Dan Poynter famously once said ‘If you wait for inspiration to write you’re not a writer, you’re a waiter.‘

A modern play on that might be something like…

“If you don’t have a blogging schedule, your not a blogger, you’re a wannabe writer”

Not such clever wording, but hopefully you get the point.

You cannot have one without the other. You cannot be a blogger without a blogging schedule.

In this article, gifted writer Nic Rowen explains the importance of a creating a blogging schedule along with the 5 steps you need to take to create a rock-solid blogging schedule of your own.

Why Create A Blogging Schedule?

Pledging to write a blog is the new “I’m going to start a diet after the holidays” of broken promises.

It’s something many of us aspire to, but ultimately fail to achieve.

Some people manage to post one or two blogs, only to fall off the wagon as soon as their schedules get busy or once they’ve used up the most obvious material.

Others fail to get started at all, constantly pushing their plans to start a blog into the hazy and distant realm of “sometime.”

So how do the successful bloggers out there do it?

Do they know some extraordinary secret about writing that you don’t?

Do they have more hours in the day than you do? Nope!

All that separates the would-be bloggers of the world from the successful authors is a plan, a schedule, and a bit of self discipline.

You can do the same.

Follow the five steps below to jump start your blog, and more importantly, keep it going once its started.

#1. Make a Plan

Skyscrapers don’t happen by accident, and neither do great blogs. You don’t just start hanging steel beams or writing posts while hopping for the best, you need to plan things out from the start!

First, ask yourself why you want to write a blog.

You might be surprised how many aspiring bloggers don’t really know when you poke them about it.

Do you want to write a blog to support your business?

Are you hoping to generate traffic, interest, and build your business’ reputation through a regular blog series?

Is this going to be a money-making endeavor? 

Are you hoping to make a living by writing?

Or is your blog your side-project, something you’re personally interested in and hoping to grow into something more?

Knowing your goal will help direct what kind of articles you write, what kind of structure you’ll need, and who you’ll be writing for. It gives your blog shape and direction out of the gate.

Speaking of who you’ll be writing for, do you know your audience?

You might think this is easy, after all, if you’re writing about a specific industry or niche interest, your audience is fairly obvious, right?

Well, yes and no.

You might know the broad strokes, but the best blogs always have a laser focus. They don’t speak to a market, they speak to a person.

Create a mental image of the kind of person who will respond the most to your kind of content and always keep them in mind as you plan and write.

Blogs that read more like a direct conversation are far superior to loftily written blogs trying to appeal to as broad a base as possible.

Before you start off the races, take the time to outline a few ideas.

Spend 20 minutes brainstorming some potential article ideas.

They don’t have to be fully fleshed out, just one line, a leading title, or a general idea is fine.

Fill up a page or two with ideas and hang on to them – you’ll be glad a few weeks from now when you’re racking your brain for a topic and all it spits back is “file not found.”

Brainstorming early also helps identify potential problems. If you’re having trouble filling up a page or two of general ideas before you even start blogging, you need to stop and think about that.

A blog is a long-term commitment, ideally, you’ll be writing it for years to come. If the topics you want to cover are so thin that you’re not sure how to fill up the first month of editorial content, you need to go back to the drawing board.

#2. How often do you want to update your blog?

Decide how often you want to update your blog. You can only create a blogging schedule after you have decided how often you plan to write?

The key to a successful blog is consistency, a regular schedule of updates.

It doesn’t matter how great your blog posts are, if your update schedule roughly matches that of a lunar eclipse.

That said, if you’re just starting out, be careful how high you set your sights.

Many would-be bloggers burn themselves out by setting ridiculous expectations on themselves (“I’m going to write a 1500 word blog every day!” *heart attack*) which they inevitably won’t be able to achieve.

Once they miss the first day or two, they lose all motivation. Soon enough they’re not blogging at all.

At the same time, you don’t want to make a goal so flimsy that there are no stakes.

I promise to update my blog at least once every three months with a 400 word post” is not exactly the kind of motivational goal Hallmark would frame with a cute picture of a sail boat or windmill

I’ve always found that for beginners, one solid post a week is the pace you should strive for.

As for word count, there is no need to be slavishly devoted to an arbitrary number, but you should always be sure your blogs are long enough to be meaningful, while short enough to be interesting. 800-1600 words is a good ballpark. (A side note for those concerned with SEO – the longer the post, usually the better it ranks)

The important thing is to set a schedule and stick with it. You do need to be consistent and disciplined with your updates before anything else.

Once you start getting into the writing groove, you might find that one blog a week is too easy. Cool!

You can always bump that number up to jive with your ability and what you want to accomplish.

Just make sure you know how to walk before you try to run a marathon.

#3. Set a daily word goal for your blogging schedule

So now that you have a weekly blogging goal, how are you going to go about meeting it?

Are you just going to wait until Friday afternoon every week before cranking a post out under the wire like a collage undergrad who played one too many rounds of beer-pong the night before?

That’s not a recipe for success (just ask my old profs), so let’s find a more stable way of blogging.

I’ve found the absolute best way to stay honest is to stick to a daily writing goal. Don’t wait for the day you need to post to start writing, don’t save it all for the weekend or one particular night. Do a little every day and never stop.

Writing on a daily basis will help make blogging a regular part of your life.

When you’re busy with work, life, and everything else, it’s so easy to make blogging the sacrificial lamb. The first item to be cut whenever your schedule get’s crowded.

Writing to a word goal every day prevents that. Plus, the constant practice will make you a better writer than sporadically rushing off a post one day a week. There’s only one way to get to Carnegie Hall after all.

Set a daily word goal for yourself and stick to it five days a week, rain or shine.

Take the weekends off – even bloggers need to rest and recharge. If you feel like getting a little extra done that’s fine, but give yourself permission to rest like a human on your days off.

Your daily goal doesn’t have to be massive. In fact, I’d say that when you’re just starting, an overly ambitious goal is only going to do more harm than good. Think smaller. Think of something you can get done before hitting your morning commute, or during a dull lunch break.

300 words a day is all you need to get started. That’s it. Honestly, 300 words isn’t much. You can write 300 words by accident. 300 words can fall out of your pocket while you’re fishing for your keys.

If you sit down to write 300 words a day, you’ll hit that goal easily. No sweat. In fact, it will probably be too easy. Once you’re sat down and in the mood to write, you’ll likely be hard pressed to stop at just 300. But, that’s the beauty of it.

Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down

~ Neil Gaiman

The idea isn’t to create a new mountain to climb everyday. The goal is just the kick in the rear you need to keep on track.

The good news is, if all you write is 300 words a day, five days a week, that’s still a nice crisp 1500 word blog at the end of every week.

If you write more, that’s all bonus.

You can increase your posting schedule, create more nuanced content, bump that goal up to 400 or 500 words a day, whatever you like.

The point is, your writing.

#4. Getting started and keeping that momentum

Getting started is the hardest part of almost any endeavor. So how do we jump start our blogging ambitions?

Well, if you have a steely resolve and ironclad willpower, you can just jump into it and make it happen. For the rest of us mere humans, we might need to employ a few psychological tricks to get us started down the right path.

For starters, unplug. You can’t write if you’re checking your twitter feed every five seconds or responding to texts. Turn off your notifications and close those distracting browser tabs.

If you have a serious case of “ooh, shiny!” syndrome and find yourself unable to stop checking on your email and all those hilarious cat videos, you might need to take extra steps.

There are a number of concentration apps out there that will prevent you from using other features for a certain period of time or until you meet a certain word goal.(essential if you are going to keep to your blogging schedule)

However, I still find one of the simplest techniques works best – just use a timer. Grab a regular old egg timer and set it to ten minutes or so. During that period, don’t do anything but write. That’s it, just ten minutes. We’re all capable of ten minutes of focused, dedicated work, right?

Can you hit your 300 word goal in ten uninterrupted, focused minutes? Great! Call it a day if you want or write more if you have a hot streak going. Ten minutes not quite enough time for you to make 300 words yet? That’s fine, go grab a coffee or stretch your legs for a minute or two and then reset the clock for another round.

The important thing is that you stick to it. Both in the immediate (“I will keep writing until I hit my word goal for the day”) and in the big picture.

It’s tragically easy to never start a thing. It’s easy to give up completely if you’re giving a half-heated or irregular effort. But, it’s hard to walk away from something you’ve been building for weeks, months, or even years.

This is exactly the technique Jerry Seinfeld used to build his comedy skills. Every year, he would buy one of those huge wall calendars with the entire year on it. And on each day where he put his nose to the grindstone and wrote new jokes (whether they were good or bad, whether they’d go in his act or in the dumpster), he’d mark off a day.

Once you’re looking at a long string of successes, it becomes more and more important that you “don’t break the chain.” A good streak becomes its own kind of motivation.

#5. Find a blogging schedule that works for you

Writing isn’t a science. While there are tips and tricks we can share to help us get started, writing is ultimately a very personal thing. So make sure you’re approaching it in a way that works for you.

If you find you’re dreading your daily word count, take a minute to figure out why that is.

Do you not enjoy the kind of content you’re creating? Does something feel forced or phony?

Course correct where you can and make sure you are writing on topics your comfortable with.

Find a time of day that works best for your creative juices. Plenty of writers swear by writing early in the morning. However, if you’ve always been a night owl (like myself), you may be more comfortable writing in the evening when things have settled down.

Find a place that works for you. Some people can write wherever they can lay down a keyboard or flip out a pad and pen. Others might find it difficult to write in the same space and on the same computer where they crush the rest of their work day (the temptation to check your email instead of buckling down can be overwhelming).

If possible, try writing in a different space. Whether it’s a coffee shop, a cozy nook in living room, or even just a different room in the office, find a spot where you feel comfortable and can concentrate on writing.

Every successful blogger needs to forge their own path, but the fundamentals of having a blogging schedule are the same.

Consistency and determination are the two most important elements for a great blog that achieves its goals. Figure out what you want to achieve, write a schedule that will support those goals, and stick to it, day after day, week after week. 

