I’m a tool hoarder. I’m an app junkie….I can’t help myself when a new website, app, or service springs up promising me untold productivity, informational, or business riches. I sign up, I bookmark, and I try to make the best use of them as I can. I’ve found some great ones lately, but haven’t shared them with you, until now.

Some tools you just can’t live without, it’s not necessarily because they are the all around best, (sometimes it is) but often times it’s because they fit your workflow, your clients needs, or your specific needs.

I’m laying out some recent and awesome finds below, along with a one or two-liner on what I use or have used them for.

They fall into the categories of productivity, time management, life automation, information mining and expanding your capabilities. Most are online service applications, some are desktop download and install applications.

I truly hope you find some gems below, special thanks to Noah Kagan’s @appsumo for shedding so much light in this area, your service (and newsletter) is a gold mine.

• InboundWriter – live updating SEO analyzing of your writing. i think this will get huge, especially if you do a lot optimizing for keywords
• Gist – link up your networks, it pulls your contacts then scours the web for info on them. great datamining tool, and contact sync tool.
• 750 Words – a no rules, empty your mind by writing website. i’m finding it really really helpful. i’ve never been able to “journal” but this just go and type website has something to it that has me sticking to it.
• Evernote – ok so i’ve shared this before, it’s so great though, how are you not using it?
• Sparrow – switched from Apple Mail to Sparrow since my e-mail is Google Apps/iCloud based, i haven’t looked back. it’s faster, a smoother, and searches better.
• Focusbar – tiny Mac application that pleasantly annoys you with something you’ve told it you want to focus on. it’s actually bringing me back to my goals until i accomplish them when i sit down to do something that needs a chunk of time.
• Google Docs Spreadsheet Forms – use this for information capture everywhere.
• Buffer – find yourself spamming your twitter account then not using it for a while? use buffer to pace out your tweets really easily, more easily that Hootsuite
• ifttt – this is a powerful automation tool. it’s like if you had access to every website services API (the stuff they use to talk to other things) and can do basic functions with them. the website name stands for if this then that and it’s all about tasks and triggers. it’s saving me time.
• Hello Bar – easy call to action implementation, just reminded me i need to put this back on itarsenal.com
• Ge.tt – super low friction, no account needed, unlimited space boo they  moved to a pay model with only 2GB free file sharing. Use dropbox instead.
• ManageWP – i don’t want to tell anyone about this so i’ll be cryptic. if you manage more than one WP install, you don’t want to click this.
• ScheduleOnce – easy google calendar integration appointment scheduling. see in action here – http://itarsenal.com/scheduler/
• Join.Me – web-based, free, screen sharing. alternative – teamviewer.com
• LinkedIn Answers – a new forum for showcasing your expertise, and getting referrals, or new users from it.
• Facebook Groups – i created a group for feedback and invited a bunch of people, the involvement was rapid and bigger than i expected. try it for data mining.
• App Sumo – treasure trove of time sensitive deep discount deals for business oriented training and software
• Newsmap – i don’t keep up with news very well, this literally makes a size map of all the news going on. things with more articles on the entire web show as bigger, meaning it’s easy to see what’s happening very very quickly. tip: you can easily narrow it down to juse US, or just Tech, etc.

Cheers!

I finally had a minute to sit down and read the latest e-mail i received from the m6 method guys and what they are producing. i mean this in the nicest way, these guys are retarded.

i can’t believe the quality of the information they release, or how they are able to hit the nail on the head so well with their information. i read it, and seriously said, “wow, these guys are retarded”…while that is probably the most uneducated, improper, un-intelligent usage of the term…i never the less said it, out-loud, to which my fiance then asked “what?” and i then looked literally retarded as i explained.

i’ve been working on a post to explain all about their main product (m6 method), and actually go out and chill with these guys as they live near my home town, a few miles outside philadelphia. they are the real deal. while i still plan to do that, after reading this latest e-mail, i had to get something out there.

i’m not going to screw with you, below is almost a verbatim suggested e-mail swipe letter they sent out. it’s so good, i really have no reason to touch it. (take some notes, it’s well written)

their latest offering is over the should style video’s that show you how to create a digital product the RIGHT way. the first one focuses on taking expertise and turning it into product.

i know personally this is a lot of you, and it’s also myself right now. we all look inward at first when developing our first few products, what are we good at?, what can we explain and package up?, these videos breakdown how to take that and package it up well enough to sell it.

no more words from me, check it out.

Subject:

How to transform your expertise into a profitable product

Body:

Hey,

I’m going to share a link with today because frankly, you’re about
to see something I’d have killed for when I started online. (no joke)

My friends David & Derek over at M6 Method have started filming
over-the-shoulder style videos on creating online ‘information
products’. They call it ‘M6 Sessions’. (I can actually say this literally as I’ve hung out with David on more than one occasion, one time at aWeber’s headquarters for chris guillebeau’s book tour)

See Here for the Sessions.

In M6 Sessions David & Derek explain, all the things you should
be doing to create a product – the right way.

It’s like “reality TV” for product creation – except this will make
you smarter, not dumber, for watching it.

Learning “over the shoulder” style is one of the fastest, smartest
ways to replicate what works, and grasp ‘why’.

They’re giving you a way to watch and model their process (the m6 method, which i’ve mentioned a bunch and use myself), using real-world examples from inside their publishing company.

• The first session is titled: “Transforming Expertise Into Products”.
• This is going to help any of you who have specialized knowledge, dying to create your own information product around it.
• For those without valuable expertise, you’ll learn how you can work/partner with  an expert to create a product.

You can “publish” an expert. If you’re the expert, you’re just
“publishing yourself”. It’s the same process.

Registration is open for just a few days so go enroll for the first
one if you want to check it out:

See Here for the Sessions.

—

If nothing else, use the above as a good template for how to write a solid marketing e-mail.

Resources Mentioned: Matt Garland, Chris Guillebeau , Ramit Sethi, M6 Method, Blogcast FM

Today’s post is on the wisdom of others in the area’s of time management, monetizing your website, traffic, getting started, and being better. I’m passing on the gems I’ve found from the last week of reading, conversation, and online business building. These things stand out for effectiveness. Business updates very soon, lot’s to explain.

Time Management Boost

Want an effective time management tool?

Create a “Stop Doing Now” list, print it out and pin it up. Much more effecting than a todo list. Here’s mine.

