Mashable.com carried this article yesterday. The intro sums it up perfectly:
Good, smart, fun and relevant content should be at the core of any social media strategy. Great content should reflect your brand and give people a reason to stay engaged.
Frank Marquardt, Mashable.com
The story goes that wherever he performed, Elvis insisted that his dressing room was placed 1000 yards from the stage. As he walked those 1000 steps to get to his arena, he would slowly focus his mind and get into the head space he needed to perform to his best abilities.
Do you have your own 1000 steps? A routine or system that helps you get your head into gear?
For me, it’s making a hot drink ((green tea at the moment as I’m desperately trying to cut down on my caffeine intake)) and walking up the stairs to my home office. As soon as I close the office door and place the hot drink on the mat on my desk, my brain is in work mode and I’m focused on my To Do list for the day or the week.
Routines and systems are brilliant productivity aids, especially for freelancers working from home. They keep you focused on the task(s) in hand and keeping you from becoming distracted.
If you want to do more, achieve more and make the most of your day, find your own 1000 steps to performing your best.
As we enjoy/endure the lull between the Christmas break and the New Year’s celebration it can be hard to be as productive as we may like to be.
I find this week is much better used for creating a Plan of Action for when the New Year kicks off in earnest next week.
Having a plan for what you want to do and achieve in 2011 will not only help you to hit the ground running, but also take advantage of the energy and enthusiasm of a fresh start to keep the momentum up.
The most important thing you can put into your plan for the first couple of weeks of January is something that pushes you far outside your comfort zone. The sooner you go beyond your own boundaries, the sooner great things will start to happen. And the earlier in the year you do it, the more likely you are to use the jump in confidence to help you progress through the next 12 months.
Just imagine what it’s going to feel like looking back at this period in a year’s time and feeling flushed with pride that all the great things that have happened to you came from one simple action. A Plan of Action.
I tweeted a link to this video earlier, but it’s such a great summation of why we filmmakers do what we do that I felt I had to post it up on here.
This captures all of the endlessly changing feelings we all go through as we battle to bring our baby to the screen. Enjoy! And, if you like it, do the guys a favour and vote for them, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNNEwFqQCB8