How to Make Your Day More Productive

It doesn't need to explain why we are busy all day long. We are to do lot of works everyday. We don't have much time for relaxing, for recreation. We are human. We can't work all day long like machine. But we have to finish all the tasks in our hand. If the situation continues, we'll be stuck at some point. What should we do?

Sound familiar?

One effective way to solve this problem is to make your day more productive.

Below I discussed few methods to make your day more productive. These work for me well. Try if those work for you.

How to Make Your Day More Productive

 

Begin the day with goal in mind: Why you need to be productive? The answer is simple - to achieve goal.

When I was discussing this issue with one of my colleague, he replied, we do a day job, we don't have any goal there, why do we need to be productive?

Why not?

We are working to achieve company's goal and thus our own goal. If you help to achieve company's goal, company will give you incentives, will increase your salary. Ultimately, you are building your career. So, please don't think, why we you need to be productive in a day job. Simple.

Start your day with a To-Do list: Make a list of everything - what you should do today. Sort out important tasks. Don't take much time to make list. Because you have to update it several times for the day.

Start with most important task: Ok. You sorted out important tasks. Now start with most important task.

Update your list accordingly: After finishing your first important task of the day select next important task. And frequently update your list after completing every task.

Determine your best productive time: Not all are at best at same time in a day. Some can do more in the morning, some in afternoon and some in evening. Determine, in which time duration, you can be more productive. Try not to take rest at that time duration and do your most important task at that time.

Productivity is influenced by several things like healthy diet, adequate rest and being stress free. So think positive, have good food and take enough rest to jumpstart your next productive day.

Photo by Yourdon

Why You Need a Blog for Your Business

Blog, most smartest way to publish someone's mind. Blog can be many types. All types can be fallen into two categories - Personal blog and Business blog.

You can use blog in many ways to grow your business.

Following are some ways you can use to be benefited from a blog -

Advertise your business in blog: Suppose I'm one of your customer. If I want to know about one of your product, what shall I do? I'll pick my phone and call you. Or, I'll turn on TV to watch if your product advertisement comes. Or I'll look for newspaper where you provide advertisement.

Above three options are traditional ways and they have many disadvantages.

If you have a blog for your business I can browse and get what information I want easily.

Let your customers know the latest news: Whenever any new thing happens in your business you can publish that in your blog so that your clients/customers can know the latest news about your business.

Answering frequently ask questions: Customers may have queries about your business. One of the best way to fulfill them is blog. You can create a FAQ page in blog to answer the frequently asked questions by customers.

Getting touch with customer: Blog is a regular publishing medium. You can publish blog post daily, weekly and monthly. When you publish post, your customer will come to your blog to read the newly published post in their convenient time. In this way you will have more interaction with your customer.

Reducing cost: If you apply traditional ways to answer your customers queries you have to employ somebody to answer phone call. Or you have to give advertisement to newspaper or electronics media which are costly. If you maintain a blog for your business you can reduce those expenses.

Promote newly launched product or service: If you launch a new product or service, blog is the best way to inform your customers about that.

You can use free blogger app like blogger, WordPress and moveable, etc. You can give your readers to subscribe to your blog. In this way, you will be able to convince your readers to be customers for your business.

Photo by: BetsyWeber

5 Tactics to Do Anything Successfully (from my point of view)

"Good start is half done"!

I always hear this here and there. I think you also do.

What is good start?

What will happen if the start isn't good?

And what about the bad start?

Can someone explain me above questions? Please.

No matter the start is good or bad, our ultimate purpose is to finish the task perfectly.
You'll find thousands of tactics to finish tasks. But those tactics don't describe how to handle mental pressure formed in the process of doing any big task.

From my point of view I outlined following 5 tactics to finish any task successfully.

1. Start small
2. Step Small
3. Form habits
4. Trial and Error
5. Focus

Start small: If you think the whole process of a big task, you will be stuck at beginning. Forget about the fear of failure. Forget about obstacles you'll face later.

Did Florence Griffith-Joyner, fastest women in the world in 100m sprinters, thought she will be fastest women when she started to learn walking? Even her first step was imperfect, unbalanced. Can you say her first step was good start? If she thought the whole process of becoming fastest women at beginning, I must say, she will be frustrated.

So, whatever your start, good or bed, just start. Many good things will happen when you start. This is the most difficult part of doing anything. Forget about the good start. That will hold you back.

Step small: Starting is difficult, so is finishing.
Lets take 100m sprinter for example.
Winning 100m sprinter is started with 1st step, then 2nd step, the 3rd, 4th.... Forget about the end line. Just do your best in every steps.
This is true in any small and big task. You just start with small. After finishing that, start 2nd small and do same up to end.

Form habits: Don't take your task as work. Take them as game. Then you'll enjoy your work.

One of the best way to treat your work as game, is to make a habit of doing that.

Trial and Error: They don't make any mistake who don't do anything.

So, forget about mistake or error. Do something, make mistake, and then try again.

Focus: Do focus whatever you do. Being focused on certain thing will bring best result for you. Leo babauta, one of my favourite writer, wrote a good article about "the magical power of focus".

