What a great weekend! In part due to the incredible 1st ride of the season, and in part because of the system I have in place to run my business while I am out enjoying myself! If you’ve been following me on Twitter , then you know this was our first "kick off" ride of the season, which we host. We have a number of couples from out of town stay with us for the weekend, and then other local friends join us on a day long ride through Lake County. We end up riding about 180 miles through beautiful vineyards, foothills, and lake areas. Then back to our place for a big BBQ. We encountered some incredibly hot weather - 102 degrees - very hot for this early in the season, but everyone still had a great time!
When you begin a new project or become interested in a new idea, do you have an insatiable desire to learn more about it? Do you find yourself buying - and reading - every book, report, newsletter, and magazine you can find on the subject? (That’s what I do.)
In the beginning, it feels great. You are riding high. Then, all of a sudden, you realize that you’ve become an information junkie. You’ve been spending so much time reading about whatever it is you want to do that you don’t have any time left to actually do it. You feel like crying for help.
Bob Bly calls this “analysis paralysis.”
“All the information you are taking in has overloaded your circuits,” he says. “You can’t process it all, sort through it, and figure out what to do first. So, instead, you do nothing. You take no action - other than to order yet another course or report to read.”
My last post talked about my introduction to the Livescribe Pulse Pen at my Mastermind meeting. In addition to that cool little “tool”, I was able to play with the Amazon Kindle 2 . I hadn’t paid too much attention to the first version when it came out, because I’m a fan of actually holding a book when I want to read. Also, I’m not sure whether I’d use it more for personal than business. Admittedly though, some of the features really impressed me:
There are several sizes of fonts to choose from. It’s easy to change the size and the color tones used are easy on the eyes. (I think they should add an option for a “backlit” screen so you could read at night without a light)
There is access to an on-line dictionary and Wikipedia for those occasions you are needing more information on a word, term or topic
You can also do some Internet searches (it’s not as powerful as a computer) but it did pull up a number of blogs we searched!
This is one of my favorite features - the speech-to-text . While it is still somewhat robotic, it’s really not too bad. So when you are driving you can still make progress on the book you’re “reading” by listening to it. The next version of “books on tape”! (Did I mention you can speed it up or slow it down, change the volume and listen with headphones?) Publishers have a choice to offer this feature
Huge selection of books, magazines and daily newspapers to download. Many are free, but most have a charge that seems reasonable
I still like to have the ability to highlight parts of books I want to come back to for reference. While they do have a feature to do this, it only underlines the parts to “highlight”. It would be nice if they could add a color to it. One plus though, you can choose to email the designated highlights (so you can set up documents on your computer with just the items you want to save for reference)
Here’s a short video that will explain more of the features to you – note the size, battery life and other tips
Does this type of product have personal or business interest to you? Let me know if you use one and what your experiences have been.
If you’d like more information here’s a convenient link for you:
Last week was a blur with business activities, classes and preparing for my Mastermind Group which consisted of 3 days away sharing marketing strategies, business goals and objectives, as well as tips & tricks. Much of the time was spent on being exposed to some of the “new” technologies (for me anyway…..) that may be used to not only stay ahead of the curve, but to also assist with streamlining certain business tasks potentially taking your business to the next level.
One of my favorites was the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen. While this is marketed predominately to students and journalists, those of us who attend live events, trainings and seminars will benefit from it as well. A couple of the key features are:
You can transfer digital copies of your notes directly to your computer;
While you are taking handwritten notes you can record what is being said at the same time;
You have the ability to replay any of the recordings by clicking on a word and it will “find” the associated audio;
You can share notes and collaborate with others online by loading both the handwritten notes and audio
Take a look at this short video which explains the features and benefits of this pen in more detail, as I barely scratched the surface…..
There have been numerous reviews of the pen over the last 6 months, including those which can be found at continue reading »
Yes, she was a victim of allowing too much paperwork to accumulate and it got out of control causing her to be overwhelmed to the point of inaction. She felt trapped in her home-based business and a slave to her home office ! Does this have a familiar ring to it? Can you say YES , to any of these?
I have a couple of books I’m reading and they’re stacked up
I have a few books sitting out that I’ve been using for reference
I have stacks of miscellaneous articles or ‘tagged” magazine pages to file away for future reference (did you know that in actuality 80% of them, we never go back to use!)
I have printed off documents and receipts to file for tax preparation (so much for the “digital” world!)
My bulletin board has so much on it, the reminders and priorities and affirmations are lost in the mess
Have you felt the correlation between a messy area and being stressed? That unspoken pressure when you sit at your desk to focus on something, but there’s a shadow hanging over you….. something that continue reading »
For those of you looking for a recap of Darren Hardy’s article for Workaholics , his 4th step is now ready to read. But to recap, here are the first 3 steps, (in case you’re just joining us)
* Figure out the things you need to stop doing
* Learn to set and protect boundaries
* How to separate effectiveness from efficiency
In step four, Darren reviews how we are bombarded with information constantly, to the point where it could be putting us on major overload. The point he stresses is to get in control of what you want to process in your mind. I agree with it conceptually…. positive attracts positive, negative attracts… well, you get it. The tough part is really doing it and sorting what is needed, and what’s not. He has some great tips on how to accomplish this.
Have you ever encountered a situation where sticky notes or sheets of paper are all over your desk, in your brief case, in your car, or just laying around waiting to be incorporated into an idea? What happens when you take the time to put them all on paper as a marketing plan, or a proposal? Do you spend most of your valuable time that you had “allocated” to just gathering all of your notes in one place and sorting through them?
Even seasoned project management professionals have fallen into this trap occasionally…. Most things you encounter in your business that require putting some thought to, are probably not resolved with a linear process. I’m accustomed to using project management software for timelines and tasks, but it is pretty limited when it comes to capturing ideas. I was recently introduced to some software that is amazing, and I had to share it with you! (It’s been around for quite some time, just new to me) Think about a product that helps you organize your thoughts by using a mind mapping technology which you can communicate information by using an intuitive visual canvas. continue reading »
In the next step Darren reviews the importance of going in the right direction of your goals versus focusing on the speed of getting there . I happen to agree with him on this point. It doesn’t do much good to be going like crazy, throwing marketing materials out right and left, if they’re not continue reading »
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