Author Bio: Nic Rowen is the content manager for Lifeline Design. Hailing from a background in writing, Nic believes great stories make great sites. You can follow Nic on Twitter

The post How To Create A Blogging Schedule That Works For You appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

I mean does it thousands of dollars per day / month – not a few measly cents!

Would you like to the ranks of Top Earning Blog owners?

What is stopping your blog make money right now?

In his book, The Richest man in Babylon, George S. Clason stated that: 

1. Money is the medium by which earthly success is measured.

2. Money makes possible the enjoyment of the best the earth affords.

3. Money is plentiful for those who understand the simple laws which govern its acquisition.

OK, I know that some of you will point out that money is not the only measure of success (and I would agree) – but when it comes to the blogging business…

Money is the medium by which blog success is measured.

I meet a lot of bloggers and I review a lot of websites and when a blogger is not earning the reward they hoped for, chances are very high they are making a number of the following mistakes.

Do any of these apply to you?

11 Mistakes that are Preventing your Blog make money.

The following are the main reasons why most people fail to make money from their online business.

1. They Lack an Adequate and Workable Plan:

It’s not just enough to say that you want to be rich; you must also map out plans on how you want to achieve that. Saying that you need money is nothing if you don’t know how much you need and when you’ll need it.

The first thing is to desire the money and then, know how much you want. 

Sometime ago, I asked some of my blogging friends what they want to achieve from their blogs and how they plan to make money from it. To my utmost surprise, most of them don’t even know what they want.

Before even starting your blog, it is pertinent that you map out your plans. You must first of all know how you plan to monetize it based on your chosen niche. Do you want to make money by……..

        a)           Creating and selling your own products

        b)            Selling other peoples products as an affiliate

        c)            Running Amazon associate program

        d)            Using contextual ad networks

        e)            Niche sites marketing

        f)           Offering your own services

        g)           And many more.

It all depends on your chosen niche. But the main thing is to know what you want and how you want to get it.

Apart from knowing how you’ll monetize your blog, you also need to have a content marketing plan and schedule. 

If you want to succeed with content marketing then, you should always know when and what to publish at any given time.

Content marketing is no more all about writing articles either…

If that’s the way you’re still doing it today then, you will fail woefully. If you want your efforts to pay off then, every article you publish must have a goal. Its either you want the article to give you:

=> Social media shares

=> Get you some backlinks

=> Get you email subscribers

=> Land you some consulting gig

=> Help you to connect with some of the influencers in your community.

As Brian Dean said, just keep on producing the right type of contents and with time, your efforts will pay off.

One thing you need to be cognizance of is the fact that no successful blog on the internet became successful by accident. 

As Social Media Examiner once said: Those who “wings it” when they blog are usually setting themselves up for failure.

Brian Harris noted in his recent post that one of the worst mistakes he made in 2015 was not having a content marketing plan. That mistake cost him so many ways.

So, the first thing to do right now is to get an Editorial Calendar and start learning how to use it to plan for your posts. Once you’ve known what your plans are, you need to ensure that you stick to it at all cost.

Bottom Line: The article should achieve something for you and your blog. If it does not, your time will be a waste.

2. They Do Not Properly Research Their Niche Before Starting:

Will your Blog Make Money?

This one is synonymous with most bloggers including myself. Fact is, many of us (including me) started blogging without knowing anything about our niche.

It usually goes like this:

You were kind of broke and was searching on the internet on “How to make money on the internet”.  After all you had heard about all these success stories!

You see an article that talks about how the author made $$$$$$ in one month from the internet. 

You then decided to try and see if you can make something similar (If not more).

You also notice, that most of the people showing their income report on the internet are in the internet marketing and blogging niche. So, you also decided to venture into the same niche even without carrying out any research to know how it works. 

So, you create your own blog and start struggling and praying for miracle to happen………Sorry, it doesn’t happen that way.

If you’re going to create a popular blog in any niche, you must start from researching and knowing what’s happening in that niche. This will enable you to know if it’s worth your time or not.

The internet is inundated with so many *fake* information on how to make money blogging. That’s why so many people usually give up after awhil..

Most people are too lazy to do the necessary underground work needed to build a lasting and sustainable business on the internet today. If you’re one of them, you will always get scammed.

Side Note: Talking of scams – Neville Medhora has produced a blog post on scams that would be funny – but for the fact there is a lot of truth in it!

And just as important – beware of the Fake Guru!

To Build a Popular Blog you Must Research Your Niche Thoroughly.

Before starting any business both online and offline, adequate research is needed to ensure that you’re really servicing a need. (a hungry market)

In carrying out market research that you will know the best niche to enter and how to best monetize it.

You will also be able to know if people spend money on the niche and what they are buying. 

Each niche has its own way of monetization. If you don’t research the market well, you might end up monetizing your site the wrong way which will give you zero result.

Furthermore, in carrying out your research, you will be able to know what is going on in your space and what to do better to stand out.

With Google, you can find out about just about anything on the Internet. 

For example: 

Assuming you’re thinking of going into the Hair Loss niche and you typed “below image is what you’ll see.” into Google – depending on your country location, you will see something like this:

Now as you can see, this result shows that hair loss treatment has been searched 33,500,000 times in Google. 

This shows you that people are actually looking for information about it.

Also, it has some advertisers which is a good sign showing that people spends money in that niche. It’s also a good fit for Google Adsense in case you’re thinking of using it as one of your means of monetization.

The next thing will now be to check the sites that are ranking for that terms and see if there are ways you can outrank them. 

With tools like Open Site Explorer, Similar Web, Buzzsumo, etc, you can find out all you need to know about these sites.

For example, I used Similar Web to find out more about one of the sites ranking in the top 10 – mensfitness.com

They had an excellent article on 6 best fixes for hair loss.

Below are the stats I discovered using similar web.

From the screenshots above, you can see that the site had over 7 million visitors last month which is really mouth watering (Imagine if you’re the owner). Majority of their visitors are also coming from the search engines as you can see below:

One interesting thing I discovered using Open Site Explorer (image below) was that the page on Hair Loss did not have a significant number of back links.  Now to be fair, Mens Fittness is a powerful and highly reputable website – and back links are not everything, but it is conceivable I would suggest that you could create an article on “Hair Loss’ that would attract more back links – allowing you to compete with a huge website like this.

My point is that if you are prepared to invest the time in SEO and creating worthwhile articles that people will link to, then sooner or later, you will be in money!

3. They Think They Can Do it Alone:

Every successful business has a good team. Of course, you can single handedly build a successful business both online and offline but, you will need the help of other people to grow.

You can never be good at everything. Instead of trying to do all the things that your business requires to grow on your own, why not hire some smart people to help you out while you focus on the tasks that you’re good at.

You may decide to learn it all but; it will only be costing you lots of time. A far better strategy is to outsource!

Check out most of the successful bloggers out there, you will find out that they mastered the acts of team building from day one. That have taken their blog to a greater height over time.

So, why not imitate them!

When you start – money may be short, but as soon as you can afford it makes sense to hire people to do the tasks you find time consuming and challenging. As a side note, one of the most successful bloggers I know barely knows any technical stuff with regards to blogging and hosting – he lets others do that.

4. They are Not Willing to Invest in Their Business:

This is like the step 3 above, unless you’re running a hobby; every business needs money to grow. There are so many necessary investments you must make on your blog if you take it as a business.

If you want to become a successful and influential blogger, it will be a waste of time to use free blogging platforms like blogger and the rest of them. 

You must be ready to pay for your own domain and host. Also, you cannot afford to use a free theme.

While starting, you will be tempted most times to use any of the cheap hosting companies out there but you must resist that temptation. 

This is because if you don’t, you will regret it at the end. Sometime in the future, your blog will start slowing down. It might also get hacked because of poor security and worst of all, it will just disappear mysteriously.

Apart from investing in your business, you should also be investing on yourself. Joining a Mastermind Group is one of the best things any growing blog owner can do!

Learn how to invest in your business, no good business can survive without proper investment.

5. They Lack Focus and Concentration:

One of the main reasons why people always fail to achieve their desired result is because; they’re confused and less focused. 

Popular author, Robert Kiyosaki defined focus as….

F: Follow

O: One

C: Course

U: Until

S: Success.

If you want to make it with your blog, you must learn to avoid all the distractions out there. 

Do you plan to make money by creating your own products? Give it all your attention and forget about every other method of making money on the internet until you’ve achieved that. 

If after all your efforts it didn’t work out, you can now try another method knowing that perhaps, the first is not good for you.

Doing all the things people tell you to make money from your blog at the same time and not focusing is a bad idea!

Focus on one strategy first and burn all the bridges to ensure that you achieve your aim. If you want to make money building micro niche sites then, focus on that alone and forget the rest.

SPECIAL NOTE: If you are someone who struggles with focus and getting things done – we highly recommend Craig Ballantynes Perfect Day Formula.

6. They Are Not Setting Achievable Goals:

Research has proven that the best way to achieve anything in life is to set goals. 

After setting your goal, you need to write it down and paste it at a place you will always see it so that you will not forget what you’re pursuing. 

This will help you to put more efforts into what you’re doing to make sure you achieved your goal at your stipulated time.

According to:  What They Don’t Teach You in the Harvard Business School, by Mark McCormack, 3% of Harvard MBAs make ten times as much as the other 97% combined.

Source: sidsavara.com

Then in 1989, the interviewers again interviewed the graduates of that class.  You can guess the results:

·         The 13% of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all.

·         Even more staggering, the three percent who had clear, written goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.

Writing down your goal is also important. 

Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at Dominican University in California, did a study on goal-setting with 267 participants. 

She found that you are 42 percent more likely to achieve your goals just by writing them down.

Finally, you have to make goal setting a habit. According to Brian Tracy, Goal setting has been called the master skill of success. 

You have two choices in life: You can either work on your own goals, or you can work for someone else.

When you learn the master skill, you take complete control of your life and jump to the front of the line in your potential for great achievement.

7. They Associate With the Wrong People:

Remember you are the “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with“

There are some kinds of people you should avoid at all cost if you want to achieve any meaningful thing in life. 

The people you hang out with will always determine your future whether you believe it or not.

If you stay with failures then, you’re bound to fail as well because; you will always be like those you move with. 

