Fresh Focus On Productivity!™

Welcome back!

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are proving to be important places to market your business and make valuable connections with clients, referral partners, the media, and more. This past year millions of business owners jumped into social networking for the first time… but many are now finding themselves knee-deep in overwhelm.

Why the overwhelm? With the fast paced world of Web 2.0, it’s hard to stay up to the minute on everything… especially for those of us who don’t live our lives plugged into a Blackberry! (OK, even you Blackberry users get overwhelmed from time to
time, right?) In order to stay productive and on top of our games, we need to utilize these services, but learn how to do so in the quickest and most productive way possible.

Social Media expert Nancy Marmolejo has a solution for entrepreneurs who are eager to reap the benefits of Facebook and Twitter without having to add hours and hours
to their already busy days. On December 16 and 17, Nancy will host a virtual class "Quick and Easy Social Networking Tips For Entrepreneurs:A Proven 3 Part System to Boost Your Visibility, Expand Your Network AND Save You Hours of Time On Facebook and Twitter".

If you don’t yet know Nancy, she’s an experienced social networking user who teaches highly effective, time saving tips to entrepreneurs. Her 2 part class will reveal a proven system that she personally uses to stay highly visible on Facebook, Twitter, and beyond.

Along with the course, Nancy will be giving out five additional bonuses for all those that sign up:

• Bonus #1: Official Quick Start Guide with easy to follow steps so you can start implementing TODAY ($49 value)
• Bonus #2: Video tutorial literally walking you through the quick and easy steps to huge visibility. ($97 value)
• Bonus #3: Complete mp3 audio recordings of both class sessions ($59 value)
• Bonus #4: Word-for-Word transcripts taken directly from my video tutorial so you can read the information and have it handy no matter where you are ($49 value)
• Bonus #5: “Facebook Finesse” mp3 audio interview by me and my good friend, Facebook guru Mari Smith. We outline the Do’s and Don’ts of Facebook and how to maximize relationship building on this incredible site. ($49 value)

Space is limited, so do sign up today. Even if you can’t make the live class, Nancy will make sure you get her customized video tutorials, complete Quick Start Guide, transcripts, bonuses and more. I can vouch for the fact that Social Media is a GREAT way to market your business and services, but it does indeed take finesse to do so. Coming from someone that learning herself, I recommend that you do get some training. It is so easy to alienate people, and once you lose them, they are usually gone for good.

Take a look at what Nancy has to say, and then sign up for her course. It’s not extravagantly priced at $97, and I know that the advertising techniques that you learn will more then make your money back on the effort put forth. Heck, the five bonus items are worth triple the enrollment cost!

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You've read the series, now get the E-Book! Special EXTRA material not included in the blog series, plus three FREE templates!! Templates included are Time Management Matrix, Goal worksheet, and The Completion Journal. Only $24.99 for the book!


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I met Rick Black on Twitter and also through the FFOP blog. I liked his style and his readiness to talk about what he likes and dislikes, so I asked him to guest post for us. Rick is the first guest poster that we’ve had that doesn’t have a blog, so if you’d like to guest post for FFOP, don’t think that you have to have a blog. Email me and we’ll set you up!
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About a year and a half ago I started looking for someone or something to help me get better organized. I didn’t feel like I was totally out of control and couldn’t get anything done, but I had the desire to come up with a method where no matter what someone threw at me I could just plop it into my “system” and know and trust that I would get it done. The goal being a more stress free life, a more successful work environment, and since I would be getting much more done, over all a more successful career.

As the search progressed I read articles and skimmed through books on “getting organized” and most of them revolved around filing properly and controlling procrastination. Both extremely important topics. Which I concluded procrastination as the most common source and cause of “piling.” Though I made some improvements in my organizing processes and procrastinated less, I still never got a firm “system” in place until I started seeing GTD all over on the web. My first thought was.. what the hell is GTD? Like, I’m sure all of us into or getting into GTD, I bought David Allen’s book that day. After reading his book, and have since also listened to his audio book twice on my iPhone, I felt ready to begin this quest of lists, labels, and ticklers..officially on-the-wagon.

