10 Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Start Getting Important Stuff Done!

10 Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Start Getting Important Stuff Done! About a year ago, I decided it was time to create a customer service survey. So I went on line, found a surveying program and created some questions. I even went so far as to show it to my business coach, Susan Thomson, to get her feedback. She made some suggestions which I incorporated. Then I did what so many of us do mid-project, which was to sit on my butt. The survey sat there, all dressed up and nowhere to go. I didn’t send it to a single soul. Things go that way sometimes. I have a flip camera, for instance, that I bought two years ago and used for the first time†¦ ummm†¦ a month ago. Even then, I did not post the video I took with the camera. There are also certain collections of notes and papers – the ones I’m not sure what to do with – that gather dust in piles. And my new printer sat in its box on the floor of my office for a week before I finally pulled it out and set it up. All these tasks, and more, live in the realm of â€Å"Important, not Urgent,† one of the four quadrants identified by Steven Covey in his best-selling business management book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Often, until something happens to make one of these items urgent (such as I need to print something and I can’t get my old printer to work), I am likely to procrastinate completing the task. Letting â€Å"Important, not Urgent† tasks fall by the wayside leads to a high-pressure life. If I wait until an item is urgent before doing it, then I set myself up for stress. Everything is always urgent! Plus I never get things done that would make a huge difference for me or my business, even though they might be high-priority tasks. Surveying my customers is one of those items that is highly important for my business, but not urgent. It will never get done if I wait for it to become urgent. I have found a few tricks that help me break through the wall of resistance that keeps â€Å"Important, not Urgent† things from getting done. 1. Take stock. Identify what’s important. Every quarter, I attend a meeting of small businesses through a business coaching organization, ActionCOACH. During these quarterly workdays, we go through exercises that are hugely valuable in getting perspective on our business priorities. This past January, client contact and assessment came up as a high priority for The Essay Expert. When I created my calendar of tasks to complete over the quarter, my stagnating client survey came up high on the list of things to do. 2. Break it down. Important tasks often seem overwhelming because they are multi-faceted. If I can break the tasks down into small, attackable pieces, then I stop feeling overwhelmed. I know I can do something like â€Å"Call virtual assistant to talk about survey options.† It’s so much less intimidating than â€Å"Survey all my past clients.† 3. Put it on the calendar. If my calendar tells me to â€Å"Prepare survey† or â€Å"create list of emails for survey recipients† at a certain date and time, I will either do it at that date and time or reschedule it so it gets done. I am a slave to my calendar and that’s a good thing. After my quarterly workday in January, survey-related tasks went onto my calendar. They started to get done. [This calendaring system is how I get my blog written every week as well. It’s on my calendar, so I do it!] 4. Make promises to other people. Create accountability! In my January blog article, The Essay Expert’s New Year’s â€Å"Ressaylutions†- Completing 2011 and Creating 2012, I promised you that I would be sending out a client survey. Suddenly I became accountable to someone else. Since I wanted to announce at the end of 2012 that I did what I promised, I got into action! 5. Get help. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was not going to do this survey thing on my own. So I got help. My new virtual assistant, Jeanne, handled some of the logistical pieces of getting the survey finalized and sent out. I asked my web designer to take care of creating a new email address, clientsurvey@theessayexpert.com, for purposes of administering the survey. Getting the support I needed accelerated the project tremendously. 6. Know the tools at your disposal. If you’re sending out a survey, it helps to use Survey Monkey. If you want to get piles of notes and papers off your desk, it helps to use a scanner and the brilliant cloud-based note-organizing program Evernote (www.evernote.com). If you draw on your resources, you will almost always find an easier and/or alternative way to do what you’ve been putting off. Ask around. Be on the lookout for new tools and techniques. Those overwhelming tasks might not be as complicated as you had imagined. 7. Take action. It always comes down to just doing it. If I don’t take action, then regardless of how many action items are on my calendar, I won’t get results. If I take action, especially well-considered action (see #1-6), I have a fighting chance! 8. Keep taking action. This item might sound a lot like #7. But it’s different. Someone very smart said that the secret to getting results in life is to keep taking action until you get them. You might take initial action, not get the result you want, and promptly give up. The key to getting important stuff done is to stay in action even when things look like they’re not working or not going fast enough. If you give up on taking action, you give up on your results. 9. Take responsibility. Whether your important tasks are getting done or not, you are the one who is responsible for the situation. Blaming outside circumstances (â€Å"The survey program wouldn’t let me ask the questions I wanted to ask!† or â€Å"I don’t have time!†) will stall you out. In the survey project, many things interrupted me and presented obstacles. I chose to find a way around them. 10. Celebrate! I am going to celebrate getting my survey out. Sure, there will be a whole set of new tasks to conquer when this one is complete. But first it’s time to acknowledge what got done. And it IS going out!! Step by step, with lots of support along the way, I completed this important task. If you are a past client, you probably got an email yesterday requesting that you complete The Essay Expert’s client survey. If not, please take some time to respond now. TEE Client Survey. I look forward to being able to report on the results! I’d love to hear what tasks you are putting off that might get done if you put the eight items above into action. What progress will you be able to celebrate three months from now? 🙂 Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: February 22, 2012 at 9:58 am Youre welcome Jan! Id love to hear how these tips have worked for you in your life. Log in to Reply

