• You want more interaction
• You want more effective positioning
• You want more promotion
• You want more of your personality injected into your relationships
• You want to put your finger on the pulse of who is listening

… And an event can do that.

In this article of Tips In Ten I’ll give you a few ways to promote your event. If you have all the details already worked out, you can do a fairly significant amount of promotion in just ten minutes thanks to a variety of social media tools.

What kind of events am I talking about?
An event would be any time-specific situation where you gather a group of people together. Events could be online or offline or a mix; anything from a teleconference, teleseminar, or webinar to a face-to-face meeting or an after-hours networking event at a local cafe. It could be a large event or a small one. It could be an open-invitation event or a closed invitation event. It all depends on your business and your market. Here are some examples of events I’ve seen or participated in:

• A time management coach who is trying to create some local interest for his or her coaching services might put on a free seminar at a local library.

• A social media consultant who wants to introduce newbies to the world of Twitter and Facebook might put on a webinar.

• An entrepreneur who has a big list of clients might rent out a café or bar one evening and invite people for some networking and finger food.

• A freelancer who is just starting to work with a brand new client and wants to meet his or her team for the first time might hold a teleconference to introduce themselves.

If you are looking for some effective ways to grow your business, consider the following kinds of events:

• Phone-in teleseminars where people call or email their questions and you answer them.

• Seminars (or webinars) where you dish out advice on hot topics that people need answers about.

• A collection of speakers or experts who can share insights or field questions.

• A networking event where like-minded people share and connect with each other and promote themselves.

• Webinars to walk people through a complex idea or situation where showing is more effective than telling (and where showing a bunch of people at once is faster than showing them one at a time).

• Meeting a group of people at once (such as in a project management setting or a sales presentation).

So there are a lot of reasons to have an event. Use your imagination and create regular events to grow your business.

So, let’s say that you have an event and you want to promote it to get people to come to it. What do you do?

What you need before you promote it
You need to set up the event. Know the date, time, venue (Online? Offline?) and how people can get there or connect to it. You need the topic and a compelling title. If you’re creating an online event, don’t forget to keep time zones in mind. (Scheduling a meeting for 9AM Eastern on a weekday might sound like a great idea to get a good start to your day but you won’t make any friends with the people in Pacific Time who are just crawling out of bed and trying to get breakfast for the kids.)

I won’t give you a lot of details on how to develop and create an event because this Tips In Ten is about promoting your event, not setting one up, and those details really depend on how you are going to deliver your event. But you need to do that part first.

Then, write down these four things and they will become the core of your ten minute promotional blitz:

• What: What is the event called?
• Why: Why should someone go?
• When: When is it?
• Where: Where do they go or click?

Now it’s time to promote your event.

Promoting your event in ten minutes

Email your list. (Duration: 2 minutes). Obviously, you should email your subscribers, clients, and prospects with short, friendly invitation. Something along the lines of: “You’re invited to my teleseminar on time management next week. We’ll talk about the 5 ways you can get more time out of your already busy day and the 3 resources you absolutely need if you hope to be more efficient. To attend…”. It’s clear and straightforward.

Blog about it. (Duration: 1 minute). Easy: Copy and paste your email into your blog. Maybe add some flair (or don’t if you’re pressed for time). Again, you’re just communicating the what, why, when, and where. If you don’t have a lot of people to invite, you may need to write a little more sales copy into your work to “sell” your readers on why they should be there.

Tweet it. (Duration: 15 seconds). Easy. Just tweet the main benefit, the date and time, and how to get there. Or, if you don’t have enough space in your tweet, try something like: “Free webinar on time management” with a link to the blog post you just wrote (above). Schedule regular tweets to promote your event.

Post the event on Facebook. (Duration: 2 minutes). Facebook is an easy way to promote events to friends and fans and the general public. Sign in to Facebook. On your home page, you’ll see “Events” on the left:

When you click on it, you’ll get to this events page:

Click the “Create an Event” button. And that will take you to the events creation page:

On this page, just follow the instructions, most of which you already determined when you were setting up the event. Add a picture if you want. You can select guests from among your friends, invite others with an email address, and add a personal message if you’d like (which you can rip off from the email you’ve already sent out). Choose whether or not to make it a public event and whether or not to add the guest list to the event page. When you’re done, click the blue “Create Event” button.

… And you’re done. Easy!

Post the event on LinkedIn. (Duration: 3 minutes). LinkedIn has a similar event creation interface so if you are holding an event with a business purpose, LinkedIn gives you exposure to a wider audience. Sign in to LinkedIn. Along the top of your Account interface is this menu:

Hover your cursor over the “More” link and you’ll see “Events” on the list. Click it and you’ll end up here:

Select the “Add an Event” tab (as shown) and simply put in the information you’ve already been disseminating elsewhere: The name of the event, the date and time, the venue name, etc.  And if you click on “Add more details”, you get the following:

That’s it. It’s pretty easy to get your event out there in front of your prospects and clients and generate an audience.

Of course there’s more that you can do if you have more than ten minutes to spend (or if you delegate this part to someone else).

Check out social media event sites like:

www.eventbrite.com
www.meetup.com
www.eventful.com
www.upcoming.org

These event sites might be appropriate for you (although some of them are more applicable to in-person events than online events).

Related posts:

1. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day- Part 1 – The Purpose
2. Creating Powerful Press Releases in 10 Minutes a Day

You know what I’m talking about because we’ve all experienced them. We’ve been enjoying our day, thinking that all is well in the world when suddenly our inbox reads “(1)” and the email is all caps, or brutish and rude, or contains words that our mothers wouldn’t let us say when we were kids, or outlines nasty ultimatums that may or may not be ruinous.

Those emails – which I’ve collectively dubbed “problem emails” – can destroy our day. It’s like a slap in the face. And then we think about it all day and can’t concentrate on our work. And when we finally respond it’s not the best-worded piece of prose ever.

But we can deal with them effectively. And I’m going to show you how to do it in ten minutes so that it doesn’t ruin your whole day.

This article of Tips In Ten is unique in one way: In other articles of Tips In Ten, I give you tips and ideas to do something efficiently in just ten minutes. This issue is unique because, while some of you will benefit from learning how to deal with problem emails in just ten minutes (instead of 20 or 30 or 60 minutes), others of you will need to do just the opposite: You’ll need to take extra time – a full ten minutes! – to properly process these emails.

I also want to make it explicitly clear that I’m only talking about problem emails here. By necessity, these should take longer than other emails to process. If you use this process for every email, you’ll never get anything done in your day.

Before I get started with the process, I also want to make an observation about problem emails: In my experience, at least 90% of the problem emails I’ve received over the years were not surprises to me. Occasionally (very occasionally) something will come out of the blue and blindside me. But usually there was something that led up to it. Perhaps it was a customer who wasn’t satisfied or a vendor who had a concern or an employee who wasn’t happy. And very rarely did these things suddenly appear. More often, there were problems that were festering for a while. So you can avoid a lot of these problem emails by paying attention to your business, by staying really aware of how people are feeling, and dealing with things quickly and proactively.

When you do that, problem emails don’t get written as often. But when they are sent to you, here is how to take ten minutes to deal with them.

Step 1: Re-read the email a couple of times, watching for something you’ve missed (Duration: 1-2 minutes).
Make sure you’ve read everything. Make sure you haven’t missed an important clarifying word or sentence. Make sure that you accurately understand the tone. Make sure that you are interpreting the words the same way that the email’s author intended them to be interpreted. This has happened to me when I’ve written a perfectly innocent email and the response has been “what did you mean by that?” Then I go back and re-read my own email and realize that my words were misunderstood. It’s been a good reminder for me to make sure that I’m always trying to understanding the meaning behind the words of any email I receive.

One good example that is common among some readers is the use of ALL CAPS. Sometimes people use all caps to mean shouting or sometimes it is used as emphasis. If an email is written entirely in all caps, it could be anger on the part of the sender but you should consider whether or not the person might normally write like that. Don’t automatically take it to mean shouting. I do know people who write in all caps in spite of the numerous times their friends have kindly taken them aside to try and explain it to them. And if an email uses all caps only occasionally, consider whether they meant it as a form of emphasis rather than shouting.

Perhaps it’s a case of poor word choice. Maybe they wrote the message while on the phone. Maybe they’re having an off day. Maybe they were using their Blackberry in the back of a cab and didn’t feel like thumbing a longer message.

If you have previous communication with them, consider this email in light of their other communication to help you understand their thinking.

And, make sure you read the whole message. I’ve found in the past that the first paragraph of a problem email disturbed me so much that it influenced how I read the rest of the email… but when I went back to re-read the email again a couple of times, I better understood what the person was trying to communicate.

So, if you’re the kind of person to dash off a hasty response, just hold on. Your ten minutes isn’t up yet! And if you’re the kind of person that will let this ruin your day, don’t worry: it’s not going to take much longer.

Step 2: Get up and walk away from your computer. (Duration: 2-3 minutes).
Take two minutes and leave your computer. Let the situation percolate. Drink some water. Get some fresh air. Smile. Stretch. Water your plants. Whatever. Basically, don’t try to avoid the situation by doing other work and don’t sit there and stew about it. Instead, just move around to get a different perspective. It’s okay to think about it, but don’t start solving problems yet. That’s coming next.

Step 3: Find a win-win scenario. (Duration: 3-4 minutes).
Now just find a solution that will help you both resolve the situation. This is the time you need to spend the longest on, but you’ll find it easier if you do the first two steps. It’s not always going to be a scenario in which both parties come away entirely happy, but you both come away from the scenario having given a little and taken a little.

Win-win scenarios might take a few minutes longer when you first start to look for them. But as I mentioned earlier, it’s rare that a problem email will just arrive out of the blue. More often than not, it’s been festering for a while so you probably already know part of the win-win answer.

In thinking about the best scenario, consider what the other person’s ultimate goals are and consider what your ideal goals are, too. Is there a way for each of you to achieve at least part of your goals?

Sometimes a win-win scenario with a difficult customer might be that you refund their money and let them go. It’s not perfect, but it’s still a type of win-win scenario (since you don’t have to deal with them any more).

And sometimes, the person just needs to let off some steam and the win-win scenario is for you to thank them for their honesty and (if appropriate) apologize. That might be all it takes.

Ultimately, if you can understand what they want and help them to get it, you’ll have solved your problem even if it means a minor temporary discomfort, annoyance, hassle, or cost for you. It’s likely, though, that this minor temporary discomfort to solve their issue will be considerably easier and cheaper than if they decided to go further than just sending an email to you.

And there might be some of you who wonder if I’ve allotted enough time for developing a win-win scenario. Here’s my answer to that: It’s possible that there are some situations where more time is required to create a solution. However, I’ve found that a simple, actionable solution does the job and the right answer rarely takes a while to reveal itself; in most cases you already know the best solution when you get the email in the first place. It’s just stewing and fretting that keep you from responding with that solution. Very rarely has the addition of an entire day changed my recommended solution.

Step 4: Write the response. (Duration: 1-2 minutes).
Yes, this is a purposely short time. I recommend that you keep it brief. If you take too long writing a response, you’ll end up either with a defensive posture or with an aggressive posture, neither of which is a good idea.

Instead, write your response and run it through this filter of:

• Does it show the other person that I read and understood their message?
• Does it make my position clear?
• Does it communicate my win-win recommendation?
• Does it outline a simple and actionable way forward?
• Is it gracious?

In my experience, these five elements will go a long way to resolving 99% of the problem emails you get. It uses good communication best practices, it helps to keep the conversation focused on the positive and moving forward, and graciousness (which is not acquiescence) ensures that you take the high road when it comes to using appropriate language and tone.

Lastly, proof and send your email. If you’re nervous about the situation and not sure that you’ve adequately addressed it in just ten minutes then schedule it to be sent a couple hours from now and let it sit in the back of your mind while you do something else. You can continue to think about it and maybe revise your email if necessary, but at least you’ll have taken some action on.

If you run a business, you’re going to have problem emails. That’s just the way it’s going to be. However, when you get those problem emails, they don’t have to ruin your day. Instead, you can spend ten minutes on them to deal with them and move on.

Related posts:

1. Sorting and Prioritizing Email in 10 Minutes on a Shoestring Budget
2. Got a problem?
3. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day- Part 2 – Picking your Software

Get Firefox

So the very first thing you should do is get Firefox, it’s free, if you’re not using it, or upgrade to the latest version if you’re still running something older.

Tune Firefox

Do you really need all those big buttons at the top of your browser? Probably not. Maximize the space you have to view websites and minimize the amount of clicking around you need to do.

• Hide the Bookmarks bar: Right click on any of the menu bars and you will have a short pop-up menu with checkmarks that says: “Menu bar”, “Navigation toolbar”, “Bookmarks toolbar”. Leave the Menu and Nav bars checked, and uncheck the Bookmarks toolbar. My thinking here is that you don’t need so many clicking options all the time. They can mentally overwhelm you. You might use those Bookmark buttons a few times a day or even less frequently so get them out of the way when you aren’t using them. When you do need them, right click to get the pop-up toolbar menu, check the Bookmarks toolbar option, do what you need to do with that toolbar, and uncheck it again when you’re done. Yes, it sounds involved but it will actually save you time by minimizing your bookmarks when you don’t need them. And, it keeps your browser nice and uncluttered.

• Remove Nav Menu buttons: When you download Firefox, you end up with a ton of buttons in the Navigation toolbar that you rarely use. You can remove them easily. I only have 5: Back, Forward, Stop, Refresh, Home. That’s it. And I use the “small buttons” option.

Now let’s look at some add-on apps that I’ve found to be really helpful. You don’t have to use these exact add-ons if you find something else that will be more useful to you but I’m just sharing some of the ones that I really like. There is a big list of add-ons and you can search for groups of add-ons by type here. The add-ons you choose will depend on how you use the web. Since I use it primarily for business – and a specific kind of business – the add-ons I’m recommending have helped me.

TwitterBar

TwitterBar is an add-on that allows you to use Twitter right in your browser. It turns the address line of your browser (where you might type in http://heathervilla.com to go to my website) into a multipurpose tool. You can type your tweet into the line and send it to Twitter. Or, you can type in a search term into the bar and search http://search.twitter.com.

You’ll save time and tweet more often because you don’t have to open a separate page or app to access and use Twitter. (Sure, you might want to use Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to interact with others, but if you just want to tweet something quickly, this in-the-browser tool will help).

SEO Tools

SEO for Firefox is an add-on that gives you a whole bunch of tools to investigate SEO across the web and improve your own SEO. It installs a toggle switch at the bottom of your browser that you can turn on before searching to learn more about the PageRank, age, backlinks (and so much more!) of websites in a search result. You also get a helpful, free SEO ebook at the same time. This tool will give you a lot of insight into how websites fare when it comes to search engine optimization, enabling you to do some really profound research as you develop the SEO on your own website.

You’ll save time and money with this do-it-yourself SEO tool to help you understand and analyze search engine optimization. Even if you don’t use the entire tool, but just use it to check PageRanking of your site and your competitors’ sites, it will be extremely helpful.

Shareaholic

Delicious, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Bebo, Twitter, FriendFeed… the list goes on and on. When you have something you want to share, it can be time consuming to go to each place to share it. That’s where Shareaholic comes in. Shareaholic lets you share content across more than 100 services. It’s easy to use – just add it to Firefox, add the passwords to the Shareholic interface, and you’re ready to start sharing. Share something by clicking the Shareholic icon in your address line. And, Shareaholic also gives you access to trending topics on vari ous sites including Twitter.

You’ll save time by not having to repost the same thing here, there, and everywhere, or by excluding some of your followers because you only posted something to Twitter and Delicious but not to FriendFeed and Bebo.

FireFTP

There are other FTP apps out there and I do like and use others from time to time, but I’ve found that FireFTP is a nice, easy-to-use app that you might like, too.  It works like any other FTP program. You have your desktop on one side and your web host on the other. It’s all in clear tree structures. And you just move stuff back and forth. No surprises. No bells and whistles. Just a nice, clean simple FTP app.

You’ll save time by not needing any other FTP app. Pretty much everything you need FTP for can be handled via FireFTP.

Firebug

Firebug is a surprisingly handy piece of software that seems to be marketed primarily to web designers and developers but is really a useful tool for many people. Firebug toggles on by clicking the bug icon that will appear at the bottom of your browser when you’ve downloaded Firebug. Toggling Firebug on will open a window that gives you the code (html, CSS, scripts, etc.) that make up a particular web page. And there are other powerful features, too. The hover function is really helpful so you can click on a part of a web page and see just the code associated with that part of the page. You can also make changes to the code in the Firebug window and see how it will impact the look of the page. (The changes aren’t permanent; they just show you temporarily how it will look so you can test your site).

You’ll save time and fine tune your website with quick changes you can observe right away. Even if you’re not a web developer, this is a helpful tool to do some troubleshooting before you call up your favorite web developer to pay for help.

Delicious

I mentioned Shareaholic before as an easy way to save time by sharing. But I also have the Delicious add-on as well because it pops open a window and gives me access to my Delicious bookmarks. Since I like being able to access my Delicious bookmarks no matter what computer I’m on, I can use this one tool across all of the different computers I use to access the same set of bookmarks.

You’ll save time by keeping your bookmarks all in one place yet being able to access them across each system you use.

And there are more

There are other add-ons I like and use, although not nearly as much as the ones I’ve just listed, which get used nearly every day.

In case you’re curious, I also use (less frequently):

• LinkedIn’s add-on
• Skype’s add-on
• HootSuite’s hootlet

These are the ones I’ve found to be time-saving add-ons. There are many others that could be helpful to you, depending on what you do online and how often you do it. Check out the Firefox add-ons and think about what you can do to speed-up and fine-tune your online experience.

Related posts:

1. Mastering the First Ten Minutes of Your Day
2. Get Way More Done in Just 10 Minutes a Day

In the last article of Tips In Ten I started talking about how to make faster decisions and I gave you 2 tools to help: I introduced you to a mindset that will empower you to make faster decisions and I showed you how you can restate decisions (or problems) in order to crystallize your thinking and explore the decision more fully before you move forward.

In this article of Tips In Ten, I’m giving you one more tool that is really useful to take the things that you thought about in the last tool and to help you sort them down into what is likely going to be the best decision.

Again, I offer up the same disclaimer that I gave you in the last issue: Make sure that the time you spend on decisions is relative to the importance of the decision. These tools can make decision-making faster (and it often can be sped up) but that doesn’t mean that every decision should take ten minutes. Some will take ten seconds, some will take ten minutes, and some need to take ten days… or more. Ideally, these tools will help you speed up the time it takes to reach a good decision, but they will never accelerate all decision-making to ten minutes.
Here is the third tool to help you make better decisions:

Tool #3: Table of Elements

When you are faced with a decision and you’re trying to weigh between 2 or more choices (especially after you’ve restated them and come up with even more choices!) this tool will help.

Start by creating several columns. The number of columns you create will depend on the type of decision you have to make and I’ve used as many as 10 or 12 columns and you might end up needing more.

In the left-most column, write down each of your choices (which you created in tool #2). I’ll work through an example to demonstrate. Let’s say that I’m trying to decide between 3 products that I’d like to develop to sell. So I write down my 3 product ideas in the left column.

Then, in the columns to the right, write down different elements that make up or influence the action if you were to act on that choice. You’re just trying to come up with factors that might sway your decision one way or the other. Sometimes it will include the amount of effort involved or the convenience it offers or the potential return.

For example, if you were exploring the creation of a few different products to sell, you might have columns for:

• Up-front development cost
• Time to completion
• Size of market

… just to name a few. (I’ll just use these 3 factors as an example, but you’ll probably want to think of more. Price of product, profitability of product, and relevance to current clientele come to mind as additional factors to include).

To give you another example, if you were thinking about buying a house but couldn’t decide between 10 different houses, you’d write down each house in the left column and then write down elements that would influence the decision in the right columns. For example, you might include:

• Proximity to schools for the kids
• •Ease of access to route to work
• Amount of work required to fix house
• Price of house

… and so on.