Now about a year and a half has gone by and I can say that I’m still not where I want to be in the GTD philosophy. It is funny when I talk about GTD to others. It is almost like talking about a drug addiction or drug recovery. “Yeah I’ve been on GTD for a year but then something happened and I just lost it. I went back to my old ways and couldn’t get back on the wagon.” “My name is Rick and I’ve been on GTD now for 1.5 years. Last week I had a relapse of not performing my weekly review and I didn’t get a couple things done because I didn’t see them on my list because I didn’t review it! Help me please!” All kidding aside I take implementing GTD into my life very seriously.

First, here is what I have been able to successfully implement from GTD.

• Buying a brother labeler both at home and at work. This has been, by far, the best one thing that I have gotten out of the Getting Things Done book. David stated to go buy a labeler and get it on your desk. He said never should it take longer than one minute to label a folder. This along with dumping hanging file folders for plain old manila folders has created the environment for me, both at home and at work, to quickly grab a folder and slap a professional looking label on it and get it filed. Now feeling comfortable that I’ll later know where to look to find what is inside that folder.. well that is one of my biggest struggles. Back to that topic shortly.
• Utilizing a shared grocery list with my wife. When my wife and I each purchased the iPhone earlier this year and I saw a program called Zenbe which would allow us to share and sync a list, we immediately used it for errands and groceries. I searched and wanted this because of GTD. This has had a huge impact for both my wife and I on simply getting groceries on the way home or while we’re out. We both know we can rely on the fact that this list is updated and if either of us are at the store we know where to look. Heck even if we are both at he store as we check off items and sync them we can double team on the list and get out of there quicker! Huge impact on our lives. We also use it when going on trips as a list of things to bring or a list of things to buy. I’m actually looking for another app better than Zenbe that has more features for our iPhone but must be able to sync. That alone also made the investment in two iPhones well worth the price.
• MindMaps. When I read that term in the GTD book I immediately investigated what it was. Ever since I’ve been hooked on mind maps and use them constantly both for personal and professional use. I introduced the concept at work and installed the free open source app called FreeMind on our executive team PCs. It has had a large impact on meetings for brainstorming as well. Mind mapping is awesome. I bought an app called iBlueSky for my iPhone that I can use to create a mindmap on the fly and even email it in a .mm format to open up with FreeMind.
• Managing my inbox. Though I am still struggling here this has also had a huge impact for me. I’m not 100% on board but my inbox management has improved tremendously. Especially with email. I use Gmail for personal email and an Exchange Server for work email. I learned from Google a feature called All Mail and besides the many emails that I need to archive and place into specific folders, I also created a folder called All Mail for those emails that I want to keep but really don’t have a need to file in a specific area. I rely on the search feature within Outlook and Gmail anyhow to do my email lookups for most things if not obvious in a specific folder.
• Long-term Lists. I have some long term lists that I have for myself that I find helpful for keeping focus on where I’m going. It is one of the lists that I feel really good about up in the 30,000 foot elevation.

Here are some areas that I continue to struggle with each and every day that I want to improve.

