If you feel like you are working too hard, or working too many hours, this might give you some hope for a solution. I'm not saying it would work for everyone, but it has certainly given me a new perspective on my own business. Over the summer I achieved something I thought was unlikely at best, and potentially damaging at worst. I went down from working 7 long days a week, to working only 3. At most. The best part? Even though I worked much fewer hours ... My income stayed roughly the … [Read more...]

One of my clients was telling me how they feel overwhelmed because of all the commitments they feel they have been guilted into making. She knew I had wrestled with this lately and wanted to know my solution. I think she was disappointed to find out my magic bullet was to simply say "No" more. Here is an exchange where I turned someone down recently ... He was right, if I really HAD to I could have MADE time, but as I said in my response ... I didn't have to and no amount of … [Read more...]

Fear is a huge deal in our lives sometimes. It can stop us making progress. I recently had an email conversation with Julien Smith, one half of Trust Agents and all round cool dude. We talked about fear and how to manage it. He had some wise words for us: Chris: In your blog you say you have to "have balls". Do you think you face life with "Balls" and is having balls the absence of fear? Julien: There is no such thing as having 'no fear,' no matter what marketing campaign slogans want to … [Read more...]

Have you noticed how most of your day goes to stuff that is not related to what is really important? I am not even talking about the obvious things like dealing with spam, hanging out in Twitter, and people hanging on the telephone too long. There are lots of things that demand our time and either through procrastination or weakness we just let them. Right now I am under pressure from various directions. We are moving to Canada, I have a couple of big projects kicking off, while all my … [Read more...]

I'm a firm believer in networking. In fact I credit my network with a great part of why I have achieved my goals in the last five years. My journey from intention through to completion just would not have been possible without my friends, mentors and contacts. Many of the people responsible for where I am I met through this site. You and I both have unlimited access to humanities greatest networking tool. All you need to do is tap into it. Of course I am talking about Social Media … [Read more...]

I have been putting a lot of thought into why some people succeed and others fail. It's easy to put success down to luck or natural talent, but while there will always be an element of that, it does not seem to be "the answer". There seem to be some ingredients that a lot of folks miss. Education is important, but not in the formal qualification sense but more in the continuously learning sense. We tend though to focus just on the knowledge, there is a gap there that needs to be filled and … [Read more...]

SXSW is a fixture on many a geeks calendar. It's the biggest and wildest conference on the scene, encompassing "interactive", film and music. My coolest friends in the UK thought it was the music festival I was attending, I didn't have the guts to tell them I was only going to the nerdy bits, ha. On the face of it, the attraction is lots and lots of panels and presentations about all kinds of diverse topics, plus a trade show where you can get to talk to exhibitors. What SXSW is really famous … [Read more...]

My first experiences online came before the web, and before most of the modern "nettiquette" was written. It was the days of ultra nerdy folks (like me), librarians, and academic PHD types in lab coats. When people were not doing serious science type stuff there was a lot of socializing going on. There were hippy hangouts like "The Well", where big brains were going to change the world, and hacker communities who were going to change the world in a different way. I was a teenager who didn't … [Read more...]

I was reminded on Twitter by a quote how life coaches and gurus often talk about how sports people visualize victory. They say if you use positive visualization, then your outcome will improve. Then there are the people who tell you that if you use the "Law of Attraction", that is if you ask the universe for something, and you believe, then what you ask for will come to you. The problem is, for most people, experience does not match what they are taught. And that sucks. In the headline … [Read more...]

Analysis paralysis is just one of my procrastination challenges. A couple of other things have caused me to have to make an effort with my productivity. See if they are familiar to you and your own productivity issues: I have a compulsion to fix things I never think I have done enough Do you have the same problems? The mission here is to go from someone who is never happy with their work, never quite complete, to being someone who finishes and moves on. I have managed it (with a … [Read more...]