Makes sense so far? You’ve got a chart with your choices in one column and influencing factors along the top row.

Now, here’s where the tool becomes really useful: For each influencing factor, reverse rank all of your choices in that column. If you have 10 choices, rank them 10 (the best) to 1 (the worst). If you have 19 choices, rank them 19 (the best) to 1 (the worst).

Back to our example: We reverse rank each product idea based on the up-front development time. Since there are 3 products, our ranking is 3-1, with 3 being the best and 1 being worst. We decide that product one will be really affordable to development, product three will be average, and product two will be expensive to develop. So we reverse rank our choices like this:

Now do the same for each column.

In our example, we reverse rank the time to completion. Product two will be really slow. Product one and three are going to be fairly quick but we decide that product three would be the quickest. So we rank them like this:

See how easy this is? Last, we rank the size of the market. It turns out, product two has the biggest market, product one has a medium-sized market, and product three has a tiny market. So we reverse rank them like this…

Now that we’ve done all the ranking, we simply add up the columns. The highest numbered choice will be the most likely choice while the lowest-numbered column will be the least likely choice.

In our chart, we add up the three columns in the product one row to get 7, we add up the three columns in the product two row to get 5, and we add up the three columns in the product three row to get six.

So, we’ll likely go ahead with product one since it has the highest score.

“But Heather…”

Now, there are a few “buts” that some of you might have, so let me address them below:

“But Heather, one influencing factor might be far more important than another influencing factor.”

That is true but my purpose here isn’t to give you a tool that gives you THE answer. That’s your job. The purpose of these tools is to help you think through your decisions quickly and easily so that you’ll feel fully informed (or, as informed as possible) so you can act. You’re still the one making the decision and maybe (using the example above) you might decide that product two’s market size is the most compelling and important factor and therefore you choose product two based on that decision. The tool didn’t fail; it still worked to help you sort through what you feel are the most important and least important factors and it forced you to consider at the very end what was the most critical factor in your mind.

“But Heather, I have a hundred different choices and I’ll be at this all day.”

That does happen. I’ve found it easier to handle up to about 20 to 25 choices maximum. To solve an over-abundance of choice, you might want to consider grouping a few of them. Or, you might consider performing this chart tool in a two stage format with some really simple influencing factors to quickly sort down from 100 to 25 and then once you have a more manageable number, you can apply a more complex version with a full set of influencing factors.

“But Heather, I have several choices and when I added up the rows, a few of them were tied.”

This happens sometimes. I don’t mind it when it does because it means that I’m not making a decision for nothing: I have to really think through something if several choices seem equal to me. When that happens, I introduce more influencing factors and/or, I put it aside for the day and come back to it tomorrow. Both of those help me to think a little deeper about the decisions.

What comes next?

I’ve shown you how to adopt a decisive mindset that realizes you can’t be perfect but you still need to take action. And, I’ve shown you how to crystallize your thinking when it comes to stating your decisions and understanding what they are really about. And then, I gave you a tool so you can rank your choices based on important factors.

These are going to be useless if they don’t compel you to action. Using the things you’ve learned here, adopt a “get it done” policy where you make a decision in as short a time as possible, trust yourself to have made a good decision, and then move forward in confidence.

At this point, you can use any number of great project management and time management tools to act on the decision you’ve made.

Decisions can be easier, faster, and more enjoyable to make when we trust ourselves and have the right tools at our disposal.

Related posts:

1. Ten Minutes to Faster Decisions – Part 1
2. Make Bookkeeping Faster & Easier in Less Than 10 Minutes a Day!
3. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day – Part 4 – Making Money from Your Ezines

10 Minute Tip #1: Get Started Now.

I always have lots of projects that need to get done and I’m always thinking of more things to do, too. So I’ve got a list of projects that are “do them right now” projects and a list of projects that are “it would be nice to do these when I’m less busy” projects. Guess what: Items from that second list rarely get crossed off. It’s not a procrastination problem, it’s just that the projects in the “do right now” list take precedence, usually because they are revenue-generating work for clients.

However, that big “nice to do” list still needs to get done and, in my case, often includes long-term business growth ideas that will ensure my business is still running a decade from now. So, how do I do these? I use the 10 minute tip of Getting Started Now. I recognize that it might take me a while to finish and maybe I don’t even know what the project will look like when it’s done, but I sit down and I do something – anything on the project – for 10 minutes. For example, if it’s an ebook, I’ll sit down for 10 minutes and maybe start writing the introduction or perhaps a table of contents. It’s not much but it’s something. Here’s what I find: By the time 10 minutes is up, I’ve figured out what I need to do on the project and I’ve even figured out if the project is right for me to continue on. That time is valuable to me to help me figure out if I should move it to the “do it now” list or not.

10 Minute Tip #2: Touch projects every day.

My day is filled with lots of little projects that, once done, can be crossed off my list. But my day is also filled with big projects that I don’t actually complete in a single day (or often in a single week). But I’ve found that I am far more productive on these big projects if I do something on them for 10 minutes each day. This keeps them at the top of my mind so when I sit down to do a large amount of work on the project, I don’t have to spend my time getting refreshed.
Just take 10 minutes and move the project forward somehow. I don’t know how; it depends on the project. It might be just adding a couple paragraphs of ideas or creating an outline for the next chapter. One thing you don’t want to do is just review the work because that is less valuable and doesn’t keep the project’s momentum going.

10 Minute Tip #3: Take time to remember why you do this.

I try to make my tips really practical – stuff you can use in your business. And this is less practical but I think it is still pretty important: Sometimes, when you’re bogged down in details and you’re frustrated at your clients or your payables or your receivables or your productivity or the quality of your work, it’s good to take ten minutes and step back from it all and remember why you do what you do. Chances are, you got into your business because you have an interest in the industry, you have some talent in the work you do, you don’t want to work for someone else, and you want to build something of value for the future (perhaps to retire or perhaps to pass on to your kids). Those are four big reasons and you might have other reasons as well. Take a moment and remind yourself of these. It helps to put your day back into perspective when the frustrations and annoyances seem bigger than they really are.

10 Minute Tip #4: Avoid distractions.

The web is a great thing to be connected to… most of the time! But sometimes we find ourselves happily working away and then suddenly struck with a tangent of an idea and – bam – we’re distracted with something that isn’t the best thing to be doing at the time. To solve this, I keep a piece of paper at my desk. It’s just a scratch paper – the kind you might use to doodle while you’re on the phone. I never write anything important on it, but it usually gets filled up by the end of the day with little scribbles and notes and whatever. But one thing I use it for is distractions.