One of the things that added to my success today is because, I’m always mindful of those I listen to and those I keep company with.

Surround yourself with the right minded and positive type of people and, you will always get what you want in life. 

Don’t stay with people that will always try to belittle your ambition.

In the business of internet marketing, we need motivation almost all the time to keep us going.

One of the reasons why people fail is because they lack those motivations due to the people they hang out with.

8. Not Having Enough Time for Your Business:

Time is an important factor in any business. 

Every business needs time to grow and for you to reap the rewards of your efforts, you will have to map out enough time for your business.

Set aside some time on a daily basis to work on your business unless it’s a hobby like I said earlier.

a.      Check to see if your blog is loading normal

b.      Check the loading time of your blog

c.       See if you have any email messages or requests

d.       Check your blog’s stats and find out if your traffic and income is growing or if you need to make any changes.

e.       Update your blog always

f.        Promote your posts well

g.      Connect and build relationship with the authority bloggers in your niche

h.      Guest post on other authority blogs like never before.

These and many more are the things you need to be doing to ensure the growth of your business. You also need to know when you’re wasting time. When it comes to blog promotion, it will be a waste of time to follow all the promotional techniques out there.

If blog commenting, guest blogging and social media marketing works well for you then, continue with it and forget about others. 

The wise thing is to chose a few marketing strategies and focus on them instead of following all the marketing techniques out there and getting little or no result.

Jon Morrow advised that you channel all your time to building your email list while starting. 

Now this may surprise you – but Social Media does not need to be your No 1 priority at the beginning. Sure it is good to have social media accounts, but far too often people confuse being active on social media with building their business. There are exceptions of course (think celebrities) but until you have built a list of active subscribers (1000+) there is little benefit in spending a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. Again Jon Morrow has plenty to say on this subject – and others that are a waste of time for beginners.

9. Not Connecting and Building Relationship with your Readers:

If your readers don’t like and trust you, they won’t make you any money. You must earn the trust of your audience if you want to buy anything from them.

For people to click on your links and buy the things you’re promoting on your site, you must be someone they know and believe in. 

One way to do this is to always show them you like and care for them.

It could be by responding to their comments on your posts

Answering their questions, interacting with them on the social media and many more. Don’t forget to always write interesting and engaging articles on your site because, good content is king.

Just find ways to earn their trust and, they are more likely to buy when you recommend something. They will believe in your judgment but, don’t forget to always give them more in value than they give you in cash. Something to aim for is to always deliver ten times more value than cost as a minimum.

10. Not Connecting with Influencers in your Niche:

When you’re just starting out, the fastest way to grow is to connect with the influencers in your niche and they will help promote you. 

Its even better to build this connection before starting your own blog.

The concept is to start first by writing for some of the top brands in your niche to gain recognition. You can just set up a simple landing page for email collection and then, provide the link on your byline.

If you do this right, you will have a huge audience in no distant time and this will boost your own blog once you create it.

But in a case where you already have a blog, the best thing to start doing from now is to write for those influencers more than you write for your own blog. 

Dishing out hundreds of articles on your blog every now and then when no one is reading it will not do you any good.

Why not build the audience first? This was the same way Jon Morrow took his blog from 0 to 13,000 active subscribers in 60 days.

11. Not doing anything after reading this post:

My dear friend, reading is never enough

You need to put into practice what you learn.

A lot of people read just for reading sake but, that will take you nowhere.

Remember – it is not what you read that counts, it is not even what you know that counts – ultimately reading this article will have been for nothing, if you don’t take ACTION!

After all, the distance between your dreams and reality is called action!

Remember sharing is caring so, don’t forget to tweet and share this post with your friends.

Author Bio

Theodore Nwangene is on a journey to help bloggers and entrepreneurs build a better and profitable blog, increase visibility and boost their online authority. Follow Theodore and his website here.

The post 11 Reasons Why Your Blog Isn’t Making Money and What To Do About It appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Apps that allow bloggers to blog more often, write better and track their website and social media success.

Apps that help bloggers to manage their time better and get more done!

With technology changing, it is sometimes tough to keep up with all the new apps. Plus phones quickly become obsolete and phone applications are constantly being updated. In the end it becomes difficult to know which phone apps to keep and which to delete.

The Best Phone Apps For Blogging

1: The IFTTT app

The IFTTT app (If This Then That) is an app that allows your apps — such as Instagram and GMail — to talk to one other. This process of talking too each other is called creating a RECIPE.

As good example of a recipe is when you can set it up so that all Instagram images are saved to DROPBOX. This is just one of many ‘recipes’ available. The IFTTT App is one of the most useful any blogger can own. For a more detailed look at IFTTT – check out: 20 ways the IFTTT app can streamline your life.

(Download IFTTT for iOS or android.)

2) HubSpot Sales

Formally called Sidekick and also called Sales for HubSpot (download for iOS or android)

This App allows you to build a library of personalized email templates & sales content that you can access right from your inbox. With the metrics the App provides you can see which email templates get the most opens and clicked. This allows you to share  the best approaches across your team.

It also offers great Social Media Integration. There is a Free Version and a CRM version.

3) WordPress app

Allows you to do just about all the things you would normally do from your desktop. For example, draft a new post on your blog, review comments and track stats. (download for iOS or android)

4) Pinterest app 

Discover, search and save great content from across the web. Use it for inspiration or practical ideas for everyday life. Use this app to save articles or ideas you wish to refer back to later. Also see: The Beginner’s Guide to Seeing Massive Pinterest Traffic

(download for iOS or android)

5) Aweber App

Use the AWeber app (download for iOS or android) to check the results of your autoresponder sequences and broadcasts when you are on the go. It’s also very easy to see how many subscribers and unsubscribes you’ve recently gotten. There are no special functions to it, but the Aweber app just makes it very convenient to check your stats and it looks great.

6) Google Analytics app

Access all of your Google Analytics web and app data from your mobile device. Monitor recent changes with real time reports. Share reports to anyone. (download for iOS or android).

7) Evernote app 

Let Evernote change the way you organize your personal and professional projects. Dive in: take notes, create to-do lists, and save things you find online into Evernote. This App will also sync everything between your phone, tablet, and computer automatically.(download for iOS or android)

8) Wunderlist app 

Wunderlist is a simple to-do list and task manager app that helps you get stuff done. Whether you’re sharing a grocery list with a loved one, working on a project, or planning a vacation, Wunderlist makes it easy to capture, share and complete your to-dos. Wunderlist instantly syncs between your phone, tablet and computer. (download for iOS or android) You can get Wunderlist for many other devices, too. Choose your device here.

9) Buffer app

Buffer makes it super convenient to schedule (or reschedule) your social posts on the go. Great for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and  Pinterest. I particularly like that you can add images directly from the URL. This saves you time because as an example you don’t have to save an image to your phone and manually add it to each Tweet. This is a nice feature of the Buffer app because Tweets with images tend to cause more interaction. (download for iOS or android)

10) Podcast Addict app 

This is a great app with which to manage all your podcast subscriptions. You can download episodes and make playlists which is awesome because that way you don’t use any data when you are not connected to a Wi-Fi network. (available only for android)

Listening to podcasts is a great way to acquire more knowledge while doing other activities. Some recommended podcasts include:

• Antipreneur by Ben Settle
• Weird Entrepreneurs by Justin & D Verrengia
• The Tim Ferris Show (obviously by Tim Ferris)
• Online Marketing Made Easy by Amy Porterfield

11) MobileVOIP app

MobileVOIP is a free iPhone cheap calls app which lets you make (free) national or international mobile voip calls directly from your iPhone. (download for iOS or android or other phones). If you don’t have an iPhone there are various plans available that will save you money on your Mobile Phone costs by simply installing the MobileVOIP app.

12) Instapaper App

Save all of the interesting articles, videos, cooking recipes, song lyrics, or whatever else you come across while browsing. With one click, Instapaper lets you save, read, and manage the things you find on the Internet.

This app allows you to post to Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Pinboard, Evernote, and many others, using accounts you’ve linked to Instapaper. Even if you create posts when you’re offline, they’ll be saved and automatically posted the next time you’re online. One extra neat feature is that you can ‘copy’ a quote or part of a post as the text of say a Twitter Post and the app instantly produces a tweet that will post via your Twitter App. (download for iOS or android)

13) The Pocket app 

This is a very clever app, sort of like an online scrapbook. When you find something you want to view later, put it in Pocket. Put articles, videos or pretty much anything into Pocket. Save directly from your browser or from apps like Twitter, Flipboard, Pulse and Zite. You will wonder how you managed without it! (download for iOS or android)

14) the Instagram app 

Everyone is using this! (download for iOS or android)

15) the Cloze App

Cloze automatically keeps track of your email, phone calls, meetings, documents, Evernote, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. And everything from dozens of other services. It’s all organized for you — by contact, company, meeting, etc. It will also grab email signatures so your contacts are always up-to-date. It can also send you reminders of how long ago was your last email or when you were supposed to follow up. (download for iOS or android)

16) the Slack app 

The ultimate productivity app – used by many, including Josh Dunlop. Team communication becomes a lot easier with this app. You can upload documents and keep everyone on your team in the know. A new way to get more done, spend less time in meetings, and reduce email. That’s Slack. (download for iOS or android) your desired device).

17) the Google Hangouts app 

Use Hangouts to keep in touch. Message friends, start free video or voice calls, and hop on a conversation with one person or a group. (download for iOS or android or Windows phone) 

18) the MagicJack app 

Don’t pay for a separate phone or service. Just download magicApp to your existing mobile. You can even add a new business number! In your retail office, home office or on-the-go, magicApp keeps you connected. (download for iOS or android)

19) the Adobe Photoshop Sketch App 

Create expressive drawings anywhere with Adobe Photoshop Sketch, the iPad app that lets you use natural drawing tools like pencils, pens, markers and watercolor brushes to get all the textures and blending effects you’d get on paper. (download for iPhone, iPad and iPadPro) – Touch-up and create images.

20) ColorNote

This app allows you to quickly jot down blog post ideas, make checklists, and write a few hundred words easily, regardless of where you are. (download for android).