• Filing. Though I am now a master at the quick-draw grab-a-folder-and-slap-a-label-on-it, damn if I am any good at knowing what to put on the label and how to file the folder! The whole purpose of filing is to be able to rely on the fact that at a later time I will be able to easily find that file. What I may think is obvious to file something under Topology today, tomorrow I might start looking for Network Infrastructure, and just not think of the term Topology that I filed it under. So what do I do? I don’t know! I get stuck here all the time! What I have started to do is create folders that have say the letter N on it. Within that folder I put a sheet in there called Network Infrastructure. So if my crazy head is thinking of Network Infrastructure instead of Topology, I’ll have a note on there saying “Go look under Topology idiot.” That method has helped with a few items. Basically if I have a hard time knowing what to file something under, anything I’m thinking I might file it under I throw a note in that lettered folder referring to where I actually filed it. Fortunately with email it is searchable. One thing I do with email though, before filing, is add to the Subject pertinent searchable information. That way the subject makes sense. For example I get quotes from Dell which has some lame quote number in the subject. I add to the subject the actual items they quoted so I know what that email is actually about.
• Piling. Sorry but this is still something I struggle with. The kicker is when I have a pristine folder with a beautiful label on it then piled with other folders on my desk! But again I get stuck afraid I won’t find the file in my filing cabinet! Gaining confidence in labeling and filing properly knowing I’ll find it later will overcome this hurdle. I will get it! I need to utilize my tickler file more for those items date specific.
• Lists. This is the big one. Of course this is also what GTD is really all about. My biggest struggle is finding an electronic method I can utilize for both home, work, and phone. I just got an app on my phone called KeyTasks that syncs up with my Outlook at work so I can get my tasks both on my phone and through Outlook. It is an “ok” app. Still not what I’m looking for. I’m open for ideas here people. Here is what I want. An application that will work on my iPhone and with Outlook or a web-based version that I can get on my phone and can drag emails to from Outlook. I have so many tasks email related that I need to be able to either drag an email to the task list or somehow connect it to a list. I’ve looked at web based lists but I’m still fragmented with my email tasks. I’m open for concepts and ideas. I’m thinking I’m going to need to keep my work lists separate from my home/personal list ultimately. Which I do now. For home I’m using Gmail for my lists. It isn’t working as well as I would like so I’m still searching for THE app. Any suggestions?
• Weekly Review. Whatever method I am using or will be using, I am still struggling with getting myself disciplined to do the weekly review . I think it does fall back to the fact that I still don’t have a list management system I feel good about. But regardless, I need to get THE system in place ASAP and get into this routine. This is my key to taking my GTD quest to the next level.

I hope sharing some of my successes and challenges may help you with your own GTD quest. I welcome your comments and any feedback that you may have on helping me with my own GTD challenges.
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Rick Black is the VP of IT & Purchasing at a wholesale distributor. Recently received his Microsoft MCSA certification and currently working towards an MCPD. He is passionately involved in utilizing Microsoft Sharepoint and Office technologies within his organization. He is huge fan of the iPhone and continually working on his quest to master GTD.

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You've read the series, now get the E-Book! Special EXTRA material not included in the blog series, plus three FREE templates!! Templates included are Time Management Matrix, Goal worksheet, and The Completion Journal. Only $24.99 for the book!


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It’s not uncommon for successful and productive people to have rituals: small things that they do on a regular basis. For instance, getting into the car and saying a small mantra for safe journey, or getting up in the morning and making your coffee first thing.

Organization and productivity can have rituals too. I have a few of my own that I employ everyday:

• I try to always make sure that my desk is clean at the end of the day and that everything is in it’s proper place: action, next action, someday and waiting.
• I schedule 15 minutes at the end of my day to complete the above task
• In the morning, I check my email first, in order to add things to my day that must be categorized.

Small things matter to me, too. I have a favorite pen, pencil and Circa notebook that I use. I run Rocketdock on my flash drive so that all my frequently used shortcuts are at the flick of my mouse. I have Firefox loaded on my flash too, because I do a lot of internet searching and IE is way too time consuming for me. Notepad ++ is loaded there too.

So here’s a few tips for getting into a ritual:

• Set up a morning routine
• Build an evening routine
• Create an exercise routine

I have yet to set up an exercise routine, which I REALLY need to do. What routines do you have in place? How do the fit into your life and were they difficult for you to set up? What motivated you to do so? Tell all – the readership needs your suggestions!

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You've read the series, now get the E-Book! Special EXTRA material not included in the blog series, plus three FREE templates!! Templates included are Time Management Matrix, Goal worksheet, and The Completion Journal. Only $24.99 for the book!


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If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

In order to be productive, rejuvenation is a necessity. Some of us, though, realize this yet ignore what we know the consequences to be. So, I’m taking a poll:

What does rejuvenation do for you? What do you do to rejuvenate?

Please fill out the form below. This will be a topic in an upcoming post, and quotes will be posted and linked to the responders’ website. I’d love to you know what you think on this topic, so please take a moment and fill out the form.

Thanks so much!

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You've read the series, now get the E-Book! Special EXTRA material not included in the blog series, plus three FREE templates!! Templates included are Time Management Matrix, Goal worksheet, and The Completion Journal. Only $24.99 for the book!


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If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!