For that reason, I’m going to share with you 5 proven tactics that you can start implementing today that WILL enable you to increase your productivity and help you to get more done.

5 Proven Tactics to Increase Your Productivity

1. Wake Up Early

The morning provides a calm that is often hard to find at any other time of day. Phones aren’t ringing, emails are only starting to trickle, and not gush in, as they do later in the day. This is your time to get ahead. Use this time to exercise, read or study, and to get a jumpstart on your most important task of the day.

2. Start with Important Work

Our most meaningful and impacting projects are often the hardest and require the most time and attention. That’s why they often end up getting pushed lower and lower on our to-do list throughout the day. Take a new approach and start your day by focusing on your most important work first. You may find it hard to get going, but once you do you’ll be working on tasks that have meaning and provide a real impact to your business and career. Plus, once you get through your most important item you’ll feel liberated and can move on to the less important work that so often clogs the day.

3. No Interruptions

Robin Sharma points to research data that says workers are interrupted every 11 minutes. Every distraction reduces your productivity and derails your focus and energy from the task at hand. Value your work and value your time by saying NO to interruptions. Close your door, create a “Do Not Disturb” sign if you need one, and block your calendar with work times so your assistant or co-workers know not to bother you. There are so many interruptions around us each day. Find what they are in your life and start removing them.

4. Avoid Meetings

Daily and weekly meetings can be critical to keep the flow and rhythm in a business. But meetings where several people need to spend 20, 30 minutes to an hour or more need to be avoided like the plague. Not only do these meetings often result with few actionable ideas, the topics they cover can usually be dealt with over a 5 minute phone call. In fact, Seth Godin goes as far as saying he won’t attend meetings (at least in the typical sense) but prefers conversations where a decision can be reached. If not, meetings simply become events. Think about how much money is “invested” into a meeting when you have 4-5 employees sitting around a table for 30 minutes or an hour.

5. Disconnect the Internet

Stop swearing at me! Seriously, I know you NEED the internet. In a CNN survey many respondents said they would take the Internet over Sex any day. I digress. While the Internet does increase your productivity and allows for access to information in unimaginable ways, it continues to lower the productivity of many workers. How often do you get a notification of a new email? Engaged in research and come upon a Youtube video that you just “needed to watch”? Had to update your Facebook or Twitter status because you just found the cutest cat picture ever? You get the point, right? Unplugging yourself by taking your work offline provides a level of focus that you just can’t achieve online with all the potential distractions it presents.

Start by implementing one of these tactics today. You’ll start seeing positive results and will quickly move to implementing more of them.

To a more productive you!

How do you increase your productivity? We’re curious to hear your tips!

Photo by David Castillo Dominici.

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“If only,” you think, “I could afford to have someone like that to answer the phone, keep my calendar, keep me organized, make travel arrangements, keep up with social media, update my website, deal with customers, keep my books… (the list goes on) Then, I could really focus on the important things that will make my business or career thrive! But, alas, I don’t have the _____ (fill in the blank: money, time, know-how, office space, etc.) to hire someone like that.”

So you go on spinning through your days, bouncing from crisis to crisis while the important things remain undone.

Well, here’s some good news for you. Having spent the past three years helping people find and use experienced virtual assistants from all over the world to their best advantage, I can tell you that this is closer within your reach than you think. Due to the explosion of affordable, cloud-based productivity and communications technology as well as the availability of highly skilled freelancers looking to work from their homes, it is now possible to build a staff of one or more experienced professionals — from next door or half a world away.

You can hire someone with the skillset you need to provide whatever service you need that does not require a physical presence, without long term commitment, overhead, payroll taxes or benefits.  What is more, you can use your virtual assistant for as many or few hours as you need, to work long-term or on a single project.

“Okay, I’m hooked,” you say.  “What does it take to do this right?”

Finding Virtual Assistance

You may choose to post your project or position on one of the many automated marketplaces where freelance providers hang out (like Elance, ODesk, Guru, Freelancer, etc.) or use a virtual service company that finds and manages assistance for you. The principles are the same for finding a great virtual assistant or team to which you can confidently delegate work:

• What does success look like? Have a clear idea of what you need the virtual assistant to accomplish and the skills and experience they should have to do so.
• Write your job description with enough detail so providers can understand whether your job is a good fit for them.
• Be realistic in budgeting. Yes, you can probably get someone to write your blog for a 10 dollars, but as in most things, you usually get what you pay for. Remember, although you’ll have to pay a small percentage to the service, you won’t have to pay taxes, benefits, office and equipment fees or long-term commitment.
• Be aware of possible government reporting requirements for contractors. The marketplace or service company can help you with this.
• Carefully review the proposals you receive to make sure respondents understand and fit your requirements. Review work samples and especially reviews of their work by previous clients.
• Consider work ethics, personality and broad experience base as well as the specific skill set you need.  The best programmer in the world will only be a frustration if he is uncommunicative, doesn’t take feedback well and misses deadlines.
• Keep in mind time zones, language and cultural issues when choosing virtual assistance from around the globe. There may be advantages to having someone from another country, but there will also be challenges.
• Use a web-based communication tool such as Skype to interview finalists to help you choose the best fit.
• Try them out with a small project before making a larger commitment.

Working Awesomely with Virtual Assistants

You’ve done it!  You posted your project, vetted and selected from 20 proposals, and you and your new virtual assistant are ready to get started.  Here are a few pointers to help you delegate successfully.

• Think of your virtual assistant as a partner. Taking time to get the partnership off to a good start will pay off for you both in the long run.
• Just as in defining the job in the first place, being precise in your requirements and expectations will help your virtual staff give you what you need.
• Delegating doesn’t mean forgetting. You must keep in touch and monitor the quality of the work being performed. After all, it is your name that goes on the work, no matter who performs it. Monitor fairly closely at first. You may be able to back off a little or a lot as you develop a good working relationship.
• Frequent communication and feedback on work performed are essential, especially in the beginning. Your virtual assistant wants to do his best for you and needs to know how to adapt to your requirements. This may take some tweaking. Be patient and precise.
• Communicate carefully. You may be staying in touch most frequently through emails or chats. The written word, especially across cultures, is much more easily misunderstood than face to face communication, so be careful and re-read what you have written before pushing the send button! An occasional video or audio chat will be helpful in ensuring clarity of understanding, especially for building long-term relationships or managing complex projects.

Finding a VA is within your reach. If you feel the need, take action today. The principles and skills you use to hire and manage your virtual staff are the same employed by any good leader. Apply these principles in finding, choosing and managing great virtual assistants for a few days — or years — and you will build a support structure that can flex and grow with your needs. You can then climb to success on this support structure.

Have you ever worked with virtual assistants? How did you go about it and what was your experience?

Photo by Graeme Weatherston.

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“Whether it was for a board meeting, sales call, industry conference, investor pitch or internal review, these presentations needed to get done fast and tell a great story. But most presenters spend more than half of their time creating slides, instead of honing their message. That is why I created Slidevana.”  – Ravi Mehta, CEO of Slidevana, PRWeb.

The Details

For $69, you’ll get a professional bundle of slide templates created specifically for the busy business person. Mehta explains that the idea sprouted from years of rushing through presentations. Too many sloppy slide shows later, and Slidevana was created. Mehta has put together an easy to use and comprehensive presentation toolkit with over 140 of the most widely used business templates.

Now you may be thinking: Is it for Mac, PC, iPad, or iPhone? While that is an excellent question, I have an even better answer for you: All of the above. Originally released for Mac, iPad, and iPhone, the pack has recently been made PC-compatible. The program works in conjunction with Keynote for Mac and iOS as well as PowerPoint on both Mac and Windows. Despite distinct differences between the two systems, the program itself provides all the same features and capabilities, regardless of what device you prefer. It even makes going back and forth between Keynote and PowerPoint easier.

Why You Want It

When it comes to impressing the big wigs, your presentations need to be perfect. With work, family and social obligations, take a load off your shoulders with Slidevana. But, you ask, why not simply use the templates that come with PowerPoint and the like? Why is this perfect presentation medium for you?

• Choose it: Slidevana includes two different color schemes. Decide between Slidevana Light, which features a white background perfect for projecting or printing, and Slidevana Dark, which offers a bolder, powerful look for audiences of all sizes.
• Personalize it: Every clean cut, minimalistic slide can be customized with your personal logo, photos, color palette, and theme layouts.
• Customize it: From diagrams to tables, charts, and lists, you have every option to make the presentation perfect for any occasion.
• Dictate it: Even on the go, completing your presentation is not out of the question. Dictate the contents of your slides with Siri (Apple’s Speech Recognition technology) on the iPhone 4s and the new iPad.

While these options are available to some extent in any other presentation software, Slidevana has innovated the process. Simply cut and paste the perfect slide for your message to make the process quick, easy and a guaranteed success.