21) Google Keep

Google Keep allows you to add and store notes, photos and audio. You can then organize everything you decide to keeo into easily-accessible labels with various colors for ease of finding later. A really clever and useful app!

In addition, there are note reminders and the ability to record a voice memo and have it transcribed by the app later. Google Keep for Android | Google Keep for iOS.

Additional Blogging Apps and Business Resources

Recently I came across the article 27 Time-Sucking Blog Tasks You Can Outsource. Although it does not speak directly about phone apps, it does give you a wide range of tools you can use (or even outsource) to help you with your blogging and business needs.

You might also want to check out 15 Android Apps Every Blogger Should Have.

And if you’re really into marketing, you might like 45 Best Mobile Apps for Your Social Media Marketing.

Phone Apps For Accountancy:

The Ten Best Accounting Apps for Small Business Owners Who HATE Bookkeeping

Graphic Design Apps For Bloggers

Your budget is small, you are just getting started and you can’t afford to hire a Professional Graphic Designer?

What do you do?

Apps like CANVA,  WordSwag and Typorama are our favorites.

Web Apps For Bloggers

Of course, Apps need not be exclusively for smart phones. Increasingly there is a wide range of web apps to make your blogging life easier – including of course Popup Domination  – for Fast, Mobile Responsive, High Converting PopUps.

Others we like are:

Relay – An online tools that allows non-designers to create visuals for their blogs and social media.

SNAPPA – Create highly engaging images without the help of a graphic designer.

Choose Your Apps For Blogging Wisely

I could go on and on about how you can use different apps on your phone for blogging or business, but I think you can see that you have many apps to choose from! Your use of apps on your phone will be different than those listed here, and it will take some experimenting before you learn which apps you are comfortable using.

Some apps will make your phone an invaluable tool for blogging or business, and some won’t. It’s up to you to test out each app for yourself, decide if you like it, determine if you actually find it useful, or simply uninstall it from your phone.

Regardless of which apps you decide to use (or not use), your mind has at least been opened to some new ideas today!

Author Bio: Lorraine Reguly is an author, freelance writer and editor for hire. You can reach out to Lorraine on Twitter.

The post 21 Of The Best Phone Apps For Bloggers appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

How would you define your Perfect Day?

What would you do, who would you do it with and how would you feel?

Ask most people these questions and you will get replies like…

… a feeling of accomplishment, a big business deal closed, a promotion at work, time with good friends, family time and that mystical feeling of being in “the zone”.

But how do you balance closing a business deal with spending quality time with loved ones or getting a work promotion with family time?

Building Blocks For A Perfect Day

Solid foundations are essential…

=>> Create a Not-To-Do List!

Quite simply – a list of things you do not do under any circumstances!

I am not here to make any moral judgement on what a Not To Do list may include – but for example it could include at one end deciding to never do your own laundry while at the other end it could be to never discuss politics or to never use profanities. We are all different and what may be on my not-to-do list may well not be on yours and vice versa.

=>> Create your own set of Life Rules

Now most of us have admirable beliefs and values and hold ourselves up to high standards – but not so many of us write them down. I was inspired to more carefully define my own set of Life Rules by fellow IncomeDiary contributor – Craig Ballantyne

As an example I repeat below one of Craig’s life rules (which is also something for the Not-To-Do list) below…

I do not engage in confrontations with anyone, in-person or online. This is a waste of time and energy. If I have caused harm, I apologize and fix the situation. And then I take a deep breath, relax, breathe out, and re-focus my efforts back on my work and goals

Why are these so important?

Quite simple really – with a Not To Do list and your own personal set of Life Rules you are less likely to come across conflict situations and anything that gets in the way of having a perfect day.

Also, life is a lot simpler once you start adhering to your own personal philosophies – and stop worrying about what others think. You spend less time ‘thinking’ and agonizing over a response because you and your closest friends know your position on the important things in life!

=>>Develop A Positive Morning Ritual!

Each persons ritual may be slightly different but the important thing is to develop a ritual that empowers you and sets you up for the day.

Examples…

a) Give yourself at least 15 minutes of no screen time.
(Do not check email or Social Media)
b) Swap the coffee for a glass of water, or a herbal tea.
c) Stretch. (Good time for morning Yoga or Tai Chi)
d) Open up your daily motivational readings.
(read some of your favorite, inspiring quotes)
e) Review your goals and life purpose
f) Meditate / Pray / Give Thanks.

I honor the fact that some of us are religious, some of us are semi-religious and some of us are not religious at all. The point here, is to incorporate something that allows you to focus and start your day with energy!

=>>Make Exercise Part Of Morning Ritual!

Now, I am not one of those people who could be described as an Athlete – but one thing I have always enjoyed is a brisk morning walk. The thing about exercise (walking, running, cardio or strength training) is that it gives us a wonderful feeling of well-being. In my case, I found walking – often on my own, by the Beach in West Sussex, was the time when I had some of my best ideas. Actually, I would go further and say that I rarely if ever had my best ideas in the office!

So stop wasting your life in bed, start getting up early to exercise and experience the many benefits of morning exercise.

7 Key Actions For A Perfect Day

1) Reflect and Journal – the night before.

Before you go to bed create a routine that allows you to think about your day.

What did you learn today? (from your mistakes)

Mistakes are meant for learning – not repeating.

What will you not do in future?

What are you grateful for? How did you progress towards your goals?

I recommend you answer these questions via a written word brain dump (Journal). Write down how you feel about your day, what you learned etc and then take it one step further by pulling out the key points and structuring your upcoming day accordingly.

2) For a Perfect Day – Plan your day ahead – the night before.

Most us have heard of a TTD List (Things To Do List) – and for many years I have diligently sat down each evening and set out my TTD list for the following day. It is a good policy – but if you want to step it up a gear, PRIORITIZE! Far better to have three important life changing priorities that you must accomplish rather than a long list of relatively average things that frankly will not make a lot of difference on way or the other.

Many TTD lists are far too general and lack prioritization, covering everything from picking up the laundry to launching a new business.

By all means have a list for the household chores but the TTD list I am referring to here is the one that reflects your life goals and ambitions.

When you do tomorrows TTD list tonight – ask yourself this critical question…

What is my No 1 Priority Right Now? and No 2 and No 3. I would suggest that those priorities would rarely be collecting the laundry!

3) Wake up 15 minutes earlier than usual and focus on solving your #1 problem in life.

Wow – this is super powerful.

Apply this immediately and you will start to experience a more productive and perfect day, everyday!

Honestly it is that ‘simple’ – try it

4) Maximize your magic time

Know when you are most productive and dedicate that time to your #1 project.

Most people have a period of time during the day that they are most productive. First try to identify that time then attempt to position yourself so you’re completing your essential task during this time. For me personally, my productivity decreases as the day goes on. Therefore, after my morning routine I immediately try to complete the most essential action of the day as soon as possible.

I know that the longer I wait to complete my essential task the harder it will be to focus and the slower I will work. In turn I become frustrated with my inefficiency. Avoid this by completing that key action during your optimum productivity period.

5) Batch your work … have a time to do emails, calls, and focused work. Don’t multi-task.

Remember:“The man who chases two rabbits, catches none”

Confession time – Multi-tasking used to be something I almost prided myself in. Ever heard the term: BUSY FOOL? That used to be me!

If you need to send emails and reach out to people, devote an hour to doing this exclusively. If you’re creating a course that you’ll eventually sell and you need to create videos, break it down into workable batches (filming, editing, etc.). Doing so allows you to take the same actions over and over again for a short period of time. This helps to get into a rhythm and can often lead to the feeling commonly described as “in the zone”.

Did you notice that term “focused work” above – the fact is that many of us handle our emails, make the phone calls and post on social media before we do our FOCUSED WORK. But really it should be the other way round!

It is the focused work that gets us to our goals and it is the focused work that pays the bills!

6) Always Be proactive – follow your plan

If you are following the strategies above it is almost impossible to not be proactive and following your plan.

Simply doing the above, creates FOCUS and what you focus on is what you get!

7) Stop living in the past – Live in the NOW!

“Living in the past means I’m living in regret. Living in the future means I’m living in anxiety. Learning from the past means I’m becoming wiser. Being excited for the future means I’m doing what I need to do now to make that exciting future happen” ~ Matt Hearnden

Living a Perfect Day – Expanded

Creating and scripting your own Perfect Day is well worth the investment in terms of time and energy. Actually I would go further – you cannot afford not to do it!

These 7 key actions and the earlier foundations are starting blocks only – there is more to do and learn. That is why I enthusiastically recommend Craig Ballantynes Perfect Day Formula to all my friends and colleagues. It has made such a huge difference to how I live my life and manage my day. My hope is it will do the same for you.

Before getting to know Craig, the truth is that many of my days were far from perfect. Fortunately implementing the Perfect Day Formula and having Craig as a mentor has changed that!

The Perfect Day Formula is about multiplying your productivity, having more fun, making more money and enjoying more freedom into your life…

Buy Perfect Day Formula

I am honored that Craig used my review of The Perfect Day Formula on his website and I cannot do better than repeat it below…

“For a long time I confused hard work with discipline. And even though I was a very hard worker in business, I was not disciplined in many other areas of my life, including my health and relationships. I allowed too many toxic people into my life simply because I did not have a clearly defined set of life rules and I lacked a NOT to-do list. Being hardworking in your career does not mean you are disciplined. Success in business is ultimately of no use if the rest of your life is out of balance. This was the #1 lesson Craig taught me through his Perfect Day Formula and personal mentoring. The inside look that Craig gives us into Warren Buffett’s success helped me appreciate the power of Morning Rituals and create my own. I get up earlier every day and have made time for what matters. Craig’s formula has refocused my desire to leave the world a better place for having been here, and I only wish I had been given this information when I was much younger. If I had implemented Craig’s Perfect Day Formula earlier it would have saved me a lot of heartache and money. It is essential for anyone who wants balance in their life.”

– Barry Dunlop,
London, England, entrepreneur, and father of 4

Perfect Day Quotes!

Everything happens for a reason, live it, love it, learn from it! Make your smile change the world, But don’t let the world change your smile.

“Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.” ~ Buddha

“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” ~John Wooden

Life is not always perfect, but it’s always what you make it. So make it count, make it memorable, and never let anyone steal your happiness.

“Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.” ~ Hugh Mackay

“Stop waiting for the perfect day or the perfect moment… Take THIS day, THIS moment and lead it to perfection.” ~ Steve Maraboli

Author Bio: Barry Dunlop is a lifelong entrepreneur, Angel Investor and sales coach who launched his first Internet Business in 1998. His many interests include Blockchain development, Website Flipping, Domain Names and his newest interest: Hashgraph Technology.  Follow  Barry on Twitter

The post How To Create And Live Your Perfect Day appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

That would be Matt Mullenweg, the 29-year-old at the heart of WordPress. With 60 million websites built with WordPress (including this one), it is by far the most popular blogging platform in the world.

From the beginning, Mullenweg has done business differently:  WordPress was open-sourced , which means that the code was free to be developed by anybody who wanted to contribute. Mullenweg is also a vocal advocate of distributed work and 130 of Automattic’s 150 employees work outside of their San Francisco headquarters.

Let’s dig in and find out who Matt Mullenweg is, with an eye for learning from his innovative business strategies, productive work habits, and his best quotes.

Who is Matthew Mullenweg?

• Born January 11, 1984
• Studied Political Science at The University of Houston before dropping out in 2004
• Founded Automattic in 2005, the company behind WordPress
• Matthew lives in San Francisco, CA but he travels as many as 200 days a year
• Hobbies include photography and music
• Mullenweg maintains his own blog, Ma.tt

Photo Credit:  : kwightca via cc

5 Business Lessons from Matthew Mullenweg

#1  Occupy the Space Left Open by Competition

Mullenweg would have never started WordPress if another platform hadn’t disappeared overnight. Back in 2003, Mullenweg was a teenager volunteering some of his time coding for B2/cafelog — an open source blogging platform that was employed on about 2,000 blogs [wikipedia].

One day the leader developer disappeared, leaving Mullenweg and the rest of the volunteer programmers without a project. Matt decided to step up to fill the void. He wrote a blog post to the community, rallying them to join him in starting a new open source blogging platform. Mike Little commented on the post, “You serious about this? Let’s work on it together.” The two had never met. Mike was in the UK and Matt was in Houston, Texas. But the partnership worked. “We just started collaborating over the Internet,” Mullenweg explained. WordPress was born.

WordPress caught it’s big break the following year, when one of its leading competitors — Movable Type — decided to start charging its users. Hordes of thrifty bloggers abandoned Movable Type for the best free content management system available:  WordPress.

#2  Seek to Better Understand Your Users

“It’s my responsibility to meet as many users as possible and direct the software project in a way that reflects their interests. Last year, I probably met 2,000 or 3,000 people who make their living from WordPress.”

Matt Mullenweg

Knowing your end user is the first step to being able to give them what they want. Mullenweg is one of most well-informed founders in the world when it comes to understanding his audience. His robust travel schedule brings him to scores of WordPress conferences every year.

#3  Know Your Creed

“If you’re building a startup or any sort of organization, take a few moments to reflect on the qualities that the people you most enjoy working with embody and the user experience of new people joining your organization, from the offer letter to their first day.”

Matt Mullenweg, from ‘Why Your Company Should Have a Creed’

According to Mullenweg, a creed is “basically a statement of things important to us, written in the first person.” And Matt’s such a big believer in creeds and their influence on company culture that he’s put Automattic’s creed above the signature on every new employee’s contract. He described the move as “an easy change that had a big impact on the company.”

In case you’re curious, I’ve included the entire Automattic creed at the bottom of the page.

#4  There’s Always Room to Grow

“There’s 6.999 billion people who don’t have a blog yet, don’t have a website yet, don’t have WordPress yet.”

Matthew Mullenweg, from Unreasonable.is

Matt is a mild-mannered Texas native, but his ambition is anything but mild. When asked how he felt about his platform serving 17% of the web, he said, “I obsess over that other 83% of the web that we don’t have yet.” Matt said in an interview, “There’s a much longer road ahead of us than what we’ve done so far.”

#5  Eat, Breathe, and Sleep Your Business

“WordPress is a part of who I am. Like eating, breathing, music, I can’t not work on WordPress.”

Matthew Mullenweg, from Ma.tt

We work best on the projects that are aligned with the core of who we are. That’s what Mullenweg has with WordPress. He has said, “I go to sleep and I wake up thinking about WordPress,” and “I consider myself very lucky to be able to work on something I love so much.”

10 Productivity Tips from Mullenweg

Back in June 2009, Matthew Mullenweg told Liz Welch about his day-to-day habits running WordPress in a piece called, “The Way I Work.” The next ten productivity tips have been culled from Mullenberg’s account of his highly-effective work habits.

 Photo Credit:  Khalid Almasoud cc

#1 Wake Naturally

Waking with the daylight instead of to a screeching alarm helps you go to work with a calm and focused mind. It’s also linked to higher blood pressure (ABC News, 2011)

Mullenweg says he tries to “avoid alarm clocks as much as possible.”

#2 Have an Unplugged Morning

Mullenweg told Inc. that one of us his goals was “to avoid looking at the computer or checking email for at least an hour after I wake up.” Starting your day unplugged gives you time for reflection and calm at the beginning of your day.

#3 Ditch the Coffee

To many, caffeine is a prerequisite for productivity. Not for Mullenweg. “I’ve got enough stimulating things in my life already,” he says.

Going without caffeine has been linked to increased calmness, less anxiety, and better sleep. But I must confess, I took a sip of green tea before writing this sentence.

#4 Know Your Prime Times

Mullenweg has noticed that he’s more productive at particular times of the day. Matt has said, “I do my best stuff midmorning and superlate at night. Even though midmorning is prime working time, Matt doesn’t do meetings in the mornings. “The earliest I’ll do a meeting is 11 am,” he told Inc.

Everybody has times of the day (or night) during which they can be particularly productive. Try to make sure you’re working during the times when you do your best work.

#5 Respect Flow

Mullenweg on flow:  “When you’re coding, you really have to be in the zone… if you are taken out of the flow, if that little toaster pops up that says you’ve got mail – and you look at it, you’ve lost it.”

To me, being in a state of ‘flow’ means being totally immersed in the task at hand. When I’m flowing – whether I’m writing, editing a video, or making music – I find that my work comes easily, happily, and inspired.

You can increase your chances of achieving flow by turning off your cell phone and your computer’s Internet connection. One of Mullenweg’s methods is listening to music.

#6 Music is a Focus Tool

“Music helps me when I’m coding… I’ll listen to a single song, over and over on repeat, like a hundred times.”

Matthew Mullenweg, The Way I Work

Mullenweg’s favorite musicians include Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Jay-Z, and Beyonce.

#7 Rescue Your Time

A couple years ago, I recommended adopting Rescue Time as a great New Years resolution for entrepreneurs.

Turns out Mullenweg is also a big fan of the productivity app. He called Rescue Time, “one of my favorite programs that I didn’t make.”

#8 Cut Back on Email

Reports suggest that the average office worker spends a quarter of their day in their inbox (about two and a half hours). Mullenweg has made a concerted effort to avoid the great email time-suck:

“I realized that even though I was doing e-mail only a couple of minutes at at time, it was adding up to a couple of hours a day. So I’m trying to reduce that.”

#9 Multiple Monitors, Multiple Devices

“In my home office, I have two large, 30-inch computer monitors — a Mac and a PC. They share the same mouse and keyboard, so I can type or copy and paste between them. I’ll typically do Web stuff on the Mac and e-mail and chat stuff on the PC. I also have a laptop, which I have with me all the time, whether I’m going overseas or to the doctor’s office.”

Matt Mullenweg, The Way I Work

Notice the way that Matt talks about his various digital tools: each one has different responsibilities and roles. If you can afford it, try boosting productivity by using specific devices for specific tasks.

#10 Hire Well, Manage Sparingly

Sometimes the key to productivity is setting things up so that they require less work. That’s how Mullenweg has turned management into something that takes very little time out of his workweek.

“My management strategy is to find extremely self-motivated and talented people and then let them go.” Mullenweg explained.

Note:  for more, see our list of 7 Surprising Productivity Tips for Self-Employed Entrepreneurs

10 Best Matt Mullenweg Quotes

Photo Credit:  Kris Krug cc

#10  “If you’re not embarrassed when you ship your first version, you waited too long.”

#9 “I don’t have big ideas. I sometimes I have small ideas, which seem to work out.”

#8 “Technology is best when it brings people together.”

#7 “As the web becomes more and more of a part of our everyday lives, it would be a horrible tragedy if it was looked up inside of companies and proprietary software.”

#6 “Do what you love and don’t focus on the money. Life is too short.”

#5 “For me, it always comes back to the blogger, the author, the designer, the developer. You build software for that core individual person, and then smart organizations adopt it and dumb organizations die.”

#4 “You can’t teach taste.”

#3  “My own personal dream is that a majority of the web runs on open source software.”

#2  “I am an optimist, and I believe that people are inherently good and that if you give everyone a voice and freedom of expression, the truth and the good will outweigh the bad. So, on the whole, I think the power that online distribution confers is a positive thing for society. Online we can act as a fifth estate.”

#1  “We are much better at writing code than haikus.”

Note:  if you like quotes, take a look at our list of the Top 40 Blogging Quotes.

The Automattic Creed

As promised, I’ve included Automattic’s official creed (posted by Mullenweg in September 2011):

I will never stop learning. I won’t just work on things that are assigned to me. I know there’s no such thing as a status quo. I will build our business sustainably through passionate and loyal customers. I will never pass up an opportunity to help out a colleague, and I’ll remember the days before I knew everything. I am more motivated by impact than money, and I know that Open Source is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation. I will communicate as much as possible, because it’s the oxygen of a distributed company. I am in a marathon, not a sprint, and no matter how far away the goal is, the only way to get there is by putting one foot in front of another every day. Given time, there is no problem that’s insurmountable.

This is a robust set of values that lays out not just how to be a good employee at Automattic, but how to build a successful business or achieve any great goal. I hope that you’ve found these lessons, productivity tips, and quotes from Mullenweg instructive and inspirational.