Rather than immediately following those mental rabbit-trails that are not EXACTLY related to the thing I’m working on, I write down my idea on the paper. And later, when the project I should be working on is done, I look up the non-related rabbit trails. My big weakness is business-related rabbit trails that often have to do with extending my current business in some way. But I do know of someone whose weakness is stock market quotes and when he thinks of something stock related, he drops everything and goes in search of the stock quote. And someone else I know is a recipe fiend and she’ll suddenly think of a delicious idea and she pursues that rabbit trail. So, put a piece of paper on your desk and when you have that great idea, write it down for later instead of following it up right now.

10 Minute Tip #5: Scrutinize your actions and shave off the seconds.

I have a big calendar on my wall with all of the days of the year on it. In theory, it’s there for me to glance up and see what’s coming up. The problem is, every single time that I look at it, I end up searching for the month that I’m in. Yes, of course I know what month it is. But it’s a big calendar and, once you get into the middle of the year and the months are clustered together, it’s easy to catch yourself looking at the wrong month, just for a moment. So I’ve started putting an “X” through the months that are done. It’s not a big thing but it’s enough for me to quickly see where we are. With the amount of time that I look at that calendar every day, it’s just enough to shave a few seconds off every time I look at the calendar. And those seconds add up.

And here’s another example: I sign into a bunch of sites first thing in the morning – project management sites, social networking sites, etc. But not all of the sites give you a place on the first page to sign-in. Sometimes you have to click through to a second page to sign in. So I’ve bookmarked the sign-in page, not the first page of the sites I go to. Again, it’s not a big thing but it shaves off seconds of unnecessary clicking. And those seconds add up. Scrutinize your actions and look for unnecessary things that might only take a second here or a second there but have a cumulative impact on your productivity.

On their own, these ideas aren’t huge. But it’s often the little things that add up and make a big difference. I have a few more of these ideas and I’ll post another Tips In Ten like this in a few weeks’ time.

Related posts:

1. End Procrastination in Ten Minutes
2. Business Growth in Ten Minutes a Day
3. Better Firefox Usage in 10 Minutes

Google isn’t the only search engine around but it is the biggest and most popular and that means it’s the search engine that 99.999999% of us tend to use in our searches and when we’re considering keywords for marketing. So when I say “search engines” I’m generally talking about Google (so if you use another search engine, be aware that there might be differences). Also, when I say “keywords” I could mean a single word or I could mean a phrase (which is sometimes called a “key phrase”).

When someone goes to Google to search for something, the words they type into the text box are the keywords that they are looking for. So you need to know what keywords you want to be searchable for and then you need to build your website and your external marketing to target those keywords. (Most of my readers know most of this already, of course, but I need to start somewhere).

Step 1: Imagine the possibilities (Duration: 10 minutes)

The first thing to do is to pull out a piece of paper or open a Word document and write down what you do in a couple of sentences. Write it the way you normally would, which is usually from your own perspective. (For example, I might write: “I am a coach who helps small business owners with productivity and social media and project management” or something along those lines).

Once you have that, try rewriting it a couple of times using different words. Bust out the thesaurus if you need to. If you can’t think of anything, imagine what your mom would write if she were to try to describe what you do to her friends. And, imagine what your top 5 customers would each write about you to a peer who they think might benefit from your services. You should end up with 3 or 4 total summaries (yours plus a couple of others). And it’s here that you can start to put together the keywords that are important for you.

Look over the list you’ve created and think about what an internet searcher would type in if they wanted to find your services online. It’s usually (but not always) a derivative of the words you used in the paragraphs you just wrote. For example, from the one sentence I wrote about myself earlier, I imagine that someone is going to search online for the keywords “productivity coach” or “social media coach” or “project manager”, so those might be keywords, as well as their synonyms (like “social networking consultant”).

Don’t worry if these don’t exactly describe your services perfectly. That’s not the point. The point is that you first need to find the possibilities; you can always narrow the list down later. Now that you have a list (hopefully a longer list than the few I’ve just listed as examples), you can move on to the next step.

Step 2: See what Google has to say about it (Duration: 10 minutes)

Go to Google’s keyword tool at: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. This tool lets you type in a keyword and see a bunch of information about it. Now, you can type in all of your keywords at once and do a single search, and that might work fine if you do one thing. However, many of us (myself included) might want to target keywords for slightly different audiences (i.e. project management, social media, and productivity) so I prefer to separate the keywords out into individual categories (i.e. I’d put “project manager” in one and “social media coach” and “social networking consultant” into a second one and “productivity coach” into a third one) because they can be downloaded to your hard drive and I like to keep them in different files based on what I’m working on.

So, type in one (or all) of your keywords, then type in the “I’m-a-human-being” security word and click “get keyword ideas”.

You’ll end up with a big list of keywords and key phrases that people use when searching for services that are similar to yours. Some will be relevant to you, others won’t be, and some will be somewhere in between.

In this list you’ll also see the number of local searches for the phrase in the past month and the average global per-month searches for that phrase. At this point, I like to choose a “top 10″ keyword list for each of the original keywords I had found. There were 3 original “categories” of keywords – “productivity coach”, “social media coach”, and “project manager” so I have a list of about 30 (give or take) keywords – a top 10 preferred list for each one.

There isn’t a formula that will identify which keywords you might prefer. You don’t have to base it on search popularity: A keyword with hundreds of thousands of hits is obviously more popular and therefore might be more difficult to appear high on the rankings, but a small piece of a big pie can still be good. Likewise, a keyword with only a few dozen searches might not be as popular and will therefore probably be easier to get higher rankings, and a big piece of a small pie isn’t that bad, either.

Step 3: See it in context (Duration: 10 minutes per day over a couple of days)

Once you’ve found your top 10 keywords, start looking around the web at each one. (This might be a good project to outsource, by the way). Find out what the top 10 results on Google are for each of the 10 keywords. Yes, you’ll end up with 100 websites but you’ll also have a clear idea about where you fit. It’s not uncommon to find that a couple of the keywords just aren’t quite what you want to be searchable for. Or maybe the competition is so fierce somewhere that you don’t think you have a chance and therefore don’t want to bother trying to be searchable for that keyword. Or perhaps you see an area where the competition is fierce but you add real value.

This can take some time so break it up over a few days if you need to.

Step 4: Narrow (Duration: 10 minutes)

Now you need to narrow your list a bit. 10 keywords might be a bit much to be able to market effectively. Aim to narrow it down to a core list of 3-4 primary keywords that you want to be searchable for. This doesn’t mean that you’re going to ignore the other keywords, but it just means that you’re going to focus your energy on a few places where you can make the most difference rather than spreading yourself too thin and being ineffective at all of them.

Narrowing your list is pretty easy because of the information you collected in step 2 and step 3 but you may still need to do a bit more work to narrow further. Deepen your search to see what other search results there are beyond the first page of the Google search and expand your search to http://search.twitter.com to see how people are talking about your keywords there.

By the end of this effort, you should have a list of 3-4 (no more than 5, seriously!) keywords that you can then use.