• not getting 7 hours of sleep
• leaving e-mail open, just cause i can
• working on things that don’t impact sales or deliverables (for IT Arsenal)
• ignoring the necessity to just sit still and reflect on a regular basis
• having more than 3 windows/tabs open
• slouching (literally), it kills your back
• thinking too much, and acting too little
• being unexcited about everything

credit: Chris Guillebeau

Getting Started

• If blogging, try selling just a course, or ebook first to keep your mind focused on business output (Ramit Sethi)
• Be different, how? Voice, style, model. What’s your thing? (Ramit Sethi)
• Try to offer someone something in every interaction, the smallest thing to offer, something you wrote on topic, or a related link to help (Ramit Sethi)
• Start a newsletter right away, no questions asked. Even if you don’t have content for months down the line. Offer a specific download or promise (Ramit Sethi)
• Be genuine with people, but strategic (Matt Garland)
• Build alliances with people (Matt Garland)
• Don’t compare yourself, there’s no point (Matt Garland)
• Develop a backlog of content so pieces have continuity (Matt Garland)

Generating Traffic

• Tell the right people about your product and site, NOT everyone (Ramit Sethi)
• Early on, spend a majority of your time connecting, thats it (Ramit Sethi)
• People like series, or timed content (Ramit Sethi)
• Be aware of your content, don’t train audience not to buy. (IE, start a website on being frugal) (Ramit Sethi)

Monetization

• Consult first, then create a course of product (Matt Garland)
• Trigger: It’s time to create something if people are e-mailing you asking for more (Ramit Sethi)
• Tactic: “Don’t buy if….” for sales (Ramit Sethi)
• Price is more than price, it infers expectations. If you’re cheap, people think you’re product is cheap, and not in a good way (Ramit Sethi)
• Fill a need as low on Maslow’s Hierarchy as you can, base needs, social needs, psycholical (M6 Method)
• Passive income is fake, front loaded work hard and have it pay off repeatedly is the reality (Ramit Sethi)

Online business updates are coming soon. A lot of good changes have happened, including altering my model to finally address one very specific need (at a time), receiving three sales before anything was even publicly announced, and finally feeling the business presence that was missing. What changed, actions I’m taking now, and how it happened in the next report. Yeeha.

I’m interested, if you took a quick inventory now, what would be on your “Stop Doing Now” list?

Today’s post will analyze the psychology of why e-mails with all the right information get ignored, deleted, and un-answered and offer tips on how to avoid having this happen when e-mailing those A-listers who can help make your online efforts a success. Hint: It’s not just because they’re too long.

Why You Get Ignored

I’ve always been an incredibly detailed person. If you’ve read any other posts here, you know that. In technology, and most other areas of my life this seems to be an advantage, yet in my experience with CEO’s, business owners, and upper management, I have continually noticed that the less specific, less detailed, spelling error filled, bullet point style is not only how they respond, but how they prefer information.

Knowing this, and acting accordingly will grow your business.

I however ignored this, or explained it away for a long time, even discrediting how someone could get as far as they have with such horrible incomplete, un-specific, no-context, misspelled information. I may have known it, but I certainly didn’t act accordingly. The regular e-mails I exchange with successful company partners are 2 lines at most. Having an intimate look at several people’s e-mail, and their 500+ e-mail inbox, people don’t read past the first few lines. Yet, how this effects me never really sunk in.

I can’t ignore it any longer.

I’ve been ousted on Ramit Sethi’s blog in an e-mail I wrote to him years ago, and most recently in an e-mail conversation with Noah Kagan, (previously of Mint.com and Facebook, currently behind AppSumo.com). I was blatently confronted for a 2 page e-mail I wrote explaining all the details of where I’m at, and plans to improve, seeking guidance (he offered to help). I thought it was eloquent, specific and drew the whole picture. His response? Use less words, I can’t respond if you write like that.

For the first time it hit me square in the head, no one will ever e-mail me back anything useful if I give them a “64oz super size cup of me”, most especially in a first contact e-mail. But there’s more to it than that…everyone knows to keep e-mail short…

The Psychology

I wanted to know why it has to be like this, is every “important” person really so incredibly busy that they can’t put effort into an e-mail? How can I deal with technology, a very detailed oriented topic and move forward? I started to pick apart some of the people in leadership positions, either owning a business, or several businesses, or leading presentations, or in general making something happen…a certain personality type and set of characteristics presented themselves.

In the Myers Briggs personality breakdown it looked a lot like ENTJ, and because of my background with Insights, I know these to be very “Red Yellow”, but what does that mean?

I won’t bore you with the long details, you can look them up, but it basically means these people have an innate (or learned) preference to get to the point, then move on, and to be included when something is happening. They have an innate (or learned) disregard about the details, or emotional elements when they aren’t a necessity for action. Even if they are, they just want the gist from someone they trust. This makes for a great visionary, and provides action oriented behavior.

*The different “preferences” all have strengths and weaknesses but that’s not the point here.

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure HOW they get things done or to their status sometimes, as my preference leads me down all the details to which they ignore, but the fact remains, the heads of companies operate in this manner. There are of course exceptions, but this seems to be the standard. They find others to be detailed or hold morale, or move past it however possible. The key fact is that they are able to create action consistently.

I’ve experienced this closely at my 9-5 where I not only work with the founders and several high powered consultants, but during our large conventions working with panel speakers and leaders from some of the worlds top companies. Even more closely I’ve noticed this in the A-listers I’ve had the privilege to exchange e-mails with over the last year or so of online business exploration.

E-mail

This preference bleeds over into e-mail. It’s not that they can’t spell (although they’ll notice it if someone else can’t) or have very little attention span. They simply identify these things as unnecessary, more information is seen as useless or not action oriented and so they move on.

This is hard for me to swallow. I operate out of a systems oriented, the more details the smoother the whole operation will go, mindset. Always create as much context as possible, everywhere. Almost all the tech I work with requires high details. I’m baffled how people in certain positions operate in life when they don’t know how anything works.

Guess what, it’s not essential to be successful or happy, it may help, or it may even hurt, but it’s not essential. It takes more than just reading that to really understand it if you struggle with it like me.

I’ll admit, I get so enamored with the process, that sometimes by the end, the goal I wanted to accomplish has changed, and I have to start all over. What can I do?

Learning a New Preference

I will forever be detailed, it’s in my nature. I’ll be able to create context and cover all the tiny what if’s and’s or but’s. It’s my preference, but it doesn’t mean in any way, shape, or form that it’s the only way I can operate. Our characteristics can be molded, and adapted, our minds are quite capable of this. We need to master several ways of “being” to get where we want to be.

In order to get noticed, communicate and act with certain individuals (reaping their networking benefits and wisdom), you’re going to have to learn to cut out all the details, get to the point, still offer value, and leave it at that. If people want more details, they’ll ask for it. Salespages work similar to this. All people won’t be like this, you won’t write a pen pal like this, but for business and networking your way up it’s essential.

Hopefully hearing some of the psychology behind it, you’ll be able to shape your communication effectively, I know I’ve finally seen some light. I consider it a skill to master in interaction now. Here are some thoughts to help.

• Consider who you’re e-mailing before you start typing
• Use bullet points
• Try a service like Five Sentences which gives you a preset window with only 5 lines
• Attach “extra” details to a document, they can ignore it if they want. Leave essential information out
• Make it a game, how valuable can you make your words?
• Cut your e-mail into sections, a “short version” and “long version”

Do you identify with this? Or are you one of those 3 liner types? Did you have to adapt? Can you add any other tips?

photo credit: Robert S. Donovan

Today, I’d like to share the story of a website called BlogcastFM, but really a story about relationship fueling an invaluable resource for your personal and business growth from a friend named Srinivas (and his partner Sid). A resource so useful, it makes your business books and Amazon book wishlist a whole lot less important.

The Short Story

Srini and I met when he asked me for an interview probably around 200 or so days ago, before he had even launched his website BlogcastFM. We talked on building a 4 hour work week type lifestyle and some automation tactics I was playing with at the time. We’ve brainstormed here and there and stayed in touch ever since.

I’ve been reading a book called the The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea, based on powerful business concepts around you guessed it, giving. As I was jotting down notes one day, going through the mental grind of trying to re-fresh my own online business efforts, a topic you know all too well, I frequently caught Srinivas online to reflect on business, and enjoying life.

BlogcastFM, an interview podcast website started in February 2010 as a byproduct of a weekly series on his personal blog called Interviews with up and Coming Bloggers. Midway through the interview series one of the bloggers he interviewed, Sid Savara, emailed Srini about starting a site where all we did was interview bloggers and have them share what has made them successful.

The concept was born from relationship and giving and they’ve captured amazing free content, a venerable treasure trove of information for your personal and business lifestyle.

I last talked to Srini about a recent speech he gave at Pepperdine University to MBA students, I noticed it wasn’t a paid talk, he was doing this to give back, to give. As we talked about a recent survey I launched, he offered to jump on Skype and talk through some suggestions. Wow, who has offered to do that with you lately?

The months carried on, I finished the book and Srini and BlogcastFM made a big announcement about their podcast website and a higher level service they’re rolling out called BlogcastFM Premium. I immediately thought, how can I help, how can I see more of this, and without mentioning a thing, Sid and Srini reached out and offered me a preview of what they are trying to do.

As honored as I was, I again saw giving exemplified in their business model, and it reflects in how successful they’re becoming, the valuable relationships they’ve developed and the quality production they’ve put on. I was reminded specifically how they’re using the 5 laws of stratospheric success from the Go Giver book.

So as I go on to recommend, no -strongly urge- learning more about their audio interviews with award winning entrepreneurs, renowned lifestyle designers, authors and bloggers, complete with action workflows for you to apply the content, I want to recognize these 5 laws of stratospheric success (or 5 laws of success) in their work.

The Law of Value

• Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.

The Law of Compensation

• Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.

The Law of Influence

• Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.

The Law of Authenticity

• The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.

The Law of Receptivity

• The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.

It’s because I see these laws in their actions that I stand behind gushing praise on them. We all know there are countless audio programs, podcasts, and multi-media content websites online. I myself struggle to listen to audio as it demands more attention then text but BlogcastFM stands out because it bleeds pure value, and it’s built on relationship.

The Incredible Resource

There’s no better way you can spend your website development (or productivity and life for that matter) time than listening the interviews Srini has recorded at BlogcastFM and the premium content with action oriented documents. They’ve yanked out the best, most actionable content from their huge library of interviews and placed it in your hands for you to use.

I wish I had this 500+ days ago. It is quite literally like having coaching from several experts a month that would cost hundreds of dollars per session if you went directly to their websites and asked for service.

See the value (and success) in their giving mindset, find them on twitter, they’ll respond instantly and check out their site to take your site to the next level.

CLICK TO VIEW

Feel free to ask me any questions about these guys or my favorite interviews, if you already listen, what are yours?

UPDATE: Srini has released one of their premium interviews for free, if you want a taste of the quality they bring, and the mindmaps…check it out here.

Today’s post is one part valuable inspiration data and one part un-cut real life commentary. It’s a little more on the raw side compared to my usual dissections but no less effective. I have for you a mix of survey data on inspiration and a real life e-mail which captures the exact mindset of moving forward in rejecting the status quo, loving life, and building freedom income.

Insightful Inspiration

I sent out a 2 question survey last month sometime asking respondents to name their biggest lifestyle design inspiration resources. I posted the survey to all, and the likes of Corbett Bar, Adam Baker, Chris Guillebeau, Carl Nelson, Colin Wright, and several of you responded! The results were valuable and insightful. Whatever you want to call “lifestyle design” …these answers tell me it’s not a fad, it’s just more easily capitalized on today. The answers you can see below are inspired by various events in life, history, backgrounds, and a solid measure of shared genius authorship. Check it out here, and if you’d like to add your own, (I’d appreciate it!) please do.

See Results | Launch Survey

Real Life

I had a reader who’s become a friend ask me, how’s the project going? I, as I sometimes do, shot into a completely unedited bevy of details on exactly how life is going with this…re-engineering, this “intelligent living”…this…life designing. After I hit send, I re-read it and knew it needed to be captured. Here’s my response, which I hope offers you both something to relate to, insight to use in your own experience, and a way to connect….you can in fact both live life and conquer it at the same time! …press on weary soldiers!

Things are busy!!

I was spread a little thin for a while but life’s always a balance. I’m plowing along at IT Arsenal, truly enjoying helping people with their IT problems and turning each case into a situation to gain fans, publicize the fix, and grow from it. I’m customizing the e-mails and experience of a “customer” right now…trying to see how to grow an audience and looking forward to reporting on that. My first product which I think is pretty sure to do dismally, a few sales perhaps, will be a great trial run for creating something for others to consume. I’ve learned so much already. I see now, in order to make good headway, it takes a good 3 hour chunk to get my brain into creating a product and then adding to it. This is valuable to know for others looking to create something on a moonlight schedule. I don’t envy writers. It still needs plenty of work, I have an outline and I have a visual mind map of the starting stages of how to identify what program you need to use…I’m trying to free chunks of time during the week to continue working on that…WHILE the suns gleaming at me to train for an upcoming triathlon and remembering to sleep 7-8 hours a night.

I’ve had trouble remembering that if I’m not well rested, it all crumbles apart. It’s that piece of simple living that’s easily ignored, but disastrous. Going from work, to something fitness oriented, to “freedom” work (not to mention some sort of “unwinding” action like a good drink, a book, video game, conversation, movie, ect. every so seldom, and only a taste as to not trip into the addiction so many of them are marketed to be)…is tough…but knowing that i’m working against the brain numbing cycle of corporate america fat couch zombie living makes it worth it….I swear if you don’t know how to live intelligently, just managing a typical semi-collegeish aged lifestyle (18-30) will put you into the ground today. So many things to blame but i wont.

I don’t wonder why everyone wants to drink the weekend away, lives for friday and then like a computer program re-enters the machine each monday to blindly eat whatever media, corporate e-mail, and cultural crap is put in front of them. It’s a crystal clear picture in my head why society is the way it is sometimes, and why free thinkers or people struggling against the status quo feel so liberated, and yet have a dynamically (varied and changing) tough road ahead of them. The tricky part is, you can’t really tell who is a robot of the machine, or looking to get out, or half way there, or who tripped and fell bass ackward out. At times the way out looks similiar to what others are doing, in appearance at least, but no one can read their freedom oriented mind, or well…just their mind. Sure they own a Macbook Pro and it may seem so trendy, but are they pouring their passion into it, being authentic with it, using it as a tool…or are they….well being trendy with it? More examples abound, are they building something, or are they marking crap? affiliating for nothing but quick benefits? ect. ect….

