Out of the Blog, Into the Light

Announcing the opening of the '31 Days to Build a Better System' Challenge

In just a few days, the 31 Days to Build Better Systems Challenge will be beginning.  But not on this blog.  It has its own separate blog with its own subscription base.

The starting date is May 4.  Don’t wait.  Go ahead and subscribe now so you don’t miss a single announcement.  Take me to the blog now!  http://abundance.blogs.com/31dbbs/

Here’s what the project involves…

Every day for 31 days, I will send you a short summary-type of email with a link to the post on the blog.  The post will include:

1.  A fieldwork assignment for the day.
2.  Some teaching (ideas, suggestions, examples, etc.) to help you with the fieldwork.

The goal is simple.  By the end of the 31 days, you will have learned 31 ways to implement systems into your life and business.

You will gain knowledge, but you will also receive concrete elements you can actually do in your life and business to increase flow and productivity but also stop energy and financial leaks.

This program is 100% free. 

If you find you aren’t ready for this, you can unsubscribe at any time.

To subscribe I’m asking you provide your first name, a valid email address (one you will be checking daily), and the country you live in (I want to see how many countries are contributing).

Sign up now so you don’t miss a single post.

Also, please pass this announcement along to your friends, family, and colleagues.  The more the better this experience will be for all of us.

I encourage you to add comments.  Share your questions, offer suggestions, or examples.  Tell us how you implemented it.  Post this on your blog, if you have one, and send a link back.  Link backing will be set up.  Comments will open this weekend.

This is about synergy.  Ours!  Together we can do more than just one of us.  So, let’s put that energy together!  How about it?

Take me to the blog now…

How You Move Around Your Desk Makes a Big Difference

A big announcement coming at the end of this post.

Before I get there, let me explain why I have a very BIG smile this morning.

It all began…a week ago.

For years, I continually spent hundreds of dollars every year for a new plastic floor mat.

This last time I was pissed on the expense. So, I doctored it up with electrical tape…definitely an eye sore. Not to mention the rolling challenges it created. Inevitably, each would crack. The company offered a free placement but I think they got tired of my replacement requests and began ignore them.

Then it hit me. I needed a wood board instead. One that could take the 12-hour pounding I give it daily.

Once I could envision it, I placed it into action.

Step 1. I took measurements and created a pattern. Since I used to make all my children's clothes making a pattern wasn't that hard. My workspace has a series of legs challenges and I still wanted to be able to roll up closely I had to several six-inch lips. That was the hardest part. I took grocery paper bags and made the large pattern.

To get a vision of what my work area looks like…it's "U" shaped. On the left side is my main desk facing the window. The top of the "U" is my computer area. On the other side sits my CPU, scanner with ADF (automatic document feeder), and my laser printer on two matching filing cabinets. In the corner where the CPU ends on top of the filing cabinet, I have my radio show (recording) equipment.

2. The second part was finding a carpenter to make the wood mat. This was easier than I thought. I found an out-of-work carpenter in less than 30 minutes with a few phone calls. He came over, I showed him the pattern, and then we went down to the hardware store. He suggested that the wood had to be at least ½" thick. I bought a sheet of ½ no-knots plywood. Our agreement was he gets to keep whatever's left.

3. He had even added a few coats of poly something-a-rather to protect it and it looked more beautiful than I had envisioned it.

Doing the math. A new plastic floor mat would have run around $120.

Total for the wood and carpenter, $100.

The blessings…I have something that's going to last a long time, it's beautiful and even matches my office furniture, I'm not falling off the edges as I would have even with the replacement--I can completely roll around the "U." I'm not even going to think about the wasted time and expense over the years replacing them. Yes, I wish I'd thought of it sooner but that's wasted space. I'm just glad it finally came to me now.

Okay, here’s the new announcement…

This mat experience boils down to one thing…systems.  The new mat was now part of my working desk system.  Such a simple thing with big results.

I’m so excited…

Beginning in May, not sure if I’ll make it on the first, but soon thereafter, I’m going to host the 31 Days to Build Better Systems Challenge. 

31DBBS for short.

I want to invite you to participate.  I will be announcing more on this shortly.

If you want to improve your systems in your life and business, then you will not want to miss this opportunity. 

