When you write a book on productivity, you are frequently presented with a variety of interesting productivity applications. Whenever I am presented with such applications, I make it a point to internally review every one. Most of them are pretty good, and they’re intended for a specific audience; however, every once in a while I come across a truly innovative one. Goalscape is just that (www.Goalscape.com)

In this post, I’ve created a little Goalscape review video for you that gives you a tour of Goalscape. But I didn’t want to bore you with a simple feature set tour; thus, I decided to teach you about Zappos founder, Tony Hsieh’s model for happiness, which is covered in his book, “Delivering Happiness,” (my favorite read of the year).

So, without further ado, here’s the video. I hope you enjoy it. I had some fun making it for you!

If you can’t focus and watch the video (heh, heh), here’s a summary of what Goalscape is:

What Goalscape is:

In their own words, “Goalscape is the revolutionary new way to set goals and motivate, prioritize and progress to achieve whatever you are passionate about. Unlike other program and project management software and task tracking tools, Goalscape is so easy and fun to use that goal setting becomes a quick everyday process and your goals themselves evolve as your personal goal setting skills improve. So you will be better organized, more focused and less stressed! And it works equally well for business and personal goal setting.”

Who’s Behind Goalscape:

Believe it or not, the story of Goalscape is not nearly exciting as who’s behind Goalscape. The software was crafted by a mix of olympic athletes, competitors, designers and developers. The foundation in which Goalscape was built gives it an edge over applications that were just crunched out for fun. Goalscape’s foundation is built on purposeful goal-setting, which makes it unique. You can view the Bio’s of their team here and then click the bottom that says “About Us.”

Where to Get Goalscape:

You can pick up a copy of Goalscape by clicking here. They have a Free Trial, which will allow you to test the waters before you invest.

Friends,

I’m proud to announce that the hardcover version of the book is now available. Thank you for the amazing feedback, support and insight. You made this book possible.

About the Book:

How to Get Focused is a 270 page book that teaches you how to become a more purposeful, productive and focused person. The lessons in the book will enable you to become a more peaceful person, a more productive person, you’ll get more done in less time and you’ll gain the freedom you deserve.

The book contains six parts:

1. The Elements of Focus
2. The Daily Foundation
3. Building Long-term Focus
4. Social Media and Focus
5. “The Sage”
6. Digital Detoxing

Where You Can Purchase The Book:

1) Purchase Hardcover version of the book here:

Click here to buy the hardback version – $25.95

2) Purchase eBook version here:

Click here to buy the eBook version – $9.95

3) Purchase the Kindle version here:

Click here to buy the Kindle version – $9.99

Again, thank you for all of the support in making this book possible. I’m sure you’ll love it!

Best,

Scott

Tom was completely burnt out, yet he didn’t even know it. Whenever he felt tired or overworked, he simply responded by “grinding it out.” He was the best technician around. He worked for the local oil plant. And around there, he was “the man.” He developed profoundly complex systems and spent weekends at the plant. Shut-downs (times when workers were required to work over 20 hour days) were his favorite. Now, five years later, Tom is gone. He grinded himself into the ground.

What makes people like Tom sacrifice themselves for their employer? It could be a number of things, yet researchers find that it’s mostly a combination of hope, fear and falling into habits that really serve as a shelter.

What You Will Learn From Reading This Article

In this chapter we will explore the dangers of falling into Tom’s trap. We will learn why vacations are critical, and what one should strive to do on their vacation. We will also explore specific places and services that help the mind rejuvenate while on vacation.

4 Truths Researchers Reveal About Vacations

1. The Nine Reasons You Go On Vacation

In an academic article titled, “Motivations for pleasure vacation,” it is found that people really go on vacation for nine reasons.

Looking at this list, there are some empowering reasons for one to go on vacation, as well as some questionable reasons–reasons that are short-term solutions.

1. Escape from a perceived mundane environment
2. Exploration and evaluation of self
3. Relaxation
4. Prestige
5. Regression
6. Enhancement of kinship relationships
7. Facilitation of social interaction
8. Novelty
9. Education

Before making plans for a vacation, it’s critical that you understand your underlying reason for going on vacation.

Select one of the nine reasons above before moving on.

2. Avoid Postvacation Intense Workload

Your goal should be to clear off everything on your plate before going on vacation; otherwise, your entire vacation experience will revolve around thoughts about work and how much you have to do when you get back.

3. Understand the Empowering Characteristics of Vacation

When asked to describe vacations, many people respond that a vacation should liken itself to relaxation, alcohol, food and sun. If your goal is to become a more purposeful, focused person, your vacation can involve alcohol, food and sun if that’s your thing–but not relaxation. Your goal should not center on relaxation; rather, it should center on rejuvenation.

When going on vacation, one’s goal should center on setting goals, thinking deeply, meeting new people, reading new books, exercising the mind in new ways through mind games (here’s some excellent mind games that you HAVE to sign up for). Jimmy V described his full day as centering around three actions: laughter, being moved to tears and deep thought. Your objective in taking a vacation should revolve around experiencing a full day according to these three metrics.