I’m slowing down the amount of lifestyle design content (RSS feeds from my resource list) that I’m consuming and the 3-10 hours a week I was spending writing articles. I need to focus more on the freedom business (since discovering lifestyle design) in order for me to have something of value to report back at the project. Thats the point of the project anyway and I’m not skimping out despite my brain taunting me to quit. That means my info graphics and timeline right now are on hold or slowly being built. I’m not one to NOT finish things so i’ll come back to them in due time. They are properly archived in active project folders on my computer and mirrored online, if you’d like to join me in launching one, lets do it up, my website is your website.

Lastly in the project realm I’m still heavily connecting with people, I keep myself open to reader comments and carried over conversations like these with you, and they rock. They are worth everything. I’m in heavy talks to collaborate with David Walsh (Source Control) in designing a membership site for process flows, harping on VA services and IT related tasks at first, but using a great model to grow big, we’ll see what happens.. Collectively we have enough reach and popularity right now that it might turn into something that could really catalyze me leaving work with enough clout (ie, income, contacts, momentum, fresh ideas, inspiration) to move forward with more products, solutions and traffic at IT Arsenal to live off the flow of acting on the potential ideas…true freedom living. Whew, that sentence is going to have a hard time making sense.

I love the sun shining, when I get good sleep, and batching the minutia out of life. I have time to enjoy my passions, connect with others, build out this side business, growing freedom thing in my life…and even make my 9-5 bearable.

Thanks for reading!

What do you think, how’s your “project” going? Leave a comment.

P.S. If you’d like to get automatic updates of new material here on The Life Design Project, you can simply subscribe to the RSS feed!

I know I know, a big massive list….”great” your thinking. I’ll cut the crap, I promise you’ll find value here. The list below is just about every resource I’ve tapped since starting this lifestyle design journey roughly 270 days ago.

Before you start scrolling, understand the context of this list. It’s been deconstructed from my bookmarks which I use for ruthlessly for productive workflow. It consists heavily of shortcuts, tools, inspirational resources, and research.

You can think of this as a peak into my brain. I manage my life, create fans, learn, sell products and connect with stunning people through this list. Use these resources to grow, learn, organize, connect and become a more fierce online force!

NOTE: I’ve greyed out common resources so experienced users can quickly pass over them. If you’d rather see these all via Delicious, see my user account here.

Page Jump Links

Core All Around Online Functions ↓

Tools & Development (Freedom Business, Blog, Productivity, Self) ↓

The New Marketing ↓

Market and Niche Research – Know Your Niche ↓

Niche (forums/groups/meetups) – Get Involved in your Niche ↓

SEO Research ↓

Reading ↓

Tutorials and Mental Training ↓

Outsourcing ↓

Legal ↓

Idea Specific ↓

Life Design Project Development (similar to above, just specific) ↓

People to contact, leverage and love ↓

- – - – - – - – - – - – -

Core “All Around” Online Functions

• Gmail – E-mail
• Gdocs – Online documents and publishing
• MediaWiki – Stand alone publishing platform – (possible alternative to Google Docs)
• Gvoice – Easy online text messaging (avoid using your phone at your desk), dyanmic voicemail
• Greader – Absorb RSS feeds easily
• Feedly – Greader alternative (not as fast to take in content)
• Gcal – Calendar (core productivity tool, I prefer iCal)
• Mobileme – Online suite from Apple, I use for file sync and screensharing. Several other tools can be strung together to accomplish the same end.
• Fbook – Obvious
• Fbook – fan pages – Use for online promotion
• Twitter – Use for promotion, networking
• Mint – Superior financial organizing tool
• Ebay – Use to gauge market, test products, and sell what’s in your basement
• Iusethis – Website to find and manage the software on my computer (It’s a big database of applications and how popular they are)
• Craigslist – All around selling, communication, marketing tool
• Heycraig – Auto searches for Craigslist
• Gwave – Collaboration tool (I’m not 100% sold on it)
• Evernote Web – The best “catch all” for your brain.

Tools & Development (Freedom Business, Blog, Productivity, Self)

Common

• ITA – Shortcut to IT Arsenal
• ITA admin – Shortcut to IT Arsenal’s WordPress Admin Panel
• ITA dev – Shorcut to formatted, online, text based task document
• Feedburner – Use for Blog Subscription Metrics, Monetization, Ect.
• Su.pr – Short Links, Use to combine a link shortener with metrics and StumbleUpon sharing integration
• Billingboss – Invoicing tool for the ocassional project/hourly client. Free.
• Google Adsense – Use to earn $ for high traffic blogs
• Google Adwords – Use for paid traffic
• Google Analytics – Use for website analytics
• Google Apps Standard – Sign up page for Google Apps, a must have to manage a freedom business’s E-mail/Calendar (the alternative is to use personal Google accounts, but they lack professional flair, and when configured properly, you can use Google Apps to create multiple e-mails and have them route where needed easily)
• Godaddy Control – Domain/Hosting Provider for websites (Easy to set up WordPress and connect domains to Google Apps)
• BuySellAds.com – Online Advertising, Use as alternative to Adsense
• RescueTime – Use for tracking where you spend your time
• WeFollow – Twitter Directory and Search, Find Twitter Followers
• E-junkie – Cheap Digital Product Host and Shopping Cart – Use for digital (or physical) product distribution
• E.gg Timer – Use for batch work timing
• Google Moderator – Use for audience interaction. Audience submits questions or votes on them.
• Fundable – Group Funding, Use for VC, project specific funding. Great concept, money is refunded if goal not met.
• SimplyNoise – Use for when your not in the best work environment. The best free white noise generator on the Internet.
• Charity: Water – Phenominal charity, great business model, give back!
• Invisible Children – Charity with a solvable cause
• Aviary Pheonix Online Image Creation – Use as Photoshop Alternative
• Slinkset – Stand alone audience response engine. Share to users, vote. Alternative to Google Moderator
• UserVoice – Geared more for small business, Use for easy stand alone website extension for polling users for business suggestions
• Brandstack – Use to buy a logo, or find inspiration for your own
• Google Website Optimizer – Use for website testing (moderate learning curve to understand impact)
• Royalty Free Instrumentals – Use for a video intro clip to increase professionalism
• Dummy Text Generator
• Adobe® BrowserLab – Use to test your website/product in multiple browsers online for free
• PostRank™ Analytics – NOT TESTED – Use for analytics attempting to rank your social impact
• Mail Chimp – Use for E-mail Marketing
• Apture.com – Use to enhance blog, retain readers when you have a lot of links because links don’t leave page. (Also notice the floating bar above, that’s them too)
• Wordmap – Sitemap Generator with built in keyword sharing to large network – Use to generate sitemap and increase traffic
• ClickHeat – Use to install free, easy to view click map over your website to see where users click
• Mindmeister – Online Mindmapping tool
• Issuu – PDF embedding/publishing – Use for free ebook publishing/hosting (wordpress friendly)
• Web Resizer – Use for optimizing photos on the web (I use Adobe Fireworks on the computer)
• Techcofounder – Meet Technical Cofounders for your Startup – Use to find coders for your software idea
• Scribe: SEO – NOT TESTED – Subscription cost based WordPress Plugin – Use for a live “score” on how SEO friendly your page/post content
• StumbleUpon Advertising – Use for paid traffic
• Google TV Ads – Use for cheap TV advertising
• Grasshopper Virtual PBX – Tollfree/Voicemail – Use for virtual phone network
• Amazon Business Solutions – Use to sell on Amazon

The New Marketing

Bookmarklets for the social services I commonly use.