If you like learning from the founders of the top Internet startups, you may enjoy our 21 Lessons from the Life of Steve Jobs.

The post 25 Lessons, Quotes, and Productivity Tips from WordPress Founder Matthew Mullenweg appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Bloggers and Entrepeneurs have to be weary of where to spend their time in order to cut through the clutter and reach their goals.

Today we’ll cover some of the hacks that come in handy for many of the worlds best bloggers and entrepeneurs and will greatly increase you productivity as well.

1. Journaling & Planning

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” – Albert Einstein

Journaling is one of the most effective ways to get thoughts out of your head and transform them into definite plans of action. It was used by many great achievers as a tool to get both inspiration and perspective on their thoughts and actions.
among them are:

• Richard Branson
• Albert Einstein
• Thomas Edison
• Leonardo Davinci
• Andrew Carnegie
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Winston Churchill
• Napoleon hill

just to name a few. Since our time on this planet is limited, it comes to no surprise that successful people and those seeking success value their time as their most precious asset. So should you! Planning and reflecting on your actions and the Problem at hand, even just for a 5 minutes a day, will definitely give you more clarity. It makes sure that you spend your valuable time doing things that give you joy and have a positive impact.
Also, successful Bloggers get into the habit of taking notes of their ideas, plans and knowledge in order to stay on top of things. The faster you establish the habit of writing things down when they come to mind, taking notes on the books and courses you read, the more you will be able to stay on top of things when times get busy and stressful.

Practical steps to get started:

• Grab a Journal or Post-it and write down at least 7 Things you want to do tomorrow and Put/Post it somewhere where you will definitely see it tomorrow morning (i.e. your screen, office etc.)
• Get into the habit of performing this task every day before going to bed.
• Train your idea-muscle (especially helpful if you don’t have a website yet or are short on ideas) Use a timer, set it for 5 minutes. and write down as many ideas as possible. Do not judge or evaluate anything, just write as much as you can. This can include everything, from exporting Grizzlies to zoos in India to creating a new iPhone app. Go Nuts! The aim of this exercise is to train your creative idea muscle and get ideas out without being limited by reason. If you do this every morning you will be amazed at the amount of ideas that pop into your mind.
• Apply the idea-muscle idea from above to any specific project you like. Got a website? Create a to-do list for your website! What needs to be done. What could be done, what would be awesome.
• Go through your list and limit it to 5 things.
• Prioritize them by ease of implementation.
• Then do it!

2. Working in short bursts

“Getting your shoes on is the hardest part of any workout.” – Kathrine Switzer

For most people including myself, the most difficult thing is do take action consistently. I believe that the main sources for this are fear and the feeling of overwhelm. We dont take action because we fear that its not gonna work, that we will look stupid once we fail and we can’t see the end result yet.

Sounds familiar?

We try to estimate what it would take and conclude that its not really worth the effort and i dont have the time now.

Think of jogging.
Most people start running and love the feeling. They run for 30 minutes and the next day their muscles are sore The problem is that they think they need to run for another 30 minutes, otherwise whats the point. That is hard to commit to when your muscles are sore. I will go tomorrow they say, but tomorrow never comes.
The solution. Instead of aiming for 30 minutes, they should make it a habit to put their running shoes on and walk for 20 meters before jogging back. Everything more is up to them, but that is 20 m is all that’s necessary. Sounds stupid? Try it out and see how it works. The beauty of this is that very soon people will want to run, because 20 m become too simple. When you take this approach with any endeavor, your whiny voice will shut up much more often, because it can’t tell you that you don’t have the time to put shoes on for 20 meters. And that’s great, because on some days you’ll run just that, and on others you’ll do much more.

I have used this strategy successfully for several goals of mine.
2 Years ago I wanted to create the habit of meditating daily, since I really enjoyed the feeling whenever i did it. So I set myself the goal to meditate for at least 1 min each day (5 deep breaths). That’s it! I have meditated daily ever since and I will continue to do so, because even though now I always do 15 minutes, even on the busiest day i will find time for 5 deep breaths.

Another thing is writing. Be it for University or Business, we have to write a lot. Therefore, I often set myself the goal of writing at least 4 x 15 minutes, which makes it easy to get myself going because the anxious part of my brain knows that I could come back any time later and finish it. Of course I rarely need this but it’s easier to convince the lazy/anxious part of my brain of 4 x 15 min sessions than 1 h each day. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Practical steps to implement this:

• What is something you need to work or a habit you’d like to create? Is it a blog post? A study paper? Phonecalls? Running daily?
• Whatever it is, give yourself a limited time between 1 – 15 minutes depending on your task and skill
• Remember. it’s better to jog 50 meters each day than for 30 minutes once every blue moon.
• Get stayfocusd for online tasks and use the nuclear function to assure you won’t cheat yourself.
• Use a timer like focus booster for your 15 min increments or productivity.

3. Batching

“Batch meetings or calls in one or two set days, with 15 minutes between appointments. Scattering them throughout the week at odd times just interrupts everything else.” – Tim Ferriss

Batching describes the principle of grouping similar actions together to be done in one “batch” of time in order to enhance productivity. This approach is highly practical and has been adopted by many successful online entrepreneurs.

By organizing your week in batches you’ll not only know when is what but have more clarity of what to do in between batches, since these batches can provide a productive framework to schedule your days.

For example, Derek Halpern from socialtriggers.com has a determined day for shooting his YouTube videos. Instead of filming each video individually and posting it, he writes up the scripts during the weeks and has one day where the camera is rolling for hours. This way he creates a backlog of Videos and posts that will be released automatically over the coming weeks, during which he can take care of marketing, researching and living a great life.

Probably the biggest drain on our attention online is everything regarding to communication, be it emails, twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp or any of the others.
While it may seem scary, try to limit your email to certain times to check. I personally allow myself only 10 min of distraction sites (FB, News, etc) each day using a chrome extension called stayfocusd! I also aim to check mail only twice daily (12.15 & 18.15) That may seem extreme, but it has worked wonders for me. I get more stuff done and have clear goals for using those 10 minutes.

Obviously you want to adapt this to your preferences and sites, but lets be honest. We all have sites that we use as outlets for wasting time and chilling around. And there is nothing wrong with these sites. Just make sure you use them in moderation and focus on the things that will actually give you energy (working out, quality times with friends and loved ones etc.) This will not only get you faster towards your goals, but make you happier too.

4. Pulling content into resource pages

“There are tons of different factors that go into ranking well, but the biggest is high-quality content.” – David Sinick

What’s the lifeblood of successful Blogs? Great Content and Promotion of that content.

If you find yourself in an evergreen niche (where your published content will always remain relevant), you may benefit greatly from pulling your already created articles into even better Resource pages. A great example of this is Josh Dunlops Beginners guide to photography, which provides a great content overview and links out to many of his own articles.

The beauty of this is that these sites have natural advantages:

• High SEO potential, since they they tend to be long in nature
• Get shared a lot, since they provide a concise overview over a specific topic
• Provides a hub for people entering your page
• Great monetization potential since you’re providing great value and your CTA is highly relevant (i.e. if you want to do X, I recommend Y/sign up for more via email)

5. Engaging users to generate content

Other ways to get great content without having to come up with ideas is asking questions to your audience and answer them as in show format. Marie Forleo does an excellent job at this. While this format is especially great for YouTube shows, podcasts and Webinars it can also be done in text format, especially when using polls or contests to get participants. If you make it a habit to engage your audience in this way, getting new content should be the least of your worries. Most followers enjoy personalized content since they often can relate to it. And if you give your fans the chance to be run part of the show, the are likely to take you up on the offer.

It can also make introductions much easier, since you have a crowd to back up demand.
Example: If you ask your audience whom to interview next and get 20 votes for Michael Dunlop, you’ll have both an easier time following through (because you pretty much have to at this point ;)) and also have a reason for contacting Michael and presenting yourself more or less as the Ambassador of your audience (i.e. these people want you and have these questions!). Furthermore, if you follow through on your audience tips, they will be more open to reciprocate if you give them the chance to (i.e. “Let’s get to 25 shares in order to get a second round interview etc.)

6. Outsource writing or research

“Do what you do best and outsource the rest.” – Julian Hall

While successful bloggers always add their personality in their texts to make sure their content is consistent, it can be a great investment to pay for research or Blogposts themselves. If you find it easier to edit existing content than writing something from scratch:

• Research your keywords and topics of interest.
• Pay for someone to write on them.
• Edit the content to fit your needs and make it pretty.

That way you can make progress much faster, especially if you don’t have many posts yet, since the base structure is already written and you have something tangible to work with. Also, you will find that the more you invest in good research and base structure, the more interest you will have in getting the post out there! It gives you a feeling of control and consistency to know that other people deliver while you sleep.

7. Allow guestbloggers with caution

Guestblogging is seen on Blogs like this one, problogger, fourhourblog and many more. Guestblogging can be great because you can get great Content for free or very little money while have others work for you.

Whether to use guestblogging depends on your strategy and goals:

Positive:
If you plan to build a business that becomes less about your but about your brand. By enabling guestposts you not only have more content to share, but your Blog also becomes easier to sell since your audience is used to guestposts and the business could potentially be operated without your involvement. Furthermore, if you find relevant content and make it an exclusivity to write for you you can attract great relationships and offers. For an example of this look at Tim Ferriss’ Blog: By leveraging high quality guest posts that attract a lot of reach he not only boosts his own credibility (He’s the guy giving all these people a stage and is affiliated with them), but also becomes a desirable platform to be on for many top notch entrepreneurs.

Negative:
If you want to build a great personal brand that relies only on your appearance and thoughts, than opening your blog for guestauthors may harm your personal brand and upset your audience. People usually don’t like it when their favorite author suddenly is replaced by another, even just temporarily (this is particularly true for domains with your name in it (imagine guestposts on sethgodin.com).

In any case: you have to be very conscious about what type of guestposts you allow –> don’t drop quality for quantity!