The Drawbacks

Slidevana does an excellent job of presenting you with every possible option for optimizing your presentation. However, according to a review by Erica Sadun, on TUAW.com, “. . . there’s a bit of redundancy such as 4 charts worth of duplicate shapes all presented with distinct key colors.” Yet, Sadun quickly changes tone suggesting that despite repetition, the plethora of slides lead to a complete bundle sure to please any user.

When the negative is easily turned into a positive, you can be sure you’re getting a good product. While it may take you a moment extra to sort through a few redundant slides, overall you’re still spending significantly less time putting the presentation together, and getting options to suit every occasion.

Conclusion

As a busy business person, having a toolkit such as this can be the difference between getting a presentation done on time and losing an important potential client. Slidevana’s professionally designed templates will allow you to spend your time creating a persuasive message, rather than pushing pixels in your presentation program.

You can make your next presentation easier with Slidevana and see the results – a notable, well designed slide deck sure to impress and inspire your audience.

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“I’m one of the leaders on this team and I need to do better. It’s not like I’ve been slacking—in fact, I’m busting my butt. But the truth is, I need to be doing more—and I can do more. I’m at ninety to ninety-five percent of my potential, but it hasn’t been enough. For the first time since I can remember, I got a pretty stiff message from the coaches. I didn’t like to hear it, but I won’t argue. I need to respond with more effort.”

Whether in the business world or in the sports arena, accountability is knowing and doing what needs to be done. No excuses, just execution. It’s human nature to have a good excuse when we come up short. I’ve done it—we all do it.

But an excuse is the antithesis of accountability. An excuse is akin to closing the door on self-improvement. On the other side of that door are all the ways you can do better, be better, and become masterful and more fulfilled.

Instead of making excuses for coming up short, this is what the professional athlete did to boost his performance.

Personal Accountability

The first person you need to be accountable to is yourself. For the next two weeks, the player wrapped two bands of tape on his stick. One band had the words 100% Focus and Intensity. This was his product goal for the next two week—to improve his intensity in practices and games from an 8 to a 10.

The second band of tape had the letter V. V isn’t for victory; it stands for the act of visualizing—visualizing for 3-5 seconds, with intensity and focus, the success that he and his coaches desired in the next game or practice.

Peer Accountability

On a sports team or work team, you need to be accountable to your peers. This hockey player called a team meeting in which games. Notice that he didn’t call his teammates out, but rather let them know of his own intentions.

Coach, Boss, Mentor Accountability

As you’re setting out to improve your performance, make sure you discuss what you’re doing with your boss, manager, mentor, or coach. In the case of my athlete client, he told hiscoaches he was sorry, that he was aware of his shortcomings, and that there was no excuse for his lack of intensity. He pledged that he was focusing on the issue, and it would not happen again.

Public Accountability

Depending on your situation, going public with your contrition and the desire to improve your performance can bolster your success as well as your reputation. In a workplace setting, this could mean writing a guest blog on the company website, sending a bcc email to colleagues, or making a few phone calls to discuss your self-improvement process.

The hockey player told a reporter that his team needed more intensity and focus from him. He also said that they could count on the fact that he was going to deliver. This appeared in the local sports pages.

For public accountability, one needs not talk to the newspapers, but it is essential to notify all affected parties of your intention to be accountable—whether it’s your department, your immediate work team, or key coworkers.

Being accountable isn’t easy, but it is necessary for achieving greater performance and meeting big goals. The next time you catch yourself under-performing at work, try these four levels of accountability. Take ownership of what you can do to make the situation better, and then refuse to give yourself an excuse for not improving.

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What are some other ways to be accountable?

Photo by Reportergimmi.

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1. Tell us something about pure instinct and self-knowledge in figuring the passion.

If it doesnʼt light you up, youʼre not the right person for the job. Legendary choreographer Twyla Tharp uses the athlete as a metaphor for this kind of refinement. The talented sports guy has to weigh out many factors: “What comes naturally to him, what does he enjoy the most, in which sport does he have a natural advantage? But in the end the choice should be based on pure instinct and self-knowledge. What sport does he feel in his muscles and bones? What sport was he born to play?”

Would you rather be sufficient or masterful?

Would you rather be bright or a freaking supernova?

Would you rather be well-rounded or on your own leading edge?

2. Following the passion is cool, but how can one get paid to do what they love? Is there a secret?

There’s no secret. Just the courage to put yourself out there. Here are a few questions to point you in the right direction:

• Someone pay you $100/hour to tell/teach/inform them about what?
• What do you know about? Whatʼs your knowledge base? What do you know that other people donʼt?
• How does your service/offering/product make people feel? What problem does it solve, or what state does it create?
• Who needs what youʼve got? (Even though they may not know it yet.)

3. You’re doing a lot of things at once remarkably well. Can you share your ideas on how you stay on track, and how do you time-manage?

My current  time management motto is this: I do what I want, when I want to do it. Systems for running our lives can be useful, but they can also enslave us.

Time management can be the biggest trap of them all. It can creep into your psyche, and rather than freeing you up, itʼs calling all the shots. Time regimes can certainly do wonders for getting the most out of life. We need them, like we need good eating habits.

I batch my actionable tasks, I schedule in administrivia days, and I have key priorities, because accomplishing a lot is a major rush for me. But itʼs my relationship to those time management methodologies that makes all the difference in my psyche and therefore the quality of what I do. I do what makes me feel “free”, not “obedient.”

4. How do you kill procrastination?

Donʼt let the desire for perfection become procrastination. Every novel ever written might have been better. Every piece of technology, every masterpiece, every day — it all might have been even better. So just launch and learn.

5. “The Fire Starter Sessions is not about dreaming big, but dreaming authentically”. I love that thought. Care to expand?

We get so many societal messages about what the Right Dream is that it gets hard to decipher what our own dream is.

The pandemic that we have of over-consumption is directly related to this concept of dreaming big, bigger, biggest-possible big. Big can be bountiful, but what if your dream is to live simply — to have enough? Not more than enough — but enough.

Are your aspirations a vocational impulse or a competitive sport? Are you trying to impress your dead ancestors or leave your mark on the world?

If your goals arenʼt synced with the substance of your heart, then achieving them wonʼt matter much.

6. Who is in the most need of reading Fire Starter Sessions?

If you’re waiting for permission to want what you want — and to go get it — this is for you. If you want more cash flow and to be more conscious, if you want to ante up your dreams, if you want to have a good time making a difference in the world, then it’s a good time get your fire lit. Who’s in?

Don’t forget to get a glimpse of Danielle’s newest book here.

Photo credit : UnionPhotographers, Vancouver.

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The problem with flat to-do lists

Keeping a to-do list is a great way of taking the individual items off your mind to allow you to focus on the task at hand. However, problems arise when your list grows overwhelmingly long. No one wants to scan a long list of tasks, before they choose what to work on. Not only is a long to-do list de-motivating, but picking a single item to work on creates a sense of opportunity cost. No matter what you choose you will be left feeling “Is this the optimal use of my time?”

Have you ever wondered why when you have too much on your to-do list you end up checking your email every few minutes, or surfing the web instead of working on your tasks? Psychologist Barry Schwartz explored the effects of having too many choices on our well-being. Schwartz found that when people are faced with having to choose one option out of many desirable choices, they will begin to consider hypothetical trade-offs. Their options are evaluated in terms of missed opportunities instead of the opportunity’s potential. This increases our negative emotions. He argues that eliminating choices can greatly reduce anxiety.

The problem with number ratings

Too often to-do lists try to solve the problem of prioritization with a priority number system. Something like 1 for high priority, 2 for medium and 3 for low. The problem is that high or medium doesn’t mean anything unless you define it. Unfortunately, the usual attempts at such definitions is a categorical description. e.g. high for a task with major impact. In reality this only shifts the ambiguity by one layer, because terms like major and minor are just as subjective as high and medium. In my experience, number ratings end up being a waste of time. When such systems are deployed, all tasks eventually get assigned a number 1.

The problem with calendars

Daniel Markovitz wrote an interesting post explaining the problem with to-do lists. He suggests “living in your calendar” as an alternative. This way you can look at your calendar and immediately find out what you need to work on next. There is no choice of tasks. The obvious downside of this method is the large overhead of putting every single task in a specific calendar spot. We need a speedier approach! Something easy to stick to.

In addition to the large overhead flaw, calendars solve the problem of too much choice by offering no choice. It is on the other extreme of the choice scale. Forcing rigidity and inflexibility into an otherwise flexible schedule will only set us up for failure. If your creative juices are flowing, wouldn’t it be a waste to work on something mechanical just because it’s what you put in your calendar?

The solution – Give yourself just the right amount of choice

The solution is to break down your long to-do list into flexible milestones. The milestones can be weekly, monthly or anything else that fits. Think of it as a marriage between a to-do list and a calendar—splitting a long to-do list into small manageable chunks. This allows for greater flexibility than “living in your calendar”, while keeping your choices limited. How is this method superior?

