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Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:11:50 -0800

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Oliver Blanchard’s Social Media ROI Presentat

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:46:46 -0700

Olivier Blanchard Basics Of Social Media Roi

View more presentations from Olivier Blanchard.

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Get your email answered

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:42:38 -0700

Get Your Email Answered

Brevity. I have no time for huge rambling emails. Lead with what you need from me. Fill me in on the backstory (if you feel you must), and then end again with what you need from me. (Most imporant part: lead with what you need from me).
Connectivity. If you talk with me on other platforms (like comment on my blog or talk with me on Twitter or Facebook), then I’m much more likely to know who you are.
Skip the flattery. PR types: starting with “I love your blog” and then pitching me something I could care less about is a bit of a mismatch. You clearly don’t understand my blog if you’re pitching me stories that don’t relate to what I’m doing.
Get right to it. Most emails have about 200 words of throat-clearing. Feel free to just be brief and to the point.
Make it mutually beneficial. It’s very nice that you want me to help you get attention, but it’s rare that this does anything for me. Is there anything you’re going to do for my community to make this more worthwhile for them to care about you?
Make every email about resolving to a close. I hate open-ended emails. Examples: “what would you like for lunch tomorrow?” Instead, how about, “I’m thinking about either tapas or Korean BBQ tomorrow. Do you have a preference?” One makes things close faster. The other makes the message linger.
Give the right lead time. Asking me for something today is probably not going to happen. Asking me for something in three months is going to be forgotten. Think more in terms of two weeks for a typical response, or two or three months for something involving travel. Make sense?
Equip a trust agent. It’s easier to get some kind of response by having someone who knows your target person introduce you.

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/get-your-email-answered/

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How to Be Childlike

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:19:43 -0700

Find the pure joy and imagination of childhood.

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” - Pablo Picasso

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

Sometimes I lounge lazily in bed, in the middle of the day, with a couple of my kids and just abandon my worldly concerns, and just play.

Or I’ll sit and just watch them play, pretending they’re superheros or princesses or playing house or shooting each other with stick guns.

It never fails to leave me with a sense of wonder, of pure joy, of a return to innocence and a simpler time.

As grown ups, we’ve lost this childlike sense of life. And that’s actually a sad thing.

It’s not just about happiness and innocence either — being more childlike also helps us to be more creative, more imaginative, more innovative and open to worlds of possibilities.

Consider: as children, we are naturally imaginative, curious, able to play without a worry in our minds. Some qualities of young children that happen naturally:

they live in the present
they have no concerns about money, productivity, or being cool
there are no limits to their imagination, except what they’ve been exposed to
they play and lose themselves in play
they create with abandon
they are endlessly curious, and ask questions … without end
they love showing off to their parents

We could learn a lot from children. Sure, they have qualities we might not want, but in my eyes, they are already perfect. We don’t need to mold them into people, we need to be more like them.

We lose this childlike nature, the nature we’re born with, because of society — it has certain institutions and systems in place that beat childishness out of us, so we can be more productive citizens and consumers. I think it’s unfortunate.

We shouldn’t abandon all responsibilities, but we can learn a lot from children and be more like them in some ways.

How to be childlike
We must first acknowledge that no change is instantaneous, that any change worth keeping takes time. But you can start today.

Start by deciding to abandon caution and to give this a try. Start by identifying the qualities of children you’d like to emulate: curiosity, play, living in the moment, abandoning worries, imagination, creativity, pure joy.

Observe children. Watch how they play, how they live, how they create, how they ask questions. Sure, sometimes they do dumb things like throw tantrums, but even in that you can see their pure abandonment of everything but what is happening to them right now. Watch and learn.

Play with children. If you have some of your own, great. If not, play with children of friends and family. Lose yourself in the play. Be a dinosaur, or a gorilla, or a villain. Have a joyous time. Make them squeal in delight, and feel free to do the same yourself.

Talk with children. Ask them questions. Answer theirs. Don’t talk down to them with baby talk, but don’t be too grownup either.

Play by yourself. Go outside and run around, jump, slide, kick a ball around, pretend. Forget about who might be watching.

Create like a child. Don’t be constrained with what people expect, what you’re used to. Be wild and have fun. Imagine that things can be different, that there are no limitations, and see what happens. Most of your childlike drawings will be tossed in the trash, but some might be put up on the fridge.

Be curious like a child. Look at things with a child’s eye, and ask questions you’ve never asked before, explore with a beginner’s mind. Don’t be afraid to ask why, and what if, and why not?

Live in the moment. Forget about all you have to do. Forget about what happened yesterday, or that conversation you had. Forget about that meeting that’s coming up, or those deadlines. Just do, and be.

See the world with new eyes. It is a wondrous place, a miracle happening every second, a source of immense fascination that can knock you on your ass if you let it. You are a miracle, and every moment you have is a gift. What will you do with that gift?

And last, if you have children, let them be childlike. Stop trying to make them grow up. Stop trying to shape them, criticize them, make them your own piece of clay, as Marvin Gaye said. Let them be, and enjoy the beautiful way they already are.

“Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they’re looking for ideas.” - Paula Poundstone

via http://zenhabits.net/2009/09/how-to-be-childlike/

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How To Find Time For… Everything!

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:13:39 -0700

Time management is one of the most important skills a freelance worker can learn. With a good time management system you can easily find the time to do the things that are important to you, whether in your professional or personal life.

Successful time management can be challenging, especially to those who are new to freelancing or being self-employed. When you have a boss telling you what to do and when to do it by, it’s much easier to prioritize and figure out what needs to be done and when. But when you’re not only dealing with client deadlines but also all of the day-to-day parts of running a business, on top of trying to maintain some sort of life outside of work, time management gets a whole lot trickier.

Below are sixteen tips to help you better manage your time and find the time to participate in the things that are important to you. Also included are some further resources to improve your time management.

Also consider our previous articles:

1. Get Organized

Taking time away from your work to find things, whether on your computer or your physical desktop, can be one of the biggest time-wasters out there. This is one of those things that varies a lot by industry and personal preference, but you absolutely need to have a system in place to handle the information, files, and data that comes your way each day. This might include folders and tags on your computers, or file-folders, piles, and inboxes in your physical workspace.

Experiment with different organizational systems until you find one that really works for you. Personally, I have a folder called “work” on my desktop and within that I have folders for each client I work with on a regular basis. For one-off projects I’ll create a folder for that client while I’m working on the project, and then those folders will get moved into a “completed” folder once the project is over (and usually moved to my portable hard drive instead of remaining on my laptop’s hard drive). I have very little physical paperwork, so piles on my desk work just fine for me.

2. Separate Work Space from Everything-Else Space

You need to have a dedicated workspace. If you work in an office, this is easy enough to manage. But if you work from home, you’ll need to put a bit more effort in. Here are a few tips for creating a workspace if you don’t have space for a dedicated office:

Get a desk. Don’t try to work from your coffee table or dining room table. It’s inefficient and you’ll constantly find yourself having to pick things up just to bring them back out later. It’s better to have a space where you can leave your work things set up all the time.
Go into “work mode” when you’re in your workspace. This might mean wearing “work clothes” when you’re working. Or it might mean putting shoes on when you’re at your desk (this is one I do most of the time).
Steal unused space. Is there an unused room, corner of a room, or even closet somewhere in your home? Is it big enough for a desk? If it is, then you might have just found your dedicated office. If your space is part of a larger room, consider buying an office armoire to hide away your work stuff when you’re not using it. If it’s in a closet or other tiny space, a built-in desk and shelving might work best (otherwise you’re likely to waste space with a desk that’s smaller than the total space). Commandeer unused space in your home to carve out a dedicated work space.

3. Take Advantage of Time Management Tools

There are hundreds of tools out there for organizing and managing your time. Whether you opt for a physical date book or calendar or go for an online app, take advantage of the ready-made tools available. I use a combination of tools. Remember the Milk keeps my to-do list (with the Pro version you can also access it from an iPhone). I have a dry-erase calendar for my monthly schedule. And I flag emails that have important information in them until I’m done with that information.

Previously, I’ve used those yellow Post-It notes to keep my to-do list organized (I’d stick them to my desk in front of my keyboard) and a pocket-size black Moleskine notebook. Both tools worked well, but I finally decided I wanted to have a to-do list I could access from anywhere.

There are tons of other time management tools. Experiment with a few and see what seems to fit with the way you work. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution out there that will work for everyone. But there’s almost certainly a tool out there for everyone.

4. Set Goals

Setting goals is one of the most important things you can do to manage your time. If you don’t have any goals, how do you know what’s important? What deserves your time and attention? The short answer is: you don’t.

Goals don’t need to be formal. They don’t need to be long-term either (though long-term goals can also help). What they do need to do is focus your attention on what’s important.

One of my goals might be to get all of my work done by Thursday so I can take Friday off, or use Friday to work on a personal project. What that goal does is get me to focus on working more efficiently so I can finish my work in 80% of the time. Cutting 20% of my work time isn’t that big of a deal most weeks. Simply turning off TweetDeck while I work (or setting it to only pull updates every 30 or 60 minutes) can go a long way toward doing that. So can working through lunch or getting up a half hour earlier (or staying up a half hour later).

Your goals should be attainable and specific. You can set recurring goals (”I want to take every Friday off.”) or one-time goals (”I want to finish my new website design by next Tuesday.”) or any combination of the two. You might write them down somewhere or you can just keep them in your head. Just make sure you always have a goal. Your goal could even be as simple as, “finish this logo mockup before lunch.”

5. Set Deadlines

Deadlines are sort of like a built-in goal for a project. If you know something is due next Monday, then you’re more likely to structure your work on it to make sure it gets done by Monday. (If not, you definitely need this article more than most.)

If you don’t have deadlines imposed by clients or a boss, then you’ll need to have self-imposed deadlines. Think about when you want to finish something or when you’d like to move on to the next project. Put that date in your calendar or mark it on your to-do list as the deadline for your current project. For added accountability, tell someone else about your deadline. I’ll sometimes post self-imposed deadlines on Twitter or Facebook so my friends there can hound me about it if I miss a deadline. Peer pressure can go a long way toward getting you to work harder.

6. Plan Ahead

Keep some kind of big-picture plan. This might be monthly, bi-monthly, or yearly, depending on your industry and the particular types of projects you take on. As I mentioned before, I keep a dry-erase calendar with my monthly projects and deadlines. I can also mark down appointments, important dates, and other information that might interfere with my deadlines or regular work schedule. Most of my deadlines are on a weekly or semi-weekly basis, so a monthly calendar works great for me. If you have longer deadline periods (or shorter ones), you’ll need to adjust the amount of time you need to look at at once to get an idea of how much work you’ve committed yourself to at any one time.

7. Prioritize

You have to prioritize the work you do. For the most part, work due immediately (or within the next few days) should be completed first. Then comes the work due within the next week or two, and then everything else.

Don’t forget to include family priorities, too. Your child’s first soccer game is important, so make sure that gets on the list of top priorities. Doctor’s appointments, school plays, parent-teacher meetings, date nights, and parties also need to be taken into account when you’re planning your work schedule. Decide what things you absolutely must attend whether your work is finished or not (there shouldn’t be very many things on this list), what things you want to attend if you get to a certain point in your work (and note what you need to have done in order to attend), and things that you may or may not attend if all of your work is finished.

Set up a system of marking the priority of different items on your schedule. This might be using different-colored pens to write in different items, or it might be putting a star next to the most important things, or even keeping separate lists for each priority. Again, just make sure whatever you choose to do makes sense in your lifestyle.

8. Delegate or Outsource

There’s nothing wrong with bringing in a little outside help once in awhile. This might mean delegating responsibility for a project to someone else in your office, or even to an assistant. It might mean outsourcing a certain aspect of a project (research, coding, etc.) to someone else so you can focus on the more important parts.