• -> su.pr! (twit)
• -> facebook
• -> stumbleupon↑
• -> delicious
• -> digg
• -> ping this!
• Ping.fm – Use to blast out links and updates to several social networks (I find su.pr is adequate to begin with, for me)
• TubeMogul.com – Like Ping.fm but for video – Use for blasting out video to social video sites and track

Market and Niche Research – Know Your Niche

• Twitter Trends
• StumbleUpon
• Delicious
• eBay Pulse: Trending Searches, Use for dropship, re-sale, product idea fuel
• Yahoo! Answers – Popular Questions, Use for Niche Questioning, Trending Needs
• eBay Popular- Trending Products on eBay to read upcoming products
• Google News – Most Popular
• About Ask.com: IQ – Popular Questions and Searches
• Yahoo! Buzz
• Digg – All News, Videos, & Images
• Google Trends
• Reddit.com: what’s new online!
• Thirty Day Challenge – Group of guys that take you through a slow Niche development process
• GTrends Tool From Wordtracker – Mashes Wordtracker and Google trends, Use for keyword research
• Commission Junction – Affiliate Marketing Database, Use for seeing who is using your niche the best for product affiliation
• How I Do Niche Research – Keyword Research Strategy Video
• Monitter – Real Time Twitter Monitor – Use for keyword/niche research
• Ask500 – Superb polling tool

Niche (forums/groups/meetups) – Get Involved in your Niche

These are all specific to a particular niche, but you can get the picture of how I’ll dig into the tech support realm and find users/fans by examining these.

• Mac Forums – Mac News and Rumor Discussion
• Mac OS X Hints – A community-built collection of OS X hints
• MacFixIt – CNET Review
• Philly Startup Leaders » Starter Stories
• TrendCamp Philly – Eventbrite
• Barcamp Philly | November 14, 2009 @ The University of the Arts | Philadelphia, PA
• Macworld Forums
• PPUG Meets: 21 November 2009
• MacBUS – Macintosh Users Society of Philadelphia
• Apple – Support – Discussions – Forum Home
• Apple, Mac, iPod and iPhone News, Reviews, Help and Tips | Macworld
• Meetup.com – Account

SEO Research

Use to gather information and prompt task capture

• Searchmetrics Rapid – Use for automatic site SEO evaluation (good, but don’t put much stock in it)
• Website Grader – Use for automatic site SEO evaluation (best I’ve found)
• Majestic-SEO : Backlink Intelligence, Use for finding competator backlinks
• Site Explorer – Backlink Explorer, Use for SEO, to find what sites link to your competators
• Google Keyword Tool
• Seo Book Keyword Suggestion Tool
• Google Keyword Tool Box

Reading

Books and eBooks, these are best of show

• Make Your Words Sell!
• Amazon.com: The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (9780307353139): Timothy Ferriss: Books
• Amazon.com: How to Win Friends & Influence People (9780671027032): Dale Carnegie: Books
• Amazon.com: Breakthrough Rapid Reading (9780735200197): Peter Kump: Books
• Amazon.com: The Richest Man in Babylon (9780451205360): George S. Clason: Books
• Amazon.com: Rich Dad, Poor Dad (9780751532715): Robert T. Kiyosaki: Books
• Get Leo Babauta’s FREE Report and Podcasts!
• Amazon.com: Letters from a Stoic
• Amazon.com: Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less
• Sourcecontrol: An outsourcing framework for the dangerously ambitious.
• Getting Real: The Book by 37signals
• Amazon.com: Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion (9780061914171): Gary Vaynerchuk: Books
• The Personal MBA Manifesto – The Personal MBA ™
• Amazon.com: Robert Granholm: Wish List
• Amazon.com: Google AdWords For Dummies
• Amazon.com: Start Over, Finish Rich: 10 Steps to Get You Back on Track in 2010
• PROJECT M-31: Simplifying Your Life in 31 Days | MinimalistPath
• eBooks The Smart Way, by Pat Flynn | The Smart Passive Income Blog
• Change This – The Bootstrapper’s Bible
• Saving the Day, the Virtual Way
• Amazon.com: Google AdWords For Dummies
• Recession-Proof Graduate
• The Art of Non-Conformity » 279 Days to Overnight Success
• The Zero Hour Workweek | Illuminated Mind

Tutorials and Mental Training

• Daily Things to Do as Entrepreneur
• 10 Steps to Starting a Small Business | Under30CEO
• SEO for your WordPress Blog (best article available)
• Speed Up Your WordPress Page Loading
• GateJumper (web building help)
• Under 30 Rock Star Business Series
• 17 Traffic Building Tips from Some of the World’s Most Popular Bloggers
• Thirteen Steps to Write and Publish a Free Ebook In Thirteen Hours
• How I Wrote a $30,000 eBook (And You Can Too)

Outsourcing

• PeoplePerHour – Outsourcing Database
• oDesk – Outsourcing Database
• Elance – Outsourcing Database
• Pepper Virtual Assistant – 5 Hours Free Trial – Use to test using a VA
• Distant Support Virtual Assistants – Test a Virtual Assistant
• EP Virtual Assistant – Test a Virtual Assistant

Legal

I have yet to concern myself with anything in the legal realm. I say wait until you are making $1000 a month.

