THE BEGINNING OF THIS MONTH brought a moment of unexpected conviction and clarity for me regarding both my business and my personal life that I thought might be beneficial to talk about.  This moment of clarity happened one evening a couple of weeks ago when I was making my to-do list for the following morning, attempting to determine what was top priority for my time.  As I glanced over my list, I realized suddenly that I only ever included work-related tasks.  Thumbing through the previous pages of my notebook (yes, I still keep my lists on paper and write them with a pencil, old-school style), I confirmed this observation: my lists and goals were exclusively focused on business.  They included people to call, marketing to implement, website updates to tackle, books to read, appointments to attend, etc.  They did not, however, include goals or tasks related to any other part of my life.

Immediately I recognized that the content of my to-do lists highlighted a symptom of a larger problem I’ve been noticing for months: my life is imbalanced.  Furthermore, the priorities that I vocalized to myself and others–specifically that my marriage and family were #1–was a ruse.  Based on tangible evidence, it was clear to see that my true top priority was work.

If I say, for instance, that my marriage is my top priority, what would it look like for my husband to make it onto my daily to-do list?  What would it look like to include my personal growth and health, or my friendships?  What would it look like to include budgeting and home maintenance?  What would it look like to include service to others?

When Life & Marriage Get The Leftover Scraps, Nobody Wins

The fact that I was omitting all of these things, and more, from my daily list meant that I wasn’t applying nearly the level of intentionality to them that I apply to work.  If you are in business, or love your career, perhaps you can relate.  It seems easy in our culture to apply our best skills and energy toward enterprise, and it is an area that is very gratifying to make progress in.  It is harder, however, to be intentional about marriage, and the results of our efforts when we do so are more difficult to identify, and far less esteemed by culture.  So when I make my list of things to do for the day, it is natural to write down “update services on website,” and much harder to include “verbally affirm my husband and avoid nagging.”  But by not writing down the latter, I do not give it the priority it deserves.  Instead, my marriage, my home, my personal finances, my friendships, my faith, my role in the community, etc., get whatever is leftover from my willpower and work ethic at the end of the day.  Because they don’t make the list, they receive less of my attention and almost none of my focused intention.

This, friends, does not make for a very sustainable future.  At least not a future that includes a happy marriage, a healthy budget, and a community of friends and peers.

Enlisting A New Routine To Balance Life & Work

Needless to say, a change was needed.  Better balance was required, and a new routine was enlisted.  This new routine includes dedicated time for tasks and goals that fall outside of work.  I even recruited a whole new notebook to record checklists and efforts in these other vitally important areas of life.  And in the few weeks since instituting these changes I can say that I have been both very uncomfortable and proud.  Uncomfortable because work has received less attention from me, and if I’m honest, this has felt a little irresponsible.  But also proud because I know that my marriage is getting more of the attention it deserves, as well as other relationships in my life.  The adjustment is still in-process, and I definitely haven’t quite found my new groove yet, but my conviction about achieving better balance and having more integrity with my priorities motivates me to persevere until these intentions become more natural and familiar.

I look forward to writing more about the impact of these changes in days and weeks to come.

Have you ever made a shift in your priorities?  How did it go?  Also, does your to-do list include both work and personal life?  If so, does this help you keep balance?

Also, what to do if life throws you a curveball.

ALMOST EVERY TIME MANAGEMENT ARTICLE OR COACH will tell you the same thing: success doesn’t just come from getting more done; it comes from getting the right things done.

And though this advice makes perfect commonsense, frankly I think it is much easier said than done.  It has been my personal experience that knowing what the right things are isn’t always obvious.  There have been many, many days, for instance, when I confess that everything on my to-do list looks and feels equally important.  How do I prioritize between work for a client and the marketing required to get the next client?  Or how do I judge what is more important between a product that I might be able to make a lot of money on someday or the product that I can make some money today?  The reality on the ground is that these are hard decisions to discern, especially when you’re looking at your to-do list on a Monday morning.

Am I right?

I have spent more than my fair share of time staring onto a gray and blurry list of priorities trying to make them into black and white.  For years this challenge of knowing what to do first has puzzled and stumped me.  But recently something happened.  Not too long ago I rather accidentally stumbled onto the key for figuring out what to do first.  When I’m staring over my list of to-do’s for the day or the week and trying to decide what is most important, I have found that this key works like a charm about 95% of the time.  What is it, you ask?  What is this secret key?

