4 Apps to Keep You On-Task and On-Time

 By Kim Lachance Shandro

For time-strapped entrepreneurs, managing an ever-growing calendar full of deadlines, appointments and tasks can be a headache. It might not take much to fall behind schedule or miss an important meeting. Luckily, apps that help remind us of events and engagements can come in handy, and help keep us productive.

If you're tired of being late or veering off task, try one of these apps to help you stay on-task and on-time:

1. Any.do
This free app organizes your appointments and to-dos into a single, swipe-able list that's easy to use. Tap the microphone icon to enter new tasks and meetings to your list with your voice. Drag and drop individual to-dos to prioritize, share and add reminders to them. Simply swipe a task to mark it as complete. To clear completed items, shake your device. 
Any.do is available for Android, iPod touch, and iPad.

2. Toodledo Toodledo is an all-in-one taskmaster that helps you take control of your schedule, organize tasks and be more productive. The $2.99 fully-featured version comes with customizable task and appointment lists that seamlessly integrate with your email and calendar.
Stay focused on upcoming important tasks and meetings by filtering them by priority, context, tags and subtasks. Reduce the chances of being late to a meeting or missing a deadline with Toodledo's reminder alarm feature, which lets you schedule reminders to arrive via email, text message or over Twitter.

Toodledo is available for Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

3. Leave Now
This free app keeps you on time for your next meeting by telling you exactly when to leave. It posts a reminder message on your iOS device's (iPhone, iPod touch and iPad) home screen precisely when it's time to get up and go.

Using GPS, LeaveNow automatically calculates traffic for various modes of transportation, including walking, biking, driving and public transportation, and adjusts your departure times and reminders accordingly. When you're running late, Leave Now sends "on my way" texts and emails on your behalf to let people know your estimated time of arrival -- all in a single tap.

4. CalAlarm
For $1.99, CalAlarm offers a no-frills, user-friendly calendar app that helps keep you on-task and on-time by sounding motivating reminder alarms. Easily create, snooze and repeat multiple alarms per event. Alarms can be set to recur on a per-minute, hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Stay focused with 25 CalAlarm sounds (tropical organ, drumbeat, bell and more). Available for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, those running iOS 5 or later can customize alarms using iTunes ringtones or songs stored locally on their device. CalAlarm syncs with iCal, iCloud, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/225088

10 Time Management Tips That Work Pt 2

By Joe Mathews, Don Debolt and Deb Percival

Practice the following techniques to become the master of your own time:

1. Carry a schedule and record all your thoughts, conversations and activities for a week. This will help you understand how much you can get done during the course of a day and where your precious moments are going. You'll see how much time is actually spent producing results and how much time is wasted on unproductive thoughts, conversations and actions.
2. Any activity or conversation that's important to your success should have a time assigned to it. To-do lists get longer and longer to the point where they're unworkable. Appointment books work. Schedule appointments with yourself and create time blocks for high-priority thoughts, conversations, and actions. Schedule when they will begin and end. Have the discipline to keep these appointments.
3. Plan to spend at least 50 percent of your time engaged in the thoughts, activities and conversations that produce most of your results.
4. Schedule time for interruptions. Plan time to be pulled away from what you're doing. Take, for instance, the concept of having "office hours." Isn't "office hours" another way of saying "planned interruptions?"
5. Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don't start your day until you complete your time plan. The most important time of your day is the time you schedule to schedule time.
6. Take five minutes before every call and task to decide what result you want to attain. This will help you know what success looks like before you start. And it will also slow time down. Take five minutes after each call and activity to determine whether your desired result was achieved. If not, what was missing? How do you put what's missing in your next call or activity?
7. Put up a "Do not disturb" sign when you absolutely have to get work done.
8. Practice not answering the phone just because it's ringing and e-mails just because they show up. Disconnect instant messaging. Don't instantly give people your attention unless it's absolutely crucial in your business to offer an immediate human response. Instead, schedule a time to answer email and return phone calls.
9. Block out other distractions like Facebook and other forms of social media unless you use these tools to generate business.
10. Remember that it's impossible to get everything done. Also remember that odds are good that 20 percent of your thoughts, conversations and activities produce 80 percent of your results.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219553

10 Time Management Tips That Work Pt 1

Are you working on clock time or 'real' time? Learn how to manage your day by understanding the difference with these 10 time management tips.

BY Joe Mathews, Don Debolt and Deb Percival

Chances are good that, at some time in your life, you've taken a time management class, read about it in books, and tried to use an electronic or paper-based day planner to organize, prioritize and schedule your day. "Why, with this knowledge and these gadgets," you may ask, "do I still feel like I can't get everything done I need to?"

The answer is simple. Everything you ever learned about managing time is a complete waste of time because it doesn't work.