You don’t necessarily need to outsource or delegate parts of your work to be more effective. Why not consider hiring a housekeeper to come in and clean your house once a week? Or getting someone else to wash and detail your car instead of spending Saturday afternoon doing it yourself? These kinds of outsourced services can free up your time for the important things you want to do (like hanging out with your significant other or your kids, or playing an extra round of golf).

9. Optimize Your Processes

There are almost certainly things you do on a daily or weekly basis in the course of your work that you could streamline. It might be your billing. Or maybe your archiving. Or it could be something you do on almost every project you take on.

These are the things you should streamline and optimize. Look at the way you’re currently doing things and see if there are steps you could combine or cut all together. If you’re a web designer, this might mean creating your own custom set of template files for developing sites. Or using an automated invoicing program for billing. Or any number of other things that can be made more efficient if you’re only willing to take the time to identify them.

10. Learn to Say “No”

One of the biggest time-management pitfalls you can experience is taking on too much work. You have to learn to say “no” to some people. If you take on more work than you can handle, not only will you have problems meeting deadlines, but the quality of your work and your relationships (both personal and work-related) will suffer.

Before taking on any new work, look at your schedule. Do you really have time for another project? If not, simply explain to the client that you have too many projects going to devote the time necessary for their project. Most will thank you for it. And if you really can’t bring yourself to turn down work, give them a realistic timeline for when you can complete their project. Don’t say you can have it done the following week if you already have commitments taking up your time between now and then.

The same principle goes for personal obligations, too. Nothing says you have to serve on your homeowners’ association board. You don’t have to join the PTA or your local indoor soccer league. And just because you’ve done something every year for the past ten years doesn’t mean you have to do it every year for the next ten. Learn to say no to your friends, family, neighbors, and others in your life so you have time to say “yes” to the things that are really important to you.

11. Learn When You Work Best

One of the advantages to being a freelancer is that you can set your own hours. Pay attention to when you’re mot productive. For me, that’s from about nine in the morning until around two or three, and then again from about six or seven in the evening until eleven or twelve. I don’t force myself to work in those hours when I know I’m not productive (from 2-7 most days). But I make sure that I’m in work mode in the morning and then again late in the evening so I can get more done when I am productive.

12. Set Regular Working Hours

This is related to when you work best. You should have regular working hours that you try to stick to every day. If you work best from 4:00AM until noon, then work every day during that time. That also means that you should stop work at noon and go do something else. The same goes fro weekends. Take at least two days a week off if at all possible. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Saturday and Sunday; you might choose to take Wednesday and Thursday off or Monday and Tuesday. Whatever works for you. Just make sure you have some down time when you’re not working. Otherwise you’re likely to end up burning out.

13. Don’t Waste Time

Look at the things that waste time during your day. Are you constantly checking Facebook or Twitter? Getting up to get a glass of water? Taking your dog for his sixth walk this afternoon? Whatever these things are, try to figure out ways to minimize their ability to interrupt you. Take the dog for a nice, long walk right after lunch. Only check Facebook or Twitter once an hour (or every two hours); keep them closed other than at their allotted times. Get a refillable water bottle so you only have to get up a couple times a day. Identify what you waste time doing and eliminate it.

14. Avoid Multitasking

Multitasking works in some circumstances. But when it comes to getting any substantial work done, multitasking usually does more harm than good. Work on one project at a time. This doesn’t mean you necessarily have to work on one project until it’s completely finished, but it does mean you shouldn’t skip back and forth between three projects every two minutes. Set yourself a minimum work time; it might be fifteen or twenty minutes or even an hour, and then work on just one project during that time.

The multitasking advice also applies to trying to work while you’re checking your email, playing solitaire, talking on the phone, and any other distractions that prevent you from dedicating your full attention to the task at hand.

15. Take Frequent Breaks

Burnout is a huge bar to productivity. When you get burned out you end up unable to focus or complete work as quickly as you might otherwise (if you can work at all). Taking regular breaks from your work helps prevent burnout. This might mean going for a walk in the middle of the day, taking a break to watch the news after lunch, doing your shopping in the midafternoon instead of in the evening, or even taking a week off a couple times each year for vacation.

These little breaks refresh us and keep us eager to work. Without them we grow tired and our concentration lags. I generally take a couple hours each afternoon and get out of my house. This might mean going to visit relatives, doing some shopping, going for a drive or a walk, a short hike, or swimming in the summer. I also take a few five or ten minute breaks throughout the day to recharge and rest my eyes (staring at a computer screen all day is very hazardous to your vision). And I take long weekends (3 or even 4 days off) on a regular basis to recharge.

16. Maintain

Maintenance is incredibly important to any time management system. But it’s not just your system you need to maintain. It’s all the parts of your life that you need to keep running smoothly in order to get your work done.

This means basic maintenance on your computer (backing up files, emptying your trash, cleaning out your inbox), basic maintenance on your office or workspace (dusting, emptying the trash, vacuuming, etc.) and basic household maintenance (washing dishes, doing laundry, home repairs, etc.).

Don’t overlook maintenance on yourself, either. Getting some exercise every day and eating right can go a long way toward making you more productive.

You might be asking yourself what this has to do with finding time to do things in your life. Well, here’s the thing: If you don’t maintain all the things in your life that need it, eventually something is going to fail. This might be something as simple as having to take time out on a work day to do laundry because you’re completely out of clean clothes, or it might be something more major like a preventable illness or injury. When unexpected disasters crop up, they wreak havoc on our productivity. You end up spending more time playing catch-up than you would have if you had just maintained things in the first place. And if you include regular maintenance in your schedule, they really don’t take up much time at all.

Further Resources:

10 Tips for Time Management in a Multitasking World
A great article from Brazen Careerist on time management.
11 Time Management Tips
An excellent time management article from About.com.
43Folders
A blog devoted to the Getting Things Done system and other personal productivity and time management topics.
How I Work in Chunks
An article from Web Worker Daily covering one method of time management.
GTD Toolbox: 100+ Resources for Getting Things Done
One of my own articles, a roundup of time management and productivity tools.
8 Simple Online Time Management Tools for Freelancers
A great roundup of tools compiled by Freelance Switch.

