Archive for 'Time and Technology'
Find Time on Cyber Monday with this Easy E-mail Tool!
Posted on March 15, 2010 by Paula, under Time and Technology.
Finding time to format your plain text e-mails is a necessary task that can definitely consume time that you don’t always have. That’s why I was so pleased to read, in one of Heather Dominick’s recent EnergyRich e-zines, about an easy-breezy tool that takes care of that plain text formatting chore in seconds!
You can find it on Charlie Cook’s Marketing for Success site. All you need to do is enter whatever text you want to format into the e-mail formatting tool, add your parameters, click submit, and voila!
Alternatively, you can browse and upload a file from your hard drive into the tool for formatting. Either way, with a click of the button, you save yourself a tedious chore!
Here’s an example! I entered this unformatted text from last Thursday’s post:
Using a timer may be very helpful for you in giving yourself breaks. Especially when one gets on a creative “roll” it can be tempting to keep going – ignoring breaks as you try to ride the creative wave. This is often the beginning of the path to the kind of exhaustion that you describe. So try to discipline yourself to take your scheduled, small breaks no matter what. This will sustain you for the long haul!
Setting the line length parameter at 30 yielded the following result:
Using a timer may be very
helpful for you in giving
yourself breaks. Especially
when one gets on a creative
“roll” it can be tempting
to keep going – ignoring
breaks as you try to ride the
creative wave. This is often
the beginning of the path to
the kind of exhaustion that
you describe. So try to
discipline yourself to take
your scheduled, small breaks
no matter what. This will
sustain you for the long
haul!
In general, for plain text e-mails you’ll want to set the parameter at @ 60 characters per line – but using 30 offers a more vivid example here!
What is usually a chore that can take lots of time, depending on what you’re working with, can be accomplished in seconds – leaving you more time to work on your message!
Give this tool a try! I highly recommend it, and would love to hear how it works for you as you try it out!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for your FREE Finding Time Success Kit. It puts 3 key tools for your time success right into your hands! Grab it and see how you can recharge your energy, reduce overwhelm and frustration, and come to learn that 24 hours really ARE enough!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time to Pen Punchy Headlines and Energize Your Copy on Cyber Monday
Posted on March 8, 2010 by Paula, under Time and Technology.
Finding time to write eye-grabbing and traffic-catching headlines is easier when you can test your ideas, don’t you think?
For some time now at The Time Finder we have been using a nifty tool that allows you to enter a blog post or article title for analysis and feedback. It’s called the Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer.
It’s free and simple to use. You just enter your headline in the box, click “Submit for Analysis” and voila! You’ll next be presented with a score and some additional information about the predominant emotions/qualities in your readers which will be affected by your headline.
In terms of the scores to strive for, they offer, as a guide, the following:
And for comparison, most professional copywriters’ headlines will have 30%-40% EMV Words in their headlines, while the most gifted copywriters will have 50%-75% EMV words in headlines.
A perfect score would be 100%, but that is rare unless your headline is less than five words.
My first headline for this post was “Find Time for Amazing Headlines and Crisp E-mails on Cyber Monday!” and is scored 18.18% in the Headline Analyzer.
Thinking that shorter might be better, I next tried this one: “Find Time for Amazing Headlines on Cyber Monday!” That gave me a score of 25.0% – but I’m aiming higher.
With my third try I wrote: “Find Time to Pen Punchy Headlines on Cyber Monday!” This one netted me a score of 44.44% with the predominant impact being in the “Intellectual” sphere according to their measures. I know I’m on the right track now!
“Pen Punchy Headlines on Cyber Monday!” got me a score of 50.0% – the highest of the day. But I am generally inclined to sacrifice some percentage points in favor of retaining my “Find Time” tags, so I tried this one – the ultimate winner: “Find Time to Pen Punchy Headlines and Energize Your Copy on Cyber Monday” coming in at 46.15%.
What do you think? Can you see the progression and improvement as I bounced my ideas off of this tool? It’s very easy to use and I heartily recommend that you give it a try. It certainly helps me loosen up my thinking and encourages creativity and exploration – all using a very quick, easy, time-saving tool!
Do you have other tools that you use in your writing practice? Any that you’d like to share with other Time Finder readers? We’d love to hear!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for your FREE Finding Time Success Kit. It puts 3 key tools for your time success right into your hands! Grab it and see how you can recharge your energy, reduce overwhelm and frustration, and come to learn that 24 hours really ARE enough!