I must say, don't worry about the bad start. Just start small, go ahead with small steps, make a habit of doing so, make mistake, focus on the things you do and successfully finish your task.

5 Free Productivity App for Windows Phone

Technology is making our life more easier than before. It seems the whole world is in our hand now. Latest addition in this trend is smartphones. These made our life even easier and handy. Many applications from developer all around the world made the things possible to do on smart phone which we could do only on computer.

Below I describe 5 such productivity app which I use frequently on my windows phone 8 -

1. Evernote
2. Skydrive
3. Indigo
4. Pdf reader
5. Feed reader free

5 Free Productivity App for Windows Phone

Evernote: This is the must have app for anybody who want to increase their productivity on daily documents life.
A few days ago I wrote two articles on evernote. Below are the links -

How I use evernote for better productivity, part-1
How I use evernote for better productivity, part-2

Now you can use evernote on your windows smart phone on the go.

Skydrive: Skydrive is the place to store your files so you can access them from virtually any device. Now the skydrive app for windows phone makes it easier to manage and share files-all in one place.

Indigo: As indigo's own words, it is the cleverest voice-enabled personal assistant.

Some cool features of indigo -

Create and store diary entries.
Save notes and reminder and alert system
Update facebook
Tweet, retweet and read tweet
Play video on YouTube,
and much more.

Pdf reader: I have a habit of reading books. Whenever I have time I start reading book. Pdf reader for windows phone made this simple for me. Now I can read my ebook wherever I go.

Some features -

Bookmark page
Text search option
Resume reading
Share pdf files through skydrive, etc.

Feed reader free: Blog has been a huge source of knowledge. You will find blog about anything on net. There are about 50 blogs which I want to read regularly when they publish new article. But, going to every blog and check if there is any new article published is very time consuming. That's why feed concept came to action to get you know when a blog is updated.

There are many application and browser add-on available for computer. But, for windows phone those are few. Yet I have found a good app for windows phone which let me read my favourite blogs on the go.

Some awesome features-

It can follow voice command.
Have your news audibly read to you
Integrated full twitter client
Support offline reading
Social integration, etc.

Photo by Bob Familiar

4 Most Easiest Ways to Earn Money Online

Earning money online is getting more popular day by day. But it is hard as offline earning. One of the coolest benefit of online earning is that you don't need to have physical office-setup. You can start it as a side-income source.
There are many ways to earn money online. I've sorted out 4 most easiest and popular ways.

Freelance: Once I opened an account on odesk just for curiosity. After 25 days of opening my account I got first job contract. Before getting first job contract I have successfully passed several tests and completed my profile about 80% on odesk.

I also tried on fiverr. It's a five dollar market place. I showed me there as a logo designer. Within one week I designed 12 logos for people and earned 60 dollar. I also did that just for curiosity.

These experiences of mine prove that it is possible to earn a handsome amount of money by freelancing.

It requires some qualifications on any subject. Qualification on any subject will do. Such as MS Word, MS Excel, photoshop, etc, etc. A dedicated blog named freelanceswitch provides helpful guidelines for freelancers.

Blogging: The most popular way of earning money online. Blogging is more than just earning money. Now-a-days, most of the offline business companies use blogging as a medium for getting touch with their customers.

But blogging is not so easy. It requires to have patient and constant involvement. And you have to have vast knowledge about topic which you will blog on.

Selling self-made (Homemade) product online: If you have ability to create product on home, you can sell them online. Products like painting, hand-made wooden work, needlework, etc are more popular in online world.

There are many websites through which you can sell your product online. Etsy and artfire are most popular of them.

Teaching: When I was college student, I would provide teaching to some school student to earn some extra for my daily expenses. That concept now came to the super fast online world.

There are websites providing services to connect teacher with student or vice versa. Tutor.com is one of them who is providing service for this purpose.

As you know, earning money isn't so easy. You might have seen many advertisement online showing that they can make you millionaire with no time etc etc etc. Those are totally bogus. Don't try those. Make your mind to work hard to earn. Because no one can make money without hard work.

Photo: gamercize

Be Productive by Not Doing Less

We all have 24 hours in a day. Some make millions in that time, some don't. Why?

That is another topic.

I asked the above question because, who make millions, obviously they are more productive.

Many people say, getting more result by doing less is the productivity.

I don't think so.

How will you get more result by doing less?

In my opinion, getting more results by doing actively is the productivity.

Now the question is, how will you do actively?

Follow the following techniques:

Concentrate: What you do, do actively. Fully concentrate on that. Close all other things which can divert your concentration.

Practice: Doing same thing again and again makes you more productive. Suppose, you are a writer. Writing everyday will form a habit and you can produce more articles.

Do what you like doing: If you are a specialist on doing something, just do that. Why don't you hire someone for doing the things that you aren't specialist in. Suppose I'm a blogger and I can write article well, so why shall I try to design my blog? This is waste of time. I should hire someone who is perfect in blog designing.

Find ways to be more productive: You want to read a book, but you have other important tasks to do. You don't have enough time to read. Why don't you have an audio version of that book? So that you can listen when you drive. This is just for example. You should find your way to be productive.