1. Ease of planning

Splitting your tasks into rough time-frames adds less planning overhead than giving each task an exact slot in the calendar. You only need to decide roughly when you want to get a certain task done. It’s enough to say I’ll put it in for next week.

2. Agility

You can more easily shuffle things around as you go. Unexpected things happen, and being able to handle the situation and quickly re-prioritize your work is invaluable to getting things done. Quickly adapting your schedule is an invaluable skill to acquire.

3. Give your milestones context…

… when you can. Working towards incremental goals is motivating and allows you to celebrate your incremental successes along the way. If you can split your milestones in such a way that each milestone represents a goal, go for it. For example, if you’re working on a website, one milestone can include all the tasks you need to do before the first launch of your site. If you’re writing a book, it can be the first chapter of the book. If you’re working on a project for a customer, it can be all the tasks you need to do before your next meeting with the customer… and so on. To keep your schedule flexible and keep room for the unexpected, you can vary the milestone length as needed.

4. The right amount of choice

When it comes to choosing your next task, you only need to look at your current milestone. It’ll give you a good range of alternatives, yet not too many to lead to a decision-making paralysis.

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Please tell us your thoughts about to-do lists and other task management tools in the comments below!

Photo by robstephaustralia.

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For many it sounds appealing — no commute time to wrestle with, no wardrobe requirements and no one standing over your shoulder requesting updates on your progress.

But I’ve also found that these are the same reasons why staying productive when working from home, sans a designated office, can be such a challenge. There’s not a pressing reason to leave the house or get dressed, and there is no one there keeping you from spending the afternoon eating junk food and watching trashy TV.

5 Ways to Boost Productivity When Working from Home

The work from home lifestyle is certainly not for everyone (especially those that thrive on day to day interactions with coworkers), but if you have a job where working remotely is an option, here are some tips for keeping you productive and happy.

1. Create a Routine

Not having a routine may sound like a good idea, but it can also lead to an utter lack of productivity.

Even though there are days where my workload would allow me to sleep in an extra 2-3 hours, I keep my wake-up time the same — give or take a half an hour. Not only does this ensure that I have my entire day to tackle whatever projects I have, it also keeps my body from getting out of whack.

I also keep the order of my work related tasks in relatively the same order so that I don’t waste time contemplating what I should be doing next. I start with responding to emails, move to phone calls, etc.

I have actually found that keeping a routine with work allows me to be more spontaneous with the rest of my life. Waking up early and staying in the flow throughout the day means that I can take off at 3 if a friend invites me to happy hour, or if I want to take a walk around the park.

2. Allow for Breaks

When I first started working from home, I would avoid breaks at all costs. I thought that this would help me get more work done, when in reality, it caused me to burn out early.

Now I take the breaks that any employer would require in an eight to ten hour work day — coffee breaks, lunch breaks, stretch breaks. I consider all of these to be a necessity because it’s the time spent away from the computer that helps ideas generate organically. And, of course, it’s good for both your body and your mind.

3. Go with the Flow

Do you find that your mind isn’t fully functioning before 10 am? Does your body need a nap between 2 pm and 3 pm? Are you least productive after 6 pm?

One of the largest benefits of working from home (unless you are required to clock in and out at certain times) is the ability to create your own schedule.

Not everyone works best on a 9-5 schedule — some work better on a 10-6 or 4-12 schedule. Figure out the times that your mind is at its peak, and try to follow that. For you that might mean taking a two hour break in the middle of the day. That’s simply the beauty of this lifestyle.

4. Get Out of the House

Just because you work from home doesn’t mean you can’t venture out every once in a while. It also doesn’t mean that you can be mentally okay without some regular social interaction.

Set up shop in a coffee house for a few hours, or if you can manage without wi-fi, work from the park.

For me, being around people — even if it’s not anyone I’m physically interacting with — helps me to feel connected to the world again. It also takes away the distractions that I struggle with at home — namely watching TV, talking on the phone, cleaning the kitchen, etc., etc., etc.

When you’re in another setting, there’s simply not much else to do but crank out the work that needs to get done.

5. Disconnect After Work

When you work from home, it can be extremely challenging to create a work/life balance. After all, you don’t have the luxury of leaving everything at an office where you can’t get to it until after the weekend or the following morning.

In the beginning I would read and respond to emails as soon as I received them and answer work-related phone calls long after 6 pm. I was constantly in work mode, never fully engaging in anything else because I was operating from the work state of mind.

In turn this translated to a lack of productivity during working hours because I was already burnt-out from semi-working all weekend.

