SMART START

intelligent business. simplified.

PRODUCTIVITY
Boost Camp

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Resource Guide
SMARTSTART | Business Success PRODUCTIVITY Boost Camp

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Energy Management
1. The Strangest Secret in the World (audio)

http://www.markvictorhansen.com/strangest_secret.php

Productivity (or lack thereof) is always a reflection of your state of mind. We become
what we think about.

This motivational audio recording, the classic by Earl Nightingale, explains the
importance of being in control of your mind at all times. If you’ve never heard it before,
it’s well worth a listen and Mark Victor Hansen has made it available to you online.

2. VARK – A Guide to Learning Styles (quiz)

http://vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire

In the PRODUCTIVITY Masterclass, I recommended you take this quiz to better

understand how you best learn. It’s also important for you to understand the different
learning styles because it impacts how you reach your target customers and helps you
work more effectively with your staff, outsourced teams and suppliers.

If you do not know your own best learning style, take the VARK quiz and find out. (And
if you have staff already, get them to take it as well. You can make it part of your hiring
process too.)

3. The Online CEO (free)

http://www.roughunderbelly.com

Once you’ve created your own value-rated activity chart, you can use this tool to record
your daily planned activities and track performance.

This site was created by Geoffrey Grosenbach, a technical guy who had a special interest
in the productivity tools, using an original concept created by David Seah. He hasn’t
developed it further for commercial resale (and I rather doubt he will) but it functions
perfectly well for your activity tracking purposes.

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Action Management
4. Rescue Time (free tool)

http://rescuetime.com

Most people lose a lot of prime work time fooling around on the web. This nifty
monitoring tool runs in the background and keeps track of where your time is really
going. We can’t change what we don’t acknowledge. Sometimes you need to see the hard
facts to do that.

They’re not exaggerating when they say it’s ridiculously easy time management and
analytics. Without having to do any data entry, you’ll know exactly what software and
web sites you’re using regularly, how much time you’re spending on email and so on.
Then you’ll know exactly where you need to make change.

This tool also helps you beat procrastination by tracking your work goals and issuing
alerts when you’re heading into overtime. It’s an effortless way to improve your
efficiency based on the facts. And, if you’re the competitive type, and work with a team,
you can also compare your productivity to others for added incentive.

5. Online Stopwatch (free tool)

http://online-stopwatch.com

I use a beautiful hand blown antique hourglass to raise my awareness of passing time
when I need to keep an eye on it but you may prefer using this handy tool that serves as
either a stopwatch or a countdown timer and sits right on your computer’s desktop.

Never miss an opportunity to add a little more fun to your work day. You’ll be surprised
at how quickly and easily playing regular games of “beat the clock” sharpens your focus,
increases satisfaction and immediately improves your productivity.

6. The Printable CEO (free goal tracking form (PDF))

http://davidseah.com/pub/downloads/pceo/cgt/PCEO-CGT01-Standard.pdf

If you prefer pencil and paper to online tracking tools, you can print this handy form and
use it to record your daily planned activities and track performance against your value-
rated tasks.

Filling in the bubbles by hand and tallying your score every day provides regular hits of
emotional satisfaction which is good for boosting self-esteem and helps you monitor your
progress and see your self-directed improvement.

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Workflow Management
7. Emergent Task Timer (free task tracking tool)

http://davidseah.com/tools/ett/alpha/

The Emergent Task Timer, a diagnostic timesheet, is one of the incredible tools created
by David Seah for tracking how long it takes you to complete specific tasks so you can
analyze the patterns of productivity that naturally emerge in your workday.

Since most people don't actually plan out their tasks at the detailed level, the emergent
task methodology may be the gateway to using The Printable CEO™ (the tool he
created that I recommended for capturing your value-rated activities) when the important
high-level tasks aren't known ahead of time.

The ETT helps you in two ways:

1) in finding structure after the fact and

2) as a way of keeping yourself focused having incorporated a 15-minute timer

into the process.

Here’s how you use it. You’re about to start work, but are feeling a little vague and
unfocused. You want to work on something, so you start the 15-minute timer. Knowing
the timer is counting down, you feel motivated to get moving, so you just start and 15
minutes later, you get beeped. You then write down what you were doing, reset the timer
and keep going.