Before you can even begin to manage time, you must learn what time is. A dictionary defines time as "the point or period at which things occur." Put simply, time is when stuff happens.
There are two types of time: clock time and real time. In clock time, there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year. All time passes equally. When someone turns 50, they are exactly 50 years old, no more or no less.
In real time, all time is relative. Time flies or drags depending on what you're doing. Two hours at the department of motor vehicles can feel like 12 years. And yet our 12-year-old children seem to have grown up in only two hours.

Which time describes the world in which you really live, real time or clock time?

The reason time management gadgets and systems don't work is that these systems are designed to manage clock time. Clock time is irrelevant. You don't live in or even have access to clock time. You live in real time, a world in which all time flies when you are having fun or drags when you are doing your taxes.

The good news is that real time is mental. It exists between your ears. You create it. Anything you create, you can manage. It's time to remove any self-sabotage or self-limitation you have around "not having enough time," or today not being "the right time" to start a business or manage your current business properly.

There are only three ways to spend time: thoughts, conversations and actions. Regardless of the type of business you own, your work will be composed of those three items.

As an entrepreneur, you may be frequently interrupted or pulled in different directions. While you cannot eliminate interruptions, you do get a say on how much time you will spend on them and how much time you will spend on the thoughts, conversations and actions that will lead you to success. 

Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219553

Escape

The 10 Most Useless Buzzwords

Posted by Michael Sebastian | December 20, 2012

URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225310

Fighting jargon and buzzwords can be a Sisyphean task. No matter how many times you change "learnings" to "lessons" or "paradigm" to … well, something actually meaningful, the jargon keeps pouring in. Despite the setbacks, writers and editors must soldier on -- you're the last line of defense. 

Last week, we asked readers to name the absolute worst jargon from 2012, the words and phrases that drove them bonkers. After sorting through the dozens of entries, as well as consulting with a number of people on the ground -- that is, those working in corporate offices and PR firms -- we noticed two patterns emerging: 

• Corporate communicators are still tired of the usual jargon, such as leverage and synergize, yet they seem to be growing somewhat tolerant -- though perhaps inured is more like it. • Social media jargon is the emerging culprit, as many respondents said Internet-born acronyms and adjectives are driving them to drink. 

Although readers and sources identified dozens of words and phrases, we whittled the list to 10. Here is the first-ever PR Daily Year in Jargon: 

1. Game-changer. Print out a dozen press releases, shuffle them, and select one at random. There's an 80 percent chance "game-changer" will be in the first sentence--100 percent if it's from a startup. [Editor's note: No actual math was done for this story.] At one time, a game-changer was a defensive back who intercepted a pass and ran it back 98 yards for a touchdown, capping off a 14-point swing for his team. The word is used so often it means almost nothing, whether you work in corporate America or an NFL broadcast booth. 

2. At the end of the day (and its cousin, having said that). The translation for this term -- usually uttered by someone with a larger salary than you -- goes something like: "I'm acknowledging what you just said, but I think that it's basically crap. Here's what we should do instead." It's an insulting and lazy term. Worse still: "That being said …" which adds flawed grammar to the mix. 

3. Solution. You know those press releases we printed out earlier? Well, shuffle them again and choose another at random. The lead definitely has the word "solution." If press releases are any indication, the world has far more solutions than it does problems. 

4. YOLO. This one comes straight from social media, and it's an acronym for "You Only Live Once," as in, "I'm going to get a McRib -- YOLO." It was also the overwhelming choice for the year's most irksome jargon among fans of PR Daily's Facebook page, not to mention the worst word of 2012, according to The Huffington Post. 

5. Epic. This word describes a long poem about a hero, or something heroic, great, even majestic. It should never refer to your company's Twitter feed, unless you're tweeting "The Odyssey" line by line. 

6. Low-hanging fruit. This term is, in fact, low-hanging fruit, because it's an easy and obvious choice. It's also kinda gross -- easier for farmhands to reach, sure, but also easier for worms to infiltrate--so why does your boss love saying it so much? 

7. Really. The New York Times said this adverb is "undoing 2,000 words of human progress," a statement that inspired Jerry Seinfeld to respond in the pages of the Times. Any word that can spark such a spirited debate is worthy of admiration; the sneering way in which people say it is not. Feel free to continue using it, although snarksters may accuse you of being stuck in 2012. "You're still saying that? Really?!" 

8. Value-add. This word is sometimes bandied about the offices of Ragan Communications, which publishes PR Daily. Sure, it's easier to say, "What's the value-add for our readers," instead of, "What value are we giving our readers." But for those who utter this term--and you know who you are--how do you sleep at night? 

9. Impactful. This isn't a word. (We dare you to tell your boss that.) Oh, and impact is overused/misused as a verb--unless you're talking about wisdom teeth. Its prevalence probably stems from people's inability to keep affect and effect straight. Tell you what: If something is going to "negatively impact" your project, just say hurt, or delay, or maybe enfeeble. 