Let’s explore time together …
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have no material connection with the brands, topics, or products that are mentioned here, and have not received any compensation for writing this content.
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time to Start Supercharging Your Blog This Cyber Monday
Posted on February 22, 2010 by Paula, under Time and Technology.
Finding time to make your mark, and then make money, in the blogosphere is a quest that many, many people embark on … and one in which not-so-many find success.
Why is that? There are probably as many reasons as there are bloggers. Before you start blogging, or even if you’ve been doing it for awhile, wouldn’t you love to have a guide … AND know some of the pitfalls?
Enter Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips fame! He’s written an excellent (and FREE) step-by-step e-book titled “How to Make Money Blogging.” It’s a 54-page roadmap to blogging success filled with practical tips, down-to-earth advice, and lots of excellent links and resources.
What first impressed me about “How to Make Money Blogging” was its absolutely realistic tone. As Daniel notes: “Making money blogging is no different than making money with any other venture, be it online or offline. As such, it will take time and require a heck lot of work.” That he doesn’t mince words about the time and energy involved lets me know that I can count on his advice to be grounded in reality!
The chapters offer a clear path for bloggers, beginning with early considerations like what software to use, how to sharpen the focus of your content, and issues about the design and usability of your blog. In the “Usability” section, one of the sub-headings I found most intriguing was titled “Usability Mistakes.” I don’t know about you, but I often learn as much or more from my mistakes as from my well planned and executed successes. The specifics here were very helpful!
The hallmark of the Networking chapter … and really of the entire blogging effort, if you think about it … is summed up by Daniel’s advice to “Give before you ask.” In concrete terms, what this means is that it helps to link to other bloggers’ blogs, to comment, to offer to write guest posts, and to reach out and connect in as many ways as you can think of (Daniel shares lots of good ideas that might not occur to you immediately.) On the subject of guest posts, Dan offered an especially helpful 8-step, structured process for this in his “Promotion” chapter.
Last but not least, your investments of time and energy bring you to the monetization stage in the evolution of your blog. Lots of things need to be in place before your monetization effort will be successful – and Daniel lays it all out in detail in his last chapter. The ideas here, as elsewhere, are very practical and do-able!
Bottom line? You CAN make money with your blog – AND it is likely to take lots of time and energy to get there. That’s why it’s so important that (going back to the beginning) you are blogging about something that you are passionate about.
“How to Make Money Blogging” is an excellent e-book for whatever stage of blogging you are at. The advice is clear, practical, and actionable. You’ll want to digest it and refer to it often as you move ahead with your blogging practice.
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for your FREE Finding Time Success Kit. It puts 3 key tools for your time success right into your hands! Grab it and see how you can recharge your energy, reduce overwhelm and frustration, and come to learn that 24 hours really ARE enough!
Let’s explore time together …
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have no material connection with the brands, topics, or products that are mentioned here, and have not received any compensation for writing this content.
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time to Use Hashtags to Find, Follow, and Join Twitter Conversations!
Posted on February 15, 2010 by Paula, under Time and Technology.
Finding time to create community and join specific conversations on Twitter is getting to be easier and easier with hashtags. Let’s explore that a little further this Cyber Monday!
What are hashtags? They are simply strings of characters preceded with the “#” sign. These tags, when used in a Tweet, identify it as part of a Twitter conversation.
John Haydon recently wrote about hashtags on Twitip. He included a helpful video in his post and a link where you can see a list of the currently trending hashtags. The video is clear and to the point – I recommend that you check it out!
A good, timely example of the use of the hashtag to create community and foster connection is this one: #Wtlead. It stands for Wealthy Thought Leader and connects you with the Twitter buzz and conversation associated with Andrea J. Lee’s upcoming Wealthy Thought Leader event in Vancouver, British Columbia! #quote is another example of a hashtag.
If you type the hashtag into the search box on Twitter you will be taken right to the stream of that conversation (i.e. any tweets that include that tag). Using one of the Twitter “dashboards” like TweetGrid or TweetDeck will allow you to follow several conversations at once.
Also – if you include a hashtag in one of your Tweets, your entry will be added to that stream, and will come up if someone else searches for that hashtag. It helps you join the conversation!
