Out of the Blog, Into the Light

Strengths Checklist

I’ve received a lot of emails requesting my strengths checklist, so I decided to just post it on the blog for easy-access.

Available in PDF

Circle each strength you think you have:

When Life Gets You Down, Here Is How to Get Back Up

If Nick Vujicic can do it, you can too!

Technorati Tags: Nick Vujicic,A Giant of a Man,personal development,hopeless cure,success,getting up again

Change Your Mindset, Change Your Success

By Catherine Franz, certified in NLP

How you see success and failure can make the difference in your progress and eventually how successful you become.

This blog is about gaining clarity in your life.  Here’s a different mindset that change your clarity.

Developing and Maintaining a Success Mindset

“The mind is like the stomach.  It is not how much you put into it that counts, but how much it digests.”  -- A.J. Nock

If you choose to change something in your life you want to create a gap analysis plan. 

Here is a process you can use to:

75 Types of Blog Posts

Completed some research this weekend -- making a list of the types of blog posts. 

These were pulled from all over the Internet plus some of my own. 

Thought you maybe you would like a copy. 

I was shooting for 100.  Came up short.  Help build the list.  Add your type in the comment’s section, and a definition if you have one.  In the next few weeks, I’ll take what you have added and add them to the list and update the list and the PDF file.

Find Clarity in Your Decision Making

It’s important to clarify how to handle the little things so there’s time to focus on the bigger stuff.

Here’s a simple graphic on how I handle education emails.

I read a lot of how-to material every day.  The material arrives through e-mail and RSS subscriptions.

Friday Review System

Adele wrote, after yesterday’s post, and wanted to know what I do on a regular basis to keep my system running smoothly. 

Every week I schedule a Friday review. This works especially well if you have a Monday-Friday work schedule; however, it still works if your work week is different.  Just name your Friday as whatever ending day you have.

Even though I work on Saturdays and Sundays, Friday still works for me.  It’s a day I work ‘on’ my business. I call this my ‘floating day.’  I work towards not scheduling any time commitments.  Since I’m an entrepreneur I may have a little more flexibility, however, many of my executive clients say this works for them effectively as well.  

It all begins . . .

9 am every Friday.  My Outlook alert tells me to open my checklist.  Even after completing this process for years now, and having memorized the list, I still set the alert, and I always open it.  I learned early on when I didn’t, as much as my good intention was, the process didn’t get completed. 

Keeping An Aerial Focus on Your To Do List

A past client called me yesterday and ask if I could help her improve her organizational skills.

Of course I said yes.  Let me share one of the tips with you today.

Let’s get down to business . . . the business of making sales and using lists. 

I’d like to share something on the organizing end that helps me stay focused or gets me back into focus after a time away – like a weekend.  I use this method even though I have a sophisticated sales software.

Its lists . . .

Generally, lists don’t work because most people forget where the lists are. Chuckle.  Okay, been there and done that myself--so many times.

Allow me to present one way to help you with two examples in the sales area.  I also added a few additional suggestions in other ways to use it towards the end of this post. 

10 Things I Learned After 7 Years of Blogging

Darren Rowse is a blogging master.  Today he posted his 5000 post on his blog, ProBlogger.net.  He began blogging in the year 2004.  The same year the “Out of the Fog, Into the Light” (this blog) started.  Well, actually, I began this blog in 2002. Blogging was new then and my provider was green as well. 

In 2004, I decided to step up to the plate and become more professional.  This was when I moved the blog to TypePad.  I also decided not to reload the previous two year’s worth of posts.  Instead, I reviewed each post, there were 380 then, and either updated them and add into future posts or tossed them. 

Here, in celebration of my unknown number of posts but 1,184,812 lifetime page views I’d like to add to Darren’s post.  In his post, he summarizes some of the lessons he learned in building his blog.  I thought the his list was okay but would not have necessarily been my top ones. 

First, I’ll summarize his list and then I’ll discuss my lessons.

Attracting Summer Interns

As an entrepreneur for a long time now, I’ve learned that trying to handle everything yourself isn’t a smart business practice.

The question to ask is, “How do you bring others onboard when you’re on a tight budget?”

Just recently I went through this process.  Since I hadn’t did this in a long time, I had to start from the beginning.  One part to the answer was to find a few summer interns and maybe ones for the fall as well.  I wanted to focus on this process, not just because of the financial savings, but because I find interns bright, eager, have less fear of voicing their ideas and opinions, and come up with creative solutions.  Plus their energy is catchy if harnessed correctly.  This goal also matched my strength of being an excellent mentor and teacher.  And handles my weakness – not enough time to accomplished all that I want to do. 

Let me share my strategy.

Step 1.  I named my goal.  To attract three interns for the summer.  One for strategic development and  planning.  Another for marketing campaign development.  And a third to support me with editing and info product development.

Step 2:  Next I created task list.  Afterward I place in priority order.

Example of my list.

1. Contact my client who already does this and ask for advice.
2. Search on Google for any helpful advice, read, take notes, and add/modify to do list.
3. Make a list of projects I want them to work on. Answer what type of intern would best fulfill this.
4. Write a job listing piece for each type of intern and project and what my offer.
5. Make a list of schools to contact.
6. Make a list of additional online places I can post the listings.
7. Research the schools on line for the “how-to” information.  Track this in OneNote.
8. Submit information to the schools.
9. Submit listings to places other than schools online.
10. Review resumes received.
11. Interview and offer.
12. Work with new intern and utilize their full potential.
13. Increase productivity and enjoy the results!

Step 3:  After completing the list, I added the estimated time I thought it would take to accomplish the task.  From this I was able to create a start date and end date for the project.  I wasn’t happy with how much time it was requiring so I made adjustments and looked for tasks that could be delegated to my virtual assistant.  I was able to cut my time requirements in half and the completion date move up almost a week.

Step 3:  Next, I shared my goal and list with my VA in an overview email.  Then set up the delegated tasks in OneNote with connections to task assignments in Outlook and forwarded them to my VA.  Then I began my tasks.

Continue the attraction . . .

Maybe you have used interns in the past, please share your experience, or things you’ve learned in the comment section. 

Technorati Tags: summer interns,how to,task list,strategy,process,finding summer interns for your business

(c) Copyright 2009, Catherine Franz.  All rights reserved.