8. Distraction free environments

“Deleting 200 spams a day is a drag. And I was checking my email constantly, rather than getting on with my real work, which is reading and writing. Email was becoming a distraction, a burden rather than a liberation.” – Tom Hodgkinson

One of the biggest win for any blogger is the setup of distraction free environments! Creating a place of order, structure and clarity is not only helpful for your productivity, but will make your day more satisfactory by allowing for maximum output in a short period of time. There is definitely a reason why Steve Jobs demanded every Wall and Ceiling to be painted in pure white, without anything hanging on the walls. But creating your own distraction free zone can be had more quickly.

Here are some hacks I found helpful in setting it up:

• Clean up! No-brainer, but a messy environment leaves a messy mind. Go pick up your stuff and either store it or throw it away entirely. The time will be well invested.
• Open the window for fresh air and get a glass of water.
• Give yourself a time-frame (i.e. 4 x 15 minutes, see point 2.) You mind enjoys clarity!
• Write down all the things you need to take care of later and put it somewhere behind you so that you can act on it later.
• Turn your phone into airplane mode and put it aside so you can’t see it (behind you or in another room.
• Use good headphones (I personally use these Headphones model from AKG, but others will do as well) and just put them on. I often don’t listen to anything, but it helps me shut out any noise.
• If you do listen to something or feel your mind wandering too much, put on one of these two tracks. (XX-Intro 10h & ambient Rain 10h) to neutralize auditory sensations until you get into flow (usually takes around 10-20 min. for me)
• Get F.Lux! This free little software runs in the background and shifts your screen colors to reflect the state of the sun at your location. No more eye strain or headaches from working in the evening! Must have.
• Use the Nuklear option of stayfocusd to only allow the websites you need to work effectively!
• Maximize your browser window to go full screen (F11 on Chrome). More Space, less distraction!

9. Get a life outside of the internet

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” – John Lennon

Last but not least, it is important to get a break and take care of life. The most important business decisions happen offline!

While your blog, your community and all the other goodness are all great fun and a big part of your life, don’t be foolish to think that a successful blog will solve all your problems.

Example: Lets say that your constantly online, only focused on your blog. You publish new content daily
and your community is growing. You hustle and post on Facebook, YouTube and all the other things that are
out there. You build great relationships with other bloggers, which enable you access to an entirely new level online. Your audience loves it and wants more of you and your voice online. That’s when you discover that you feel burned out and the enjoyment that you got in the beginning from a new comment has veined to something annoying. You may have lost relationships along the way because you never spent time with friends and only wanted to talk about business, you may have gotten in bad shape or even become ill in the process.

In short, you have become unbalanced! But the problem is, your audience has become so used to your presence that they riot about why you’re not posting or responding to comments like you used to. We as humans get used to things very quickly and usually don’t like it when things change.

Be aware of your commitments in the beginning and maintain a life outside of Business as well, so your Business can become and stay a sustainable pillar of joy, service and wealth for you and your audience.

10. Learn less, do more

“Knowledge doesn’t pay for anything, it’s what you do with that knowledge that pays.” – Napoleon Hill

If you want to get ahead in life, this is definitely the biggest piece of the puzzle. Spend less time looking and more time doing! Simple advice that you’ll find hard to follow! It is something that I personally struggle with constantly! I love learning and see how others got to where they are and how I can do the same. However, it has become my comfort-zone.

Learning is great joy and should be a definite part of your life, however, too much learning can cause you too never take action and stay in the belief that there is something else you need to learn before you can get started!

Sounds familiar? I have spent 1000+ hours just learning stuff about computer graphics and online marketing. I have had great successes in many areas, but still have no successful blog!

Learning has become my comfort-zone and that needs to change!

The reason is simple. it is easy to stay where we are and comfortable to know a lot and talk a great deal but never acting on it. This is also the quality I admire most about Michael.
When he’s got an idea he acts on it, IMMEDIATELY!

As Noah Kagan from Appsumo says: “Getting real Feedback from potential customers is more valuable than any book you’ll ever read.”

So let’s stop right there and get going!

To sum up, here are the 10 areas to improve your Productivity:

1. Journal on your goals & ideas to gain clarity over the lifestyle you want to live. (The best books providing self assessments are: Click millionaires and Think and Grow Rich)
2. Use a timer to work on one task for 1-15 minutes, than see if you are in for another round.
3. Batch your Tasks, especially mail and social media.
4. Combine your existing articles into resource pages.
5. Try outsourcing your blogpost drafts! For more info on how to do this effectively, check out Traffic Domination.
6. Experiment with allowing Guestposts! Choose Quality over Quantity!
7. Get your users to contribute content (Q&A, contests, polls, desired interviews etc.)
8. Schedule time for your offline life.
9. Create distraction free environments where you can get to work without loosing focus.
10. Learn less, do more! No one will pay you for what you know, but only for what you do with what you know!

If you found this article helpful, share with your ambitious friends. Also tell us your experience! Which tools and techniques help you to get the most out of your day! We’d love to hear it!

The post 10 Practical Productivity Hacks of Successful Bloggers appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Working from home can be a dream come true: convenience, comfort, and complete control. Today, more people are working from home than ever before – whether they’re telecommuting to their job or just using the Internet to make their own income like me.

I’ve been working from a home office for two years now and in that time I’ve learned that working from home is a double-edged blade. Do it well and it’s the best work experience you’ll ever have – but do it wrong and it will bring down your work and home life simultaneously.

Here’s how to make sure your home office is a healthier and more productive one.

Establish Your Home Office

“The biggest problem home workers have is the loss of distinction between work life and home life.”

Entrepreneur

Separating Life and Work

The first thing to do is to pick the area that you’ll be working in. Ideally, it’s a special room set aside specifically to work in. If you’re going to be taking appointments from clients, you’ll want to make sure the home office can be accessed without going through personal or communal spaces.

But separating life and work is about more than just physical separation. You also have to make a mental separation. This might mean setting very specific hours during which you’ll be “at work” and “at home” (even though they both have the same address). You may also want to wear different clothes to work so as to signal to yourself that you’re working and not at leisure.

If you don’t clearly separate your home and professional lives, you’ll find they bleed into one entity – and that entity isn’t particularly good for relaxing or for being productive.

Communicating with Your Co-Inhabitants

Chances are you don’t live alone. Whether you’ve got roommates or a family, the next step in working from home is sitting down and talking with the people you live with about where, when, and how you plan on working from home.

Establishing some ground rules from the onset will help avoid confusion and unpleasantness down the road.

Photo Credit: Fabio Bruna via Compfight cc

The All-Important Chair

“Nature gave men two ends – one to sit on and one to think with. Ever since then man’s success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most.”

George R. Kirkpatrick

Quality Desk Chair

Good work starts with a good chair. The right chair will help you to have a better posture, more energy, and more focus. From there, you will be able to work more efficiently, happily, and for more hours at a time.

I could tell you to pick a chair with sufficient lumbar support and adjustable height so that it can match up with your desk but really the most important thing is how it feels to you when you sit in it. I recommend going to office supply or furniture store and test out their wares to see what’s most comfortable for you.

I recently invested in a new chair for my home office and my only regret is I wish I had done it sooner.

Exercise Ball Alternative

There’s a trend towards sitting on exercise balls instead of traditional office chairs. The idea is that you’ll get more exercise, have better posture, and be healthier while at work.

If you’re thinking this is a little far-fetched, you’re probably right. According to The New York Times, sitting on an exercise ball does help you burn more calories (about 4 more per hour) but “the evidence that it improves posture is lacking.”

Exercise balls aren’t very expensive and can be rolled into the corner pretty easily, so you may want to consider picking one up as a change of pace from your more traditional office chair.

Photo Credit: ~ wryonedwards ~ via Compfight cc

Get a Big Desk

Why Size Matters for Desks

A desk isn’t anything too special. Essentially, it’s a glorified table.

But there is a big difference between a small desk and a spacious one. A larger desk will allow you to spread out, which is especially important if you’re brainstorming visual or relational ideas. It also leaves more room for extra equipment, like a second monitor (pictured above).

One way to have more desk space is to opt for an L-shaped, corner desk. This also gives you the possibility of having two separate work spaces for different parts of the same project.

Big Desks are Safer Too

Drinking water while you work is an important part of a healthy lifestyle and if you’re anything like me then you probably drink your fair share of coffee when you’re on the job too.

But liquids on a small desk can be dangerous, as you have no choice but to place them in spilling distance of your keyboard and other valuable electronics. This may seem like a fairly trivial point – but it wouldn’t feel so trivial if you lost an expensive piece of equipment due to a cramped work environment.

Standing and Working

There’s also been a lot of buzz lately about the health costs of sitting at a desk all day. If you’re looking for a change of pace that may help you work better and live longer, try standing up and working from a counter or another high surface. If you like it, you may want to invest in a stand-up desk as a healthier and more productive alternative to the traditional option.

Photo Credit: yprime via Compfight cc

Healthy Home Office Lighting

“To love beauty is to see light.”

Victor Hugo

Natural Light

If you want to be healthier, work in a room with a window.

A review from the Natural Renewable Energy Laboratory found that natural light in a workplace is linked to “general well-being,” “increased productivity”, and “better health.” The review also states that natural light “decreases the occurrence of headaches, SAD, and eyestrain.”

If natural light is simply impossible, then make sure you buy full-spectrum light bulbs. According to the review, “In buildings where daylighting is not or cannot be integrated, using full-spectrum bright lights has been shown to positively affect the workers in the buildings.”

Good Lighting for Video

Communicating with strangers across the globe is a big part of my job description – and I suspect the same is true for many of you. Because so much communication is non-verbal, video calls are a great way to build a more personal connection from afar.

But bad lighting in your home office will render your expressions unreadable and make you look unprofessional. If you’re going to be video chatting or video blogging, then you ought to take the time to create lighting that works well in your home office.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. The most important thing is to have a soft, diffuse light that’s hitting your face evenly. This can be as simple as a household lamp with shade, but you might want to try a few different approaches to see what’s best for your particular space.

The biggest problems that I see people have with lighting is (a) too much light in the background causing the foreground to be darkened in comparison and (b) a harsh light coming from the top or sides that’s casting long shadows across their face. If you can avoid these issues and get some soft, diffuse light shining across your face then you’ll be golden.