Set limits for yourself — don’t answer phone calls before or after a certain time. Turn email notifications off and stop brainstorming ideas when you’re no longer on the clock. Let your mind and body relax when the time calls for it and your productivity will increase ten-fold.

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What are your ideas for staying productive while working from home? 

Photo by Ambro.

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To state things straight, it’s a world of interaction we live in and businesses often need to outsource tasks that can be done cheaper and better by specialized third parties. How to know if outsourcing is a go for your business?

This is quite a delicate matter, even though almost every company or professional has experienced outsourcing at some point, especially when starting up. Some businesses choose to outsource narrow processes such as billing, while others externalize large sections (customer service is among the most common task here).

Most of the outsourcing pros affirm that it saves time and money, but in order to do it right and not achieve the opposite effect you should analyze some nuances.

First question for you: How wide is the task you want to outsource? A few parameters to take into account: number of people involved from your side, time and resources demanded. Before deciding to outsource, it’s always a good idea to create a formula to quantify your costs and benefits and to prove you that outsourcing has a long term benefit rather than short term – don’t hesitate to use your own variables to reach a conclusion. Obviously, saving costs should not be the sole purpose of outsourcing.

Types of Outsourcing

I like to refer two types of outsourcing:

-  Micro-level outsourcing – this doesn’t involve people, but tools that are remotely hosted and paid for, that can automatize various processes and actions of the business. For example, you can set a WYSIWYG builder to create a portion of your website that needs to be done quickly, instead of deploying the feature on your own, which is likely to take time and shift focus of your developer from the real priorities.

Outsource platforms safeguard important functions for both the business and clients. If you are a NPO, you will certainly find a lot of companies that outsource services pro-bono.

-  Macro-level outsourcing – this is where contracts and external specialists are implied. This also involves hiring freelancer professionals for various processes of the business. There are various types of outsourcing at this level, among which the most popular are: Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) and Recruitment Process Outsourcing (of course, RPO).

The most frequent processes that are outsourced with external specialists are finance and accounting as well as client service for the BPO, consultancy and research for the KPO, juridical services with LPO and human resources for the RPO. The nature of the services largely depends on the field of the outsourcing stakeholder – one may ask for a wide range of processes to be handled externally, or for a specialized matter.

The Benefits

Outsourcing usually brings important benefits:

-  Cost savings – this involves offshoring (companies recruiting workforce from abroad mainly for the reason it’s cheaper). For some it’s a necessity, for others just a business decision to maximize profit. Many large companies were forced by the recession to cut down costs and chose outsourcing by necessity, which stirs lots of controversies nowadays.

-  Focus to core business tasks – the company may fuel investment and people’s force onto main processes of the business, leaving aside the non-essential energy consumers. Outsourcing raises the predictability of variable costs, which is another benefit.

-  Quality increase – outsourcing provides access to both technology (logistics that the company could not afford by itself) and knowledge (skills, intellectual property). This enhances the in-house ability for product innovation and boosts the image of the company from customers’ perspective.

-  Contract and other legal advantages – externalized services imply having a legally binding contract that offers the possibility of applying penalties and special conditions. Also, tax incentives for hiring outsources in some countries can be remarkable.

-  Scalability – you won’t have to worry about temporary decreases in productivity, the outsourced company will usually be able to manage such fluctuations and integrate positive deviations too. This is a main advantage of having an external workflow.

-  Liability – companies developed on a lot of ramifications often transfer liability over some concerns that are outside their core competencies to outsourcers.

-  A fair open schedule – you hear a lot of talk over the work-life balance and how to optimize it. Well, outsource some of your leg work and it’s achieved!

When to Outsource

There are various concerns regarding outsourcing, as it’s an important decision that will potentially shift your business processes. They are not decisive issues, but it’s important to anticipate the risk in order to minimize it. Main issues of outsourcers sound as following:

-       “I won’t be able to supervise things as I do with my in-house workers.” Distance and time zones can be obstacles for exchanging feedback, so it may be less frequent than for internal processes. There are various software solutions for communication and employee management that will help you overcome this (VoIP, instant messaging, time tracking software such as Paymo, cost and schedule assessment tools).

-  “I fear my outsourcers are not as qualified as I would like.” Get to know outsourcers’ skills, expertise and know-how, also be willing to spend some hours training them in matters of your company in order to achieve the best results. This way you won’t have surprises and you will share the responsibility in case something goes wrong. Why do that when it’s easier to cancel the contract and maybe ask for compensation? Well, maybe it’s just me, but it’s more ethical to share responsibility, plus you won’t waste time in finding another outsourcer each time, and another, and another…

-  “I have doubts over the quality of the service.” This is legitimate. While it’s clear that in most cases outsourcing is cheaper than hiring in-house personnel, you should take into account the level of quality provided by the third party – if it’s poor, outsourcing will cost the company more than anticipated and won’t be a viable solution. You should perform frequent customer satisfactory surveys to monitor the quality level of the outcome.