About the author

Cameron Chapman is a professional Web and graphic designer with over 6 years of experience. She also writes for a number of blogs, including her own, Cameron Chapman On Writing. She’s also the author of the upcoming book Internet Famous.

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Ça vaut combien de carrés de sucres?

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:50:41 -0700

————— Forwarded message —————
From: dino.masson@superuholdings.com <dino.masson@superuholdings.com>
Date: 2009/7/30
Subject: [Fwd: Fwd: Sugar Cubes]
To: Dino Masson <dino.masson@gmail.com>

WHAT A UNIQUE WAY TO PRESENT THIS…

Someone ought to get an award for this. We know the facts, but this brings perspective quickly, doesn’t it? Each cube is a teaspoonful .

(So inst ea d of 2 bananas, I can have 4 oreos?)

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.392 / Virus Database: 270.13.26/2257 - Release Date: 07/23/09 18:00:00

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Use NEAT Activities to Burn More Calories

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:57:39 -0700

Use NEAT Activities to Burn More Calories

By Azadeh Ensha, 2:00 PM on Mon Jul 27 2009, 5,003 views

Going to the gym, running, and other intentional workout routines aren’t the only ways to burn calories. Incorporating more NEAT activities into your day, also known as non-exercise activity, can also help.

Photo by itchys.

From wikiHow:

Studies show that lean people fidget for about 150 minutes a day more than obese people do. That kind of low-grade activity (tapping feet and fingers, twirling hair, gesturing while speaking, etc.) can burn 350 calories a day, which translates into 10-30 pounds a year! It’s called Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT), which is basically any movement that isn’t intended as exercise. You can burn an extra 100-150 calories an hour by increasing NEAT.

Among the more effective NEAT exercises, wikiHow suggests pacing whenever it’s feasible to do so. For example, if you’re talking on the phone, try pacing instead of sitting. wikiHow says you can burn 90 more calories an hour pacing than if you just talk while sitting still. Or if you use public transportation and are waiting for the train, try pacing up and down the platform.

Granted, we also understand the value of relaxing, and if pacing or fidgeting translates into stress for you, NEAT activities are probably best avoided.

Invariably these low-grade activities don’t get close to the calorie burn that comes with a three-mile run or an hour spent in the gym, but every bit helps—like this 600-calorie/day burning treadputer.

Have your own non-traditional methods of shaving a few extra calories here and there without stepping into your sweats? Hit up the comments and let us know all about it.

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73 Ways to Become a Better Writer

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:54:07 -0700

73 Ways to Become a Better Writer

by Mary Jaksch

Do you want to become a better writer? Silly question, eh.

The good news is that writing makes you a better writer. Just like practicing the piano makes you a better pianist, or riding a trail bike makes you a better biker.

A few weeks ago I asked a question on Write to Done: What Helps YOU Become a Better Writer? The suggestions the readers offered were so rich and varied that I decided to gather them all together for Copyblogger readers.

I think there is one guaranteed winner among the seventy-two suggestions - blogging. Writing a blog is an amazing way to sharpen one’s skills. As bloggers we have to produce words daily - even when we don’t feel like it. And we get instant feed-back through comments. As Leo Babauta points out in his inspiring story How I got 100,000 Subscribers: Lessons from Zen Habits, it’s the readers that help us improve.

Doing these things can help you become a better writer:

1. Become a blogger.

2. Use self-imposed word limits.

3. Accept all forms of criticism and learn to grow from it.

4. Read what you’ve written over and over, until you can’t find any more problems.

5. Show what you write to a trusted friend for feedback.

6. Outline. And then write to that outline.

7. Edit, and edit again.

8. Live with passion.

9. Be open, curious, present, and engaged.

10. Take a break between writing and editing.

11. Learn a new word a day.

12. Get the pen and fingers moving.

13. Write in different genres: blog posts, poems, short stories, essays.

14. Read grammar books.

15. Write without distractions.

16. Challenge yourself: write in a crowded cafe, write on the toilet, write for 24 hours straight.

17. Take a trip. Road trips, beach trips, bus trips, plane trips.

18. Watch movies. Can you write the story better?

19. Write. And then write some more.

20. Read, think, read, write, ponder, write - and read some more.

21. Read your stuff aloud to anyone who can stand it - including the cat.

22. Go back and cut 10% from your word count.

23. Talk to people.

24. Listen to how people talk.

25. Read lots of books. Both good and bad.

26. Make notes of your (fleeting) brilliant ideas.

27. Start your writing ahead of time - not hours before a deadline.

28. Listen to podcasts on writing tips.

29. Use simple, declarative sentences.

30. Avoid passive voice.

31. Limit your use of adjectives and adverbs.

32. When in doubt, cut it out.

33. Kill clunky sentences.

34. Be inspired by other art forms - music, dance, sculpture, painting.

35. Read your old stuff and acknowledge how far you’ve come - and how far you have to go.

36. Write for publication, even if it’s only for the local newsletter or a small blog.

37. Make writing your priority in the morning.

38. Keep squeezing words out even if you feel uninspired.

39. Tell everyone: “I’m a writer.”

40. Recognize your fear and overcome it.

41. Let your articles rest and then return to them with fresh eyes.

42. Comment on your favorite blogs.

43. Keep a journal to keep the writing juices flowing.

44. Use a journal to sort out your thoughts and feelings.

45. Keep it simple.

46. Practice monotasking. Set a timer for uninterrupted writing.

47. Watch people.

48. Get to know someone different from you and reflect on the experience.

49. Try new ideas or hobbies - the more variety you have in your life, the more likely you are to keep on generating good ideas on the page.