• Embed them in your website and blog content
• Write articles about them and post them at an article distribution site
• Write guest blogs and articles for online magazines
• If possible, incorporate them into your URL
• Make sure they are in your bios
• Create a Google Profile with the information
• … and the list goes on and on.

There! You’ve done keyword research in just 10 minutes a day that you can use to set the course for an aggressive and effective marketing campaign.

Related posts:

1. Competitor Research in Just 10 Minutes per Day
2. Mastering Google AdWords in 10 Minutes – Part 1
3. Article Submissions in 10 Minutes a Day – Part 1

Okay, let’s have a show of hands: How many of you have backed up your data in the past week? Backing up your data SHOULD be a constant daily (or, at the very least, weekly) activity. Unfortunately, data back-up is about as exciting as many other preventive measures:

• Insurance
• Checking your blind spots
• Going to the dentist
• Rotating your car’s tires every 6 months
• Flipping your mattress every month

These are things we know we SHOULD do because it will protect us and/or prolong the life of our car/teeth/tires/mattress/whatever. But we don’t. Human nature being what it is; we do what needs to be done and often avoid the preventive stuff.

When we don’t do the preventive stuff, it’s like playing Russian roulette. We hope it will turn out okay but we realize we’re risking that some day it won’t.

It’s understandable. In the past, backing up may have been annoying, costly, time-consuming, and full of hassle. I remember back in the day when I burned CD-ROMs with valuable data that I wanted to keep (just in case my hard drive came to a hard stop!). The regular data I kept at home; the really important data I made 2 copies and kept another copy somewhere else. With that amount of work, it’s no wonder that people played Russian roulette with their data; the time + money + hassle cost of backing up was potentially equivalent to the cost of reengineering the lost data.

Thankfully, times have changed and we can back up our data a lot faster and lot more cost effectively today.

Here are a few ways you can consider backing up your data:

1.    Drobo. I use this system from Data Robotics, Inc. This is a massive storage system that is very secure, very scalable, and holds a lot of data. It’s user-friendly and designed for small businesses. Prices start at $399 and go up, which might put it out of reach of some companies but the storage and security is unparalleled and, in my opinion, well worth the cost. To get started, visit http://www.drobo.com and find the right Drobo storage product for you.

2.    JungleDisk. JungleDisk has a couple of storage options (desktop is one but I like their Cloud Storage option). Just download JungleDisk for free and then upload your data to Amazon’s S3 datacenter. It costs an embarrassingly low amount of money to store stuff on Amazon (I pay between eighty cents and one dollar a month for the stuff I store). And you can set it up to work in the background so stuff is always being updated. To get started, visit http://www.jungledisk.com to download their software and to find out the simple steps to take to sign up at Amazon for access to their S3 datacenter.

3.    External Hard drive. External hard drives are small, cheap, and useful if something more robust like Drobo isn’t for you. (I just saw a 1 terabyte drive for sale at Staples for about $100 or so, and I’m sure you can find it cheaper if you shop around). Plug this in to a USB port and drag stuff over to it. It’s so simple!

4.    USB stick. Like an external hard drive (just more portable) a USB stick is a simple way to back up your data. Drag and drop your file onto your stick and within moments you’ve backed it up! Keep your stick plugged in while you’re in the office and take it with you when you go. The amount that a USB stick stores, now, is pretty large and probably adequate for businesses that don’t create large files.

5.    Email (Gmail or Yahoo). Both of these systems offer unlimited (or thereabouts) email storage. While you can’t simply upload stuff, you can do what one colleague does and BCC yourself to a Yahoo or Gmail email every time you send an email. Now, some might argue that this isn’t secure or permanent (although my colleague reports that he’s never had a problem and he doesn’t do any work that requires too high a level of security). To get started, go to Gmail or Yahoo and set up an account. Something like: <yourname>.storage@yahoo.com. The challenge here, of course, is that your content isn’t easily accessible , but if you’re a on a really tight budget, this gets you started and you can always scale up to a better system later. (By the way, make sure that you are accessing the email from time to time so that they don’t shut it down on you because of inactivity!)

6.    Box.net. Box.net is a popular online storage system that has a few other features as well (such as file sharing, Salesforce integration and more). For $15/user/month you get 10 gigabytes of storage (with a filesize limit of 1 gigabyte).

Now, with a combination of some of these systems – which are all extremely easy and relatively affordable – you have no excuse for not backing up your data!

Here’s what I recommend you do: You should store your data in at least 2 additional places (besides your hard drive): I would recommend that you store it in an onsite location (such as Drobo or an external hard drive) and store it in an offsite location (like JungleDisk or Box.net). That way, if you lose your data and you need to get it back ASAP, you can pull it over from your onsite file storage. However, if something really bad happens (theft, fire, flood, hurricane, tornado; all the stuff they make movies about) you can still access your data (once you’ve found a new place to work). If your data is really sensitive, consider adding a third place to back it up; and be sure to stick to a secure system like Drobo.

Both your onsite and your offsite systems can be set up in less than ten minutes to automatically save or sync your data. It’s worth the ten minutes you spend doing it now, especially if you don’t have to think about it again afterwards.

And, we all know what happens: When you don’t back up, you’ll lose your data and wish you had it. When you do back up, nothing bad will ever happen and you’ll wonder why you back up. That may be the case; but wouldn’t you agree that it’s better to be backed up?

Do it right now. Don’t wait until later. Don’t schedule it in. Don’t ask your assistant to do it some time today. You need to do it right now.

Related posts:

1. Project Management in 10 Minutes

She’s still doing okay but has had to play “catch-up” to achieve the level of success she once enjoyed.

Competition is fierce! We can all probably think of a time when our competitor pulled a fast one on us or came up with something just a little more clever or a little more innovative than we could. (Perhaps the reverse is true, too, but we never remember those times as clearly!). So, part of your job is to keep an eye on your competition and make sure that they don’t accelerate too far past you.

Now, if I recommended competitor research in any other situation, you’d probably say “I already have enough to do; this just seems like something else.” But I’m going to show you how you can take ten minutes today to set up some easy competitor research and then take ten minutes each day to monitor your competitors. Chances are, they’re NOT monitoring you so that gives you a distinct competitive advantage.

Setting up your competition watch:

Step one: Create a spreadsheet that lists your competitors in the first column and then includes various comparisons in the next columns. You’ll probably watch them on price and benefits as well as temporary specials, sales, or offers. You’ll also want to know what they are saying about you. Just list across the top of your spreadsheet whatever factors you want to measure them in.

I’ll use a simple example to illustrate: If I ran a sandwich shop and I wanted to see what my competitors were up to, I’d create a spreadsheet that listed the following parameters across the top:

• Competitor
• Website
• Low price sandwiches
• Low Price point
• Mid-price sandwiches
• Mid Price point
• High price sandwiches
• High price point
• Specials
• Positive things people are saying
• Negative things people are saying
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Threats
• Notes

Obviously, you might want to place more across the top but this is what I would watch for if I were a sandwich shop. And yes, you should include a SWOT analysis of your competitors so you “force” yourself to take what you are learning about them and use it to your benefit.