Have you tried using hashtags? They can be very, very useful – and provide yet another way to connect on Twitter! To get a taste, check out the buzz about Andrea Lee’s upcoming event. That’s March 18 to 20, 2010. It’s called “The Wealthy Thought Leader – Leveraging Your Business With Ideas Worth Selling” – and you can follow the ongoing conversation on Twitter at #wtlead!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for your Finding Time Success Kit. It’s FREE, and it provides you with key tools for your time success! Grab it and see how you can recharge your energy, reduce overwhelm and frustration, and come to learn that 24 hours really ARE enough!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time to De-Clutter Your Computer on Cyber Monday!
Posted on February 8, 2010 by Paula, under Time and Technology.
Finding time to de-clutter is a great way to reduce stress. Have you noticed?
The benefits of de-cluttering apply to your time, to your work and living spaces, AND to your computer!
My VA recently brought an excellent post by LJ on the Simple Productivity Blog to my attention. Titled “Things You Should be Able to Do on a Computer to Keep It Clean,” it offers excellent advice for keeping your computer as uncluttered as possible – meaning that it will run faster, optimizing your work time.
The top three suggestions are to:
- Uninstall unused software;
- Clean-up the “stuff” that gets left behind when you remove software; and
- Run an anti-virus utility regularly.
The post offers suggestions about two free clean-up applications: Glary Utilities and CCleaner. My VA tried CCleaner after uninstalling some never-used programs, and she found that it truly did speed up the performance of her computer. This can have a major impact on efficiancy if you spend hours a day on the computer, as she does!
One other area to de-clutter, according to LJ, is your web browser. Here is a helpful post about de-cluttering Firefox, if that’s your browser of choice. While many of the Firefox extensions are very helpful, they can also slow you down!
Finally, I would also heartily recommend de-cluttering your desktop periodically. Opening up your computer to be faced immediately by a cluttered workspace can be very demoralizing. My advice is to use your desktop for items you’re currently focused on, and using folders and sub-folders to keep everything else organized and more in the background.
Do you find time to de-clutter your computer? Try doing a little bit of cleaning up once a month, and see how it goes for you! I’d love to hear what you try – and what you think!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for The Finding Time Success Kit. It’s FREE, and it provides you with key tools for your time success! Grab it and see how you can recharge your energy, reduce overwhelm and frustration, and come to learn that 24 hours really ARE enough!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time for Some Resolution Remedies from Solo-E this Cyber Monday!
Posted on February 1, 2010 by Paula, under Time Management Skills, Time and Technology.
This Cyber Monday I want to draw your attention to a very special offer from Solo-E that is available through Friday, February 5th!
Not familiar with Solo-E? Founded in 2003 by Terri Zwierzynski, Solo-E is a virtual learning resource (and vibrant community) for solo entrepreneurs!
They are hosting a one-of-a-kind event that couldn’t be more timely … the Post Resolution Hangover giveaway. This isn’t your typical giveaway … each item is a real product that you normally would have to pay to get. The value of each item is the price at which it sells today … and as you’ll see, there are some very valuable products available, both from a monetary and an information point of view!
The gifts include ebooks, audios, home-study packages and more. Here are just a few samples:
- 101 Ways to Attract Clients,
- Create Your Second Life After 40,
- The Social Media Content Creation Kit,
- Building a Strong Brand in a Weak Economy,
- How to Move Through Fear for More Money;
- From Drab to Dynamic,
- The Finding Time Quick-Start Guide (yes, that’s us), and lots more.
Here’s how it works:
Up until February 5th, you are invited to visit the Post Holiday Hangover Remedy Page and gain immediate access to these incredible resources to help cure your Resolution Hangover, provided exclusively by solo entrepreneur gurus including: Alicia Forest, Ann Ronan, Loren Fogelman, Tracey Lawton, Allison Babb, Tina Forsyth, Rebecca Zwar, Christine Gallagher, Lou Bortone, Heather Dominick, Laurie Weiss, Laurie Mandato, Zahra Efan, Hazel Palache, Laura West, Eva Gregory, Alicia Smith, Michele PW, Nina East and me!
When you go to the page, you’ll first see some additional free offers that you can sign up for. To receive any of those offers, you can select the ones of interest to you, and click “Submit.” Or, alternatively, if you want to go right to the Post Holiday Remedy page, bypassing these offers, just click on the “No Thanks” button and you’ll be taken straight to the download page…no strings!