50. Read works from different cultures. It helps keep your writing from tasting stale in the mouths of your readers.

51. Rethink what is ‘normal’.

52. Work on brilliant headlines.

53. Check if your assumptions are right.

54. Join a writing group. If you can’t find one, form one.

55. Write during your most productive hours of the day.

56. Designate time to research.

57. Take time to muse and mindmap.

58. Map out a writing schedule for your project and stick to it.

59. Ask someone else to proofread.

60. Read Zinsser’s “On Writing Well” at least once a year.

61. Break out of your comfort zone.

62. Write at the scene. If you want to write about a beach, get a picnic rug and go write by the sea.

63. Go to the supermarket, the ball game, the class room, the building site. Make notes of the sensuous details, the atmosphere, the people.

64. Start with metaphors and stories.

65. Approach writing with gratitude, not just with a ‘must do this’ attitude.

66. Deconstruct and analyze books and articles you enjoy.

67. Know about story architecture. Many writers don’t. Which is like doing heart surgery or flying an airliner by intuition. Survival rates are low.

68. Socialize with other writers.

69. Stretch or exercise in between writing.

70. Make a note of ideas for further development before you leave a piece for tomorrow.

71.Use mindmaps for inspiration.

72. Take risks - don’t be afraid to shock. You are not who you think you are.

73. [Please add your own suggestion in the comment section!]

I hope that one or more of these suggestions has inspired you. Let me know which ones resonated with you. And please add to the list. I look forward to reading your comments! Thanks to all the Write to Done readers who contributed to this list.

About the Author: Mary Jaksch is Chief Editor of Write to Done. Get Leo Babauta’s free report How I got 100,000 Subscribers: Lessons from Zen Habits.

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50 iPhone Apps for Athletes!

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:30:24 -0700

50 iPhone Apps for Athletes!

by X1Zero on May 30th, 2009

Hey all!

I recently came across a list of iPhone apps for athletes! The list was quite impressive as I read into the first 10 or 15 apps, but the entire list consisted of 50 apps! 50! The list is also evenly split between free and paid apps.

The list was posted on the Physical Therapy Assistant Schools website and I will reproduce the list here below for any of those that are interested. One thing is for sure, this list could not have come at a better time, especially for everyone in Vancouver! We’re going to have a sizzling hot summer and what a perfect way to spend some of your summer by working out and staying healthy!

Check out the list below and let me know how some of the apps turn out for you!

Posted by L. Fabry of Physical Therapy Assistant Schools

For Free

1. iPump Free Workout: With over four thousand images and videos, this app is a must have for any serious athlete. Get tips for pros, recommendations, and even the ability to do a drag and drop workout. Don�t feel like doing all that work? Then choose one of the over 400 already programmed workouts, many available for free.

2. MyNetDiary: Start a health fitness diary with this easy to use app. You can enter in nutritional information, as well as keep an eye on your weight. There is also a simple and quick test drive available.

3. Gyminee: This free community allows you to develop workout programs, exercise routines, and food diary. You can also look for others in your area who share your goals. It even gives you fitness challenges you can try in your own workout.

4. Fitsync: Download free workouts to your iPhone, track your progress, and share with this online community. You can also get an online workout log, over one thousand exercises, free videos, charts, and even challenges. They also post rankings on various types of fitness on their site.

5. Lose It!: This is a beautiful, intuitive, and complete nutritional database and statistic tracker. Enter your vitals such as age, current weight, gender, and goals. Lose It! then calculates a daily calorie budget based on this information. You can also look foods up by restaurant.

6. RunKeeper: This GPS Fitness tracking system allows you to use your 3G iPhone to help with your running, cycling, hiking, or walking. This attractive app shows you how far you have gone, speed, elevation, and you can even record a map. Available for free if you can tolerate the ads.

7. Fitnio: Give the app your weight and height and Fitnio keeps track of the calories you�ve burned. It is also compatible with Nike + technology. Fitnio can also keep track of your course using Google Maps.

8. TrailGuru: Available for free, this app is ideal for outdoor activity. You can plan a route, explore it, share, and summarize. You can also post information from your workout on the website.

9. iTrail: The idea behind this app is that you should be able to use your phone to track your performance while running, cycling, hiking or skiing. In addition to many features available for a 3G phone, you can also use it with a first generation iPhone. It also has an option for phone lock that allows you to put your iPhone in a backpack or pocket.

10. Bones In Motion: With 100 million consumers, BiM extends the mobile phone into the areas of fun, fitness, sports, health, and personal safety. Use for fitness walking, running, cycling, hiking, mountain biking, GeoCaching, and other outdoor activities. It also available for other mobile devices.

11. WeightDate: Just create an account to easily utilize this app on your iPhone. It allows you to track your daily progress towards weight loss. You can also view your results on Google Charts.

12. iPhit: This application is ideal for walking or running exercise using the Nike+ Sensor kit. The iPhit application sends this exercise tracking data to the iPhone in an easy to read and use format. The home page displays the runs, challenges, goals, and Nike community that are available on the Nike+ website.

13. Apimac Timer: Need a stopwatch while running? Then download this free and popular app. It also comes with an alarm clock, countdown, and clock utility.

14. FitReach: Access this site from your iPhone to create a free fitness plan. The many features include weight loss tracker, muscle gain progress, stats, results, managing calorie intake, and more. You can also join with other members to help you reach your goal.

15. Restaurant Nutrition 1.1: Get nutrition information from loads of popular restaurants, including menu items. Choices include Burger King, Chick-Fil-A, and Chili�s. It can also be used to track calorie, carb, protein, and fat.

16. iYardage: This application is ideal for those iPhone users who hate carrying a scorecard. It can be used as a tool to track your score and game stats (putts, fairways hit, gir, etc), There is also a link to a free swing plan.

17. smartSCORECARD: Register for a free account at oobgolf to get this app. It allows you and up to three friends keep track of golf scores in real time. Scorecard also records scores, handicaps, and a whole slew of other golf-related data.

18. Pump10: View a number of workout videos from professionals for iPhone. It offers weekly ten minute video workouts, fitness tips, and personal training advice that guide users to a healthier and fitter lifestyle. With the help of Quicktime, you can get the video of the week or search by goals.

19. Body Book: This app is an exercise and fitness log application for the iPhone and iPod Touch mobile devices. Record type of weight lifted, how many sets, reps, and more. It also remembers your last entries and provides buttons to modify those entries without a keyboard.