4. Vacation Spots

Although the previous three truths are critical for experiencing an empowering vacation, the most important component centers on selecting the right place to vacation.

Some of the most well-revered vacation resorts are now catering to those who are seeking rejuvenation, instead of relaxation. This is thought offering collaborative activities, mind games (yes, hotels literally have mind games available in their rooms) and other activities that empower vacationers.

I. Condo Direct

The first place to check out vacation spots is Condo Direct. This place offers unbelievable deals on where to stay. You can rent out beautiful, immaculate condos for yourself.

Not only that, the owners of these condo’s are usually high net worth individuals, and the condo is their vacation home. Because of this, they can afford to rent out the condo at a very cheap rate (because it’s better than nothing).

You can also book regular hotel accommodations from this site for significantly less than on the major hotel reservation sites such as Expedia and Orbitz.

Click here to check out Condo Direct

II. Home Exchange:

The second place to explore for vacations is Home Exchange. This is a really unique program, and something that’s gaining popularity more and more everyday. And, it makes a lot of sense. You rent out someone else’s home, and in exchange, you let them rent out your home. It’s an amazingly simple concept–especially for rejuvenating and getting away in an economical fashion. If you’ve seeen the movie, “The Holiday,” then you know the concept.

Click here to check out home exchange.

III. Sandals

The third place to check out vacation spots is Sandals resorts. This is my personal favorite. Sandals offers an all-inclusive stay, which allows you to forget about details. All you need is your room key. The resorts are stacked with games, activities and opportunities to meet other couples. Plus, during the day, you can simply drift around in the pool, read a book and sip maragrita’s at the swim-up bar.

For a limited time you can get 65% off and your first day free when staying at Sandals. Click here to get the deal.

Ways to Develop Rejuvenation During Vacation

The critical piece of taking a vacation that rejuvenates you centers on actions that allow you to regain touch with living life. This centers on relationships, laughter and deep thought. You’re on your own in regards to laughter and building relationships while on vacation. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which vacation spot you like most above; however, when it comes to deep thought, I suggest the following tools.

I. Get a book that will change the way you think.

This must be a genre that you typically do not read. Within Amazon there’s an excellent way for finding books that you’d normally not read. Typically, I do this by selecting the New York Times Bestseller list, and then browsing around in the Paperback Fiction Bestsellers. These books are ones that I normally wouldn’t read, yet for rejuvenating the mind, this section stands as an excellent choice.

II. Mind and Brain Exercise Games

There’s no better service for exercising your mind than Luminosity’s mind games. They even have an iPhone application; so when you’re on vacation, you can still exercise your mind in new ways. Best of all, it’s free to sign up!

Click over here to sign up for a free account with them.

III. Moleskine

There’s no better way to grow one’s mind than writing. The activity of thiking, forming and clearly communicating one’s thought sky-rockets the sharpness of one’s mind. Yet, vacation centers on rejuvenation, not sitting couped up in your hotel room. For this reason, I strongly recommend picking up a moleskine notebook and writing out your thoughts.

Pick up a Moleskine on Amazon here

Conclusion

Before going on vacation, understand the nine reasons why people go on vacations, and select which reason you’re going on vacation. Try to clear everything off your plate before heading on vacation. And last, seek rejuvination, not relaxation, when going on vacation. Pick up an empowering book, exercise your mind through Luminosity’s mind games and write thoughts and reflections in a moleskine notebook.

Photo credit

References:

• Burnout
• Wiley Article on Burnout
• Nine reasons for vacation

5 Productivity Applications That Rock:

1. MindMeister

MindMeister acts like an online whiteboard. Ever find yourself knee-deep in a project to only forget the big picture? MindMeister solves this all-too-common dilemma.

As described by Mindmeister, “MindMeister brings the concept of mind mapping to the web, using its facilities for real-time collaboration to allow truly global brainstorming sessions. Users can create, manage and share mind maps online and access them anytime, from anywhere. In brainstorming mode, fellow MindMeisters from around the world (or just in different rooms) can simultaneously work on the same mind map and see each other’s changes as they happen.”

Click here to check out MindMeister

2. GoalScape

GoalScape allows users to set goals in a way that doesn’t intimidate you. How? Through cutting edge visualizations and innovative ways to display goals, the user is less likely to feel overwhelmed, and more likely to actually crank out his or her goals. This is a wonderful supplement to the goal setting tactics that we talk about in the book.

Not only is this application useful for goal-setting, it’s useful for project management, and anything required to get things done.

According to GoalScape, “Goalscape is the revolutionary new way to set goals and motivate, prioritize and progress to achieve whatever you are passionate about. Unlike other program and project management software and task tracking tools, Goalscape is so easy and fun to use that goal setting becomes a quick everyday process and your goals themselves evolve as your personal goal setting skills improve. So you will be better organized, more focused and less stressed! And it works equally well for business and personal goal setting.”

Click here to try out GoalScape

3. Rescuetime

Rescuetime runs in the background and analyzes your browsing activity. It shows you where you’re spending time and where you’re wasting time. In essence, it rescues your time.

