Productivity: Coffee is the new lunch

Great article from The Glass Hammer: The Glass Hammer - http://www.theglasshammer.com/

How to productively build your brand on zero budget

In our current economic situation now is a great time to productivity invest in yourself without spending a lot of money. This month choose three activities you can begin working on to build or increase your personal brand:

Define your personal brand – what do you want the world to remember about you?

Practice a great handshake – you only have 7 seconds to make a first impression. In those 7 seconds people assess your age, income, marital status and education level – in 7 seconds!

Create an email signature – include your contact information and a quote about you.

Change your voicemail monthly – have you listened to your voicemail lately? If not, try it.

Set up social media profiles – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo – there are so many choices and you simply need to invest 15 minutes per day to do this.

Create e-introductions on email for your network – make introductions for others in your network via email. Help them build their business and resources while you build a brand of being the ‘go-to’ connector.

Give one referral away every day – who will you recommend today? I believe the more you give out the more it comes back to you 10 fold! It works, try it out.

Write one thank you note every week – there are so many reasons to thank people but few people take the time to do this, it will make you more memorable.

Invite someone to a networking event with you – help them expand their network while you get to increase yours too.

Invite a potential connection for coffee – well this costs money… but not much. Coffee is a much less expensive option than lunch or dinner and can be more productive too!

Conduct a tele-coffee (this is where you make a coffee, and I make a coffee and we talk on the telephone!) I do tele-cocktails on Fridays! These take no more than 15 minutes and they are very productive!

Follow up after networking events – did you know less than 1% of people follow up? Be part of that 1% today.

Ask your network for help – reach out, you will be so glad you did. People want to help you but maybe they don’t know what you need? Choose to reach out to one person today.

Comment on discussion boards/websites – share your opinion and expertise with the world, they want to hear from you.

Start your own blog – go to www.blogger.com and set up in 5 minutes!

Ask others to promote you – be brave, you are fabulous – tell others and they will spread the word!

Never leave the house in sweats – this is a MAJOR sin – don’t do it – it kills your brand! Ensure you have one fabulous outfit for all your errands.

Wear great shoes –shoes communicate a message about you – what message are you sending to the world with your shoe choices?

Walk with great posture – back straight and head held high – face the world with a smile.

Speak in positive language only – refuse to buy into the negativity right now, in every conversation speak only in positive words.

Join a non-profit Board – giving back in your community will increase your brand and your network and feels great too!

Donate your time - give to a cause you are passionate about i.e. read at your local school, volunteer at a soup kitchen, visit aged care facilities where you live, and offer to shop for someone – there are so many people who could use your time and talents.

Create your own language – have a favourite word and use it often, mine is ‘fabulous’. What is a word you use often that people remember you by?

Invest in your personal development – study online, read journals, attend a seminar, choose to do something to build your skills and knowledge today.

Read one book per month – set a goal and switch off the TV – books will expand your mind and make great conversational topics.

Seek out a mentor – check out mentoring programs within your company and online for great resources: www.neenjames.com

Subscribe to Ezines and online journals (just like this one!)

Publish articles online & in your local papers and journals – go to www.ezinearticle.com and publish today (for free!). If you are knowledgeable about any topic the world needs to hear from you.



Barter your services for others – if you can’t afford a service but you have talents, offer to share your time and expertise with someone else.

Be your authentic self – you are fabulous – let others see you. This is the best way to build your personal brand. Turn up as yourself 100% of the time, people want to know you, they want to help you and they enjoy your brand.

Choose the activities today that you can implement without spending money to productivity build your brand.

Neen James, MBA is an International Productivity Expert: by looking at how they spend their time and energy – and where they focus their attention – Neen helps people rocket-charge their productivity and performance. A dynamic speaker and author, Neen demonstrates how boosting your productivity can help you achieve amazing things. With her unique voice (Aussie accent), sense of fun and common-sense, Neen delivers a powerful lesson in productivity. Find out more and subscribe to Neen’s free monthly ezine at http://www.neenjames.com

Productivity: Create a packing list

G'Day ladies

I was speaking to one of my clients who is an executive at QVC and she was telling me about the enormous amount of travel she does (and often without alot of warning). It was taking her quite some time to get organized and she didn't want to forget anything important. I shared with her my productivity tips for traveling executives but we also decided she should make a checklist so that each time she travels she knows exactly what to take - it worked! She now knows exactly how much time it will take to pack, great ready and out the door.