Not only will you be able to learn from my 20 plus years servicing my clients in this area, you will also be able to learn from each other.  By adding your ideas or your solutions, we can all change our life and business.

Through this process you’ll increase efficiency and flow, reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction (or life satisfaction) and more. 

I can’t do this without you.  I may have done it one or two ways, however, our group synergy will take it even further.

I need your help spreading the word over the net while I continue to focus on the wonderful content I'm creating.  Tell your friends.  Tell your colleagues.  Tell your staff.

I need for you to share with me what system or subsystem is tripping you up.  Add it to the comments to see if I can add them to the content.

This process will have its own blog…because it needs its own energy to build itself.

Stay tuned, more shortly.  I’m so excited I don’t even want to eat or sleep.

Change Your Questions, Change Your Life

I'm excited. I'm going to attend Dr. Marilee Adams workshop, "Change Your Questions, Change Your Life: Powerful Tools for Life and Work" this Thursday in Fairfax, Virginia. I've wanted to attend this workshop for some time. Dr. Adams wrote the book by this same name and is the President of Inquiry Institute. This book was life changing to me. I even gave out 20 books as Christmas presents that year. In addition, the feedback I heard time and time again was the same as my experience.

She teaches how to ask different questions – for yourself and when working with others – that lead to greater results. This includes how to think with questions, called Question Thinking (QT), using her Choice Map (which I still love and use since my introduction to its principles five years ago). She's going to go into more detail about the learner and judger mindsets and Q-Storming™, a QT practice that often produces breakthroughs in possibilities and results.

This workshop is way past the book. Dr. Adams teaches her proprietary Question Thinking method…the same one that has changed participant's lives time and time again.

She's also going to teach how to transform limiting, "troublemaker" questions into positive, productive ones as well as how the QT work strengthens emotional intelligence.

I'll tell you all about it afterwards.

Additional Resources

www.InquiryInstitute.com

More info about workshop, contact Kim Aubry at kim@inquiryinstitute.com or               609-499-3158       . She'll send you the information by email. I wouldn't wait, last I heard the workshop is almost full. She's also having another one in this Virginia/DC Metro area on May 28 if you can't make this one.

Free Membership Building Information

I promised in my Week in Review post on Saturday I would be writing about Yaro Starak's free membership building site 72-page report arrived in the next review.

After spending 4 hours reading it and taking good notes I felt it needed it's own post.

If you'd like your own copy, click here to register. You'll need to give your name and email and wait about 20 minutes for the email with the link to appear in your inbox. Yaro gives you the choice to read it in PDF or listen in audio.

Attached is a copy of my notes—PDF, 6 pages. Since I already know all the marketing information he includes towards the end, I skipped some details here. If this is something you're interested in, I recommend getting the eBook and looking in my notes as to where this section begins.

Summary: Rating: 8 (out of 10)

Don't recommend unless you're are working on or getting ready to set up a membership website. It's well worth the reading time if you are working towards building a membership now or in the close future. I say close future carefully. Keep in mind, he's giving this away to sell you his Mastermind product. Nonetheless, it's good information once you get past the many pages he talks about his journey with the process (I think the word quest is better) of going through various services and software and learning their pros and cons. This part will save you hours of time and money in the long run.

Download Catherine's Notes

Today's Words of Wisdom on Abundance

See the upset not as an exterior circumstance to be remedied, but rather as an interior condition to be understood.

April 19 - April 24 Week in Review

This will be a regular weekly post.

During the week, I will accumulate some cool stuff on things and post it in summary format at the end of the week.

Here's a valuable, and one of the best, lists of Twitter plug-ins and add-ons to help your Tweet on Twitter faster and easier: http://www.msmediablog.com/essential-twitter-toolbox

This past week in the Wall Street Journal, Business Section, ran an article that's blowing smoke up America's assets. It begins,"In America today, there are almost as many people making a living as bloggers as there are lawyers." This first sentence alone should tell you that the reporter has no clue as to what's really going on in the blogosphere. The article goes on and on of a bunch of untruths giving false hopes about becoming a problogger.

Google ad sense blog announced this week that they're adding a category-filtering feature shortly. This author thinks this is long overdue! For more information

New term: Sneeze page. Yes, it says sneeze. If you have a blog and don't know what a sneeze page is...Here's a great place to begin your journey.