20. Progio: All you need to do is create a personal Progio account and a Safari Web application. Progio is an interactive hand-held fitness system that provides step-by-step instructions of your personal workouts, monitors your heart rate, and tracks your workout results. Also available for Windows Mobile or as its own handheld device.

21. cityRUNNR: Use this app to get your own personal iPhone running log. It allows you to track your runs and watch your improvement. With dynamic graphs, a simple interface, and advanced editing features, you can improve your running in no time.

22. Health & Fitness Mobile: The people at �Health & Fitness� magazine help you turn your iPhone into a personal trainer. Get an array of free workouts from the experts of this top publication. You can even link to Facebook.

23. BMI Calculator: Just as it says, this app is a body mass index calculator, In addition to displaying a BMI value, this application also provides textual and visual representations. You can get readings in standard or metric and in different languages.

24. Eight Glasses A Day: This application that will help you do just that. Simply touch a virtual glass of water every time you drink a real one. It also tells you the benefits of hydration.

25. Happy Weight: With this app, you get a good idea where your weight falls on the scale: either under weight, normal weight or over weight. It also suggest your ideal weight using height, current weight, and gender to help determine a healthy range for you. Weight and height can be calculated in metric or standard units.

For a Cost

26. TeeShot Live: Anyone with a passion for golf, an iPhone, and $19.99 should consider this app for serious golfers. There�s a live search feature to download courses from the web, enter hole information as you play, use the built-in course editor, and begin playing in seconds. TeeShot can perform dozens of golf tasks including, tracking strokes and putts, fairways hit, penalty strokes and much more.

27. iFitness: This app has been reviewed and recommended by ABC and �The Washington Post.� You can get a list of exercises from A to Z, for targeted muscle areas, or build your own custom. Follow the link on this article to download it for only $1.99.

28. Calorie Tracker: Available for $2.99, the application allows you to track the foods you eat, the fitness activities you do while on the go. You can also look up or track your daily caloric, carbohydrate, and protein intake of your favorite foods.

29. Nutrition Menu: Selected as an Apple Staff favorite, this app is available for $2.99. It allows you to advance your diet by having nutritional information for 80,000 food items right at your fingertips. Track from meal to meal insuring a higher weight loss by keeping a journal of what you have consumed using this app.

30. Meditate Now!: For only $1.99, you can use this app to meditate through your iPhone. Choose from such meditations as Chill Out, Find Inner Peace, or Golf Better. There are also other fitness apps available.

31. TriCalc: Are you a triathlete who carries an iPhone? Then download this app for $1.99 to calculate time, distance, and pace/speed before or after your races. Use for running, biking or swimming and you can also get pre-set distances for the Half Iron, Ironman, Olympic, and more.

32.Gym Buddy: If you use a journal and an iPod when at the gym, get ready to get rid of both. For $2.99 you can use your iPhone to write down your stats and keep your music program playing. There is a nice sized list of exercises already imported, but Gym Buddy lets you enter in individual exercises into a list and then distribute the exercises into a complete workout.

33. FitView: For $5.99 you can get a quick, accessible way to review your workout history and progress. FitView allows you to store a wide range of fitness-related information right on your iPhone. With the option to input several profiles, you can keep track of your activities, vital stats, and trends.

34. Diamedic: Any athlete with diabetes should look into this app. For $5.00, it offers a solution to easily record glucose readings, insulin injections, medications, lab results, carbs, weight, and exercise workouts on the go. It also has useful graphs and the option to email to yourself or your doctor.

35. Gym Goal Lite: This app puts a massive workout encyclopedia in the palm of your hand, allowing you to control and customize every aspect of your gym-based fitness routine. The home screen is divided into workouts and exercises, along with a tip of the day. For $4.99, it also comes with many other workout and fitness features.

36. aSleep: The original sleep machine for iPhone, 200,000 users around the world have chosen this. Relax and listen to the sounds of nature and suave melodies that will help you to fall asleep, practice meditation, yoga, or to release stress. For only $0.99, you can get 40 included melodies.

37. Weightbot: Use this attractive app to keep track of your weight over time or to work toward a target weight. Type in your current weight, goal, and Weightbot will help you keep track of it easily and discreetly. Available for $3.99.

38. Yoga Stretch: This app consists of traditional yoga poses sequencing with a Vinyasa flow. For only $1.99, it is designed to improve strength, balance, posture and flexibility. Sessions can be programmed to last anywhere from one to 60 minutes.

39. Yoga Stretch Lite: For the same price, you can get this application as a lighter version of the above. Each pose comes with a detailed description, along with its benefits.

40. Yoga Relax: This yoga app caters to a gentler morning or night session that benefits all levels. Sessions are customizable from one to 36 minutes with over 35 Yoga moves. Also available for $1.99, you can turn on an audio instructor to maximize your sessions.

41. Running Trainer: Whether just beginning or a professional, this app has something for the avid runner. Train for a marathon, mini-marathon, or more. With different charges for different apps, you can get a trainer for 5k, 10k, 15k, or Lite.

42. White Noise: Need something relaxing to workout to, do yoga with, or help you fall asleep? Then download this app for $1.99 for tons of relaxing music. With over 40 sounds to choose from, you can get crashing waves, chimes, rain, the fireplace, and much more.

43. iPeriod: For ladies only, this app allows you to keep track of your menstrual cycles. Use icons, colors, and more to keep track of your schedule and maintain your health. It also predicts future cycles, ovulation, and fertility.

44. One Hundred Pushups: Think that�s too much for you? Then follow this six week program to increase strength and produce the aforementioned results. Available for a measly $0.99, you can also learn how to lose belly fats, increase squats, and more.

45. Two Hundred Sit-ups: If you�re serious about increasing your core strength, follow this six week training program and you�ll soon be on your way to completing 200 consecutive sit-ups. From the makers of the push up program, you can download this app currently for $0.99. You can also get a link to an initial test to see where you are.

