There are a bunch of articles right now about what to do first thing in the morning. Â Most tell you not to check email, not to take phone calls, etc. Â The problem is, that would STRESS ME OUT! I totally get the people who say you shouldn’t get caught up in things without some thought at the beginning of the day, but the system has to work for you. I recommend determining what causes you stress – what things have to be done to make you feel comfortable. Â When I worked for my Dad, I thought it was fun to find out he walked into the office, put his things down, got a cup of coffee and stood in his window drinking coffee, reading the Wall Street Journal and watching people out the window as he planned his day. Â It was his work ritual and […] Continue reading
Defining Both Success and Failure
When I start a project, I always define what success looks like. Often I do what success looks like and what the ultimate, totally amazing success would look like (just for fun). Knowing this in advance means you know how to evaluate the project or program and if you keeping within your plan. But the other thing I do is define failure. For some projects this really is anything other than success, but for others, failure is different and there’s a gap between the two. Why would I care? Here’s an example. Recently with a customer we tried a new publication for advertising. It was a good risk – the money wasn’t huge, the audience was right, etc. Success was defined as 25 people saying the came in from the ad. But since we only committed to once, we recognized we had no repetitive benefits. […] Continue reading
One Level Up From “Dummies” Resource
I run into situations all the time where I don’t need a “Something for Dummies” book, but I need the next level up. Â I recently spoke with a professional in the financial industry and every other word out of her mouth was a financial term. Being a lovely person I was able to ask what each one meant, but it was frustrating that I didn’t just “know”. For me – not her. Â Then I tried to do something new on the computer and the documentation is clearly written for someone who has just a little more knowledge than I do. Â Nowhere in this information does it tell you WHY you would use a portfolio or what the Testimonial function actually DOES. Â And THEN, I watched Diner, DriveIns, and Dives which I really like. Â He went to a place that had many, many ways to order […] Continue reading