Maybe this sounds like a ludicrous exercise, but I swear to you that it works.  In fact, I believe I know why it works for most of us humans, and it has a little something to do with our tendency to follow the path of least resistance.  If you are like me (and I think you are), your default setting is to tackle the easiest things on your list first and knock them out of the way.  This process is a way of gaining momentum; a way of easing into the day’s work.  This is why we check email before doing anything else, because checking email is easy.  And there is something quite satisfying about crossing off a bunch of easier things on our list before tackling those harder tasks.  By doing so…

• We gain confidence.
• We feel better about ourselves.
• We use the energy from those good feelings to help us do something that we’re more intimidated by.

Unfortunately this default is counterproductive.  It feels productive because we are getting things done, but they are not the right things.  The truth is the most of the time the things we want to do least–the harder, more intimidating tasks–are the most important things to do.  They are the right things.  And because we want to find the path of least resistance, we will go to great lengths to avoid doing these harder, important things.

But, you may be asking, is it really true that just because something is harder it is more important?  No–not always.  But most of the time it is true.  I can’t exactly explain to you why this is.  Perhaps we naturally shy away from the things that will prompt the greatest amount of growth in our businesses and our lives.  We might be afraid of possible failure.  Or resistant to rejection.  But you and I both know that with risk comes greater reward.  Or perhaps the things that are most difficult highlight our areas of weakness, and when we make these areas stronger through intention and priority, the whole enterprise gets stronger.  But ultimately is it really important to know why this key works?  Isn’t enough to just know that it does?

After doing this for three weeks, take stock of where you are in business and with your goals.  I can guarantee that your business will be growing, and that you will be moving forward with your goals.  I know this because you will have been working on the most important things first, and getting them done.  These intimidating tasks will start to become a lot easier, and you will begin to create new habits of productivity with less effort.  When this happens, send me a note, because I’d to hear about your success, and how your experience compares with mine.

For added reading, also check out:

• Why understanding willpower will help you with this lesson you’ve just read.
• And why you’ll be able to follow the most obvious advice you’ve heard but probably aren’t doing right now.

Also, the Buffer blog (this article in particular) has shaped my thoughts on this topic, as has this book and this one.

IN JUST UNDER TWO WEEK’S, I‘ll be speaking at a social media training summit in Boulder, CO about blogging.  As someone who has been blogging regularly since 2008, this topic is one I have a lot of experience with.  In the past five years I have managed to accumulate over 1,000 articles in my archive, and with four new posts per week (my current rate), that number continues to increase quickly.  I guess it is easy to see that five years later, I still enjoy it.

Why Blogging?

So why blogging?  This is a question I’ve been asking myself recently with all of the myriad of other social media options.  Why not Facebook?  Why not LinkedIn?  Why not Pinterest or Instagram?  (For the record, I have accounts on all of these sites, plus others.)  When I hopped into the pool of entrepreneurism five years ago, why did I choose to sink my teeth into blogging over other options?  And then why have I stuck with it even while other social media sites have grown in popularity, sometimes surpassing blogging as a business favorite?

Well, the short answer is that blogging is my favorite.  For one thing, I am a writer–something that fits well with the demands of posting new articles with frequency.  Secondly, I am a reader, which means that I enjoy reading other people’s blogs more than I like to…say…browse their Facebook feed or follow their Pinterest account.  But probably more than anything, I continue to blog because it adds value to my business in a way that other social media efforts do not.  Specifically, blogging is the social media I host on my domain rather than someone else’s.  Or, put differently, blogging is like inviting you to dinner at my house rather than meeting you at a restaurant.  And “having you to my place” is good for a number of reasons.

5 Reasons Why Bringing People To Your “House” (aka Domain) With Blogging Is Good For Business

1.  You control the branding.

Sure, other social media sites allow you logos and cover images, but in the end it is their brand that dominates.  Blogging, in contrast, allows you full control of the look, feel, messaging, and function of the social interaction.

2.  It shows visitors (including search engines) that your website is active and relevant, which increases your online credibility.

Most everyone knows that in order to be “legitimate” in business today, you need to be active online.  Certainly all social media accomplishes this important function, but a regularly updated blog also lets search engines know that your site is active as well, which increases your search rankings and online authority.

3.  It gives other websites opportunity to link back to you directly.

Sure outside websites and businesses can link back to the static pages and products listed on your website, but they are more likely to link to valuable content you provide through a blog.  This increases your traffic, and the back links provide another boost in online authority.

4.  It gives you a little room to stretch your legs on a topic.

Call me chatty, but sometimes 140 characters just isn’t enough space to say something meaningful.  Even a string of updates can get too fragmented.  Blogging, on the other hand, gives you a chance to speak more thoroughly on a topic, and this opportunity for greater depth often results in greater value for visitors.

5.  It brings people from other sites and social media channels to your website, increasing your ability to build your follower list and/or sell products & services.

This, ultimately, is the real value of blogging.  Because one you have visitors “to your house,” then you might have the chance to show them around a little bit more.  Maybe they’ll take a peek into some of the other spaces your site provides.  Or they’ll say yes to your invitation to join your email list.  Or they’ll purchase one of your products and share it with a friend.  A well-constructed blog post is like a good hostess who’s guests linger at her home long after the meal is served.  You want visitors to linger, and blogging is the best among its social media peers at making that extended hospitality happen.  Which, of course, means more success for you.

I’ll close this article with a quick qualifier: I am by no means saying that blogging should replace all other forms of social media.  But I am saying that if I had to choose, I’d choose blogging first.  Some people prefer to eat out, and that’s fine.  As for me, I think I’d prefer to host your for dinner.  And maybe you’ll stick around for a little while after…

3 other arguments online for why you should start blogging:

• 15 Reasons I Think You Should Blog
• Forbes: 9 Reasons You Should Blog
• Time: Why Your Small Business Needs A Blog

Other web tips you might like:

• How to improve the “bones” of your website for better search results
• Why building a list is the most important thing I think you should do in 2013
• 3 reasons to include more video in your marketing

Today’s quick sales tip video will help you get more of your proposals approved by challenging you to pick up the phone immediately after submitting your bid.  Rather than giving your prospect a lot of space and time to review your proposal, I have found it to be much more effective to call them immediately to answer questions or review the details.  Try it for yourself and see what I mean!

Check Out These Other Sales Tip Videos:

• How To Get More Out Of Skype & Video Conferencing
• Why Closing the Proximity Will Increase Sales
• Why Multitasking Is Hurting Your Business

IT IS NO SECRET that I am of the belief that life and work aren’t really separate, but rather bleed into each other with no thought for boundaries.  As such, today’s topic is about life throwing curveballs.  It seems lately that everywhere I look the people that I connect with are experiencing genuinely challenging (and unexpected) circumstances.  Like one friend who is grappling with the pain of an unwanted divorce.  And another struggling to figure out how to be a solo mom while her husband is unexpectedly shipped overseas for several months.  Or the other who was just blindsided by an unanticipated job loss.

From these friends, and others, I keep hearing some familiar phrases:

• “I just didn’t see this coming.”
• “I’m so tired; I can’t do this.”
• “I’m just so angry right now.  Angry at life.  Angry at my husband/wife.  Angry at God.”
• “I’m afraid that something else bad is going to happen.”

They Say Life is Hard.  So Why Are We Still So Surprised When They Are Right?

Needless to say, I can relate.  I’m guessing you can as well.  It doesn’t seem to take many years on this planet to start experiencing the disappointment of living.  And for all that we hear about life being hard, it still manages to take us by surprise when it is.

Certainly for me, one of the biggest curveballs life has thrown was the news that we were likely to never have children.  To say that the news sent me reeling is an understatement.  I knew that life wasn’t going to turn out the way that I expected…and yet I still expected it to.