10. Utilize. This is a haughty, seven-letter word that means "use." There is never an instance in which "utilize" is preferred over "use." The late author David Foster Wallace called it a "noxious puff-word [because] it does nothing that good old use doesn't do." Yet everyone tosses it around--executives, journalists, even your mother. It's a plague. And not the good kind of plague, either. 

We've certainly left off words that are commonly uttered at your office. Please let us know what they are in the comments. And in 2013, the term that will consume everyone in the business world will be "big data." A year from now, you'll be sick of it -- you heard it here first.

Copyright © 2012 Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

4 Leadership Lessons From Abraham Lincoln

Posted by Stephanie Vozza | December 17, 2012

URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/225284

In a scene from the Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln tells her husband: "No one is loved as much as you by the people. Don't waste that power." Spoiler alert: He doesn't.

While the movie focuses on the passing of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, it also gives a lot of insight to Lincoln's strong leadership skills -- those things that have made him so admired.

While you may not be leading revolutionary change in the country, here are four leadership lessons from our 16th president on how to lead revolutionary change at your startup or small business.

1. Say no to 'Yes Men.' At a time in history when the United States was at war with itself, Lincoln surprisingly chose to fill his cabinet with a team of his rivals. These were men he considered to be the best and brightest minds in the country, and they were unafraid to challenge Lincoln and assert their opposition. A self-confident man, Lincoln welcomed strong opinions as it provoked thoughtful debate as well as inner reflection. It proved to be an important tactic during his presidency. 

Rick Lepsinger, president of the New York City-based leadership consulting firm OnPoint, agrees: "Don't hire in your own image," he says. "Get comfortable with conflict and learn how to manage differences productively."

Lepsinger suggests that leaders not allow conflicts to fester, but bring them to the surface as soon as possible. He also recommends avoiding the overuse of compromise, looking instead for common ground and alternatives.

2. Be decisive. While it's helpful to get more than one opinion, strong leaders know when and how to make decisions. Cabinet members could have argued forever, but Lincoln had the ability to know when he had all of the information he needed. Walking away to seek solitude, he was able to determine the best solution and make a decision without wavering.

Good leaders clarify their decision criteria, says Lepsinger, identifying musts and wants, and using that as a guide to compare options. "Assess the risk of each option as well as the benefits," he says. "These practices will increase confidence that you've selected the alternative that is the best balance of risk and reward."

3. Look for inspiration in unlikely places. As a member of Congress, Lincoln studied mathematics to gain wisdom in reasoning. In the movie, Lincoln shares some of this wisdom with two young clerks at the telegraph office: “Euclid's first common notion is this: 'Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.'"

Lepsinger says leaders are continuous learners and look outside their industry for ideas and innovation.

4. Connect with people on a personal level. We know "Honest Abe" was fair, but Lincoln was also known for his jokes and storytelling. It's how he broke the ice and blazed a trail to common ground. Lincoln also made himself accessible. As president of the United States, he kept regular office hours and citizens were allowed to see him.

"It's not how smart you are -- strong personal relationships and high levels of trust are the foundation of effective leadership," says Lepsinger. "[Good leaders] demonstrate empathy, take an interest in others and find out details about them."

Helpful tips to owning your calendar

Time is valuable and how we invest it can mean all the difference in the world. Here are a few tips to help you get the important things done in your life.

 

·        The value of owning your Calendar.

•  What are your big rocks? Your big rocks are the most important things in your life. It could be your Faith, family, friends, business, education, vacations, or just time to yourself.
• Balance personal & professional – Finding that balance is difficult to do if you don’t plan in advance to make time for the things you deem important in your life. Too much of one and not enough of the other can keep us off balance.
• Tools – Your tool box; discipline & commitment. We can calendar all day long, but if we continue to push things out, moves things forward or just let them dropped off, the consequences can be far reaching.
• Measured results – reflection is one way to measure how you invest your time. Here’s an exercise, take a few minutes and review your calendar from last month. Identify your (5) rocks in your life. Were you able to invest time in each one of them?
• Distractions – They are part of life. There are some we can control, and some we can’t. This is usually the moment where we either abandon our calendars or add more in. In either case, we have now surrendered to our calendar owing us. Know when to say no to the busy distractions and be ready for those emergencies we must address.

·        How can you master your calendar?

Develop a system. Once you have determined what will go on your calendar, set up a system in which you populate your calendar in advance with your “rocks”. You can fill in your day to day activities around your rocks. The end goal here is to protect the important rocks in your life. It’s amazing that when done this way, your important things get done, you have much better balance in your life, and your promise made and promise kept is still intact. Bottom line, you truly own your calendar, it does not own you.

Mark Barragan, CEO Coach – "Our mission is to lead our small to medium sized business clients to a greater success. Our method is to bring about behavior modification through training, coaching, and monitoring to affect change. We advance our mission by serving as the business example for our clients"