I  look forward to reading Yaro Starak's 72-page report this coming week. It is to teach us how to create successful membership sites from the planning stage, right through the launch, and growth stages, and even on selling your site when you're ready to do something else. It's free and available here. I've learned quite a few great things from Yaro and looking forward to check this report out. Its release is on Monday, April 27. My review will be in next Saturday's Week in Review.

Picked up a book off my shelf I purchased at least a year ago but haven't read it, "Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership" by Joseph Jaworski. I read a few chapters and couldn't get interested in it. I remember buying it on Amazon just because it said synchronicity--a topic I enjoy learning more on. I couldn't connect with it, so I added it to my donation stack. A reminder not to buy books I'm not ready to read yet.

Looking for another book, I picked up the book, "Marketing for Rainmakers" by Phil Fragasso. I was half way through it and set it down months ago. Rainmaker is a common word in the real estate market. This book focuses on 52 rules of engagement to attract and retain customers for life. It's the type of book you chew on a little at a time. It's best to read what you need now and implement it, then set it on the shelf and pick it up again in another year because you will be in a difference space then and ready for more. Read next week's review for more on this.

9 Steps on How to Increase Your Productivity

By Catherine Franz

Step 1: List all the business activities that you complete (regularly or not). Examples: phone calls, meetings, paperwork, projects, sales, follow-up procedures, writing, learning/researching, web site design, delivering core services (substitute name), etc. Yes, this might seem time consuming. You will need to trust in this process and wait for the benefits to appear.

You can create the list two ways: (1) focus and write all in a list, or (2) track your activities, even the 5-minute items, for a few days. Don’t need to add to the list what already exists, thus, the time required to complete the list will become less and less. Be specific clear and as brief as possible (less than 5 words). Use separate sheet to track activities.

To continue to read this...

Strategy vs Tactic: The Difference

Julia (CA) wrote in and asked me to explain the difference between strategies and tactics…

Julia, great question! Here goes…

Strategies help you understand the outcome of your actions. It's where you educate yourself about "why" it happened. It's also a way to predict what will most likely happen if.

Tactics are actions, steps, to achieve or strive for a particular outcome. A process is a tactic. A technique is a tactic.

Developing sound strategies and implementing them with the right tactics leads to profits (just one possible outcome).

Many non-marketers confuse the two. Chuckle…even some claimed marketers.

Julia, great question. Thank you for asking.

Do you have a question you'd like to ask Catherine? Use the email hyperlink in the left column and send it to me. I look forward to seeing how I can help.

How Old Are The Hyperlinks On Your Web Site?

Most people don't generally know that links need to replacing. That is links outbound.

Have you checked your "links" lately?

Over time, hyperlinks dissolve and change. Google and other search engines rely heavily on working links. If you have some on your website you haven't checked in a while, there may be a good chance they are no longer active.

You already know that the search engine so-named "spiders" search for active links. No one ever talks about whether the number of unconnected links can remove your SEO. This writer suspects it's so though, from my good understanding of search engine agorothrims.

Whatever the reason is they aren't working, links play an important role in enhancing and building authority on the Net.

That's exactly why I'm writing this post today. I'm working with a client on their website – writing copy for it – and as I reviewed the other pages (the ones I'm not working on), I found 75% of their links didn't work any longer.

My suggestion – check your links (not sausage links either).

Additional resources:
How to find and fix broken hyperlinks
How to find and fix broken hyperlinks in FrontPage 2000 #1            Article #2

If you do a lot of hyperlinks in Word or Excel documents, there is a software for $39.95 for the basic edition and $59.95 for the standard edition called "FlowBreeze."  This runs through the file and updates links fast, easily, and if there are broken links it will give you a list and mark them in the document.   This works extremely well and worth the money if you produce eBooks in pdf from Word.  It wil save you hours and some frustration.

Are you a twibs on Twitter?

Another way to promote your business through social networking is to have your business listed on twibs – the business listing for Twitter.

If you don't tweet, ignore this.  If you do and never heard of the twibs list, don't feel alone. I've talked to people who have been tweeting for a year and have never heard of it.

Begin by listing your business            To find a business on twibs