Cole Haan Advertisment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Cole Haan Advertisment - Essay Example This guy is a self-made man who just stumbled upon it having never planned a single day in his life. Two days ago, he was having drinks with a friend at a location within walking distance of his home. This friend of his brought one of his friends along, and that friend took something from Alec. Maybe it was wisdom, or maybe it was a sense of freedom and success like they had never felt before. Cole Haan is a well-known global lifestyle brand that defines American style, beauty, and luxury (Cole Haan). Cole Haan shoes are designed for comfort with a stylish look that can be worn by all types of men and women. The first thing that can be noticed when looking at this Cole Haan ad is that one picture is spread throughout the room. Many of these copies are attached to the wall, except not well enough to consider it some form of wallpaper. One may think that this person is either crazy or just being creative; maybe the pictures are of his beautiful looking wife and he is preparing somethin g special for her. This welcomes and tickles the curiosity of the audience by allowing the viewers to use their imagination and welcome new ideas into their world. It invites the viewer to think of simple romance and how great that very thought is. This thought allows the audience to reflect on their own relationships, or ones from the past there were special in their own right. This ad doesn’t show an anniversary of some sort; it just seems to be a man reflecting on the great things that he currently has and about living in the moment. This Cole Haan ad came from GQ magazine, which is a magazine that is designed to encourage quality living for men who want to better themselves. There are hundreds of ads in each magazine, and every single one of them is designed to catch the viewer’s attention. That being the case, Cole Haan attempts to catch the viewer’s attention by setting the outer color of the ad in white. In advertising, according to color-wheel-pro.com, w hite is associated with coolness and cleanliness because it represents snow (Color Wheel Pro). White brings the audience to a stop and makes everyone realize that there’s more than just snow here; it comes off as a picture within a picture, and soon you come to the realization that all the pictures are pictures within the actual pictures themselves. This gives the viewer a sense of curiosity about the image. The first thing that I noticed when further analyzing the ad is the incredibly ugly couch that this good-looking, successful man is laying on. This image welcomes the viewer to give themselves more freedom in their lives; it allows them to be more comfortable with something that is not usually thought of as aesthetically pleasing. It allows the viewer to reexamine their lifestyle and priorities. The shoes that the ad is selling seem to be a fraction of the cost that an average sophisticated couch would cost. It gives the viewer permission to be free and not worry about th e daily stress that life predictably brings. Having this man lie in a semi-organized room without a care in the world allows the viewer to relax and examine the man in the picture. This ad is aimed at all types of men, from the young man currently enrolled in college who is looking to join the workforce in a few years, to the recently married thirty-year old who will have his second kid in the next few