On average, Rescuetime recovers 3 hours and 54 minutes of time that you’d otherwise get distracted by.

In their words, RescueTime is a web-based time management and analytics tool for knowledge workers who want to be more efficient and productive. The best way to get a sense of how it works for you or your team is to sign up (for free!). You’ll be up and running in a minute or two. Not yet ready to give it a try? View one of the tour videos or scroll down for some feature screen shots.

4. Concentrate Application

With the Concentrate application, you can literally block out distractions by limiting what you can and can’t do while undertaking a specific action. For instance, if you need to write a paper, you tick it off on the Concentrate Application, and it will virtually bar you from doing anything but writing a paper.

In their words: To start, create an activity (design, study, write, etc) and choose actions (shown below) to run every time you concentrate. When ready, just click “concentrate.” All your distractions will disappear and a timer will appear to help you stay focused.

Check out Concentrate here.

5. FocusList

If you’re tired of complex to-do lists, then check out Faction3′s first productivity application, FocusList.

Faction3 represents a movement towards common sense, simplicity and effectiveness. This movement is embodied in our applications that help you get things done.

The simple to-do list application “FocusList” is a downloadable desktop to-do list that keeps you focused on important items.

You can check out FocusList by clicking here.

5 That Don’t Rock:

1. SugarCRM

SugarCRM is an open source customer relationship management tool (“CRM”). While it’s a novel idea, the features are way too robust to actually be useful. Most companies end up moving to Salesforce, or if they’re smart, they’ll move to a less feature-rich tool such as HighRise.

2. Jott

Jott is a to do list that has some cool features; specifically, text-to-speech. The only problem with that centers on the fact that getting things done does not revolve around how many features are present within one’s to do list. Jott’s competitive edge centers on text-to-speech to do items; if you actually use the service, it could be quite useful; however, most people end up distracting themselves with features instead of concerning themselves with getting things done.

3. Evernote

Evernote is an application that allows you to take pictures of objects that you wish to remember, and then search for that object later. Guess what else does this? A camera. Evernote’s greatest competitive edge is their marketing, as there’s nothing revolutionary about their product (in terms of productivity).

4. Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk is a to list on steroids. This to do list is the exact opposite of minimalism and productivity. RSS to do items, Google Maps mashup to do items, twitter to do items–you name it, they’ve got it. Good luck getting anything done.

Bottom line: If you’re into web-based to do lists, go with Google Tasks (within Gmail).

5. Twitter

Twitter and productivity do not go together.

5 That are Underrated:

1. Moleskine

We live in a digital age. One that’s concerned with how to sync to do lists across RSS, iPads, iPhones and Android Tablets. Yet, when it comes time to actually getting things done, nothing beats Moleskine’s weekly to do planner.

In their words, Moleskine is a brand that identifies a family of notebooks, diaries, and city guides: flexible and brilliantly simple tools for use both in everyday and extraordinary circumstances, ultimately becoming an integral part of one’s personality.

Moleskine was created as a brand in 1997, bringing back to life the legendary notebook used by artists and thinkers over the past two century: among them Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin. A trusted and handy travel companion, the nameless black notebook held invaluable sketches, notes, stories, and ideas that would one day become famous paintings or the pages of beloved books.

2. Google Docs

Google Docs offers users a minimalistic, web-based set of office applications (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Forms).

Many still overlook the power of collaborating with these tools–specifically Google Docs version of excel. It works great for not only calculating and organizing data, but also for project management. When managing a project, try using a Google Docs workbook with the following columns: Name, To-Do Item, Note. That’s it. You don’t have to even set a date next to each item if you hold the people that you work with accountable.

3. Tungle.Me

Tired of going back and forth between email in order to set up a call? Tungle.me solves this issue eloquently.

In their words, you can use Tungle.Me to Eliminate double-bookings, time zone mishaps and the back-and-forth of finding a time to meet. Easily schedule meetings, inside or outside your organization, and invite others to schedule with you, without having to sign up.

It even integrates with Google Calendar, Google Apps and more.

4. Calculator

So often we lose sight of what’s really important in business: money.

You can take that any way you want. Bottom line, the game of business centers on one principle: Revenue – Cost = Cash

If you’re not in business for that reason, then you’re not in business–you’re in a hobby, dream or venture-backed startup

On every device I own, I use the standard calculator. It keeps me in check and allows me to do simple math that calculates whether or not a specific opportunity is worth the time or investment. If you want to get productive, start using the calculator more.

5. Kindle

“What you will become in five years depends on the people you meet and the books you read.”

You really don’t understand how great the Kindle is until you purchase one. It’s hard to explain the value until you’ve owned one. It’s a device that, much like a book, is easy to get lost in. The value of reading seems to be underrated. You can check out the Kindle here.

I often receive emails from my readers that acknowledge that the lessons outlined in the book were profoundly helpful; yet, when it comes time to putting the the concepts into action, old habits and attitudes arise that prevent them from moving forth. We’re all guilty of this–including myself. We read a specific passage or lesson, yet when it comes time to putting concepts into action, we struggle with reality–the reality that life is busy, and filled with a seemingly endless number of tasks.