Task Lights

Consider getting an adjustable task light for your home office. You’ll be able to aim the light at whatever area of your desk your working on and it’s directional light will help you to focus on the task at hand.

Photo Credit: jnyemb via Compfight cc

Healthy Home Office Design

“To me, a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.”

Helen Keller

Planting Productivity

If you add just one accessory to your home office, make it a plant. Research shows that with plants around, “workers were more productive and had a 12 percent quicker reaction time. They were less stressed and had lower blood pressure.”

Plants that are dead or dying won’t be of much help at all, so when you get a plant for your home office you had better be ready to take good care of it – either that, or get a cactus.

Paint the Walls

One of the very simplest and least expensive ways that you can transform your work space is with a coat of paint. I recommend a neutral color or a shade of green, which is associated with harmony, balance, and refreshment.

Here’s what Colour Affect has to say about green:

“Green strikes the eye in such a way as to require no adjustment whatever and is, therefore, restful. Being in the centre of the spectrum, it is the colour of balance – a more important concept than many people realise.”

Photo Credit: Chrismatos via Compfight cc

Get Out of Your House!

Even if you’ve done everything I’ve mentioned above and you’ve got an extremely healthy and productive home office, eventually you’re going to want to escape it.

Go for it.

One of the great perks of working from home is that you don’t actually have to work from home at all. Depending on your line of work, you can be anywhere – be it your front lawn or a nearby park. In fact, as I write this I’m sitting in a local coffee shop.

A change of scenery will be a nice change pace… and will help you to be more productive when you’re back in your healthy home office.

Post Image: blupics via Compfight cc

The post How to Have a Healthier and More Productive Home Office appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

The Internet gives us unprecedented power to produce, but it simultaneously offers unprecedented opportunity to distract ourselves.

Slip into the bottomless abyss of email, StumbleUpon, YouTube, and your myriad social feeds… and you may as well throw your goals for the day out the window.

But if you’re able to discipline yourself, harness the Internet’s power, and get things done efficiently, then you unlock more time for your hobbies, your loved ones, and your passions.

The secret to being more productive online isn’t much of a secret at all: it starts and ends with focus and discipline. But here are five proven ways to make this focus and discipline much easier to obtain.

#1 Take a Look at Your Web History

Do you really know how you spend – and waste – your time online?

Pull up your browsing history (press Ctrl + h) right now. You may be surprised. My guess is that your history reveals that you’re visiting certain pages too frequently and that you’re staying on some distracting websites more often than you expect.

When you check your email, your website stats, or Facebook, you probably think, “It will only take a minute.” But when Microsoft studied their employees work habits, they found that it took their workers 15 minutes on average to return to the task at hand after responding to an incoming email or instant message. So while little distractions don’t take long by themselves, they often send you on time-consuming tangents.

As you scroll through your browsing history, you’ll start to recognize these patterns and identify your personal trouble sites. The first step to solving a problem is understanding it.

#2 Develop Barriers to Distraction

How easy is it for you to go from ‘hard at work’ to ‘hardly working’? Two, maybe three clicks?

Launching an unproductive website is likely so effortless, you can do it without conscious thought. The solution is to set up barriers that make it deliberate decision every time you access a distracting website.

It can be as simple as automatically logging out of your online accounts (e.g. Gmail, Facebook, Twitter). That way, the next time you go to site you’ll be greeted with a log-in screen, which will give you just enough time to pause and ask yourself, “Should I really be spending time here?”

If that’s not enough of a barrier for you, there are plugins that block distracting sites altogether for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

If software is your big distraction, consider removing shortcuts to these programs on your desktop and menu bars. Make it so the only way to access the offending software is by navigating a series of folders.

We tend to follow the path of least resistance. When you set up barriers to accessing your biggest distractions, you’re naturally going to access them less frequently.

#3 Improve Your Interface

Just as you can increase the barriers to distractions, you can reduce the barriers to productivity. Improve your work interface and you’ll soon be getting more done in less time.

Use a Second Monitor

Another Microsoft study showed that a large screen display increases a person’s productivity while working on the computer. A second screen is especially helpful if you’re a designer, web developer, content manager, or anyone else who uses a lot of screen space in their work.

Use a Mouse

If you’re using your laptop’s touchpad to navigate around, then you’re being inefficient. I recommend picking up a wireless usb mouse.

Learn Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts allow you to navigate even faster than a mouse because you don’t need to lift your fingers up from the keyboard.

The shortcuts I use most often are Alt + Tab, which allows you to cycle through all open programs, and Ctrl + Tab, which allows you to cycle through the tabs of your web browser (holding Shift cycles in reverse).

Together, those two shortcuts help me cruise seamlessly from research to writing, but they’re just scratching the shortcut surface. If you want to learn more keyboard shortcuts, you can find a full list of keyboard shortcuts for Macs, PCs, Browsers, and Gmail.

#4 Apply Parkinson’s Law

As a freelancer and entrepreneur, my weekly workload varies greatly.

Some weeks I’ll be extremely busy and I’ll only have a day to write an article for Income Diary. Other weeks, I’ll have very little on my plate and I’ll be able to work on an article for three or four days.

Even though the task is exactly the same, I find that it takes me longer to write an article when I have plenty of time to do it then than when I have only one day.

This is Parkinson’s Law at work:

If you notice this tendency in yourself, then you’re probably wondering how you can use Parkinson’s Law to your advantage.

Set Reasonable Expectations

The key to taking advantage of Parkinson’s Law is to give yourself less time to complete your work and therefore get it done more quickly.

Obviously this must be done within reason. You can’t give yourself two minutes to develop an entire website and expect Parkinson’s Law to just work it’s magic. I recommend that you estimate how long it normally takes for you to complete a task and then set about doing it in 80% the time.

Give Your Deadlines Teeth

Once you’ve determined an appropriate amount of time to complete your task, you need a way to give that deadline authority. Parkinson’s Law only works if you truly believe that you must complete a task in the allotted time.

The problem is that when working online, the consequences of missing a deadline that you set for yourself are hazy at best. You can tell yourself that you’ll add a new feature to your website by Wednesday, but if it doesn’t happen until Thursday… well, the walls aren’t exactly going to come crashing down.

Here are a couple of novel ways to give your deadlines teeth:

If you have a laptop, you can remove the power supply and give yourself the duration of your computer’s battery life to complete the task. As the power meter dwindles, you’ll find yourself racing against the clock to get it done.

You could also start working at a cafe that you know will be closing in the next few hours. When closing time comes, you’ll have no choice but to get up and leave, which will help give you the feeling of a real deadline.

Procrastinate Strategically

If you’re like me, then procrastination is a fact of life. You can try to resist it, or you can accept it and try to make the most of it.

Let’s say that you have a week to complete a project and you know that it will take you about one day of solid work to complete. If you start working on it immediately, you’re likely to procrastinate because you know that there’s still plenty of time before the deadline.

But if you wait until the day before the project is due, then you’ll be more focused. You’ll know that the project must be complete by tomorrow and there is no time to dilly-dally.

Of course, there’s an inherent risk with intentionally starting you work at the 11th hour. If the project ends up taking longer to complete than expected, then you’re suddenly in a time crunch. For that reason, I recommend you only procrastinate strategically in controlled situations where the chance of an surprise road bump is slim-to-none.

Load Up Your Plate

The above statement first seems contrary to common sense. Busy people have less time to get things done, not more. Yet there’s an underlying truth to it.

Parkinson’s Law is at work here: the busier a person is, the less time they have to complete any given task and therefore the more likely they are to complete it promptly.

So, try loading up your schedule with more activities (e.g. volunteer work, night classes, recreational sports leagues).

If you’re having trouble completing your to-do list already, it may seem foolish to take on more. But you may be surprised by how having less time to complete your work actually helps you complete it with more focus and punctuality.

#5 Stop Multitasking

The human brain is the most powerful computer in the world.

But when it comes to multitasking, we tend to give it too much credit. As much as we think we can juggle two or three tasks at once (and as much as digital technology makes that very possible), scientific research demonstrates that our brains can only really focus on one thing at once.

A Stanford study found that heavy-multitaskers are worse at filtering out irrelevant information, organizing their memory, and even at switching from one thing another.

Other studies show that people switching back and forth rapidly between two tasks don’t just take longer to complete their work, they also make more mistakes. David E. Meyer, director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan, told Time, “The toll in terms of slowdown is extremely large—amazingly so… The bottom line is that you can’t simultaneously be thinking about your tax return and reading an essay, just as you can’t talk to yourself about two things at once.”

Devil’s Advocate:  The Case for Multitasking

Clearly, there are costs to multitasking, but I’m not convinced that multitasking can’t boost productivity when done right.

An Ohio State University Study found that multitasking increases work satisfaction. According to researcher Zheng Wang, PhD, multitaskers “are not being more productive — they just feel more emotionally satisfied from their work.” For what it’s worth, studies show happier people are more productive.

In my own personal experience, I’ve experienced benefits from multitasking that might not show up in a scientific study. Sometimes I’ll be working on a design project and a writing project simultaneously. One project is visual and spatial, the other is linguistic and rational. When I run into a roadblock with writing, switching to design for a while allows me to return to my article with a fresh and rested mind.

So if you’re going to multitask, multitask deliberately. Choose two tasks that use different parts of your brain and don’t switch between them more of than once every twenty minutes.

Ready to Become More Productive?

I stand by the five tips above. But if you put them into place and you’re still wasting time, I have one last suggestion for you: get mad.

It’s strange to say, but anger can be a very useful emotion when you’re stuck in an unproductive rut. Think about everything that you’re missing out on by working inefficiently – free time, sleep, your friends and family, your passion and hobbies, increased income.

Frankly, being unproductive is something worth getting angry over and, as Mary Garden points out, anger can be a very useful emotion to getting you “roused into productivity and creativity.” So get mad and get to work.

If you’re hungry for more productivity tips, I recommend 7 Surprising Productivity Tips for Self-Employed Entrepreneurs.

The post How to be More Productive Online – 5 Proven Tips appeared first on How To Make Money Online.