The Nature and Effect of Superbug H1N1 Coursework

The Nature and Effect of Superbug H1N1 - Coursework Example HA molecules are particularly important in the development of the disease as they cause the preferential attachment to lung epithelial cells and the insertion of the virus contents into the host cell. Each protein in the virus has multiple subtypes. In human-infecting Influenza virus strains, there are three HA subtypes, H1, H2 and H3, while NA has two, N1 and N2. The different combinations of HA and NA make possible the multiple subtypes of Influenza viruses (Kimball, 2009). With the elucidation of the viral structure, it has since been discovered that there are multiple strains of the virus, and that they continually mutate and cross-infect swine, birds and humans. As commonly seen among viruses, HA, together with NA, genes mutate at a high rate, causing new strains to be seen infecting humans almost yearly. This phenomenon is referred to as the antigenic shift. In addition, Influenza virus strains undergo gene reassortment, in which two strains infecting the same bird or swine exc hange RNA strands to develop a new virus subtype that the human population has not been exposed before. Thus, this antigenic shift usually causes severe pandemics. For example, the 1957 H2N2 Asian flu pandemic after the 1918 H1N1 Spanish flu pandemic is believed to be caused by the simultaneous infection of a human-infecting subtype and a bird-specific H2N_ resulting to the reassortment of their genes that produced a new bird-specific subtype that can infect humans. In effect, this new H2N2 subtype is something the human population at that time has not been exposed before, causing many to have no immunity against the virus and to be susceptible to infection (Kimball, 2009). Because of the unique features of Influenza virus, current prophylaxis still involves multiple vaccinations, with the composition of multivalent shots varied annually to confer protection against strains guessed to be most infective during the coming season. Thus, prolonging and ensuring the effectiveness has bee n the focal point of many researches. A promising approach is the development of vaccines that can induce the production of antibodies that are specific against multiple HA subtypes. Throsby and his colleagues (2008) paved the way for such approach when they identified human antibodies that can bind to H1, H2, H5, H6, H8, and H9. They referred to this antibody as CR6261 (Eckiert et al., 2009). CR6261 AGAINST H1N1 AND OTHER SUBTYPES What makes CR6261 different from other antibodies that confer resistance to only one subtype of Influenza? Eckiert et al. (2009) tried to elucidate the 2.2 and 2.6A crystal structure of the antigen-binding portion (Fab) of CR6261, as well as the CR6261 Fab complexed with heterotypic HAs from human 1918 H1N1 pandemic virus and avian H5N1 virus. Although it was not mentioned in the study if there is any purpose in choosing H1 and H5 instead of the other subtypes, the choices probably served the most purpose because H1 has a history in causing a pandemic (19 18 H1N1 Spanish flu), and H5 has a likelihood to infect and cause death among humans, who are mostly unexposed to such type of Influenza (Kimball, 2009). However, it is most ideal if the study

Dealing with stress Essay Example for Free

Dealing with stress Essay One of the greatest sources of stress at work is caused by the innovations that have been created to make work easier. While it is true that there are already so many inventions and technological devices that have been invented to help people accomplish more at work, the result is far from the anticipated goal of allowing people to rest more. The increased capability of performing more work has been off-set by the fact that more and more tasks are placed upon the employees. The fact paced working environment and steady competition has changed the way work is being done and increased the stress levels. When a few decades ago companies only had to contend with local or national competition, the current business environment faces competition from firms and companies all over the world. Another factor which adds to the stress in any working environment, aside from the increased pressure to produce more, is the fact that the stress in the work place negatively affects the health of employees thus causing more absences and adding more pressure to catch up with the work load. It has been suggested that stress can be thought of as resulting from an â€Å"imbalance between demands and resources† or as occurring when â€Å"pressure exceeds ones perceived ability to cope† (Sedgeman 2005). The most common reasons for stress are poor working conditions such as excessive noise or heat and crowded or poorly designed workspaces, a lack of control over work, time pressures, long or inflexible working hours, too much or too little work or responsibility, confusion about duties and responsibilities, including role ambiguity, a lack of variety and interest in job, inadequate training and possibilities for learning new skills, poor work-life balance, difficult relationships with supervisors and coworkers, lack of support from colleagues, isolation from colleagues, organizational confusion, restructuring, and job change. All of these factors contribute to stress at the work place. It is important to note however that the effect or weight of each of these factors differs from person to person. Over the years, there has been more emphasis on job specialization and training. Aside from performing the regular work tasks, employees are also expected and pressured to meet higher expectations and maintain their competitive edge constantly. These factors were not as prevalent in the work place a few decades ago as they are now. There have been a number of studies on the relationship between stress and job performance that show that as the level of work related stress increases the job performance and satisfaction level also changes. Some of the consequences of stress include, job-related consequences such as low performance and absenteeism, emotion related consequences such as irritability and depression which affect work place relationships, and physiological consequences such as high blood pressure and other illnesses. All of these consequences affect the worker’s ability to perform his/her task at work and are also detrimental to the work atmosphere as more irritable people are less likely to contribute to team-related tasks and goals. Absenteeism is also a problem as it directly affects the work output of not only an individual worker but of the team or unit as well. Many techniques have been implemented to reduce worker stress. In a number of Japanese firms, certain activities such as worker exercise programs have been implemented in an effort to keep the employees in better shape. Other workplaces over the world have taken advantage of the technical advances in communications technology and used these to reduce worker stress levels. Some of these programs include the permitting of certain employees to telecommute at least once or twice a week in order to create a more relaxed yet productive working environment. Other programs included involving the families of the workers in group activities and corporate activities. While these have been shown to have mixed effects in relation to coping with stress, these activities have also shown that the most important way of dealing with work related stress lies in showing the employees that their employer cares about their welfare and is instituting programs to deal with such. In the long run, there is really no sure fire method of dealing with stress. There will always be different stress levels and methods of coping with them. The most important thing that remains, however, is that something is done. A proactive stance is still better than anything. References: Bower, J. E. Segerstrom, S. C. (2004). Stress management, finding benefit, and immune function: positive mechanisms for intervention effects on physiology. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 56(1): 9-11 Sedgeman, J. A. (2005). Health Realization/Innate Health: Can a quiet mind and a positive feeling state be accessible over the lifespan without stress-relief techniques? Med. Sci. Monitor 11(12) HY47-52.