If you start a new task, or if it's a significant sub-task, you make a new entry on the sheet
and fill in the appropriate bubbles every time the timer goes off. Continue this throughout
your day (the sheet has 8 hours, broken into 15-minute chunks).

By the end of your work session, you have a record of what you did, broken down by
task. You’ll see where your time was spent, captured in a way that is intuitively readable.
Where you see the most black, that's where the most time you spent was.

You might also be able to see patterns of where you ended up getting caught in email
hell, or took an extra long lunch, or where you were getting nothing done because you
were ping-ponging between multiple tasks. Pure genius! The time paces and reminds you
to be mindful of what you are doing with your day.

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Here’s what a complete sheet looks like:

Here’s how to evaluate your form results:

There's nothing particularly special about the form, other than it's designed to be used
with an egg timer. If you're conscientious about using the timer to track what you're
doing, the following happens with little effort on your part:

• You'll develop a better awareness of where time is going, which is an essential step in
improving your own productivity.

• You'll see what kinds of tasks you're doing every day, and approximately how much
time is getting swallowed up by it. You'd be surprised at how much is not essential;
you can then consult your Concrete Goals Tracker to see how you're doing.

• You'll get an idea of how long it takes to do something, and this is invaluable
information when it comes to giving estimates.

• You may develop better pacing, because your 15-minute timer starts to build
anticipation in having something to record. If 15 minutes is too short, just use 30
minutes or an hour.

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8. The Compact Calendar (free planning tool (Excel))

http://davidseah.com/page/compact-calendar#downloads

If you’re planning any projects or want to map out your time zones easily as you set
yourself up for a super productive year, you’ll love David Seah’s other genius invention,
The Compact Calendar.

He created it to simplify estimating for proposals and production but I think you’ll find
many other uses for it too. His design lets you see the entire year at a glance, candy bar
style down the left side of the page leaving plenty of space for notes, scenario doodling
and calculations. He set it up this way to make it easy to see and map out:

• How many days are available, including weekends

• When critical deliverables are scheduled
• How much calendar time is needed to finish a task
• What are the specific days (e.g., holidays) you need to work around

Project managers usually use a long timeline, like a Gantt chart, to capture this detail but
it’s not very compact. This tool is so much better in my view.

How to Use the Compact Calendar:

Download the Microsoft Excel templates (they are .XLT files) from the web site link
provided and double-click them to open.

(If you're using a Mac, you may have to open them manually from Excel.)

Select the "Calendar" worksheet and print it out. If you don't need the entire date range,
you may also select just a few rows; just make sure you choose "print selection" from
Excel's print dialog box.

For impromptu planning, just circle dates and underline ranges, writing notes in the
empty space on the right. It is basically a form of doodling your schedule. A great
planning tool to use in meetings too; just whip out a few of these sheets out at a client
meeting to do a quick thumbnail schedule on-the-spot and you’ll make a great
impression, I promise.

Advantages of the Compact Calendar:

• The days are all packed together visually, so "distance" corresponds directly to time.
This makes visually estimating how much time you need much easier, a visual
advantage shared with the Gantt chart.

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• The calendar for an entire year can fit on a single piece of paper, with plenty of room
for notes. You can also just print out a section of it, for short projects, by using the
"print selection" feature of Excel and it should retain the headers.

• It still largely retains the monthly calendar format, with days of the week in columns,
so it's a bit easier to use than a Gantt chart.

• Saturdays and Sundays are shaded differently, so we are not as tempted to plan our
work schedule on them.

• It's easy to count weeks too. "Unit weeks" tend to be the building blocks of longer-
term projects.

• You're forced to break up project tasks to fit into each 5-day work period. Gantt
charts, by comparison, tend to draw long lines through the weekend because that's
what lines want to do. Even if you don't work on the weekend, visually it seems to
imply that you should be working.

• Because days of the week are retained in the same column, it's easy to mark recurring
events tied to them (e.g., Friday Micro-Fundraising calls for SMARTSTART Giving)

The main drawback of the Compact Calendar is you can't easily show dependencies or
overlapping tasks. It's also not so good for really detailed project planning.

