Productivity and time management are personal topics! Each of us ticks a little differently and therefore responds to different systems and sets of guidelines…yet we all face common challenges.

Here are 5 helpful productivity posts that highlight what you really need to know about staying productive without getting caught in the weeds.

These principles are important to keep in mind when designing a system that works for you!

Who doesn’t love a fresh start? For many entrepreneurs the New Year ushers in renewed enthusiasm and determination to get organized and do things “right.” With visions of perfectly organized documents and plans, we set up new protocols for every aspect of our business, sign up for new courses and initiatives and, after much scrutiny, purchase a new calendar, which we hope will make us all the more productive.

Predictably, we overindulge, biting off more than we can chew. More often than not, the complicated routines and infrastructure that we’ve created causes us to abandon our efforts and within weeks we READ MORE »

I want my daily work routine to be more inspired so I decided to make a few small purposeful changes. Here’s the plan:

1. Start with Something BeautifulBEFORE I open my email I want to feel inspired and motivated. I’ve bookmarked a few sites in my Google Reader that make me instantly happy and calm – home décor seems to be the thing right now.

Brabourne FarmModern Country A Life’s Design Home and Harmony

 2.       Enhance The View.

I’ve made a concerted effort to surround my immediate workspace with simple visual pleasures.

A few affordable prints from 20×200

My great Dolphin Studio Calendar

A READ MORE »

As entrepreneurs, all we’ve ever wanted is to be our own boss. But ironically, most of us are pretty terrible at managing ourselves. Our to-do lists are long, time is short, and the pressure for results is high, and we often don’t know where to begin. Everything seems important. It’s hard to prioritize. And we often realize at the end of the day that all we’ve done all day is respond to emails.

There are hundreds of time management gurus out there, each who promotes a different way to be more productive and READ MORE »

In order to be successful, most entrepreneurs have to be able to look at things from multiple perspectives and play multiple roles within their company. Sometimes it’s a tricky juggling act as we toggle back and forth between one mode and another be it ideas vs. execution; present vs. future; or yes vs. no. Too much time spent in any one of these camps can shortchange the business of critical thinking, analysis or activity. That’s not to say that entrepreneurs need to do everything themselves, surely smart team members can take on these roles too. But, as chief, we must make sure that all the bases are READ MORE »

Do you ever feel paralyzed when you need to make a decision? Perhaps this is because you have too much information to sort through and process. Too often much of this information is unnecessary, redundant or just plain distracting. Good news! You are not alone.

There is a whole field dedicated to Decision Science which helps us understand the phenomenon of too information and the impact it has on our ability to make decisions. In a recent Newsweek article “I Can’t Think!”, Sharon Begley does a wonderful job of outlining the consequences of decision making when you are on information overload. Among these are a total failure READ MORE »

Everybody has bad days. Sometimes something goes wrong (a technical problem at the office makes everything more difficult), other times it’s the just the little things (my train runs late, someone cuts me in line, they are out of the soup I like, I get a nasty e-mail). It’s not these bad days that bother me – they happen – it’s the bad days where nothing really out of the ordinary occurs. Maybe they aren’t even bad days, they just aren’t great. These un-great days really bother me. Why? Because I’m entrepreneur. I’m my only boss. I’m nearly 100% responsible for how my days look and how READ MORE »

For me, it’s the dreaded Sunday night realization of all the things that weren’t completed in the previous week. The proposal that languishes in draft form, still dirty laundry, the birthday gift that wasn’t purchased and the visit to the grocery store that didn’t happen.One of the biggest challenges of managing our professional and personal commitments is the fear of shortchanging the people and activities that we enjoy & value. No matter the activity, dealing with the reality that time is a finite commodity often makes us feel harried and overextended.Thankfully, there’s another way.Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, visited IGC READ MORE »

(image courtesy of lakeillustration)

Entrepreneurship is fraught with golden opportunities to embrace a “good enough” attitude and we have found that those who are new to this mentality find it to be extremely liberating! It helps save them from the perils of perfectionism.

We often see women struggle, worrying that things should be perfect before they are initiated, shared, or made public. However, this desire to have things be “perfect” gets in the way of doing anything at all. Everything takes longer, your time and READ MORE »

Starting this week the staff of Inc. magazine started an experiment. For the month of February, they will all be working virtually and then writing about their experiences.

We love this initiative! We asked some of the ladies of In Good Company to share their advice and tips with these newly untethered writers.

Posted below is what some had to say . Do YOU have advice for the Inc staffers? You can tell them here.

****1. I’ve converted all of my email to be accessed entirely electronically on any computer. I run my work email through gmail which sends READ MORE »

(photo courtesy of K W Baker)

I admit that very often the minute I open my browser to look up one quick thing, at least 30 minutes pass before I shake myself out of my “internet coma”, which has inevitably led deep into the internet abyss and entangled me with things that are certainly not relevant or helpful (forget about related) to the work at hand!

Ah, the double edge sword of search. On the one hand, you can easily find information that would have previously taken you to a library (and maybe even microfiche film – does that READ MORE »

(photo courtesy of Helena Comella) Oh, how easy it is to get ahead of ourselves! As soon as an idea strikes, we picture ourselves running a hugely successful enterprise with all the bells and whistles only to lose all motivation when the reality of all the work involved sinks in. For me, the experience is quite like that of a balloon. One minute I am all pumped up and the other I am looking saggy, sad and deflated.

Perhaps there is something to the saying “walk before you run” after all. Case in point, meet READ MORE »

As business owners there is much to be learned from Neil Armstong’s famous words, “one small step for man one giant step for mankind”.

To start, you need to crawl before you can walk. And, it is taking that first step that starts you on the greater road ahead.

While it is incredibly important to “think big” and have a vision of what you want your business to be in 5 years, it is also important to focus on the present and take it one step at a time. Often, a danger of only thinking big is immobility. It can be very READ MORE »

A few weeks ago we read a summary of interesting research in The Week. Similar to the news that sleep is good for the brain and supports the integration of memories and knowledge – profiled in our post The Business Case for Sleep – this recent research from the University of British Columbia concluded that daydreaming corresponds with a lot of brain activity in regions dedicated to high-level thought and complex problem-solving.

As the Week reports – “People assume that when the mind wanders away it just gets turned off,” researcher Kalina Christoff tells LiveScience.com. READ MORE »

So, anyone who knows me, knows that I am a big list maker and a good “to-do-er”. (Case in point: I have been packed for two weeks for a vacation that doesn’t start for another 12 days.)

One of the best parts of my day is my morning coffee date with my to-do list. Going over the things that I want to prioritize for the day is a good practice and something that helps me stay on task…most READ MORE »

After a harried day at work (one where I had a zillion things on my to do list, I had piled on a slew of sales meetings and was all the while trying to stay on top of my email), I realized that while I had gone though a full day of activity I could not recall the details of any task accomplished!I felt totally exhausted, and I also realized that in essence, I had wasted a full day of work and created more work for myself. I could not decipher any information or details from the conversations I had during READ MORE »

A recent Newsweek article, Sleep Now, Remember Later, underscored a couple really interesting takeaways about sleep and memory. I have always been pretty good about getting a healthy amount of sleep but this article helped to underscore the business benefits of doing so!

What we all know: Sleep is good. Our body tells us we need it by getting tired and starting to shut down. And our recommended daily dosage is about 8 hours.

But what is actually happening when you sleep? Why do we need READ MORE »