For instance, one of my readers exclaimed that my article on the to do list strategies from a zen master was excellent; however when he went to put the concepts into practice, he was quickly overwhelmed. His to do list was, as he put it, “massive.” His to do list was so long that it quickly became too intimidating to even start getting things done.

What you will learn from this article

The purpose of this article is to address the challenge of applying simple principles to once complex problems. After reading this piece you will be able to not only manage your to do list better, you’ll be able to get more important items done. This will stem from understanding the nature of reactive tasks and proactive tasks, as well as understanding the “secret” of getting things done.

How Being Small-Minded Can Kill Your Productivity

If you feel like you have too much on your plate, it’s because you have too little important items on your plate. The feeling of being overwhelmed by your to do list sends a signal that you do not have any important goals. You don’t have a clear purpose. This clear purpose stems from setting focused goals, a concept which is further covered in the book.

If your to do list is filled, it’s because you want to fill it. You see, the human mind likes to fill space. If you have a to do list with a lot of inventory (space), you’re more likely to fill it up just for the sake of filling it up. Restraining this urge is very difficult. For instance, check out Yahoo’s search engine, and then switch to Google. You’ll notice that Google’s search page is minimalistic–it’s empty; however, it’s extremely functional. It accomplishes its one through goal: to allow the user to search; whereas, Yahoo mixes in News, Politics, Ads, Sports, etc.

People value not only simplicity, they value purpose. Fill your to do list not with noise, but with a small number of important items.

For this reason, I recommend checking out the best to do list built by Faction3 (it’s the best because it’s founded on my book’s philosophy lol). This to do list was built specifically for the philosophy outlined in this book. You can check it out here, and learn about its background and philosophy here: Zen Master to Do List.

How to Stop Plugging Holes and Start Solving Problems

The second reason you feel overwhelmed centers around the fact that you’re plugging holes in life–you’re not solving true problems. I’m guilty of this just as much as everyone else. If you step back and think hard about what you truly accomplish during the day, you’ll often find that your day is filled with reaction-based tasks.

People carry out two types of tasks:

I. Reactive tasks:

Reactive tasks are those that are driven by others.

Obviously, not all reactive tasks are bad–we all must carry out reactive tasks at least at some point in our life; however, the degree to which you carry out reactive tasks determines not only how overwhelmed you feel–it determines how purposeful you feel. As we learn in the book, purpose drives long-term focus. If your purpose is simply defined as, “carrying out the tasks that others give me,” you’ll lose focus easily and will end up burning out.

II. Proactive tasks:

Proactive tasks are those that are driven by your goals Focused Goals.

If you feel overwhelmed, ask yourself through what channels are these to do items coming from? If you have too many that are coming from the Re-active channels, do the following with the task: delete, delegate, do or delay (add to your calendar). You can learn more about this principle in the chapter on productive email use.

Here’s The Secret

Biggest build up ever, right? So what’s the secret?

Here it is:

Your goal should be to balance out your tasks so that 20% are spent on reactive tasks, and 80% are spent on proactive tasks.

Reactive tasks will make you a living, proactive tasks will make you successful.

What Research Reveals About You and To Do Lists

This “secret” wasn’t concocted by myself. I didn’t merely sit around and think of a secret one day. In fact, it’s not a secret. It’s just a fact that is buried within pedantic, academic research archives. Unless you live in the library, or are insanely curious like me, you’ve likely never heard of the secret. You see, an academic study was conducted in 2004 by six researchers from UC Berkely and Cornell. The study centered on measuring to do lists, task management and how people get things done. They analyzed how tasks were completed over time by a specific medium (to do list software, planners, time management software, task software, daily planner, day planner, organizers planners, etc.)

What they found is that, contrary to popular belief, people are not poor at prioritizing. Figuring out which to do items are more important than others is not the challenge; rather, the problem is that these unimportant tasks crowd out the important tasks. Furthermore, an abundance of channels in which people receive tasks (i.e. email, twitter, phone, text messages and receiving tasks in person from people), end up being too much for people to manage. And thus, your proactive, goal-driven tasks fall off the map.

Action Steps to Carrying Out The Secret

The secret centers on the fact that we spend too much time in carrying out reactive tasks. Additionally, we receive these tasks via too many channels.

In order to gravitate towards an effective to do list strategy, you’ll need to carry out the following steps:

Step 1: Set a Focused Goal: As we learned in the proactive task management diagram above, it all starts with setting a focused goal. You can learn more about setting a Focused Goal in the book. After you’ve set a focused goal, implement it into your to do list. When you first begin, it will be nearly impossible to dedicate 80% of your time to this goal; however, over a period of three weeks, slowly make it more of a priority and dedicate a higher percentage of your tasks to carrying out proactive tasks.

Step 2: Cut off Channels: The second way to carry out a more effective to do list is to cut off the number of channels to which you receive tasks. With channels, try to cut it to less than three channels.

For instance, implement services that forwards all of your messages to one channel.