Lastly, I’d go online and keep an eye on them to see what they are doing.

I recommend that you find the following information about your competitors: If you are on Twitter , and you use HootSuite  or TweetDeck , set up a column to list your competitors (tweets from the owners and employees themselves, but also any mention of the business, too).

Next, if you are on LinkedIn, go to the sidebar (where you can review and add applications) and add “Company Buzz”. Set it up to search keywords that include your competitors.

Also, go to Google Alerts and set up an email search that delivers you information containing your competitor’s names.

Lastly, if your competitor has RSS feeds, subscribe to them. By doing these four things in just ten minutes, you are automating the entire process so you don’t have to go hunting for competitor information; it comes directly to you.

Filling out your spreadsheet

Now it’s time to fill out your spreadsheet. Depending on how many competitors you have, and how detailed the columns are across your spreadsheet, you might want to take one competitor each day and spend ten minutes filling it out, starting with your biggest (most threatening) competitor. Or, in some cases, this might be as simple as visiting their business (if they’re local and if they don’t know who you are, of course!).

Daily monitoring

Once your spreadsheet is complete, you can turn your attention to tracking and updating your competitors as the content comes in through the various sources you subscribed to earlier. You shouldn’t have to spend more than 10 minutes per day on this once everything is set up. Watch for:

• Price changes
• News items
• Specials
• “Buzz” (what other people are saying about them)

When you notice one or two things, it might not amount to much. But the value of doing this on a consistent and ongoing basis is to spot trends because they will give you a hint of something before it happens.

For example, one of your competitors has been a #4 or #5 competitor for some time. Then one day a news item reveals that the company is under new ownership. That prompts you to do a bit of research and you learn that this new owner is really good and taking middle-ground businesses and making them excel. Then you notice that they start to increase their specials and lower their prices to “buy” marketshare! You might not have noticed all this without doing some 10-minutes-per-day competitor analysis!

But the real question is: What can you do with this analysis once you have it?

The first advantage is in knowing your competitor really well. I’m sure we’ve all heard that story about how Xerox repair people knew their competitor’s photocopiers better than their competitors did! The same rule applies here. You won’t become an immediate expert but by paying attention to the information you get, you’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll get to know your competition and what really makes them tick.

The second advantage is by including a SWOT analysis while you use your spreadsheet. If you get into the habit of working on it a little bit during your 10 minutes of competitive analysis, the actionable outcomes are quite clear.

When you spot a competitor trending in a particular way, you need to take charge. If they are trying to lower their prices to buy marketshare, you should market more aggressively. If they are trying to steal your customers, you should increase customer loyalty. If they bring in a turnaround artist of a CEO, you should improve your business to make yourself untouchable.

Competitor analysis doesn’t have to take a long time. You already have a really busy schedule. But if you take ten minutes now to set it up and then you take 10 minutes a day to review the research that comes directly to you, you will be an expert on your competition and that will be good for your business!

Related posts:

1. Keyword Research in 10 Minutes a Day
2. What Compels People to Hire You (Instead of Your Competitor)?
3. Generating Repeat Business in 10 Minutes a Day

Now I want to help you achieve your goals even more easily.

I mentioned in the last issue was that smaller goals were better. The goal “implement Twitter marketing plan” isn’t nearly as good as the more granular goals…

• Open Twitter account. Duration: 5 minutes. Due on the 20th.
• Download TweetDeck. Duration: 5 minutes. Due on the 21st.
• Set up TweetDeck columns. Duration: 5 minutes. Due on the 22nd.
• Tweet 5 times on day 1. Duration: 10 minutes. Due on 23rd.

These smaller goals are more likely to get achieved. The reason is not necessarily because they are smaller but because they are reduced to an achievable and measurable end. When you set a goal like “implement Twitter marketing plan”, it’s hard to know when it starts and when it finishes and what exactly needs to happen in between and what exactly needs to happen first. But when you break it down into the 4 goals mentioned above, it becomes so much easier.

You’ve probably heard of the concept of SMART goals. Using SMART goals can help you accomplish more.

SMART is an acronym which stands for the 5 things that every goal needs to be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Actionable
• Realistic
• Time-sensitive

(Note: I’ve heard of other alternatives labels for some of these letters but this is the one I tend to use, for no other reason than habit).

If you actually do the work I recommended in the previous issue – create granular goals and add a duration – you’re already filling in some of the blanks.

Every goal needs to be a SMART goal. Here’s what they mean:

Specific: You need to make sure that the goal is specific (which is why we prefer the above-mentioned four Twitter goals to the “implement Twitter marketing plan”).

Measurable: You need to make sure it’s measurable. In other words, you can’t just say “I’m going to jog today”, because you could theoretically jog in place for 30 seconds and cross it off your list. Instead, you need to say “I’m going to jog 20 minutes today”. That’s measurable.

Actionable: You need to make sure that the goal is actionable. That is, it needs to be something that you can actually do. There should be a verb associated with each goal. In other words, your goal shouldn’t be “roses” but should be “buy roses”. With something like roses, it might seem obvious but if your goals get bigger or your list gets longer, those verbs will come in handy (and they’ll also contribute to the measurability of your goals).

Realistic: Your goal needs to be something you can actually do. “Earn $1,000,000″ might be specific and measurable (the actionable part is debatable, even if it does have a verb) but it is probably not realistic. Your goals need to be achievable!

Time-sensitive: Your goal needs to have a duration and it should have a deadline. Often, SMART goals are considered time-sensitive if they have a deadline only but I’d strongly recommend a duration because developing a sense of how long things take can help you fit work in where you can and it can also contribute to the sense of whether something is realistic.

So, let’s put the concepts from the last issue and from this issue together:

1.    Start by outlining your roles. (That’s something that you’ll already have and it rarely changes from week to week – it’s a one-time ten minute effort).
2.    Then, list all of the things that will enrich your relationships with those roles (and be sure to include the work you    have to do for your individual clients). This is your list of goals.
3.    In that list of goals, review each one and break it down to a granular level so that complex goals are made up of simpler goals. Make sure each goal is a SMART goal.
4.    Now slot those goals into your calendar around your already-scheduled meetings and appointments.

You should end up with a balanced calendar that includes all of your important activity as well goals that will address other (non-business) relationships in your life as well as personal enrichment and education.

With me so far? Good. Now here are a few tips to help:

• You’ll probably find that your calendar looks busier than it used to. However, there are a few positive reasons for this: Your personal calendar and your professional calendar are now blended, and have more granular, accomplishable goals, and your calendar includes intentional relationship-building time with the important people in your life. So those are all good things.