The goal in the Post Resolution Hangover giveaway is to provide you value while supporting the growth of your business at the same time. The best part? Solo-E isn’t asking for anything in return — no email, no mailing address, nada. Just visit Post Holiday Hangover Remedy Page and download your gifts.
So join us, learn what the fuss is all about and at the same time gain immediate access to fantastic resources. Visit the Post Holiday Hangover Remedy Page – and please feel invited to drop me a line – I’d love to hear what gifts strike your fancy!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for The Finding Time Success Kit. It’s FREE, and it provides you with key tools for your time success! Grab it and see how you can recharge your energy, reduce overwhelm and frustration, and come to learn that 24 hours really ARE enough!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time to Explore Twitterfall AND Sign Up for My Interview with Heather Dominick on Cyber Monday!
Posted on January 25, 2010 by Paula, under Time and Technology.
Finding time to get it all done is a challenge. How are you working toward success and abundance in 2010? How can I help? Here are two Cyber Monday ideas to start your week off well!
Let’s begin with a Timely Twitter Tip … because finding relevant content and conversations on Twitter is an ongoing challenge. Twitterfall appears to be a tool that can help!
Twitterfall is a Twitter dashboard that lets you type in keywords and then displays all the tweets containing those keywords. You can use hashtags, people’s names, you name it!
Enter your term and then, when you click the search button, you’ll see the tweets come falling (that’s where the name comes from) down from the top of your screen. As you explore the feed, you can hover over each user’s twitter name and see some of their key information. At the righthand side of each tweet in your list, you’ll find an array of actions. With a single click you can retweet, respond, follow, favorite … or do a number of other things related to that tweet.
Here’s the Twitterfall blog, with a helpful, step-by-step video introducing the basics of the tool.
There are so many Twitter tools available, it can be overwhelming. I encourage you to check this one out and, if it resonates for you and seems like something that can help you connect more efficiently on Twitter, add it to your repertoire!
Give it a try and let me know what you think … I’d love to hear!
SPECIAL NOTE THIS MORNING! Finding time to succeed, prosper, and experience abundance in your life … that’s something we’ll be focusing on here at The Time Finder as 2010 unfolds! You can kick start your year of abundance with LOTS of excellent insights and ideas about this when you sign up for my interview with EnergyRICH® Entrepreneur Success & Master Coach Heather Dominick. That’s Tuesday, January 26th … at 7PM ET!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for the Finding Time Success Kit starting with The New Finding Time Personal Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine … key tools for your time success!
Let’s explore time together …
And don’t forget – sign up for my call with Heather – you’ll be so glad you did!
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time by Culling Your Twitter Feed!
Posted on January 18, 2010 by Paula, under Time and Technology.
Finding time to connect on Twitter is, at least in part, a matter of finding the tweeps that you most want to connect with.
As Twitter becomes more and more popular, more and more people use it … for more and more purposes. That’s not a bad thing at all – but it can mean that your Tweet stream gets clogged up from time to time with tweets that aren’t really relevant to you.
Enter Si Dawson and The Twit Cleaner! This tool, recently reviewed by Jade Craven on Twitip, will analyze and categorize the people you follow so that you can make more informed decisions about whether or not you want to continue following them.
It combs through your tweeps and sorts them according to various types of “bad behavior.” Once that’s done, it sends you a report via DM – and then it’s up to you to review the data and make decisions about culling your Twitter feed. Here are the categories of “dodgy” behavior:
- Dodgy – spam phrases, @ spamming, duplicate links etc
- Absent – No updates in a month, or fewer than 10 tweets.
- Repetitive – High numbers of duplicate tweets or links
- Flooding – So high volume you can’t see anyone else
- Non-Responsive – No interaction & those that follow back < 10%
The FAQ Page is very helpful. I went to it immediately because I saw some familiar friends listed in my report and wondered why. Here’s what I found:
… it’s important to understand, The Twit Cleaner doesn’t say someone is or isn’t a spammer. It analyses a whole lot more than that. What it does is identify certain types of behaviors. Your friend (or favorite celebrity, bot, etc) is on the report because they behave in ways that are deemed potentially dodgy. Look at the category headings for more information. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should unfollow them if you don’t want to.
To see why someone is on the report, place your mouse over their picture and you’ll see an explanation.
It is fascinating to review the report. Once you have it in hand, you have a number of choices as to whether (and how) to unfollow people. It can be done manually, or in bulk.