Here are two services that are helpful for cutting off channels:

• Google Voice: Get calls, messages and text messages forwarded to email. After which, you can call your contacts back. Google Voice
• NutshellMail: Get your tweets, Facebook messages and Linkedin notifications forwarded to your email. You can have it send you a daily digest everyday. Nutshell Mail

In addition to these services, listed below are specific tools that will help you get things done more effectively:

1. Calendar Organizers: Google Calendar and 30 Boxes
2. Daily Planners (or Day Planners): Moleskine Daily Planner
   
3. Organizer Planners (or Organization Planners): Organizer Planner
   
4. Planner Software: MindMeister
   
5. Goal Planner Software: Goalscape
   
6. To Do List: To Do List FocusList
   

Conclusion:

In this article, we covered the following items:

• How Being Small-Minded Can Kill Your Productivity
• Reactive Tasks
• Proactive Tasks
• The Secret: Your goal should be to balance out your tasks so that 20% are spent on reactive tasks, and 80% are spent on proactive tasks.
• Research on to do lists
• The Two Steps for Carrying This Out
• To Do List Apps and Planner Software

What I want you to do next:

If you enjoyed the material in this article, I do not want you to miss out. I’m not going to be shy about it or try to sell you. Simply put, I would like for you to buy How to Get Focused. You can learn more about the book by clicking here.

Photo Credit: The Real Estreya
Under Creative Commons License

What I’ve been up to lately

Stephen King cranks out more smash-hit books than one could even think possible. During the process of writing this book, I read Stephen’s pseudo-memoir, “On Writing.” In his work, Stephen outlines his formula for writing meaningful, purposeful books. He suggests that one should make it a goal to finish the first draft within three months; and then let the book sit for about six weeks. That way, when the author picks up the book, it feels fresh and new. This allows the author to read their book without sentences and noise still echoing in their minds.

Right now, I’m in the midst of my six week rest period. In a couple weeks, I’ll be reading my book in its entirety, revising pieces, re-organizing passages and adding more stories to provide a powerful reading experience.

Should I go through a traditional publisher, or self-publish?

I’ll also be working on the design of the book, and whether or not to seek out a publisher, or try to publish the book by myself through Lulu. If you have any suggestions, insights or ideas, feel free to let me know your thoughts.

Moving forward

Thank you very much for your participation thus far in this project, and in the meantime, please feel free to head over to the table of contents and see what I’ve finished thus far. Please feel free to suggest any chapters, points or ideas that you think should be included in the book.

You can read the Table of Contents right now by clicking here.

Picture by: Stuck in Customs via Flickr

Your Focus

It’s 3pm in the afternoon. Your co-worker barges in for the zillionth time while your phone incessantly rings. You being the ordinary, upstanding citizen are now beginning to harbor unsavory thoughts towards humanity. Or if you’re the typical college student, imagine it’s 3am in the morning. You’ve got one night to bang out that paper assigned only mere months ago. Alas, you’re beset by serious munchies and urges to check your brother’s girlfriend’s neighbor’s Farmville updates on Facebook.

Do you reach for a Snickers? Coffee? Red Bull? Maybe something natural and healthy, like a banana? Dial for a pizza?

No matter what the old GRE Verbal section may have me believe, my best analogy for food is likening it to fuel for car engines. Our motor shuts down when we run on empty. Regarding gingko biloba and other herbal supplements, there really are no miracle concentration cures. Anyone who says so will also probably sell you natural hair solutions from Donald Trump and other sorts of oil from slithery, coldblooded creatures. Yet some food combinations are indeed better than others when it comes to fighting slumps. Nothing, however, will rescue you from the food coma that results from overeating any combination of food, healthy or not. How does this all work? Why does such a fine line exist between not enough food and the all-you-can-eat buffet that disturbs our focus? And how does this knowledge help you make better food choices for optimal concentration?

Crash course through basics of metabolism and your brain function

Remember the kid from Jerry Maguire who says, “Did ya know the human heads weighs 8 pounds?” It actually comprises 2-3% of an adult’s body mass. Thus for the average person of 150 lbs, the brain would indeed weigh about 8 lbs. Despite its relatively small percentage of mass, it consumes about 10% of the body’s entire metabolic energy due to the constant firing of the neurons. The primary fuel to run the brain is glucose, which the neurons cannot store.

When you eat, your pancreas releases the hormone insulin into the blood stream. The insulin scoops up excess glucose and starts a chain reaction where the glucose is added to glycogen molecules for storage in the liver. At the lowest point, i.e. your fasting blood glucose level, you have about the equivalent of one teaspoon of sugar floating in your blood. Simple carbohydrates easily enter the blood stream via the stomach, which is why you feel the surge from simple sugars so quickly. Another hormone from the pancreas called glucagon breaks down the glycogen back to glucose when your body needs to increase the blood sugar level.

While used in by most cells, glucose has been observed to increase activity in certain hippocampus cells of rats, as well as inc. The hippocampus is one of the major areas of the brain associated with short-term memory and learning. Previously, it had been believed that the brain was able to maintain stable glucose levels. In the early 2000′s, Ewan McNay of Yale School of Medicine observed that for rats learning new mazes, their glucose levels were depleted in the hippocampus, and the older rats faced a faster rate of depletion. Other studies have examined the effects of glucose on acetylcholine formation, a key neurotransmitter involved in sustaining attention and in controlling the motor movements of muscles.