-  “My employees feel threatened by my decision to outsource.” In-house workers may feel insecure when hearing they have an outside “competitor”. The best approach is to keep your people positively motivated. Give incentives and explain them that you outsource the work that would have otherwise made their lives hard.

Conclusions

In conclusion, to be or not to be outsourcing? After presenting the pros and cons, I will come with a straight recommendation. You should definitely outsource the following:

-  Repetitive jobs that take time and effort, for example paper work (reports and office documents).

-  Tasks that are not part of your core competencies and that third party services could handle with proficiency. IT is one of the most popular fields for outsourcing. Coincidentally or not, this domain has some of the most numerous freelancers out there, so there’s a great chance to find someone competent if you sound off a gig.

-  Jobs that a big company would manage with no problem, but being a small one you won’t be too good at, even if you decide on hiring. Employees should be coordinated properly, and if you can’t handle that it’s better to outsource. An example is search engine advertising for a small company with online presence.

-  Tasks that are above your logistic capacities. Of course, you cannot put up a postal mailing service of your own, but who cares when FedEx exists?

Of course, not to outsource key business matters too. However, if you feel this need, finding a business associate may be more beneficial for you than outsourcing. Imagine a company that’s specialized in printing outdoor advertising to be just passing the printing jobs to another provider, adding an extra fee of their own to the finished product.

Big customers are not excited about working with intermediaries and usually search the market to find the last piece of the puzzle, the business that’s not intermediating. Guess who gains the contract?

Maybe the best approach to outsourcing would be a tailored one. The business owner is in control over the process to outsource and he should decide what to keep in-house – for example, a retail company may outsource its distribution management and keep around the sales promotion force.

In the end, you are the one to answer the main question: “To be or not to be outsourcing?”

Photo by Salvatore Vuono.

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He emphasizes this point on the website, saying, “Until now there has been no one place where you could go to search, compare, rate and comment on hundreds of web apps like Productive Web Apps does.” So, the question is, will this make your life easier?

The Good

From layout to ease of use, this site does very well for itself. As anyone who frequently surfs the web will know, there are more bad sites out there than good. Whether it’s confusing, slow or just plain un-informative, a bad website is annoying and a waste of time. Productive Web Apps, however, is none of these things.

Layout:

Before you even begin to compare and sort through the apps, you are already a little more in the know.

• The front page has a scrolling featurette of the newest and best applications.
• The Highest Rated Apps widget is a great glimpse and go aspect. The simple star system tells you right away that the apps are a go.
• The recent listings are great for the frequent user. Without delving into the depths of the site you can see what is new, and what’s good. Small snippets of description allow you to go no further, if you just don’t have the time.

  

Categories:

From fitness to business, games to organization, you will know about it all.

• With more than 10 categories to choose from, the site does a great job of helping you separate play from work.
• Sorting inside each category makes the process that much easier. Sort by date, rating, popularity and alphabetical. If you want to see the most popular first, sort appropriately.

Rating:

The most important part; learn which application isn’t a waste of your over-booked time.

• All of the apps proudly boast their rating with the simple star system. One star = no good, 5 stars = you gotta to have it.
• Whether you agree or disagree, it’s simple to give your opinion. Hover over the rating, and click. Simple as that.

You can easily read about the rating thanks to a small clip of description. You also have the option to get more details.

The Bad

While the site presents itself as a valuable service to anyone with a smart phone, from the application addict to the casual user, there is just one thing missing. This, in my opinion, is the most important piece of the puzzle. While it is a missing piece you can move past, it is somewhat of a hindrance.

Price:

Although the site effectively rates, sorts and presents a variety of applications in an efficient and easy to use way, price remains a mystery.

• You cannot sort the apps by price, which can be a deciding factor between two other-wise identical applications.
• Nowhere in the description is a price given. I think this is deserving of its own spot, similar to the features list.

The only pricing you’ll find on the site is for application entrepreneurs. For $50, app developers can submit their site for review, and be featured on the home page for a month. Purcell sees this as the best way to get your app noticed in a crowded room.

While the site has already proved to be a very complete listing of what is available on the application market now, Purcell has the website’s future in his sights. In an interview with Shoestringventure.com, he explained, “Our main goal for the future (2-3 years) is that we can become the ‘go-to’ place for people searching for web applications.”