• EIN Individual Request – Online Application
• Registration of Fictitious Biz Name in PA

Idea Specific

I keep a document and capture immediately all the ideas I think are worth money if developed

• Freedom Business Brainstorm – Shortcut

Life Design Project Development (similar to above, just specific)

People to contact, leverage and love

• Rcthink | Adventure | Personal Development | Travel
• The Professional Hobo
• Personal Development ~ PluginID
• Nomadic Neil » The road to authentic location independent living
• Nomadic Matt’s Travel Site | Life Untethered
• Nerdy Nomad
• The Journal Of An Entrepreneur Travelling Around Asia
• Muselife – Muse creation, personal outsourcing, ultramobility and the new rich lifestyle.
• Migrationology
• Rejecting the status quo & rebelling against mediocrity
• Man Vs. Debt — Sell your crap. Pay off your debt. Do what you love.
• Location180
• Live Uncomfortably
• thelifething.com
• Justin Wright | Adventurer, Blogger and Digital Nomad
• LifeExcursion
• JetSetCitizen.com: Celebrating Global Citizens in Pursuit of an Excellent Life!
• In Search Of Sanuk
• Live on Your Own Terms | Illuminated Mind
• From Whoa to Go
• Free Pursuits – In Search of The Good Life
• foXnoMad
• Explore Truth | Lifestyle Design & Non-Religious Spirituality
• Exile Lifestyle | Colin Wright
• Drop Of Change | Creating Sustainable, Curious and Mindful Living
• curiousliving
• Business Backpacker | A community for Location Independent Entrepreneurs & Digital Nomads
• AlmostFearless.com | Redesign your life. Travel the world.
• A Little Adrift…Traveling Around the World | RTW Backpacking Blog, Travel Stories, Budget & Advice
• A Life in Translation — running towards the things that matter, like boys & whiskey & stuff.
• Adventures of a Barefoot Geek by David Turnbull
• the 9 to 5 alternative
• 4HWW forums

What do you think? Where are you at? Did you like the video intro? Leave a comment.

P.S. If you’d like to get automatic updates of new material here on The Life Design Project, you can simply subscribe to the RSS feed!

It’s been a while since I’ve taken a snapshot of how things are going at The LDP project. There are some solid resources The LDP has been featured on lately and a few behind the scenes workings that I’d like to share about. In fact, as what usually happens, there’s more than a few things going on behind the scenes and a few directions we can focus on going into the future. I need your help with that. Check out what’s going on around the project and influence where we go from here in today’s post PLUS a time saving breakfast batch secret I just discovered AND a video in which I chug a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi Max. It’s like 3 posts in one! You’ve been warned.

Influence Me and Get What You Want

Obviously we’re moving ahead with creating income online, we’ve covered feasibility testing of an idea with a thorough stroke, next we’ll dig into how we actually bring about this idea to a reality. Along that path, I’m cooking up some content I think those interested in intelligent free living will want to know about. It would be a sincere help if you took a minute to pick what you’d like to see in the poll below. Extra detail on each topic is further down the page.

Previews and Details

The Life Design Timeline in collaboration with Alan Perlman, (9-5 Alternative)

A timeline that’s flooded with nothing but vital resources for the phases of lifestyle design. It’s a tool designed for those who need to gain footing when they’re lost, or gain a visual grasp of the core elements of breaking free from a molded lifestyle. Check out this picture for an example, it’s a timeline of the this blog.

Click to Enlarge

Lifestyle Design Infographics

A series of info graphics like the one below aimed at instant “aha” moments for creating breakthroughs in time management, productivity, and other core elements of living well, “allah” lifestyle design.

Click to Enlarge

Outsourcing Workflow Database

In collaboration with reader Jason Stephens (who I’ve been working with on outsourcing his business) I’d like to gauge interest for putting together a resource site dedicated to pre-made workflows for virtual assistants and common tasks both business and personal use. The materials would help bridge the gap in how to work with a virtual assistant and automate several common minutia type tasks of marketing, information research, maintenance and such.

Time Batching Omelets!

I’ve found one of the most interesting effects of reading the 4 Hour Work Week on my time has been batch cooking. Here’s a gem if you like protein healthy eggs in the morning.

Omelets in a Boiling Bag

You can set up a whole weeks worth of omelets, including the fixings in one fell swoop and cook them without using any messy dishes during the week. Try this out.

1. Crack a couple eggs, add cheese, pepper and your favorite additions to a zip-lock bag. Use the Ziplock brand name, as they’re sturdier.

2. Boil the ziplock bag in a large stovetop pot. (takes about 12 minutes)

3. Enjoy. The omelet slips out of the zip lock without a mess. Add to fajita wrap for breakfast burrito action.

I’ll probably pull a Tim Ferriss on this later and do a YouTube that will subsequently get 50 billion views….you never know. The cool thing about this breakfast hack is that you can make a weeks worth of omelets at a time and have minimal dishes to clean throughout the week, big time saver. If you’re particularly green, don’t complain, I’m assuming that I’m somehow absorbing like .01234 percent plastic into my diet. Let me know if there some awesome “green” alternative to zip-lock bags that might work.

The LDP around the Web

I’ve been chatting it up with some awesome people as I continue to empirically test out designing life on purpose. As you can surmise, I love talking actionable changes which almost always leads me to process design and automation conversations. Check out where this project has recently been featured below, some upcoming content, and thank you for being a part of it!

Gen-Y Rock Stars – Outsourcing for musicians guest post and audio conference (strategies, tools, and experiences)

BlogcastFM, process design and productivity chat. This site is a big up-and-coming interview style audio resource, includes some premium lifestyle designer names. Worth a look.

Chris Ducker of Virtual Business Lifestyle will be guest posting here soon!

Look for me possibly showing up at Free Pursuits in the near future!

The World Occurring Right Now

What’s life look like right now, after 8 months of lifestyle design testing? Here’s a very candid run on sentence kind of glimpse.

I still maintain a 9-5, although I’m ruthless about my attention both at work and out of work. Fridays are optional. Singular focus has become a vital practice in block working. I’ve gotten the hang of checking e-mail only a few times a day, I’m a heavy Gmail filter user now, gathering IT Arsenal e-mail, personal, and LDP e-mail all in one spot while parsing off automated bill pays and all account type e-mails. I’m fairly busy but not stressed. I maintain a pretty tight reign on my time through scheduling and calendaring. I use Evernote as a gathering pool of things that need to be scheduled or looked at, this list rarely goes above 10 items. I “hold” actual tasks to tackle either in a calendar or linked Google document in a calendar event. I spend about 2 hours a day after work alternating days between this blog and it’s projects (some mentioned above) and IT Arsenal, the freedom business born from this whole lifestyle design idea. I spend about an hour day while taking in some sort of entertainment responding to e-mails of readers or potentials clients, and I’ve loved these conversations. At times I put this off for current or new client hourly pay type interactions. I’ve been shifting focus to IT Arsenal recently, but doing a lot of similar work on both fronts, which has been networking. I now have a fairly solid “pitch” at IT Arsenal and plenty to talk about with the fun people and stuff I’m working on here to chat it up on social networks and others with similar projects…I can now offer something of value in the conversation. These conversations usually lead to some sort of “we should do something together” vibe that is free to act on, and furthers promotion and continued work on products or my mission on helping out entrepreneurs, small business owners et cetera. I constantly am looking for mentor support on the business front (how to appeal to users, how to launch products and service ideas, ect.), and feel I’m moving slowly in terms of any growth or actual income. I remind myself that consistent smaller amounts of effective work are much more valuable than burning myself out trying to work till 11pm every night. The gradual build of followers, mission, and value will be profitable when I have sellable propositions. I also get to continue do things I love with the pace I’m at, weekends, long hours, trips and steps toward dreams like learning JKD or running triathlons aren’t being sacrificed. I spend about 5 hours a week working on value driven posts and digital product creation. I’m constantly on the lookout for entrepreneur collaboration and lately spend my time in WordPress, Tweetdeck, Google Analytics, on the phone, and Evernote drumming up content.