So, how do you deal with these curveballs when they come up?  How do you keep your business moving forward when you find yourself landing in a spot you never anticipated?  How do you juggle relationships and responsibilities all the while managing emotional stress?  Well certainly I don’t have all of the answers, and I’d much prefer to dodge the curveballs altogether.  But when that isn’t possible, here are three things that have worked well for me:

Three Things To Try When Life Throws You A Curveball

1.  Take it one day at a time.

I know this advice is cliche, but it is unequivocally the most practical method for dealing with curveballs.  Why?  Because our natural tendency when things get hard is to worry.  We worry about how long the hardship will last.  We worry about how it is impacting others.  We worry about it will mean for the future.  The simple truth is that worry doesn’t help…ever.  Personally I have found it to be very liberating to let go of tomorrow’s concerns, particularly when I’m disappointed with life.  And letting go helps me to reserve my energy for the day at hand without siphoning off portions of it for the future.

2.  Journal

Some of us are born journalers, and for others it is a hit-or-miss habit at best.  Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, I believe journaling is helpful during stressful times in life because it takes the concerns and worries running through our heads and puts them into tangible, concrete form.  Once concrete, we are able to think more objectively about problems and emotions, and it becomes easier to release the ones that aren’t helpful.  And journaling doesn’t have to be pages of paragraphs; it can be lists or collages or maps or doodles–whatever works best.

3.  Take Solace in Routine

One of the most difficult side effects of life’s curveballs is that they tend to make us feel out of control.  This is why I like routine for stressful times.  There is something very grounding about practicing the same habits everyday, particularly small habits like making the bed, keeping the car tidy, and working out.  Though these things can seem insignificant against a tide of other, larger issues, and though they require even more energy to do when times are hard, these small routine tasks can provide an anchor and sense of restored control.

What have you done after catching a curveball?  What has been the most helpful thing for you during a challenging or stressful time?

For more Business is Personal articles, click here–>

I AM GOING TO SHARE a productivity tip that I recently read that seemed so obvious I rolled my eyes.  “Everyone knows this,” I thought to myself.  “This isn’t even a tip.”  I’ll admit that for a moment I almost abused the author and the publisher for printing something so blatantly apparent.  But I wrote it down anyway in the notebook I use to keep a record of what I’m reading and then filed it away.

A few days passed and I noticed that my mind kept returning to this tip.  I found myself thinking about it again and again.  I realized that though blatantly apparent, I needed this tip.  Like knowing that I should eat more vegetables but still having sandwiches for lunch, I knew this tip but wasn’t applying it.  Maybe the author and the publisher didn’t deserve my abuse after all.

So what was it?  What was this obvious strategy for getting more done?

Now if you’re rolling your eyes, I can sympathize.  This is, indeed, blatantly apparent advice.  But perhaps you are like me and sometimes know what you should do without actually doing it.

The Challenge Of Identifying What Is Really Important

The first part of this strategy seems easy on the surface but in truth identifying what is most important is not always a simple process.  For instance, sometimes urgency masquerades as importance, especially when the urgency is on the part of someone else–like a client, boss or co-worker.  Likewise, sometimes there is a battle between the stuff that usually gets done today and the stuff that you should do today so that tomorrow (and the day after) are more successful.  Or there are the things that make money today, and the things that could make even more money down the road.  Which ones win priority on the to-do list?

After wrestling through these questions, and others, I have actually found a very effective and simple way to determine what is the most important thing to do.  It works like a charm about 95% of the time for me and only requires one question.  But I’m not going to share my secret today–you’ll just have to come back next week to find out what it is.  (Trust me–you’ll want to know this trick.)

Combating Distraction & Diversion

The second part of this strategy also seems simple on the surface, but like the first, it is easier said than done.  A lot easier.  Why?  Because we humans of this advanced modern era are very easily distracted.  Our thoughts wander.  Our internet browsers wander.  And our tasks wander.  Just the other day, for instance, my car “wandered” its way to Qdoba for lunch without me even noticing.  (Well…maybe I noticed.)

Since reading The Most Obvious Strategy For Getting More Done That You’re Still Probably Not Doing I’ve come to realize just how much wandering and distraction I allow during my day.  It’s been a bit astonishing to notice how frequently I’ll start a task and then get diverted from my course.  Usually the guilty trigger is a new email in my inbox, or a phone call from a client, or a trip to get more hot tea.  Even more frequent are the mini-mental-breaks my mind takes while it’s working on something.  I could, for instance, be busy crafting this week’s email newsletter and find my mind diverted a half-dozen times on things like what’s on the menu for dinner, how I should respond to a party invitation, or what my friend meant when she said we needed to talk.  All of this distraction adds time to my task, and sometimes succeeds in diverting me altogether.

