know others that have used her personal coaching to great advantage. I trust her to provide value (and some swear words, sorry).

So, if you are interested in learning how to promote your own small business (or large business for that matter), click on that Picture up above. Or this link. Yes it is an affiliate link, and yes, I will get a little slice of the fee.

The Productivity in Context Marketing Contest

Here is the contest:
If at least 10 of you sign up for this course, I’ll make my money back and be able to pay for one of you to take the course too. So, let’s forward this article to all of the people that you know that may be interested in learning innovative marketing techniques from couple of very creative gals.

Send me an e-mail so I know that you or they signed up for the course. As soon as 10 people sign up I will select one at random and send you the course fee via Pay Pal. Remember that the course starts next Wednesday!

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/6cgr7q. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

Leo has a post up at ZenHabits where he is promoting a new e-book on setting up your workspace. He includes a disclaimer at the beginning of the post, but that seems to have stirred up a hornet’s nest in the comments.

This is the beginning of the post:
Jump-Start Your Workspace: Small Changes That Improve Focus and Shorten Your Work Day | Zen Habits

Full disclosure: I’m part owner of Web Warrior Tools, the ebook publishing company that is selling the ebook below. However, I’m only sharing this ebook because I really like it and think you will find value in it. I don’t do advertising posts here at Zen Habits, but if you’re not interested in ebooks, you can skip this post.

I’m excited to share with you a new ebook from Glen of LifeDev that I think will be of value for anyone looking to optimize their workflow and generally make the most of their time.

While many of the Comments are positive, there are a few that are strongly negative.

Gideon Says:
August 6th, 2008, 19:25 pm

I dunno… 10 bucks for 26 pages? Also, I assume it’s in PDF?

Maybe if it was offered in something else… ePub, Mobi, etc.. something I can put on an ebook reader, I’d be interested. But 10 bucks for 26 pages is still pretty steep. Maybe I’m just used to Kindle prices where that much will buy me a 500 page book.

And

joe falcom Says:
August 6th, 2008, 22:23 pm

I am really disappointed to see such a blatant advertisement.
The disclaimer is bogus as far as I am concerned

I have written a few posts like this and never saw that kind of negativity. Do you, as a reader, appreciate this kind of review and respect my decision to participate in an affiliate program? Or do you get a negative impression?

Please let me know in the comments.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5vnfn5. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

The folks at Bubble Planner have a new tool for tracking information and Getting Things Done: The Mini-Bubble. This little “hPDA”-style notebook is just under 3″x5″, so it is very portable and with the Circa/Rollabind rings it is very handy.

The Mini-Bubble is divided into four color-coded sections, all printed on both sides. There are useful pages for:

• A simple list
• Contextual “bubbles” for planning small multi-part activities
• SMART planning
• Daily agenda, by hour
• Tracking Ben Franklin’s Virtues

Disclosure: I have to admit that I am a fan of the Bubble Planner products, and the company is a partner (of sorts, see the affiliate link in the sidebar) on this site. Be assured, however, that I do not review products that I have not used, and I give my honest opinion (see the previous review)

I have been using the Mini-Bubble for a couple of weeks, mainly for work-related lists and notes. I am going to start using the Virtues tracking next week, and compare it to the results of the previous experiment. The blog at My Bubble Life has more on these Virtues:

…[Ben Franklin] developed a behavior modification system for his conduct at the young age of 20, when he was returning from London on an 80-day ocean voyage. It is partially based on Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”

His plan included 13 virtues, which in his own words, “I determined to give a week’s strict attention to each of the virtues successively… Proceeding thus to the last, I could go through a course complete in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a year.”

Overall, I give this product a score of 4 out of 5, with high marks for usefulness, portability, and design. Please share your thoughts in the Comments.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/6fgck5. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen