Simple Strategies to Improve Your Productivity

Day 2 of the "28 Gifts for Resume Writers" series featured a special report, "Simple Strategies to Increase Your Productivity." (Want to get ALL the gifts? Log into your Free or Bronze account on BeAResumeWriter.com and access it here.)

To complement that report, here are some additional productivity boosters:

• Creating a daily to-do list can increase productivity your by 100%. 

•  If you want to increase your productivity, establish a performance goal that inspires you to take action.

• One habit that many highly productive people confess to is getting up earlier than others. How could you use an extra hour or two? (Sorry, I can't do this one!)

• Find the right tools to help you achieve your daily goals. Finding ways to simplify tasks will boost productivity and improve your mindset. 

• It’s not enough to plan to reach a goal: For maximum productivity, plan how you can maintain your success once you reach it. 

• Make a list of the “time waster” habits in your everyday life. How can you take steps to reduce these? 

• Important tasks are worth doing well. (“Hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur” --Evelyn Underhill) 

• It’s important to keep up with business learning. Listen to podcasts while doing other things, if you don’t have time or to read books. 

• Combine your personal life action list with your work action list for maximum effectiveness!

• If you really want to be more productive, learn to say “no”. (What are three things you can start saying “no” to?) 

• Identify distractions and replace them with new, productive habits. (What is one distraction you can eliminate right now?) 

• Review your “to do” list at the end of the day. If you consistently don’t achieve your daily action goals, reduce the number of tasks.

• “You can prepare all you want, but if you never roll the dice you'll never be successful” -- Shia LaBeouf 

• To eliminate time wasted on meetings, plan them, send everyone an agenda, appoint a chairperson, and stick to your agenda. 

• To increase productivity, eliminate reactivity. Plan at least a week ahead, using a system that you find easy and pleasant to use. 

• When it comes to productivity, find out if it works best for you to tackle your hardest task first – or last. (Everyone is different!) 

• To increase productivity, set time limits on meetings, phone calls, and tasks. Make note of what works and doesn’t and refine these. 

• If you want to increase productivity, resist the urge to multi-task. Focus on one task at a time – and get each one done. 

• Get rid of clutter to increase productivity – and this includes ruthlessly dumping negative, energy-sapping people. 

• Take a leaf from your high school days and work on different tasks in “periods.” This technique can actually increase your productivity. 

• Recognize that “emails aren’t letters, they’re tasks.” Respond, delete, or file accordingly.

• If you want to motivate yourself to be more productive,  figure out what you want to "reward" yourself with -- and use it as an incentive to reach your goal!

• Which apps do you use to boost your productivity? What’s the common denominator in why you like each one? (E.g. easy to use, visuals, etc.) 

• Create an “Action List” – not a “chore” or “to do” list – and learn to think of it that way. The positive wording can work miracles. 

• “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The Sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus” -- Alexander Graham Bell 

• To increase productivity, take the initial time to learn programs or apps you use completely. E.g. explore your email capabilities. 

• Eliminate distractions. Don’t run desktop apps that give alerts about non-productive stuff, such as the latest tweet or email. 

• Use the power of systems and software you already have: For example, use Excel to create a time-tracking spreadsheet. 

• If you really want to increase productivity, do small or unpleasant tasks “right now” instead of assigning them to your To-Do list. 

• To increase productivity, identify your best money-making activities and focus more time and priority to each one. 

• To increase productivity, work smarter by delegating, discarding, and outsourcing more tasks. 

• Don’t just identify money-making activities to increase productivity: Pay attention to each one’s ROI. 

• Ruthlessly eliminate procrastination habits and activities if you want to create more productivity. Do it one habit at a time. 

• “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work” -- Stephen King, on writing productivity. 

• “Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all” -- Peter Drucker, originator of “outsourcing.”

• Follow through and follow up are as important in increasing productivity as planning. Have you found this to be true?

• Keep a notebook or record your ideas via your smartphone and Evernote as they occur, to make the most of creative bursts. 

• To increase productivity, cross half the things off your To-Do list every day and highlight no more than three remaining ones as top priority. 

• “Taking action without thinking is the cause of every failure” -- Peter Drucker, originator of the business “community” concept. 

• Adopt taking a “power period” every day — a chunk of time in which you work on something, allowing absolutely no distraction. 

• Schedule your “power period” for the daily time slot you notice you’re usually the most productive within (early morning, mid-morning, mid-day, early afternoon, late afternoon, early evening, late evening, late night!)

• If "getting started" is your nemesis, schedule your “power period” for first thing in the morning (when you would usually be on Facebook!) 

• If typing slows you down, either outsource written content or learn/brush up on your touch typing using this free resource: http://www.keybr.com/

• To increase productivity, look for external distractions and remove them. Face your desk away from the window, turn off the radio, etc. 

• Try playing classical or meditation music softly in the background. Are you one of those whose productivity increases when you do this? (This is a strategy I also recommend when you are STUCK writing a resume in "Write Great Resumes Faster")

• To increase productivity, take five minutes to print out Google keyboard shortcuts (Windows only): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449 

• When trying to streamline family life, create an Action Station in a central place where family can check schedules, post notes, etc. 