Finishing Is Harder Than Starting

Furthermore, beyond distraction I have observed that completing tasks can be grueling on my willpower.  Most of the time I just don’t feel like getting all the way to the finish line.  There is a certain amount of discipline and thoroughness required to complete something and I’m often found lacking.  I don’t believe I’m alone in this.  Follow-through is challenging, which is why so many of us habitually start things we don’t finish.  Like running a race, there is a lot of energy that accompanies the start of something…and far less available to finish it.  I’ll confess that at times it has felt almost herculean to complete that important to-do item, and many times I burn out before I cross the finish.  Of course I’m working on some tricks to make this easier as well, and hope to share them as they become clearer to me.

Are You Ignoring The Obvious?

The main reason I have for bringing your attention to The Most Obvious Strategy For Getting More Done That You’re Still Probably Not Doing is to pique your awareness.  Often the path to change is to identify very simple solutions…and then why we aren’t following them.  For me, once I acknowledged that I wasn’t practicing what I knew to be true, I started to observe all kinds of behaviors that were keeping me from staying focused on the right things.  And that knowledge has helped me to find a few solutions that will lead to new habits.

What about you?  Is this strategy so obvious that you’re overlooking it?  

WHEN MY HUSBAND AND I were shopping for homes several years ago, we challenged ourselves to look beyond the carpet and paint and furniture and to focus on the bones of the homes we were looking at.  Did the rooms flow together well?  Was there a logical and intuitive flow for traffic?  Was there enough natural lighting?  Did the main living areas optimize air flow?  These were some of the questions we asked, and part of our criteria for choosing the right property.

Of course this strategy is commonsense, and one that many people practice when shopping for a home.  I found it, however, to be a little more difficult than I originally thought.  Unsurprisingly, the other stuff–the furniture and carpet and colors–was hard for me to overlook.  I was often distracted by the look of the space in a way that kept me from paying attention to the bones beneath the top layer of style.

This distraction is something that I have observed repeatedly since that time, only with websites instead of homes.  Though we know that the bones of our site should be solid and functional, we often find it difficult to focus on them.  Rather, the top layer of style–the images and videos and layout–competes for our attention, tempting us to overlook important details.

In other words, the bones of your website matter.

In Part One of this two-part series I talked about using a quick and easy tool to help you see the bones of your website.  These bones are what Google sees when it comes to your site, and they help to create the structure and flow that your site needs to function well.  I encouraged you to spend a few minutes on a simple exercise that helps you to take an inventory of your site when it is stripped bare of your images and layout, and to make notes of any areas that could use improvement.

For today’s conversation, I want to highlight three specific actions that you can take to improve the bones of your website–both for your visitors and for Google (and other search engines).  These are likely tips you’ve heard before but they are important and thus warrant repeating.

Three Tips for Improving the SEO Bones of Your Website:

1.  Use alt tags for your images.

I love to communicate with images on my website, and think that they really boost the quality of my blog articles and web pages.  But since Google doesn’t see them on my website, I need to provide more information about the image, particularly if I’m using it to make a key point.  To accomplish this, I use the image alt tag as a way to describe the image using keywords.  This extra step (which admittedly I sometimes forget to do) takes only a few seconds but it provides more information about the image and improves the searchability of my site.

2.  Repeat image content in the body content.

In addition to the alt tag I also will often repeat the information contained in a graphic within the body of my article or webpage as well.  So, for instance, if the image says “What Does Google See On Your Site” (like the one in this article), I will repeat those words (or a variation thereof) somewhere within the paragraphs of the article, too.  The repetition reinforces what the article is about, and supports what I’m communicating in a graphic through text as well.

3.  Use header tags.

I like to think of header tags as the “Main Point, Sub-Point” cues on my site.  In other words, I use them to channel my 10th grade history paper skills.  Why?  Because the truth is that your high school teacher knew a little something about communicating effectively.  In order to do so, structure and logic are important.  Most of our written communication follows this pattern of title, subtitle, etc., and Google follows this pattern as well.  In fact, header tags are one of the main ways that Google can decipher what your article/webpage is really about.  For instance, the header tags I’ve used in this article let Google know that this is an article about SEO and not an article about shopping for a house.   Without header tags, Google (and my readers) might get confused.