Conclusion

Between the good and the bad, the site is certainly satisfying a growing need. Without having to sign up, sign in or link to your Facebook, you can read browse all the listings you want. With very few services at such quick disposal these days, I’d say Productive Web Apps get an A-.

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Considering all you have to do and would like to do, how productive are you right now? Do you have the feeling that you can achieve more than you currently do, but you just don’t know how? Sometimes we may feel that we are not being as productive as we can but we are just not sure why.  You may be making the biggest productivity mistakes and you don’t even know it!

4 Productivity Threats & How to Overcome them

The following are the most common productivity threats. Read on for how to improve productivity in face of these nasties:

1. Distractions & Interruptions

Most of us are continuously bombarded with interruptions and distractions all day long, no wonder it´s hard to stay focused and get the job done in time. They appear to come from all directions: colleagues, phones, emails and even yourself! Working in this type of environment will not only reduce the amount of work but also the quality of your work dramatically.

Distractions and interruptions are not the same. Interruptions are things that happen to you, from someone else or something external e.g., a colleague coming to talk to you or your phone ringing. If we are distracted, normally we have chosen to pay attention to something, like checking the Facebook account or clicking on ads and pops ups while working. You need to identify and manage the distractions or interruptions that eat away your productivity — all the things that undermine you from successfully performing a task. Make concerted effort to take control and manage your environment so it works for you and not against you!

2. Disorganization

How much time do you spend being disorganized and is your disorganization chronic? Adding up the hours wasted to disorganization is a very revealing and shocking task! This is the most significant contributor to stress and to you, wanting to work efficiently. Is your office or work space an absolute chaos and are you often left clueless when you need to find documents easily and readily? Being organized assists you in maintaining your level of productivity. If you don´t have a well-organized system in place, you need to devise and implement one.

Everything must flow. When work comes in, keep things organized accordingly. Label stuff as “Do it”, “delegate it” or “set it aside for later”.  Take one day to think and implement a system that is effective for you. Get your filing up to date, clear out your inbox, create a daily action plan, plan and prioritize, etc.  A messy mind is a messy office so get everything out of your mind and into a system!

3. Time-management

We all could benefit from accomplishing more in less time. Perhaps you constantly find yourself doing things at the last minute and never have sufficient amount of time to do everything.  Have you taken a moment to pause and consider why? Start by analyzing, identifying and clarifying ways to recover your time, in other words, start by observing the ways you currently spend your time and then you are in a better position to take corrective action to manage it. Use one time management system; don´t overdo it or try to follow a few.

Start by planning your time. “By failing to plan, you are planning to fail.” If you don’t plan, you won’t know what you need to do to make a project successful. You might be inadequately prepared, face unexpected problems, miss deadlines and as a result, your reputation and quality of work could be at stake. Understand the value in planning — it may not have immediate results but will benefit in the long run.

4. Procrastination

This is something we all experience at some time, some more often than they would like to. If you procrastinate with a certain task and if it starts to impede normal functioning, it’s highly advised to work out why. You may be procrastinating because:

-    Lack of clarity. You are unclear about why you are doing something or how to do it. If you are not sure how you will do it, you may procrastinate with getting it started.

-    Fear of failing or not feeling confident about your abilities. The only solution for this is to work out and discover exactly what you fear. Then balance your perception of the fear and push yourself out of your comfort zone.

-    The task doesn’t motivate you, you just don’t feel like doing it and would rather be doing something else.  You need to find the value in what you are doing and motivate yourself to do it.

-    Being told what to do. You may be someone who rebels at being told, therefore you just don’t want to do it.

The main idea is not to just write your inactivity off to procrastination but to identify why you are procrastinating, to change the limiting behavior and to get improved results.

Relaxation Promotes Productivity

This may sound counter-intuitive, but I’m not referring to sleeping, lying on the beach or taking days off work but rather doing something active that relaxes your body.  Have you ever tried Yoga or mediation, maybe visualization or even hypnosis? There are a range of methods to help you feel more relaxed. When you perform these types of activities correctly and regularly, you experience renewed energy, you lower your blood pressure as well as your stress hormones!

Your productivity will reach new levels. As you start to feel more vibrant and vitalized, you will wonder why you never focused on this key ingredient to a healthy work life. Remember to take time out to relax. An over worked, exhausted and stressed body will not help you to feel well and productive.

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How do you improve productivity despite the above threats? Share your tips below.

Photo by amarette.

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