So more is better, when it comes to glucose? Depends. Marathon runners can get away with pasta and other simple carb loading for speedy pick-me-ups. But unless you swing a night job as a lab rat hooked to a wheel or as a professional marathon runner, that amount of carbs will usually lead to nothing more than a crash later. Too many carbohydrates can trigger insulin overload, thereby pulling too much glucose from the blood stream.

If your brain can only remember one thing at the moment…

So the golden rule of food for focus is to keep your blood sugar stabilized. Stay hydrated, get caffeine in moderation, and eat small meals combining complex carbohydrates, lean protein, and a little fat at regular intervals throughout the day. Eating every 3-5 hours should be sufficient, if the meals are small enough.

Be reasonable, though. If you cannot bring yourself to drink 8-10 cups of water a day, drink seltzer mixed with a little juice and bask in your European chic with their standard way of drinking juice. Or if you do reach for a candy bar, find one that has nuts and/or dark chocolate. Digestion rates can be slowed in the presence of protein and small amounts of fat. Dark chocolate merely has less fat than milk chocolate. If your sweet tooth can be appeased with nonrefined sugars, try a a bit of honey mixed with cinnamon and peanut butter on a rice cake. Tasty and rice cake might not be words normally uttered in the same sentence, but the honey, cinnamon, and peanut butter just nails that perfect salty-sweet combo.

If coffee is your fix, try smaller cups or alternative caffeine sources like teas and chocolate. All contain some level of caffeine, although the levels of metabolized caffeine derivatives like theobromine also may influence how an individual reacts to the caffeine. White, green, and black teas come from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. They differ by the length and process of fermentation. Yerba maté is another type of leaf that is brewed and purportedly has a gentler post-caffeine crash than coffee. If you’re really in a focus jam, maybe then an energy drink. Remember moderation, despite what the scantily clad energy drink salesmodels may say.

Try not to eat or drink while you’re working. Take an actual break. Get up, walk, stretch, breathe, and use that 5-10 minutes to enjoy your food or drink. Whether one can truly multitask is under scrutiny; mindless eating, even of focus-friendly foods, can be counterproductive to focus. The world will not end if you take 5 minutes to eat. The world might end momentarily, or at least a small island economy might sink, if you do put a “b” instead of “m” in front of “illion” due to fuzzy thinking from dehydration or while juggling a sandwich and your keyboard. While I exaggerate here, at the University of Geneva Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, the 10-minute water break for every class that met for more than an hour is no laughing matter. Students in my econometrics class practically threatened mutiny when a professor once asked if the water break could be skipped, and a “compromise” was reached that the class would end 10 minutes earlier.

How to Turbocharge Your Focus for The Long Haul

Perhaps you’re still thinking about all the good stuff you’ve read about gingko biloba for memory. That indicates to my highly unprofessional opinion that you might have a better functioning cognitive state than that of the target population who actually demonstrated measurable benefits from gingko biloba. Of gingko’s mixed reviews, the studies who find slightly positive results often are examining laboratory animals under large doses or persons suffering from cognitive decline due to factors like age-related dementia. Gotu kola is another East Asian leaf occasionally declared a new remedy. Peppermint has also been touted as a aid to wake up the senses, and a recent study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found positive memory effects of blueberry juice on elderly subjects at risk of dementia versus the control group. Blueberries, pomegranates, and green tea already have enjoy reputations as superfoods due to their antioxidant concentrations; B vitamins from sources such as whole wheat, vitamin E in sources like avocados or olive oil, and Omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon and other cold-water fatty fish also may prevent cognitive decline.

The media tends to report on one “breakthrough” study that finds x-y-z result, but often it is better to look at meta-studies which review a large portion of studies to see overall trends in findings. Individual studies may achieve results that are very specific to a population under study or certain laboratory control settings. Researchers also may report positive correlations but fail to adequately measure size of effect or control for variables that are inherently linked to the supplement under study. Or the study might have been “published”, but in the world of academia there exists a hierarchy and broad range of certain journals that are more selective in the quality of the studies published.

These supplements probably will not hurt in moderation under careful supervision, but they’re a bit like fancy shoes and performance gear for runners. They are not going to help the person who has not been consistently training their bodies. Generally, the best way to get your vitamins and nutrients is through whole foods. Taking some supplements, like fish oil or vitamin D, might be worthwhile though. Talk to your physician so he or she can monitor possible signs of drug interactions with your current prescriptions. And caveat emptor: be aware of the source. The quality of herbal supplements are not regulated by the Federal Drug Administration in the United States, so look for the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) stamp for some measure of assurance. If you are reaching for the energy drinks for an extended period of time because you are really unable to focus at certain parts of the day, go see a medical professional. All sorts of health issues, often arising from unbalanced diets and sleep affected by said diets, can express symptoms of fatigue or inability to focus.