46. Pedometer: Why bother with a bulky pedometer when you can turn your iPhone into one for $2.99? Pedometer allows you to track your steps, distance, and calories burnt. It also allows music to be played through your iPhone.

47. iWatchr: Specifically intended for Weight Watchers, this app can be used to count the calories of just about any food imaginable. It also comes with a food journal and favorites section. For only $0.99, you can also count nutrients such as fat, fiber, and protein.

48. Phone Aid: Athletes often encounter the risk of injury or emergency situations. Learn what to do in everything for five major first aid emergencies, and even lesser ones, such as a bee sting. Retailing at $1.99, you can also view a demonstration video.

49. iTrainer: This app is just like having a trainer work with you. Each iTrainer workout is automatically downloaded and synchronized using iTunes. From stretching to uplifting house music for running and weights, you can find a ton of workouts. Starting at $29.95 a month, you can also view a demonstrational video.

50. Limeade: Whether you want to use this app for yourself or for your office, limeade can help. It spans six different areas of well being, including physical health. For a varying monthly cost, you can get in shape, find balance, lose weight, and much more.

Just wow. Thanks again to the Phyiscal Therapy Assistant Schools website for the list!

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10 Best Gym iPhone Applications

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:19:52 -0700

10 Best Gym iPhone Applications

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I have been saying for a while that there is nothing you can’t find in iTunes app store. That includes killer health applications that let you get more fit and healthy. Gym applications are one of my favorite app categories on iTunes. Whether you want to use phone to track your daily workout or just want to learn new exercises, iTunes has an app for you.

Here are 10 top gym applications that let you get more out of your iPhone:

1. GymGoal: one of the best fitness applications for iPhone that lets you keep track of your measurements and comes with a large workout database.

2. Gym Buddy: Gym Buddy allows you to keep track of your daily workouts easily.

3. iFitness: is an exercise database that comes with complete instructions and demonstrations to teach you how to work out the right way.

4. Fitness Builder: another cool application that lets you learn new exercises and figure out what you have been doing wrong in your workout sessions.

5. GymTracker: manage your goals, define your own exercise routine, and stay on track with your iPhone.

6. Gym Now: it’s a cool app that helps you add to your daily routine and build a more fit body.

7. Gym Tracker: lets you choose from your 100 exercises to design your very own routines.

8. MyTrainer - Fitness: just let the app know which area of your body you want to work out, and it will provide you with a list of exercise you should pursue.

9. Go Learn Fitness: another decent application that teaches you exactly how to get your workout done! You get video demonstration of what you need to do to get the biggest bang from your workout.

10. Gym Fanatic: a cool application that lets you log your workouts and stay on the right track. If you spend a lot of time in the gym, this comes handy.

Are you a Gym junkie? What’s your favorite health & fitness application for iPhone?

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Do You Have These 11 Traits of Highly Creative People?

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:52:55 -0700

Do You Have These 11 Traits of
Highly Creative People?

by Dean Rieck

Would you like to be more creative in your copy and blogging? It’s really not as hard or mysterious as you might think.

One roadblock that prevents many people from boosting their creativity is the notion that creativity is linked to intelligence. Another roadblock is the idea that creative people are born that way. So if you’re not super smart or born with the creative “gift,” the natural reaction is to shrug your shoulders and give up.

However, research has shown that once you get slightly above an average I.Q., intelligence and creativity are not related. So you could be a genius and display little creativity or have fairly average intelligence and wield amazing creative powers.

To a great degree, creativity is a learned behavior. It’s a matter of how you approach things, how you act or react to new circumstances, your proclivity to look at things in different ways, your willingness to question, experiment, and take chances. In other words, creativity is not “what you are” as much as “what you do.”

Think of creativity as a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. To increase your creativity, you simply need to “act” like a creative person. Not surprisingly, people recognized as creative tend to share common traits.

Highly creative people:

Have the COURAGE to try new things and risk failure. Every big breakthrough starts as a harebrained idea. This doesn’t mean you should constantly go off the deep end, just that you should balance your routine portfolio of solutions with an investment in the new and untried. Over time, the risk is usually worth the reward.
Use INTUITION as well as logic to make decisions and produce ideas. When Matt Drudge designed his Web site, he listened to his gut instead of the Internet gurus. He kept it simple, small, fast, and some would say ugly and primitive. But it works for him, making The Drudge Report one of the most recognizable and popular sites in the world.
Like to PLAY, since humor and fun are the ultimate creative act. Which is to say you just have to lighten up. We all have goals, and quotas, and deadlines, but it’s not life and death. When you enjoy yourself, your brain relaxes and is able to produce more and better ideas. One of those ideas may be just what you’re looking for.
Are EXPRESSIVE and willing to share what they feel and think, to be themselves. Blogging is the ideal arena for injecting your personality into your work. People are emotional creatures and respond better to people who appear real, honest, and open. Not only is it more interesting, it can also be more persuasive.
Can FIND ORDER in confusion and discover hidden meaning in information. Research and critical thinking are key tools for the creative person. Information is to the brain what food is to the stomach. So-called “writer’s block” or creative burnout almost always results from a lack of fresh information and having nothing meaningful to say.
Are MOTIVATED BY A TASK rather than by external rewards. You must like the challenge of writing, explaining, teaching, and persuading. Sure, you can make money along the way, but if you’re in it just for the money, you’re not going to be a fountain of new ideas.
Have a need to FIND SOLUTIONS to challenging problems. Even the most creative writers won’t have a solution for everything. If they claim to, they’ve stopped thinking. Highly creative people are those whose eyes light up at a question they can’t answer. That’s the opportunity to learn something new and produce remarkably creative content.
Will CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS and ask hard questions to discover what is real. Writing, blogging, or business rules aren’t really rules, only rules of thumb. If you want to wield true creative power, you will always take what others advise with a grain of salt. (That includes all of us gurus who love to don our pointy wizard hats and pontificate on the secrets of success.) If you don’t know something from personal knowledge or experience, you don’t know it at all.
Can MAKE CONNECTIONS between old ideas to produce new insights. Combine the little doodles you make on a white board with online video and you get CommonCraft, a new approach to explaining things to people in a way they can easily understand. Sometimes the best solutions are simply two old ideas jammed together.
Will PUSH THE ENVELOPE in order to expand the boundaries of what is possible. There was a time when no one thought you could make money on the Internet. Now it’s a huge, multi-national business platform. Instead of dividing the world into the possible and impossible, it’s better to merely divide it into the tried and the untried. What have you not tried yet?
Are willing to TEST new ideas and compete with others based on results. Isn’t that what they mean by the “market of ideas”? Isn’t that what business competition is about? If you’re afraid of being wrong or losing, your creativity will suffer.