(For those cases, use David’s Excel spreadsheet version of the Gantt chart, which is much
prettier than the ones that come out of Microsoft Project and doesn’t require an additional
software license.)

Printing the Compact Calendar:

Complete instructions are available at the web link provided. David’s thought of
everything for you!

Compact Calendar Workflow:

Like David, in general, I use the printouts as a thinking calendar, doodling in estimated
times and circling dates, dependencies, and deliverables. You can see how he uses lines
to connect with the notes on the right side of the paper in the example he provides on his
web site.

At client meetings you can use the calendar to note other dependencies, deliverables,
and ask about company meetings and other potential conflicts like vacations. It's a lot
easier to pass the sheet around than a laptop; people can contemplate paper more easily
and mark off their commitments that you need to plan around.

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David also uses this tool to note team deliverables and dates; everyone gets copies. Most
people on a project team know what work they have to do and can plan appropriately if
they can handily see their due dates.

To date I have not found better productivity tools than David has created and, since in my
business, time is money, I’m constantly on the lookout for the best tools to use in my
work. Whether you’re building a web site, creating new products or sketching out your
next marketing campaign, I think you’ll agree this one’s a keeper and this guy is a role
model for professional excellence -- someone whose work you definitely want to follow.

9. Blue Flavor Timesheets (free PDF downloads)

http://blueflavor.com/blog/2006/jan/25/paper-timesheets/

Many have tried to invent a better timesheet using technology but really and truly, a
paper timesheet is simpler and meets all your tracking and billing needs with virtually no
technical training or special tools required. Plus they’re easy to store, ultra-portable, and
fit right between the screen and keyboard of your laptop if you’re off to work on a
client’s site.

The Blue Flavor team is also a big fan of David’s tools so they turned his concept into a
Timesheet and offer two versions: daily and hourly. Project tracking and billing as simple
as it gets. You can even drop in your own logo to make it totally yours. (Just open up the
PDF with Illustrator, add your signature image and you’re good to go.)

• Hourly Timesheet
• Daily Timesheet

Stress Management
10. DIY Planner (free planning templates)

http://diyplanner.com

DIYPlanner.com is a community site whose focus is on paper-based productivity,

planning, journalling and creative techniques. Here you will find the official D*I*Y
Planner kits, as well as daily articles, scores of useful templates, handbooks and how-to
information, forums for discussing productivity in its many forms, images to clad your
planners or inspire you, and so much more.

DIYPlanner.com is a non-profit venture. All the writers and editors are volunteers and the
graphic designers submit their work under a Creative Commons License which permits
you to use it at no charge but not to resell it for your own financial gain. The
opportunities for continuing to use paper for productivity and creative possibilities are
endless. This site provides opportunities for making the most out of your life, your work,
and your ideas all from the convenience of your desktop.

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11. Don’t Break the Chain (free motivational tool)

http://dontbreakthechain.com

This tool is Jerry Seinfeld’s productivity secret and it’s really easy to use. You can have
multiple chains on the go whether you are working toward a goal, trying to break a habit
or just marking time.

Essentially, you write out what you’re working toward and mark off the days on which
you did something (anything) that moved you forward. The point is not to break the
chain. It doesn’t matter how small your action is; only that you took action.

The chain is your visible proof of commitment. The longer your chain, the more
disciplined you’ve been about taking action. Just seeing the unbroken chain is a
psychological motivator. When you feel like procrastinating, just remind yourself of
Seinfeld’s rule: “don’t break the chain”.

12. Remember the Milk (free online task management tool)

http://rememberthemilk.com

Remember the Milk is one of the best ways to manage your tasks online.

Managing tasks is generally not a fun way to spend your time. If you use this tool, you no
longer have to write your to-do lists on sticky notes, whiteboards, random scraps of
paper, or the back of your hand. And I think you’ll find it makes managing tasks an
enjoyable experience too.

With Remember the Milk you can create special lists called Smart Lists based on specific
criteria that you define which are automatically updated as your tasks change.