It’s frustrating I don’t just have something I can sell except myself (in an hourly way) yet, and I think I would have put more hours in the beginning into something I could, or into learning affiliate selling of products I’ve used and can honestly promote if I could do it all over again. I’m sure I would have earned passive income by now. I blame it on coming from a freelancer’s perspective. On the flip side, I’ve gained some valuable new hourly/project gigs along the way.

I’ve tried to cut back on the scheduling as I find myself in my calendar too often (I’m too analytical and need to prompt action from myself more often), but I have a few big goals I’m digging for in terms of “business goals” this year. I’d like to speak at 4 engagements on how I think I can help entrepreneurs (which will build credibility to cite elsewhere), I’d like to launch 2 products, go to one big entrepreneur conference, get published in a physical publication, and work with one semi big name. On a personal note, I’m done with the snow here in Philly and looking forward to getting outside. I’m a runner and a triathlete and I’m getting sick of working out indoors, it doesn’t help weekend plans with my girlfriend either.

Finally a Request

I’ve entered a contest for my freedom business connected with this project, IT Arsenal. It’s a two minute video in which I describe IT Arsenal and chug a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi Max! Your view counts as a vote so you would be doing me a huge favor if you watched! Thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcY7yxcg1X8

Tweet this and help a brother out! Check out the contest here.

Well, that was probably the post random post yet, hopefully beneficial/entertaining, what do you think? Leave a comment

A major problem I see holding back my friends and fellow freelancers from progress is messy-ness. They’re lost in the frenzy of their new clients, new campaign, or shiny new twitter apps. I don’t want that, and neither do you. Since we’re finally hitting on income producing efforts I’ve decided to layout my custom system for managing the work “stream” that inevitably occurs when we decide to challenge the status quo and create our own income. I have a bevy of new things to start hacking at, and I’ll lay all those out in due time but I’ve realized launching sustainable business ideas takes more for-thought than in-thought (that should be a word). Note: Make sure you’ve defined your goals and have a strategic objective in place so you’re not plotting workflow that leads you in circles.

Article read time: 10 minutes. Bold only: 3 minutes.

We’ve already covered and even had a guest post on countless tactics of efficiency and how to save time, batching, 80/20, no meetings, singular focus, negative realization, automation…great right? But how do we process work? Where does it live? How do you receive and schedule it? What happens when an idea strikes, or it’s obvious you have hours of testing or writing to do? The aforementioned methods are amazingly effective, but only when you have clear definitive work “living” somewhere to be addressed. How can you look to automate, or batch if you haven’t managed what you’re doing? Could you tell me what you did at 3:45pm two, five, fifteen day ago? I can. There’s a bigger system to look at before you can start to use tactics on production, and it has to do with how you process giving, taking and returning to the work that’s in front of you.

It may seem basic, but nailing down a system for workflow will not only make automating and outsourcing easier, but transform any project in general into a prepared occasion instead of an emerging disaster of todo’s and tasks. Peace instead of chaos in your path to creating freedom and executing. After taking on a platform for developing “muses” or “freedom businesses” or as I’ve painfully typed out almost every time, “easily managed products or services”; having a workflow for work is going to be a necessity. I don’t want to hack my way through another idea, so I’ve created a method for unstoppable progress, and I’m giving it to you.

I know some readers, as I do at times, feel I’m being painstakingly slow in getting to the generating money topics, and…maybe I am, but I’d like to think that I’m doing it deliberately. Here’s my quick reasoning before I go into the long and valuable explanation of the Workflow of Work.

• No rush (where’s success going to go?, initial front work to save effort later)
• I’ve failed before (spent a year+ in CA grunting through business, it takes too many hours, it’s choppy and random and I wasn’t doing it intelligently, not again)
• Passive income is a slow build process anyway (shortcuts here are short lived, and you come off as a pushy affiliate wielding crap salesman, always vote value over nonsense)
• Real life implementation (I’m not shooting for non-american cost of living to equal success, real Philadelphia living costs and incomes are evaluated here)

The Workflow of Work.

Outsourcing and automation note: before you can set up pieces of your projects, muses, fledgling companies, or campaigns to be automated, or by extension of automation, outsourced, you need to actually figure out how to get at those pieces. The system below is perfect for that.

“I’m gladly giving away this methodology in the name of getting things done everywhere. It will be included in a future resource currently in development.

One man army, 5 person teams, or 70 person companies. This works.

The fact: Your projects and your life, whether with coworkers, a designer friend, team, or just by yourself require structure in today’s world. Stop ignoring that.

Benefits of the “workflow of work” system: Universal, scalable, upgradable and you can use each piece individually to best fit your circumstance and grow yourself/others into it. NOTE: You’ll only want to teach someone this if you’re with them for the long haul of a project, VA’s, or digital mercenaries (e-lance) can manager their own time with their own methods as long as they deliver, don’t try to bend them into this methodology.

The Tools

(project management, a billion dollar market)

Project management is a huge industry, but it’s left me nothing but heartache. I’ve tested basecamp, action method, xmind, opengoo, activecollab, and campfire with small teams. Some are phenominal at certain elements of workflow, but I’m ultimately frustrated with them without redemption. The truth is, we just can’t see everything, everywhere, all the time. The answer isn’t to try, it’s one level up from that, it’s to be trained in workflow. The glue of the Workflow of Work system is made up of three universal tools, one part capture tool, one part calendar, and one part “*document”.

Capture Tool

It can be anything, it just needs to capture new ideas, requests, and tasks as they come into your world. I use a literal notepad most of the time, its quick and available. The purpose of the capture tool is to be empty. It’s only a temporary holding place for the whatever comes into your work realm. Everything on the capture tool moves to the calendar and *document if necessary as soon as possible. The capture tool should never have something on it for more than 12 hours, it’s not a todo list. Todo lists don’t work.

Calendar

A calendar will give you a vision for what’s happening in your world. The calendar lists everything you are

doing at all times. It does not need a lot of detail, it is not a waste of time. It is shared with all users. It is crucial. I use iCal, but Google Calendar is a popular alternative. One vital thing about todays calendars is that they can remind us of something automatically via alarms. Less work for us.

Document*

Using an online trackable document is useful, but not a definitive answer for work management. I realize this. The “document” can be upgraded for your situation (collaboration software is rampant on the internet), but I make my argument below for an actual document.

At times, you’ll inevitably want to drill down on tasks, find resources, or make updates as things are accomplished. Any task that isn’t obvious by a calendar event title lives here.