These are certainly uncommon traits for most people. But they’re not difficult. Watch how the creative people you know solve problems and deal with projects. You may choose one particularly creative person you admire and, when faced with a problem, ask yourself, “What would so-and-so do in this situation?”

As you begin to “act” like a creative person, you’ll find yourself actually becoming more and more creative. And likely, more and more successful.

http://www.copyblogger.com/highly-creative-people/

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How Twitter can improve your health & fitness

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:24:03 -0700

How Twitter can improve your health & fitness

Posted on 21. Jul, 2009 by admin in Twitter

We found out the other day that Twitter can help you be more productive, today we look at health and fitness apps to see if Twitter can improve your health (of course you actually have to work out, Twitter’s not that good. yet.) We also take a look at the top health & fitness twitterers for you to follow.

Web Apps

1. Twackit – You can use Twackit to keep a record of any metric you like, such as your weight, distance ran etc. Tweets and records are organised by way of hash tags.

2. Tweet a Run – Looks to be a great web app for runners, I cant wait to try it out (Im currently injured!). You login after a run, select a distance ran with sliding controls and save it – you run gets tweeted out with a hash tag and the app keeps a record of all your runs for you.

3. Tweet what you eat – Twitter comes in for stick sometimes about the amount of people tweeting about what they just ate, well now there is a whole app for it! Tweet what you eat acts as a food diary and logs the calories of what you enter for people on calorie controlled diets.

4. Food Feed – Another way to keep track of your eating habits, Users get their own profile page which records the food you have eaten.

5. Ugomo – An advanced app for letting you log different types of workouts. You can log, type of sport, duration, heart rate, time, date and view numerous graphs and statistics from your account.

6. Tweetplot – A simple service for logging metrics from which you can then generate a graph.

7. GtFtr – An app to log various forms of exercise

8. I did my bestest – “Tweet your distance, time, and notes and we’ll chart your data, compare to other users, etc.”

9. W8Track – Keep a record of weight (loss) via this simple web app

10. Twitfitter – A Ning based, fitness community for twitter users. “TwitFitter is the place for fitness enthusiasts and fitness professionals to motivate each other to work out, stay healthy, and get fitter.”

Top Health & Fitness Twitter users

1. @Goodhealth – Health.com magazine’s twitter feed

2. @Highwindfitness – Promoting, encouraging, and educating fitness, health, and nutrition

3. @FastMuscleGain – Muscle gain ,weight loss and fitness expert

4. @Health_Coach – My passion is natural healing using the latest in nutritional and dietary interventions

5. @JillianMichaels – Jillian Michaels Online – Visit the website of TVs Toughest Trainer. You don’t need to be a contestant on The Biggest Loser to reach your potential!

6. @FitnessMagazine – FITNESS Magazine: Changing the conversation from ’skinny’ to ‘healthy’ and helping you embrace fitness as a lifestyle

7. @lisajohnson – Fitness Industry since ‘97, Owner of Modern Pilates since ‘99. Fitness blogger, Greenie, Mom, Photographer, Golfer, Wanna-Be Fashionista, Happy Almost Always

8. @JoeGigantino – itness, Motivation, Wellness, Inspiration, Workout, Health Clubs, Communicator, Visionary, Entrepreneur, Family, Health, Nutrition, Love, Passion, Purpose

9. @runnersworld – Twitter account for Runnersworld.com magazine.

10. @WomensHealthMag – Women’s Health is your ultimate guide to looking and feeling great. We’ll bring you the latest in health, fitness, sex, beauty and more

11. @MensHealthMag – Men’s Guide to Fitness, Health, Weight Loss, Nutrition, Sex, Style, and Guy Wisdom

12. @FitBusyPeople – Ultra-busy father of two, busy exec, fat loss coach and certified trainer helping people change their lives w/fast & effective workouts and fitness advice

13. @JamesWorkout – I am a 43 year old hardgainer . Exercising like a madman. I Tweet all my workouts ,its a bit much but it does motivate me .NEVER TO LATE!

14. @BodyForWife – Fitness author of Body for Wife: The Family Guy’s Guide to Getting in Shape. Sarcastic, witty, and politically incorrect health, diet and exercise advice

15. @losethefatnow – am an Indepentant BeachBody Coach currently going thru P90X. Check out my site I have a free one on one video coaching program

16. @LegitMuscle – My blog Legit Muscle teaches you how to use diet, supplements and training to maximize muscle gains and get in the shape you want.

17. @skwigg – Fitness blogger. Dog mom. Work in TV. Love scifi, MMA, kettlebells, TRX, Pilates, BlackBerry, Mac. Also, I run in flip-flops and spill things.

18. @tomvenuto – Author. Passionate about bodybuilding, fitness, personal development, writing, reading, science, psychology and helping you get healthy and LEAN the natural way

19. @Fitcoach2007 – Creator of YourWeightLossMentor.com, Husband, Father, Christian, Fitness Wellness Anti-Aging Coach, Healthy Cooking, Firefighter Paramedic, Internet Marketer

20. @lomak1985 – Fitness is very important to me, and I like to help others get in shape for free

That concludes our roundup – as always if you know of more health & fitness apps or websites we have missed please leave links in the comments.

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How Twitter can improve your health & fitness

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:23:47 -0700

How Twitter can improve your health & fitness

Posted on 21. Jul, 2009 by admin in Twitter