• Make sure you include some extra room for “uh-oh” time.  “Uh-oh” time includes those tiny disasters we face in life or those times when things take longer than they’re supposed to. It’s the unexpected things: Flat tires, a head cold, traffic jams, spills that require a new shirt, you forgot to get milk at the store, or a project needs to be redone. Sometimes it’s a short-term issue or sometimes it might cause delays that last for a week. But if you can build in some uh-oh time – just a little each day – you’ll help to stay saner. It might include adding 10 minutes to your travel time or adding 15 minutes to a large project. You might not need it all but it’s there if you do. (And if you don’t need it all, remember: you have some duration-estimated projects that can probably be accomplished in that time!).

This might seem to take more than 10 minutes so let me point out how this works best:

Toward the end of the week (Thursday or Friday) spend 10 minutes and evaluate how your week went.

• Did you accomplish the goals you wanted to accomplish?
• Did you miss anything that can be done in the “uh-oh” time that is still remaining?
• What needs to be carried over to next week?

Then, after that (Thursday, Friday, or Saturday) spend 10 minutes to create your SMART goals for the week.

Then, after that (Friday, Saturday, or Sunday), spend 10 minutes to slot your goals into next week’s calendar around your already scheduled meetings and appointments.

There you go! In just a few ten-minute steps each week, you can increase your productivity by setting appropriate goals and prioritizing them in a way that makes sense.

Related posts:

1. Setting (and Achieving) Daily Goals like a Genius – Part 1
2. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day- Part 1 – The Purpose
3. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day – Part 3 – Scheduling & Writing

Part of what makes this process difficult is that we don’t know what is actually important to do and what isn’t important to do. (Many people realize this issue when they start to think about delegating, which is a topic we covered in a previous Tips In Ten). In fact, I’ve coached people who show me their to-do list and say to me, “Heather, I try to prioritize the work in my life as 1, 2, 3, etc… but it ALL seems to be priority 1!!!”.

On top of that is the ongoing challenge of all entrepreneurs to find balance between work and the rest of life (which might include parenting, volunteering, and so on).

So in this issue of Tips In Ten, we’ll cover “part 1″ of how to set and achieve your daily goals: Figuring out what’s important to do.

The truth is, there are a lot of things to do but only some things that are important to do. But it all SEEMS important.

One way that you can help to separate what is important to do and what only seems important to do is to use a system I have augmented from Stephen R. Covey (the 7 Habits guy). One of his “habits” is called “First Things First” and it’s a system to help you figure out what’s REALLY important in life.

I’ll give him credit, of course, for the idea. I really like starting with roles first then moving to the goals that are based on each role. It really helps to make sure that there is balance in your life. However, if you are a big Covey fan, you should know that I’ve dramatically augmented his plan in order to accommodate the business owner’s lifestyle which (in my opinion) should include more space devoted for clients.

Here’s how my augmented First Things First plan works:

First, before you even bother thinking about your to-do’s, think first about who you are. What are your roles in life? Chances are that you’ll make a list which includes:

• Business owner – you own a business.
• Parent – you have children
• Spouse – you have a spouse
• Child – you are a child (in fact, you probably keep meaning to call your mother, right?)
• Friend – they keep you sane

There might be more. Covey also suggests that you include a “role” for yourself in order to make sure you take time out for yourself. (I tend to list myself twice – once as “student” and once as “me” for non-educational activities).

Now here is where I depart from Covey even more: As a business owner, I list my business but I also list some of the critical business relationships that I have with key customers and as the publisher of a newsletter and as a partner for JV projects I work on.

Okay, so you have this list of roles. What now?

Every Thursday or Friday, in preparation for the week to come, list your goals and then write down the things you want to do that would enrich those relationships. Be specific! For your spouse, it might be “Go on a date”. For your kids it might “Take them to the park”. For client XYZ it might be “deliver their project”. For your business it might be “implement new Twitter marketing plan”.

You might have a lot of stuff in your to-do’s; in fact, you might have even more now that you’re including your spouse and your parents and other aspects in your life… but at least you’re dividing it up based on the roles in your life. So, rather than one big list, you’ll end up with a dozen small lists.

Now that you have listed all these goals, look at each one and break them down into individual parts. So implementing your Twitter marketing plan from the example earlier might actually be 4 smaller goals like “Open Twitter account”, “Download TweetDeck”, “set up columns”, “Tweet 5 times on day 1″. (Note: Breaking down your goals into more granular goals might take longer than 10 minutes when you do this the first time, but once you’ve done it once and if you do it regularly, it really does just take 10 minutes).

So now you have an even bigger list of goals! This might seem stressful to you but I promise you that it’s better. That’s because a big cause of procrastination is not knowing where to start. So, by breaking your goals down into smaller goals, you’re helping to eliminate that.

Okay, you have a dozen lists of tiny goals. That’s great! You’re now ready to make it work for you: With this list, determine how long each goal will take and then determine if any of them have a deadline.

So, let’s say that you want your Twitter marketing plan deadline for the 23rd. Obviously, all the related goals need to take place before the 23rd. Your list might look like this:

• Open Twitter account. Duration: 5 minutes. Due on the 20th.
• Set up TweetDeck columns. Duration: 5 minutes. Due on the 22nd.
• Tweet 5 times on day 1. Duration: 10 minutes. Due on 23rd.

Now you have a dozen lists of tiny goals and they all have durations (and, if appropriate, deadlines… although it doesn’t hurt to put deadlines on all of them).

Now it’s time to start scheduling!

First, place your deadlines into your calendar (obviously along with other things like meetings or picking up the kids from school or whatever).

Second, add in a mix of other goals from each of your roles wherever you have free space. (You might put a check mark beside each goal once it’s scheduled or you might color code your goals and look later to make sure that there is a good balance of color variation in your schedule).

Third, find those tiny spaces that aren’t filled and include items that fit the available duration. For example, perhaps you have fifteen minutes between two telephone conferences. In the past, you’d just waste the time on Facebook but now you know that you have 15 minutes and you can look at your schedule. Perhaps you can spend the time ordering flowers your spouse (Role: Spouse, Goal: Order flowers. Duration 5 minutes. No due date) and then following through on two of the Twitter marketing tasks (Role: Business owner. Goal: Open Twitter account. Duration: 5 minutes. Due on the 20th. Download TweetDeck. Duration: 5 minutes. Due on the 21st.)
By now, you should have a calendar that includes the important elements of your life all addressed in some kind of balance.

In the next issue we’ll talk about how to make your goals even easier to achieve and I’ll provide you with a few extra tips to make your scheduling and goal execution even more stress-free.

Related posts:

1. Setting (and Achieving) Daily Goals Like a Genius – Part 2
2. Ten Minutes to Faster Decisions – Part 2
3. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day – Part 4 – Making Money from Your Ezines