The “document” in “the workflow of work” refers a top level business wide “grand central” view of tasks and projects. It is used in conjunction with a calendar. It links to resource files (dropbox, e-mails within gmail, websites, etc.). It needs to be easily edited and viewable by everyone involved with your business or project. Google docs are the “go to” right now for me. The “document” is a literal document in my case and acts as a reference for work progress and what I’m working on in IT Arsenal. It must be fiercely concise, accurate and lead to resource/detail files anytime more than a sentence or two is required for a task. Use formatting and colors, simple and timeless staples for differentiating meaning to the mind. It sounds too simple, but a single Google doc has been a seamless solution for working with small teams. Each team member gets a font, or color…something to differentiate there tasks. We aren’t talking 500 person companies (aren’t we avoiding those?), the projects we’re working on require automated systems to be tweaked and small teams to collaborate. In my experiences the Google doc rarely went beyond the size of this blog page. Very manageable, very accessible. A wiki might work well here as well.

*Caveat

The “grand central” data collection could exist in another application or form, sadly most others are simply not as agile or concise as formatted text and links. One thing I always get lost with in these project management applications is their focus on time. I understand wanting to stay within a specific project deadline, and chart your billable hours, but executing, using a calendar, and effective productivity (hello first stages of lifestyle design anyone?) will inherently zero out time issues. It’s something I just cut out altogether as a time waster, how’s that for ironic?

The Flow

(follow the rules, honor your calendar)

New Work (Receiving)

Client, new idea, partner, etc -> Capture device (phone, pad and paper, stickies, notpad, etc) -> task scheduled according to deadline and priority on calendar (in summary if placed on projects document) -> a projects “document” if task requires more than 6? words to describe and understand in entirety.

Existing Work

Calendar of scheduled tasks -> projects document -> open supporting resources -> do work -> schedule any remaining work according to deadline and priority on calendar -> follow up with person who requested work be done if applicable

Capture device should be empty each end of business day, the goal is to keep your capture device empty as soon as possible. It will force execution. No execution? NOTHING HAPPENS. Do not use e-mail for organizing work or requests. It doesn’t work.

Delegating Work

When it comes to work, giving it, or making a request is much easier than receiving it.

The critical point when delegating or giving out work is being complete. Be clear, be concise, include all necessary support materials and procedure documentation and give a due date. If there is no due date, make one up weeks later so it prompts completion. The medium for assigning work can vary. E-mails work best because of their clarity and reference. The point is to avoid the recipient from replying back to you that they need something more to move ahead. Avoid empowerment failure.

It is not important to micro-manage that you made a request, the person receiving manages this. You will inevitably manage the larger project you’ve delegated a task to, a comment denoting you are waiting on “Jon” for “X” is sufficient.

It is important that you be mindful of the task you are delegating, if it’s likely to be repeated, create a workflow or template, or e-mail draft for it so it’s exponentially easier or outsourced next time. It will be a key to automating a service based industry until you’ve created a passive income campaign.

Go Forth and Produce

Next up, tackling how to do commercial intent testing, how I’m building community, status updates on how much of my business is actually automated and how much effort I’m putting on creating ideas for passive income. Also, how I’ve captured ideas and plan to test them for profitability.

How do you process work? Was this useful in how you deal with the daily stream of tasks in your world?

Essentially lifestyle design boils down to how effectively you use your time, and the emotions you get from spending that time.

photo by nationalrural

I was sitting in on a mastermind call this week, and the moderator said something that truly clicked with me, and will hopefully click for the rest all of you,

I am about to spend life. Is my life worth spending on “this.”

Now look at what you are doing right now – you could be reading posts, or checking your Twitter account, writing a report, spending time with your family or friends, playing video games, traveling, checking email – you get my point. Now reread the sentence above. Is my life worth spending on this?
Let’s do a quick exercise. Count to 10.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

That is 10 seconds you can never get back. Ten seconds you could have spent getting on the treadmill, writing a post, meeting a new contact, sitting on the couch – you get it now right?

There are countless programs that teach time management and I bet in your 9-5 you were spoon fed a program that was to work with all the employees at the company. At your new freedom business, or internet lifestyle you have been tossed ideas of how to spend your time from outsourcing to inbox zero to GTD.

It Doesn’t Matter

I’ve read them all, taken online classes and attended countless seminars and they have all lead me back to the same place. That place is my Firefox open with tons of tabs, GMail open so I see my inbox numbers grow, Tweetdeck chirping every 30 seconds and a phone that likes to buzz every few minutes.

We all fall back on the systems that are familiar to us. We keep the email open to see new orders come in, or client requests. We hope that a cool Tweet pops up that takes us to a new blog or person. We open links in new tabs with the hopes of reading them in a few minutes and two days later discover that they are still there and if I close it I may never find it again. We bookmark, Stumble and Digg with tags that are great in intention, but when we need that one post for reference for something we are writing we are back in Google doing countless searches for keywords that make no sense to any human and gives webmasters that Tweet that says, “someone just found my site using the keyword ‘how to make love to twitter with a butter knife + mashable + orlando in 2009′.”

Damn that ADD

There’s only about 4.5 million people with ADHD in the U.S. (study from 2006). So what’s the problem with the rest of us?
Information overload is a start. How many blogs are in your RSS Reader? How many people’s Tweets do you look at? How many emails do you get everyday?

Processing this information is crucial to not only your growth, but also to get a hold of your life and come to peace. I don’t think minimalism is the answer. I think it lies in values and priorities. In order to be truly happy and live your ideal lifestyle, you need to do things that align with your values. If you value making money, you need to quit being a social media whore and start getting business. If you value family, what can you do to make every moment in your life more valuable for your family?

The Right Solution For You

As someone who has gone through many programs I have decided that there is no cut and paste system that is going to work for me, but I know a few things that can get people to notice when they are not spending their life to their fullest.

Write down when you catch yourself not doing something you care about. I make little check marks on a scrap piece of paper every time I catch myself web surfing, daydreaming or checking email excessively. This will get you to think of your actions more carefully.

Reward yourself. You need you time and that needs to be implemented into your day. Whether its an hour chunk or a few 15 minute breaks, be sure to give yourself time to relax and entertain your brain.

Get something important done before lunch. Tim Ferriss says to do it as the first thing in your day, but I say give it till lunch. When you eat you will feel more accomplished and will be excited to get back to whatever it is you spend your time doing.

Write important things down and post at your desk. This really changed the way I have done things. I have a personal statement and business vision printed at my desk and I glance at it constantly. What it does is look me in the mirror and ask if what I am doing aligns with these statements and wil progress me closer towards a goal or purpose. It works freakishly good.

Tell people your goals. When you tell people your goals, they are prone to ask you about them in conversation. When they ask about a project you told them about and 3 weeks go by, you should have made some progress right? If not, they are going to call you off and not take your idea seriously. That’s powerful. Show them you mean it and if you work hard you will have something to report.

How Do You Manage Your Time

Everyone has different ideas and views and I want to know what works for you. Do you have an application or a technique that can benefit people? Let us know in the comments. When building a business, learning from the wins and losses of others is one of the best things you can do, so please let’s share and help each other grow.

Greg is helping young people find their passion and grow their brand in the new Rock Star Business Series. Sign-up or say hey to Greg on Twitter.