The report itself is free. If you are following up to 2000 people, the bulk actions are free, too. Beyond that, the fees are:
- Up to 25,000 – $5 USD
- Up to 50,000 – $10 USD
- Otherwise – $20 USD
I have found Twit Cleaner a useful tool that helps me find time by culling my Twitter Feed. Have you tried it? Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for the Finding Time Success Kit starting with The New Finding Time Personal Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine … key tools for your time success!
Let’s explore time together …
________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have no material connection with the brands, topics, or products that are mentioned here, and have not received any compensation for writing this content.
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time to Think of Hashtags as Twitter Keywords on Cyber Monday
Posted on January 11, 2010 by Paula, under Time and Technology.
Finding time to understand and use hashtags on Twitter had not been a big part of my Twitter practice ’til now, but it appears to definitely be worth the time investment.
In a post on Twitip last month, Marcus Emmanuel Barnes wrote titled “Why You Should Consider Using Hashtags” that helped me to think about hashtags differently. I hope it’ll do the same for you.
One of the key concepts to help understand hashtags is to think of them as keywords or keyword tags. If you have a website or blog, you are probably aware of keywords. They are the “key” words that search engines will use to connect people who search for some combinations of those words to your information on the web.
Hashtags serve a similar function on Twitter. As Marcus Barnes writes:
There at least a couple ways that hashtags help people find you on Twitter. The most basic is that in the Twitter interface, hashtags are hyperlinks. When people click a hashtag that interests them, say #twitter, they receive real-time search results of other tweets that have utilized that hashtag.
While hashtags are very helpful in allowing others to connect with your information on Twitter, the converse is true, too. You will find hashtags a great tool for finding tweeps with interests similar to yours. It’s a wonderful tool for aggregating information and creating small (or large) communities on Twitter.
Marcus Barnes, on his blog, has shared a post with a List of Twitter based Apps that Use Hashtags. For example, twubs is an application that allows you to find groups that are built around hashtags. Here’s a nice, concise definition of a hashtag, from the twubs site:
What is a #hashtag? A user-created standard for identifying tweets belonging to a topic. Simply include the tag in your tweet and other people searching for the same tag will be able to find it.
Do you use hashtags now? Have you been puzzled by them? Intrigued? I challenge you to find time to start using them this week – say on every 5th tweet. Then drop me a line and let me know how it goes … I’d love to hear!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for the Finding Time Success Kit starting with The New Finding Time Personal Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine … key tools for your time success!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time for Cyber Monday on Tuesday This Week!
Posted on January 5, 2010 by Paula, under Time and Technology.
Finding time to keep up with time-saving technological innovations is always time well spent, isn’t it? Today let’s take a look at one such tool, even if our Top Posts feature yesterday bumped Cyber Monday into Tuesday this week!
Last week David Pogue of the NY Times published his Pogie Awards, citing The Year’s Best Tech Ideas for 2009. Lists and compilations like this can be time-savers because they often give an excellent snapshot of a subject area, leaving you the option of delving more deeply into whatever captures your interest.
In this case, I think (and it sounds like he agrees) Mr. Pogue saved the best ’til last. Readability is a clean, simple, ingenious bookmarklet that you can configure, drag to your toolbar, and use for your reading on the web. I highly recommend it! Here’s how David Pogue describes Readability:
When you click it, Readability eliminates everything from the Web page you’re reading except the text and photos. No ads, blinking, links, banners, promos or anything else. Times Square just goes away.
You wind up with a simple, magazine-like layout, presented in a beautiful font and size (your choice) against a white or off-white background with none of this red-text-against-black business.
You occasionally run into a Web page that Readability doesn’t handle right — no big deal, just refresh the page to see the original. But most of the time, Readability makes the world online a calmer, cleaner, more beautiful place.
I have been using Readability since discovering it on David Pogue’s list. The boost that it gives to the reader’s ability to focus while on line is a big time-and-energy-saver. Removing distractions and offering a simple, uncluttered format for the written word has a calming effect that diminishes stress and “static” while clearing and consolidating energy as each of our days unfolds.
Readability is free, easy, and worth a try. I’d love to hear how it saves you time and/or helps focus your energy … so please feel invited to drop me a line!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for the Finding Time Success Kit starting with The New Finding Time Personal Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine … key tools for your time success!
Let’s explore time together …
________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have no material connection with the brands, topics, or products that are mentioned here, and have not received any compensation for writing this content.
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
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