The Blasted Crossing

“You have mail!”. Wasn’t this one of the catchphrases of the nineties? “You have mail!” was a sound bite in AOL that was played whenever you received a new email and it quickly grew to become an icon of the electronic revolution.

Email was touted as being one of the biggest productivity boosters when it first appeared on the scene. “No more waiting for messages”, “No more lost mail”, and “Send mail instantly!” were some of the more common catch phrases that were associated with it. As more and more people learned about it and started using it, the more messages were flowing around the wires. Today there are millions upon millions of messages floating through cyberspace, and I bet you anything that less than 0.0001% of those messages were of any importance whatsoever. Yet you can always hear somebody saying “but I have to check my email! There’s something really important I’m waiting for!”.

“You have mail!”. They drop everything and away they rush to the computer! They open their email program, type in their username and password and lo and behold! They have a new offer for Viagra! Wow, that was a close call! What if they had missed that email, what would they have done!? Oh the humanity!

Email as a productivity killer

Do you ever have that problem? Constantly being afraid what you might miss if you don’t check your email, and so you check it constantly every 30, 15, maybe 5 minutes? Or you might be working on something, writing a blog post perhaps, doing some banking, buying some stocks, finishing up some work for tomorrow, whatever it may be, then suddenly you get an email and you drop everything you were doing and rush to check it out.

After you answer it, you try to go back to what you were doing, but oh wait! You forgot what you were doing; now you can’t remember whether you were going to add or subtract that money from your account, you decided to subtract. Oops, you’re now overdrawn, your insurance eats away at your savings, you can’t pay your bills, you lose your car, house, dog, and you’re now out on the street!

Ok, maybe that’s a little too melodramatic. Let’s back up. You answer that email, but now you forget what you were doing exactly and you’re going to have to spend another 5 or 10 minutes trying to get back to where you were. I hope whatever was in that email was worth wasting away 5 or 10 minutes of your life.

This is a simple scenario, now imagine how it really is, you’re working on more than one thing, and you keep getting an email every half an hour or so, throughout an 8 hour day, if it takes you just 5 or 10 minutes to get back to what you were doing before that email arrived, and you get 5 or so emails per day, that’s 25 to 50 minutes a day you’re losing!

Increasing your productivity

Now obviously some emails absolutely cannot wait, and I understand that, but what about the rest of them? Are they really that important, or do you just THINK that they’re that important?

Try not responding to just 1 email and see if the world explodes. If it doesn’t, start cutting back on the amount of time you spend reading and responding to email. Check your email once every 4 hours or so to start with, just before your lunch break. After all, you have work to do too.

If the email truly is important and is a matter of life and death, then whoever sent it to you will almost assuredly try to contact you in a more direct manner, through the telephone for instance.

If someone thinks you are being inconsiderate because you are not answer your emails, then you can tell them that when they are prepared to give you 5 minutes of their life in exchange for 5 minutes of yours (the time it would take you to answer it and get back to what you were doing) then you will answer them as soon as the email comes in. Ask them if their work is more important than yours, or if their life is somehow more important than yours.

Stop wasting time and do what you are supposed to be doing so that you can finish up and enjoy some of your time that you have. Don’t waste it frivolously answer every single little message that comes your way.

That’s all I have to say for now. I’d be happy to hear some of your responses. And don’t forget to subscribe to the feed at the top (the orange-y-goodness button).

I don’t know about you, but if there is a chance to make more money than I am making right now, then I’ll take the opportunity and try to exploit it. That is the way of capitalism, right?

Making money is one of the things that we seem to be so very interested in, going above and beyond the supposed limitations of our bodies and minds to try to make an extra buck. I detest any situation where a person gives up part of their health to try and make a little more money, so I thought I’d offer these 4 short tips to try and save you some of your health(those of you that are sacrificing your health) and earn you a little more cash(for everybody!).

Before you start reading these tips, keep in mind that theory without practice is worthless. If you think you can make money just by reading how then please by all means share that secret with me!

So here we go:

1. Give to receive. Making money is about providing people with something, a product or service that would justify in their minds the action of giving you their hard earned cash. This may seem blindingly obvious, but so many people forget that when offering a product or service, they need to offer something the consumer actually WANTS.

   A book about getting your cat to stick to the ceiling? If somebody wants it, and you provide enough incentive for them to have it, then they will buy it. It doesn’t matter how mundane, outrageous, ridiculous, or genius it is. Keep that in mind!

2. Help somebody. “Pfft!” you say! “How can I gain money by helping someone?” you ask. Simple really. This follows on from the previous tip, referring specifically to offering a service. You will always find somebody needing help in their work or business. What they need and what you can offer depends on your skill set. For example, if you are a computer specialist, you could help them out by offering to manage their computers.

   Now obviously, depending on their size/budget, they may not be able to pay you. This does NOT mean you shouldn’t help them. If they can’t pay, and you still offer to help them, then congratulations, you just put yourself way above the rest of the fold that would only consider working for a green piece of paper. This person or company will be more willing to refer their friends and associates to you in the future since they have at least 1 positive association with you without having had to pay you anything.I know that you have to eat and pay rent, but consider this tip as part of your marketing repertoire. Increasing exposure, good will, and word of mouth referrals is a cornerstone of doing good business.

3. Find a way to make $1, I don’t care how as long as it’s conscionable and not immoral/unethical. After you make $1, all you have to do is increase your sales to your desired level. This isn’t easy, but $1 is the first step, which effectively unlocks the door for you.
4. Join a referral program. There are many many many referral programs available no matter where you look. These programs normally pay you a commission for what you sell, so the more you sell, the more you earn. This allows you to leverage your contacts (friends, family, colleagues…etc) to help get you started.

Money making tips, indeed. You have to start some place, and I hope this gives you the small push you need to get started on your path to financial independence.

Drop me a line and tell me what you think. Over and out.

Have you ever woken up and thought to yourself “!#$# this #$@% I dont want to go to work today”? or maybe even just felt sluggish in the morning and didn’t want to raise your arm for to eat that spoonful of breakfast?

If you find yourself in this situation alot, then maybe it’s time you faced yourself and got rid of this issue so that you can actually enjoy your day and enjoy your work. I know I’d really hate it if I woke up every morning crabby with a face like I just sucked on a lemon.

First things first, you have to find out exactly why you feel that way in the morning. It might be because you didn’t get enough sleep last night, maybe you don’t like your work very much, or maybe the weather outside makes it look like its going to rain and that puts you in a bad mood.

The moment you start to feel like that, I’d like you to take a deep breath, and try and think of something relaxing. It could be anything. You might also want to turn on the radio and tune to a station that plays some fast upbeat music in the morning or even a station that has DJ’s that are cracking jokes and just having a good ole time.

You might be thinking “Oh that sounds like too much work” or “I just don’t feel like it in the morning”, and that’s alright, because those are the kinds of thoughts and feelings that we’re going to have to work together to eradicate, but knowing that they’re there and finally recognizing them and what causes them is arguably the biggest step to overcoming them.

If you take the bus to work or school, then maybe you could take the time to talk to somebody, even just a “Hi” will do enough to knock you out of the bad mood, and you never know, it just may knock them out of their bad mood too!

Just remember, for every day that you spend in a bad mood, thats one less day you have to feel good and have a good time. Unless you’re immortal, then I think that’s a very big problem.

Learn, Apply, Enjoy! Check back for the next part of this series!