“If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t BIG enough!”
Below are 3 new articles that I have made special note of this week that you need to digest.
7 Essential Tools Every Startup Can Afford – By Peter Daisyme. I love this article not only because it is practical and spells out apps or sites that you can utilize to gain access to low cost solutions that can be extremely useful to your business. I personally am all about bootstrapping not only for my business but also for the business that I consult with. The mantra in just about any organization that has been in business for more than a year is that they are the shit, and if they need certain services to be performed for them they are going to hire a “professional” who just happens to live near them. This “professional” most likely will not be able to give you the quality product that you think to expect from that person you hired. The reason is that the sites mentioned in this article are specialties. They perform their service and they do it in a flawless manner. If they don’t you FIRE THEM! That is the beauty of outsourcing! You can get rid of crap workers just by going all Donald Trump Apprentice Style on them! Otherwise when you hire “talent” to do this work in house for you, you probably have to waste time counseling them on their work until your eye balls bleed because the 30 day probationary period that you give to all new employees has passed before they even started to figure out what you need from them.
I personally have used Elance.com on several occasions for things like website development, access database development, and press release writing. I have been extremely happy with the work that each of the freelancers that I have worked with have performed and I would be happy to recommend them to anyone looking for like kind services.
I am also really excited to try some of the sites listed in the article, and I highly suggest that you do as well!
Can You Regale People at a Party with the Way You Run Your Firm – by Greg Kyte. – This guy slays me. I absolutely love his take on ideals of running your firm through examples of him working with his daughter on a science fair project. The line that summarized the entire article for me was “What if you ran your firm in a manner that was worth commenting on?” I won’t spoil the rest of the article for you, but it is definitely worth a read.
7 Habits That Maximize Your Productivity Every Day – by Adam Toren. I am a huge proponent of productivity hacks. If you have a process that makes things easier or faster to complete, I want to know about it. Two things that I personally do are first, #1 – Start Your Day the Night Before; where I am active in making lists of things that I need to do the next day. By having a paper notebook that allows for a list each day I find that I can accomplish so much more than if I had to remember every little item. This goes so far as; buy some toilet paper, call the wife, “[insert motivational quote here] such as “Crush the Board Meeting”… I realize the notebook is not the most savvy way to get it done but for me its the best way to optimize my day.
The second is #3 – Tame Your Brain. Just recently I have been trying to utilize the app Calm on a regular basis to help me meditate. Believe me, when your day is turning into a cluster, the one thing that will help your temples in your head or face feel like they are on vacation is a quick meditation session. The one thing that you should know about meditation is that you don’t just start doing it and everything goes perfectly. Like any sport it takes practice. I personally can only get up to 15 minutes before I need to mix it up. But those 15 minutes are starting to make a huge difference on my productively throughout the day.
The final thing I will mention in the area of productivity is to check out the books / posts / podcasts of Tim Ferriss. I am currently addicted to his podcast which may be one of the best I have ever heard. I highly recommend anything that has his name on it.
Until next time!