You could do this too. If you travel regularly, create a checklist of all the things you want to take and make sure you have them in your bag and ready to go. At the end of each trip check if you missed anything and need to add it to your trip and voila - you are now more productive!

Productivity: Increase your energy

G'Day Ladies

Having spent the last week in San Diego (gorgeous city) I was reminded about how important it is to manage your energy if you really want to accelerate your productivity.

I was away with a client as part of the ASTD International Conference and Exposition and I made a personal commitment that I would exercise every single morning while I was away. I am pleased to say I exercised 4 days out of 5 (but the last day I was wiped and had to pack etc). Being on the West Coast but trying to keep East Coast time was a great strategy for me. I got up early, went walking, running, checked out the local area, did Yoga and stretching and felt so much better for it.

If you find yourself traveling for work make a personal commitment that you will exercise while you are away. This simple promise helped me to stay on task, keep my healthier focus and I am sure allowed me to support my client in a much more productive way because I had energy through the whole day.

What do you do that helps increase your energy? I would love to hear from you,

Productivity Challenge: Move that baggage

G'Day everyone,

We all have baggage or things that weigh us down. For some of us it is our past, our weight, our project load or even family committments. Something I have found very freeing lately is to admit the baggage to someone else and apply a plan to achieve a solution. If you want to increase your mental productivity, try getting rid of the baggage.

I found Delia Dorn's lastest newsletter really effective in doing this. She outlined a great process to help achieve a goal but outlining the objective, listing the rewards, detailing the consequences and obstacles then creating a solutions and actions plan. I sat down and did it - I feel great.

You can check out Delia's newsletter and subscribe at: http://formhealthyhabits.com/default.aspx

A Productive Conference attendance .. and some fun too

G'day,

Today I am in San Francisco, what a beautiful city!

While planning to attend this professional industry conference in San Francisco I decided to make the most of my time in this fabulous city and fly in one day earlier than the conference. I have always flown in and out of this beautiful place but not had the chance to explore it. To make my time here more productive I did the following things:

1. Reached out to a colleague who previously lived in the city and asked for her recommendations of 'tourist' things to do.

2.Invested one day exploring the city based on her list of recommendations and had a great time, rode the cable car, drank Irish coffees at Buena Vista, drove across the Golden Gate bridge and wandered around Sausalito!

3.Contacted other conference attendees I had never met before the meeting to make arrangements to connect at the event.

4. Reached out to people I knew were attending the conference and planned to share meals with them over the series of days here. It is always great to reconnect with friends and collegues and catch up face to face at events like this.

5. Identified which sessions I would attend (and which sessions I would skip) by reviewing the program online first.

6. Wrote to the speakers of the sessions before the event introducing myself, advising them I would like to connect at the conference ... and have already enjoyed making new connections.

7. Brought stamped stationery with me to the conference so I have already started my follow up from the people I have met.

So often we fly in and out of conferences without exploring the city, connecting with new people and reconnecting with friends. You can make every conference attendance productive by investing one hour planning before each trip and taking your follow up tools with you. So today I am off to enjoy more of San Francisco!

Be Productive: Get Your Home Ready for the Holidays

The excitement of the holidays is now upon us and it is during this time we often feel like we have more on our ‘to do’ list than there are hours in the day! A common area of stress for many people is getting our homes ready for the holidays. Working in partnership with a fantastic service, like Harmony Clean can help save you time, help you relax and also give you peace of mind.

Harmony Clean www.harmonyclean.com is about healthy home cleaning, naturally. They provide a complete, customized maid service (as regularly as needed) with caring, trained staff that are bonded and insured. Recently I interviewed Vicki Brown, one of the founders of this unique company and asked her how we could get our homes ready for the holidays. Here are several strategies we decided would help get your home ready this holiday season.

Make a holiday ‘to do’ list – include on your list the activities you want to complete at home, the activities you want to outsource and your shopping ‘to do’ list.

Book a special one time clean – if you know you have company coming, a party or a gathering of people; consider hiring the experts to clean your home from top to bottom. This will also make it easier for you to maintain during the holiday period.

Pay attention to bathrooms – these areas of your home will get significant traffic during this busy time, keep these areas clean by placing cleaning products in each room so that you can quickly wipe the counter tops, clean the shower doors and wipe down other areas. I like Shaklee products (recently endorsed on the Oprah show) that are environmentally and people friendly - http://www.shaklee.net/formhealthyhabits/

Change bed linens – it is great at night to snuggle up into flannel sheet sets. Allocate time to change over all the linens in each room. Do it all on the same day as it makes it easier to remember when they all need to be changed again.