Conclusion

The advice in this article may seem like common sense and obvious: stabilizing blood sugar levels through moderation, drinking water, and eating balanced, small meals. Eating foods for focus might be hard if no particular list of foods was actually mentioned.

Sharpening focus is a process in which one pares away the nonessential, and let this rule extend even to your eating habits.

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On March 3, 1993, Jimmy Valvano, a well-respected basketball coach, gave a moving speech shortly before losing his life to cancer. His speech didn’t center around winning basketball games, championships or money. He outlined three things, which he believed defines a full day: laughter, being moved to tears, and thought.

This chapter will revolve around Jimmy’s third element: thought. We’ll cover different types of thought (meditation, contemplation or simply quieting your environment to think). By practicing Focused Thought and contemplation everyday, one can improve their concentration, productivity and happiness. We’ll explore how.

The Concept of Focused Thought

Focused Thought isn’t new. You’ve heard principles of focused thought emanate from the concept of meditation. Yet, when you think of meditation, an image may arise in your mind of some eccentric relative that’s constantly preaching about seeking enlightenment through meditation. Carry Barbor writes, “The romantic notion of quitting everything and joining Tibetan monks on a mountaintop is not the only way to meditate. You don’t need to quit your job, give up your possessions and spend 30 years chanting.” In this sense, you’re confusing meditation with one branch of meditation: Eastern Meditation, which is a more mystical and religious-based branch of meditation. Albeit, it’s a big branch.

Eastern Meditation vs. Western Meditation

In brief, Eastern Meditation revolves around focusing on nothing. Whereas, Western Meditation concerns itself with focusing on something.

Eastern Meditation centers around eloquently moving thoughts out of your mind and only concentrating on a small act (like breathing). Whereas Western Meditation revolves around contemplation, and getting lost in thinking about something.

The branch of meditation that likens itself most to Focused Thought is Western Meditation.

The Roots of Focused Thought

Defined, Focused Thought is the act of contemplating a specific problem, and in turn, falling into a state of flow. Time slows as you contemplate a specific problem.

The roots of Focused Thought arose from a group of hermits in the Egyptian desert around 400 AD. These hermits were actually Christian monks who practiced repetitive and focused contemplation of the scriptures. Their practices centered around contemplating verses, ideas, phrases and prayer on a daily basis. It is suspected that these methods were influenced by the East. [1]

By engaging in the habitual act of contemplating ideas, they exercised their minds–specifically their prefrontal cortex.

Researches have found that such acts increase activity in the left prefrontal cortex–the part of your brain that drives concentration, meta-cognition and decision-making. Essentially, these desert monks were increasing their brain-power every single day through Focused Thought. The same researchers found that such acts may even decrease anxiety and depression. The simple act of focused thought not only increases the mind’s ability to concentrate, it reduces the likelihood of depression. Focused Thought enhances attention-span and makes the mind more flexible. This increases awareness of your environment, as well as the ability to be objective in emotionally-charged situations. This sense of awareness doesn’t just apply to your environment. It also applies to the creative component within your mind. Essentially, you’ll find it easier to fall into the state of flow when you practice Focused Thought on a habitual basis. [2]

In summary, the concept of focused thought isn’t a qualitative act (i.e. practiced in order to seek spiritual enlightenment). Focused Thought is a quantitative, and calculated way to exercise your prefrtontal cortex; thus, improving your creativity, decision-making and general sense of happiness.

So now the question is, “How do I get started and practice focused thought?” We’ll now cover three ways that will help you practice focused thought:

3 Ways to Practice Focused Thought

Practicing Focused Thought isn’t complex. It doesn’t warrant books, lessons or drawn-out instruction. Focused Thought is merely setting a specific time to think. Though there’s limitless ways you can practice Focused Thought, here are three styles that have worked best for me:

1) Get Lost Before Work

I find that it’s best to practice Focused Thought before starting the day. Some practice Focused Thought while exercising; others find themselves in Focused Thought while praying or reading. Right now, my favorite way to practice Focused Thought is through writing before I start the day. As Jimmy Valvano outlined above, thought is a critical component of a full day. Because our world is filled with so much noise, movement and distraction, I find that it’s best to practice Focused Thought when there’s no noise, movement or distraction.

By practicing focused thought before starting the day, you will feel less rushed, less stressed and less anxious. You know that  daily thought where a voice tells you, “I need to do something important. I need to prove my worth or others are going to wonder if I’m really good at what I do.” That feeling is mitigated or even extinguished when you’ve practiced Focused Thought. For some reason, you feel confidant in yourself and your abilities throughout the day after practicing Focused Thought. You feel a greater sense of awareness of who you are and what you stand for. And this sense of awareness results in more confidence when stress, noise and distraction attack your mind throughout the day.

Bottom line: Get lost in Focused Thought before work.