Written Music Essay -- Music History

Written Music For a very long time music was not written down. It was sung or played from memory. As it was passed on from person to person, many changes crept into the tunes. A way of writing music down was needed so that it would be sung or played exactly as it had been composed. The name for written music that man developed is notation. The system of musical notation generally used today is the result of centuries of development- from about the end of the ninth century to the early 1700’s. This development began in the cathedrals in monasteries of the Roman Catholic Church. Since many of the Church’s services were sung, they were sung from memory. Towards the end of the ninth century dots and dashes and squiggles were written over the words in the church books. These signs, called neumes, showed the direction in which the melody should go. But they were still very vague. About 900 A.D. the music was made a little easier to read. The neumes were written at certain distances above or below the horizontal red line, representing the note F, to show how high or low...

Main Types of New Year’s Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions Apart from the endless cups of tea with Christmas sweets, the great fun and the inmense blissfulness that we experience by the end of the year and the beginning of a new one, the New Year is also the traditional time to make resolutions, which are plans to improve oneself. Resolutions are basically promises to oneself, and like promises, you either keep them or break them. That is to say, you are either successful in keeping your plans, or you are not and you go back to your old habits. The vast majority of people think that they need a new lifestyle, a change, or a recommitment as an individual. The aim of most resolutions is to turn over a new leaf. That is, to make yourself better by changing your routines and habits. It is like making a fresh, new start in your life. Generally there are two main types of resolutions: give up or take up. A lot of people say that their New Year’s Resolutions are to give up a bad habit or to take up a new hobby. Personally, I think that what I would just like to do is carry on working hard; carry on being happy and healthy. I plan to keep on studying, keep on exercising ( I wish I could do it quite often in 2012), keep on eating well and keep on sleeping well, keep on getting on well with my family and friends. And that’s about it, there is nothing else. Nothing too big, nothing too heavy, because experience tells me that if you try to ask yourself to do too much stuff, it will eventually not happen.

Accounting Software Bridge Gap For Small Businesses

Accounting Software Bridge Gap for Small Businesses Small Businesses face more challenges than large corporations, it is often difficult for small businesses to remain competitive in a constant changing economy. Many small businesses lack the capital, know how, and budgetary allocation that helps small businesses build and expand. Therefore, small businesses depend on accounting software to narrow the gap between large corporation and small businesses by reducing cost, boost efficiency, reduce manual errors, and assist small businesses in staying ahead of their competitors. Accounting software gives small businesses an advantage in a competitive market by improving small business ability to manage financial statements quicker and easier.†¦show more content†¦Small businesses are the fabric of our economy and technology has aid in the development, growth, and prosperity of small businesses. Technology has improved the way small businesses prepare financial statements, record sales, and recognize asset impairment at a click of a button. Technology is so far integrated into our society that it is impossible for a small business to function without using technology. Thus, accounting software allow small businesses to operate efficiently without losing sales and reduce the time it would typically take to prepare financial statements. Small businesses can run more smoothly using accounting software that matches the need of the company. Accounting application is an essential tool for small businesses and is an indispensable asset for the going concern of small businesses. Therefore, accounting software enhance the capabilities of small businesses to function efficiently, increase productivity and competitiveness despite the size of the business. Various accounting software such as QuickBooks, Freshbooks, Xero, and Zoho Books are great for small businesses and include payment processing, payroll capabilities, general ledger management, and invoicing. QuickBooks application are great for small businesses freela ncers, and consultants and as a user-friendly interface. QuickBooks user’s basically complete forms and the software preform theShow MoreRelatedThe Convergence of Two Accounting Systems and the International Financial Reporting Standards1318 Words   |  5 PagesI. Introduction The convergence of two accounting systems, the US GAAP and International Financial Reporting Standards, is not a new concept. For many years, the primordial idea of convergence started in the late 1950’s in response to post World War II economic integration and related increases in cross-border capital flows. Initially, the term used was â€Å"Harmonization until the early 1990’s the politically correct term is â€Å"Convergence†. 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