Stop multitasking: Do one thing at a time. Stop doing several things at a time. It will increase your productivity.

Don't waste time: We always face difficulties to find which task is more important. After completing one task, we again face problem selecting next important task. This is big time wasting.

To solve this problem, start forming a habit of making To-Do list. But don't spend much time to make list.

Rise early: Make a habit of early rising. Only one hour of time in the morning will make you more productive. What you can't do in two hours in the evening, you can do that in one hour in the morning, believe me. But sleep well, it helps to be more productive.

Leo Babuta writer a good post about rising early.

Finally, above rules are common and work for most people. But some people have their own strategies to be productive. Find yours yourself.

How to Use Evernote for Better Productivity, part-2

This is 2nd and last part of how to use evernote for better productivity. In last post, I discussed, how I use evernote for better productivity. In that post I just discussed about folder option of evernote. Today I'll show how I use evernote tag for better productivity.

I've created following six mother tag -

1. What
2. When
3. Who
4. Category
5. Label

1. What: What is a mother tag. It contains three other child tags inside it.

A. Active project
B. Inactive project
C. Read it later

A. Active project: Projects, which I'm currently working on, are tagged with Active project. Suppose, I'm reading a book but not finished reading yet, is tagged with this child tag.

B. Inactive project: If I have something to work on later, is tagged with this tag. For example, I have to write a manuscript "complete checklist for building construction" later, which I haven't started yet, I tag those notes with this tag.

C. Read it later: If I have a email to read, but I don't have time now to read, I tag that with read it later. Or if I've found a interesting blog post but I don't have much time to read that just now. I make tag that post with read it later.

2. When: This is my 2nd mother tag. It's all about time. It contains two child tags.

A. Daily
B. Soon

A. Daily: If I have to do something on daily basis, I tag that with this. Suppose, I'm making a habit of something, which I should do daily basis, I make tag that with daily.

B. Soon: Suppose, I have a project, which I should start urgently, I tag that with this tag.

3. Who: This tag indicates who the note is related to. When I save a note into evernote, I think who the note is related to. I've created several child tags under this tag. For example, I have a blog named "Acivilengineer.com", I created a tag named ACE for that blog. All documents related to that blog, I tagged with ACE. I hold a daily job. I created a job tag and I saved all related documents with the tag "job".
Create tags under this mother tag as your requirements.

4. Category: My fourth mother tag is "4. Category". I created several child tags under this mother tag as my requirements.
As I'm a civil engineer, I have a tag named "engineering" for my professional documents. I have created several others tags under this mother tag. Such as blogging, windows, self improvement, productivity etc.

5. Label: Finally, I have created my last mother tag named "5. Label". Actually, this mother tag is related to "4. Category tag".

As you know from above, one of my child tag under "4. Category" mother tag is blogging. Blogging documents/notes can be various types, like Seo, monetize, blog content etc. For this reson I created "5. Label" tag. For me, child tags under this mother tag are structural, building material, ebook, software, seo, monetize, image etc.

This series have actually been created for giving you a basic concept about how to be productive with evernote. These combinations of folders and tags work best for me. You can justify which combination works best for you. However, this concept I got somewhere in internet. And I've modified that as my requirements.

How I Use Evernote for Better Productivity, part-1

In last post, I shared, why I use evernote. Today I'll share how I use evernote for better productivity.

As you know, evernote has both, folder and tagging options, we can save a document in a folder and tag them as we want.

In our computer hard drive, we can save documents in a folder but can't tag them.
Giving an example will clear your concept.
Suppose, we have created a folder in our computer hard drive named "Book". We save all our ebook in this folder. We can have different types of ebook, for example, for me, I've some books about my profession (which I've studied on-Civil Engineering), some books on computer such as, excel tutorial, autocad tutorial and some others software tutorial etc, some books about literature Nobel, Poem etc. I save them all in the Book folder. And want to categorise them as engineering, computer and literature. But I can't. But I'll able to do this in evernote. Because, evernote has tagging option.

Now lets see how we can do that in evernote. From above example, we'll create a folder in evernote named "Book". We can save all our ebook in this folder. Now if we want to categorise our ebook we can do that by tagging. We can create tag like Engineering, computer and literature.

That is just for example. I organise my document different way in evernote. Lets see how I do -

I've created three folders in evernote -

Inbox
Action Pending and
Cabinet

A short description of above folders -

Inbox: All my new documents, which I haven't tagged or organised yet, go to this folder. This is my primary folder. All my new documents and email which I want to save for later consideration go there. When I have free time, I give appropriate tag to those documents and send to Action Pending folder or delete, if I think I don't need those later.

Action Pending: The Documents, which need further action, I send to this folder from inbox. All documents in this folder needs further action. For example, an ebook, which I need to read later, goes into this folder.

Cabinet: I consider this folder as a file cabinet. Suppose, in office, we keep a file cabinet for keeping our files for future reference. This folder acts like that. For example, I have read an ebook, but want to keep that for future use, I keep that in this folder.

Those are my folders. The actual magic begins with tag. That I'll share in next post.