For example, you can create Smart Lists that only show:

• Tasks due in the upcoming month

• Tasks with no due date
• Tasks that are more than one week overdue
• Tasks that have been completed in the past week
• Tasks with high priority

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• Tasks with time estimates less than 1 hour

• Tasks that have been postponed 3 times already
• Tasks that are shared with anyone
• Tasks that are shared with a specific person
• Tasks that are tagged with 'mall'
• Tasks that contain the word 'phone'

Smart Lists can also be based on multiple criteria, for example:

• Tasks in your 'Work' list with high priority

• Tasks that are high priority and due in the upcoming week
• Tasks that are high priority or medium priority
• Tasks that are shared with anyone due in the upcoming week
• Tasks that are tagged with both 'mall' and 'gift'

There are many features offered in this tool that help you reduce your stress. For
example, setting reminders (which you can set up based on when and how you want to be
reminded) as shown below:

Frequency and timing of reminders

Amount of advance notice given

Method of receiving your reminder

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You can also search your tasks and Smart Lists

Remember the Milk has your own personal tasks search engine. The basic search allows
you to enter words that appear in the name of the task you want to locate. Click in the
search box, type in the word (or multiple words) that you're looking for, and then press
enter.

The powerful advanced search feature allows you to find tasks matching other criteria.
For example, you can find tasks that you've shared with your joint venture partner that
are high priority and due in the upcoming week and tagged with 'teleseminar'. You can
also use advanced search operators for more complex searches.

There are many other nifty features available in the “Pro” edition which is affordably
priced at just $25 for an entire year. These additional functions include having mobile
access, being able to add tasks or import task lists via email or the web, and being able to
use Atom/RSS and iCalendar feeds for even greater flexibility in managing your
productivity.

Even if you only use Remember the Milk to capture and hold your “to dos” just the fact
that you have one place, accessible from anywhere, where everything you have to
remember is stored safely and securely, it’s sure to be a load off your mind – that alone
will help you to be better able to clear your mind, get into the zone and experience
working “in a state of flow”.

13. Google Alerts (free topic monitoring service)

http://google.com/alerts

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.)
based on your choice of query or topic.

Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

• monitoring a developing news story

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• keeping current on a competitor or industry

• getting the latest on a celebrity or event
• keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams
• monitoring your own web presence
• finding out where your articles and media releases are being posted

This free service is the fastest, easiest way to stay on top of things without having to
spend hours every day looking for the latest on subjects of interest to you in building your
business or researching new projects and markets. You can stop feeling stressed and
anxious about finding what you need to know and can relax knowing Google is checking
everywhere for you and will let you know what it finds.

14. Carbonite (fee-based remote backup service)

http://carbonite.com

Carbonite is a simple, safe online backup service for casual home PC users, students,
home office users, business travelers, etc. For <$70 per year Carbonite will back up all
the irreplaceable data on your PC (digital photos, music, office documents, and other
valuable files) whenever your PC is connected to the Internet.

Carbonite is very easy to set up and use, requiring little or no ongoing user involvement.
The service is always on and continually backing up files on your PC whenever it is
connected to the Internet. Should you have a disaster that results in the loss of your data
files or if you accidentally delete a critical file, this remote backup service makes it
possible for you to recover the information quickly and easily.

What is the likelihood of catastrophic data loss?

If you haven't already had a disk crash or some other catastrophic data loss, consider
yourself in the lucky minority! Surveys show that nearly 2/3 of PC users have
experienced some form of catastrophic data loss. Statistically, you have about a 1 in 12
chance of having your hard drive crash in any given year, about a 1 in 10 chance of
having your laptop stolen, and about a 1 in 3 chance of serious data loss through your
own errors. This means in a single year your chance of needing to restore a file is nearly
60%. Imagine the interruption in your work day!

The going price for recovering data from a crashed hard disk is $750 to $1000 – often
much more. Is it really worth risking your irreplaceable digital photos, important
documents and other data such as your entire intellectual property portfolio or business
records when you can buy protection for just a few dollars a month?

In our business, the computer is our life! Knowing the data files on it are protected by a
backup is a great stress reducer and, should you ever have to restore your work, having
that backup available on demand is an enormous stress reliever.

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