• Answer emails you look at either straight away – or not at all. Don’t promise yourself you’ll do it “later.”

• Track your time at least twice a year. Seeing where you waste it can help you be more productive. (Try https://www.toggl.com/.) 

• Create routines – but make sure they work for all family members. If one isn’t working, change it (or change the time). 

• “Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before” -- Franz Kafka 

What are YOUR productivity strategies?

Writing Well, Writing Brief

Yale writing professor William Zinser said it best:

"Strip every sentence to its cleanest component. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that's already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what — these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur, ironically, in proportion to education and rank."

Finding Your Voice as a Resume Writer and Business Owner

As resume writers, we talk a lot about communicating our client's "voice" in their resumes and career communication documents so that it "sounds" like the client, not like us.

But what is YOUR voice as a resume writer and resume business owner? What is the point of view that you use in your client communications and content marketing? It's important to figure out your voice so that you can create a coherent and professional communication strategy. Here's some ideas on how to do just that:

Figure Out Your Core Values
What is it that you want to say to the world? What is it that you feel is important? Do you want your resume writing business to be a beacon of light to your audience, shining down on them, creating joy and happiness? Do you want your business to be a wake-up call and teach lessons for your audience? What do you want your audience to think about when they think of your brand?

Get to Know Your Jobseeking Clients and Prospects
Marketing is all about what's in it for them, not what's in it for you. If you can remember that, for every piece of content you create, you;ll be halfway there. Every story you tell — through the articles you write, videos you create, or press releases you send out — should all be focused with your target jobseeker in mind. The best way to do that is truly understand who your ideal client is by studying them and immersing yourself in everything there is to know about them. How you speak to your audience will be directly related to how well you know them. You'd speak to a stay-at-home mom returning to the workforce differently than you'd speak to a senior executive. So your voice has to be appropriate for the prospects and clients you want to work with.

Identify the Value You Offer Your Audience
You're not just writing resumes. You're helping clients identify what sets them apart from other jobseekers, and then creating interview-winning career communication documents that clearly communicate their value. Keep your value in mind as you work to identify your voice.

Differentiate Your Resume Writing Business From Your Colleagues
No two resume writers are alike, but for jobseeker prospects, it may be hard to tell us apart, unless you communicate your value clearly. How do you express your values to prospective clients? How will you deliver your resume services? What sets you apart? How can you deliver more value to clients while also sticking to — and expressing — your core values?

Decide If Your Voice Is Casual or Formal
Once you combine all of the above, you will need to decide if your target audience will respond better to a casual or formal voice (or someplace in between). How you speak to your audience is a very important factor in determining if they will understand your message.

Determine Acceptable Lingo and Terms
Once you've decided whether your voice is casual or formal or someplace in the middle, you can come up with the type of terms and lingo youíll use throughout your content marketing, regardless of format.

Create Documentation as a Guide
Whether you will be creating your marketing content yourself, or getting help, creating documentation to guide you through the process will help. Be specific about which font to use. Write down the type of words you want to use, too. The terminology, lingo, and jargon is important because it will mean something to your audience and help you get your message across in a way that will produce the results you desire.

Don't Try to Be Someone You're Not (Be Authentic!)
Resume writers who provide personal branding services know that it is important for the client's voice to be authentic. The worst thing you can do as you're creating and developing your voice is to try to be someone you're not. If you are not generally formal, don't even try to be formal. If you'd feel fake being casual, don't do it. Be yourself. If you've chosen your target audience well, it will be easy for you to be who you are and market to them in a successful way using content.

Content marketing is the most effective form of marketing today, bar none. Finding your voice will help make everything easier. You'll be able to not only create content easier, you'll also have a guide to help keep it consistent across all marketing channels.

What are your thoughts about finding your voice as a resume writer and resume business owner?

A Resume Is a Lifetime in the Making

A resume writing colleague is donating a resume for a fundraiser and wondered if I had anything she could use to explain to the silent auction bidders the value of the resume package. 

This is what I sent her:

Picasso was in a park when a woman asked him to draw her portrait. He sketched her and handed her the drawing. When asked how much she owed him, he replied, "$5,000." The woman was outraged. "But it only took you five minutes!" she protested. "No, madam, it took me all my life," replied Picasso.

When you have your resume created by a professional resume writer, the time invested in crafting a custom document is not limited to the effort required to gather information about your job target, previous experience and accomplishments, education, and value to your next employer — although this is significant. It's not limited to the several hours of time (and gallons of blood, sweat, and tears!) it takes your writer to carefully choose each word and phrase for maximum impact.

While there is significant time spent gathering and synthesizing the details of your career and designing a wholly unique and customized resume, the value of your professionally written resume originates in the skill of the writer — talent developed through study of effective resumes, training in modern communication techniques, and thousands of hours of writing experience.

You are also benefiting from what Picasso recognized as his biggest asset — a lifetime of knowledge and experiences. Your professional resume writer knows how to paint a custom word portrait for you that is a snapshot of your career progression and ambition, designed to attract job interviews. More than a few jobseekers have turned a single sheet of paper — their professionally written resume — into the job of their dreams. Will you be next?

How do you explain to your clients why an investment of $500 or $1000 — or more — is worth it?