Attend to your guest room – allocate 60 minutes to clean, tidy, dust and clean out closet space in your guest room. This is a great time of year for unexpected visitors so make sure your guest room is ready for anyone that might drop in for a visit or stay over after a meal.

Dust your baseboards – this is a great time of year to pay attention to all the areas in your home you don’t normally clean. Vacuum these areas or wipe them free of all dust, this will also help your heating system function better.

Clean lights and chandeliers – some our lights might be covered in dust and cobwebs so ask the cleaning service to spend time on these fixtures. It is worth allocating someone else to do this time consuming task.

Wipe down kitchen cabinetry – ask your cleaning service to attend to this area. If you are cleaning your own home, spend time wiping down each cabinet and pay attention to the base boards.

Allocate time to decorate – make an appointment with yourself (and recruit your family to help if you can) to sort and hang your holiday decorations. This can be a fun way to spend time with those you care about. If you don’t have any family living close by, recruit a few friends to help you, put on a few drinks and turn it into a holiday catch up.

Make an appointment with yourself to shop online – instead of spending time in stores, determine how many gifts and items you can buy online (from the comfort of your own home). You might also end up spending less money as you won’t be distracted by the other items in store.

Outsource your linens – take your table cloths, matching serviettes and any other linens you might need for your holidays, to your local dry cleaner and ask them to press them, this will save you time. You may even consider giving them to a local ironing service instead.

Polish your silver – if you have special dishes, utensils or items that you don’t use year round but want to use during the holidays, make time to sit down and polish or clean these items. You could also make this a fun activity and ask your family or friends to help you while you talk about fun memories of years past.

Research your recipe books – pull out all the relevant recipe books that you want to use and mark the recipes you will be making. Sit down in one place, in one sitting and make a list of every ingredient you are going to need for your special meal. This will prevent multiple trips to the store (or multiple orders online).

Purchase fresh flowers – these add a special touch to your home during this busy time; they create beauty and will be appreciated by those around you. You can have special holiday arrangements delivered by many companies, I like www.1800flowers.com

Find your serving platters – search your pantry, your cupboards and your basement for all those large platters you like to use during the holidays. It may take time to find them, clean them and then decide which food will be displayed on which platter. I always place them all on the counter top the day of the event so I know which platters are going to be used.

Use party hire – a senior executive I spoke to recently says she simply phones the party hire store and tells them how many people she has coming for a meal and they deliver the cutlery, crockery, linens, candles and extra seats and tables she requires. She rinses off the crockery and they come and pick it all up – no cleaning, no fuss. Can you reach out to your local party hire store and see if they provide this service?

Get your groceries delivered – order your groceries online from your favourite supermarket and have them delivered to your home. For a small tip to the delivery person, you will save so much time and it also means you won’t have to carry them indoors during the cold weather.

Order your main ingredients – if you like to have a ham or turkey on the holiday table, now is the time to place your order for those items and any special order pies you might want. Search out your local farmers market or local produce store.

Use caterers – if you don’t enjoy cooking or you don’t have time, consider hiring someone to help you with the food preparation. Many stores have great pre-cooked meals now and many of them will do special catering, just ask your favourite food store.

Get help – during this busy season there are many services that can help you feel less stressed and give you more time. Consider online shopping services, personal chefs, and dry cleaners, cleaning services, flower delivery and local school children. You might be able to recruit local neighbourhood school children to help you with the many chores you need to get done. I offer to pay my neighbours to help me achieve my ‘to do’ list.

The holiday season is for enjoying with friends and family, it is not meant to be a stressful, busy time. This year decide you are going to stop trying to do it all and get help where ever you can.

Neen James is an International Productivity Expert: by looking at how they spend their time and energy – and where they focus their attention – Neen helps people to rocket-charge their productivity and performance. A dynamic speaker, author and corporate trainer, Neen demonstrates how boosting your productivity can help you achieve amazing things. With her unique voice (Aussie accent), sense of fun and uncommon common-sense, Neen delivers a powerful lesson in productivity. Find out more and subscribe to Neen’s free monthly ezine at http://neenjames.com

Vicki Brown is one of the founders of Harmony Clean. Harmony Clean is committed to healthy home cleaning, naturally. Their full customised, complete maid service is available weekly, biweekly or monthly. They use top quality HEPA and multi-filtration vacuums and they are fully bonded and insured. Harmony Clean’s team are caring and well trained and they guarantee satisfaction 100% of the time. Find out more and book your next special clean at www.harmonyclean.com