Of course there are other important considerations for SEO, too, like using alt tags for links and getting inbound links.  But in my experience, taking small bite-size steps is the best method for improving your website.  Toward that end, then, I have a quick 5 minute exercise for you complete:

But This SEO Stuff Is Boring

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t particularly like stopping to create alt tags and header tags.  I would much rather create some fun images, write my post using clever words, and then publish without a second thought.  Likewise, I also think that carpets and furniture and paint are much more interesting in a home than whether the rooms ventilate well.  Traffic flow and window placement is boring, too.  But sometimes the boring stuff is the important stuff, and in the case of websites this is absolutely true.  After all, styles come and go.  With websites, as with homes, it is the bones that endure.  Making sure yours are good is worth the time.

For other helpful website and blogging tips, visit HERE–

For this week’s sales video I share a helpful video conferencing or Skype tip that will make a stronger connection to your clients and customers.  This tip is to look at the camera when you’re talking or listening to a client instead of looking at their face on the screen.  By looking at the camera, you’ll ensure that your customer sees you making eye contact with them, which helps you to communicate more deeply and effectively.

For additional sales tip videos, visit here–

RECENTLY I HAD A DISCUSSION with some entrepreneurial friends about work/life balance, and one of them made a comment that the 40-hour work week is a modern construct that doesn’t really reflect the true nature of work.

Her words were like music to my ears.

She touched on a subject that I’ve wrangled with ever since leaving my 9-5 job 5 years ago, which is that the 40-hour work week is a hard mold to break.  Even now I still find myself striving to put in an 8-hour day, and feel like I’ve not done justice to my business when I don’t.  But the reality of business–whether you work for yourself or in an office for someone else–is that productivity and workload ebb and flow.  My experience firsthand is that my work never fits neatly into 8-hour daily pieces.  Rather, some days require 10 hours and others just 3.  Some weeks I easily max out above 40 hours, and others I coast in at 20.

Furthermore, my motivation and productivity ebbs and flows as well.  For instance, I’m always energized, creative and industrious during the spring and fall months, and notice an appreciable drop in motivation when the hot summer months or cold winter months arrive.  I’ve come to accept that this rhythm is very human, and am even trying to make accommodations during my “high seasons” to help me ride through the “low” ones.

Yet, in spite of this ebb and flow experience, I still find myself drifting back into a 40-hour mold–or least measuring my productivity by its standard.  Why do I do this even when I don’t have to?   My answer is that cultural pressure is influential, and that habits are hard to break.  Thus my goal is to gradually break this 40-hour habit and find a new mold that fits me and the true reality of how I work and how I want to work, one non-8-hour day at a time.

What are your work rhythms?  Do they ebb and flow?  What patterns have you observed and how do they match or conflict with the 40-hour mold?

For other Business is Personal posts, click here–

Willpower is like muscle: it gets tired the more you use it.

This understanding of willpower makes a lot of sense to me, and explains why I find that Mondays and Tuesdays are far more productive for me than Fridays.  Or why it is much easier for me to get in a run in the morning than in the afternoon.  Up until recently, though, I’ve been rather passive about this trend, letting it happen naturally without much thought, or actually working against myself by delaying difficult things.  Armed with this new knowledge, though, I’ve recently been experimenting with my willpower, and trying to leverage it when it is strongest.

For example, since I know that it becomes harder to do things that require willpower as the day progresses, I’ve started scheduling my most difficult work tasks before lunchtime.  I’ve also scheduled my healthiest meals and my exercise time in the mornings.  And I’ve intentionally delayed activities that are easy and require little to no willpower for later in the day (or later in the week) when I know that my self-discipline is likely spent.  The results so far have been motivating: I’ve noticed a boost in my productivity during the whole day–not just the morning; my tendency toward procrastination has decreased; I’ve maintained better health habits; and I’ve enjoyed my afternoons and evenings more.

Of course there are a lot of other ways to take advantage of your willpower when it is strongest, but these have been the simplest for me to try as a starting point.  I encourage you to try them and see how they work for you–

Do you make it a habit to do hard or easy things first in your day?

For other articles on how to boost your productivity, click here–>