2) Dead Silent Car

I drive an hour to work and an hour home every single day. Yes, it’s quite a commute. When I first began this commute, I listened to a mix of music and sports-talk radio. This lasted for about three months until I grew tired of music and annoyed with the radio. I then shifted to some books on tape and marketing lessons. This again lasted around three months. I grew tired of listening to people. I’d listen to people on the car-ride (through books on tape), I’d listen to people at work and then I’d come home and listen to my wife (though, my wife would argue that point). For this reason, I stopped listening to books on-tape. I was sick of listening. Instead, I did one simple thing–and this method has stuck ever since–I turned off the noise. My car-ride is dead silent. For two hours every single day, I surround myself in complete silence. I find this gives me an opportunity to quiet my mind and practice Focused Thought.

I typically start the trip by contemplating a problem that I’m trying to solve. My method is usually very similar, and can be broken into five steps:

1. I define my goal.
2. I ask myself how others have achieved that goal (or a similar goal)
3. I contemplate specific methods that could solve the problem
4. I list out the pro’s and con’s of each specific method
5. I select the best method to solve that problem

When I say “problem,” I don’t actually mean a problem in the sense of conflict. I’m referring to a problem that likens itself to a typical math problem. For instance, “Our goal is to create a product that allows people to learn and have fun. How can we create a product that is fun, educational and results in profit?”

3) Clear Away Distractions

The final practical way to practice Focused Thought is to create an environment that enables one to think clearly. We cover the concept of clearing distractions over and over again in this book, but it’s necessary and critical to both becoming a focused person and practicing Focused Thought.

You can’t practice Focused Thought if you can’t think. And one usually can’t think when there’s email notifications popping up while getting text-messages from friends. I’ve heard people say that music helps them focus, but I’ve never heard anyone say email notifications helps them focus. In brief, create an environment that is minimal and distraction free. If you’re unable to do this where you live, search out a local library–you’ll be shocked by how much your environment drives your ability to concentrate. In college, I never studied once in my room. I only did work at the library. This environment allowed me to practice focused thought batched into a two-hour period, which could have easily been stretched into 8 hours if I worked at home.

Bottom line: Clear your working environment of any distractions that may arise.

Summary

• Eastern Meditation revolves around focusing on nothing; whereas Western Meditation centers on focusing on something.
• Focused Thought likens itself to the Western Meditation practice of contemplating something.
• Focused thought is the act of focusing or contemplating something to the point in which you get lost–i.e. you fall into a state of flow.

There are three practical ways to practice focused thought:

1. Get lost before work: Fall into the state of flow first thing in the morning through, reading, exercising, writing or some other exercise.
2. Seek silence in your car ride: Turn off the radio and music and contemplate a problem
3. Remove distractions from your environment

Sources:

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The dot-com bubble and burst taught us a lot about what one should look for in successful companies. Ever since the burst, two trends have arisen when venture capitalists and entrepreneurs speak about their success.

1) People

The first trend revolves around people.

Silicon Valley is known as the hotbed for entrepreneurship and innovation. At the center of this ecosystem sits Ron Conway. Conway has been referred to as “the most important man” in the silicon valley by more than just a handful of entrepreneurs and celebrities. He invests in a variety of startups, many of which end up changing the technology space forever. His investments include: Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal and Brightmail. Ron has spent time advising the following companies: Twitter, Digg, Bright Mail, Ask Jeeves, Facebook, RockYou, Zappos, Trulia, StumbleUpon, Plaxo (acquired by Comcast), Photobucket (acquired by Fox), and many more.

When asked by the LA Times what he looks for in a startup, Conway responded, “We invest in people. We don’t invest in ideas. Ideas can morph. But great people end up building great companies.”

2) Focus

Investors and venture capitalists tout that people are the most critical component to startup success; yet, when you talk to the actual people that were successful in the space, they claim that “Focus” was their key to success.

In a series of interviews about success and failures, the following entrepreneurs discussed what went wrong.

We focused too much on specific skills, and too little on fundamental abilities, raw talent, and passion for our business. A couple of years thereafter, we went thru some gut-wrenching people changes as a result of that. In retrospect, hiring rapidly was too easy and it should have been a giant red flag to me. I’ve learned that in good or bad times, hiring should always be difficult. – Alex Algard, successful entrepreneur and founder of whitepages.com

The lesson I learned was to keep laser focused on your core service until your core service does not provide for enough growth. If your core service is still growing at a good pace, keep focused on it. All the other partnerships, new verticals, new products, etc are meaningless if you don’t build a very solid foundation of your core first. – Brian Lee; Founder of Legalzoom

To summarize, their focus was off.

Critical Characteristics

To summarize, if you ask venture capitalists what they look for in successful startups, they say, “great people.” If you ask the great people within successful startups what their key for success is, they say, “focus.”

The right people, combined with focus, determines the success of an organization. In this chapter we’re going to concentrate on the specifics ingrained within the concept of focus and the workplace. We’ll outline how you can get more productive at work, get more done, and in turn, work less.

The lessons that I outline in this chapter will gear itself towards startups and entrepreneurial organizations. I’m not going to pretend that all of these lessons will translate smoothly into any organization. You can only do so much in an environment that frowns upon innovation, and smiles upon process. Becoming an intrapreneur (an entrepreneur within a large corporate or government organization) will only take you so far. Yet I am absolutely convinced that at least one of these ideas can be applied to your organization no matter what the environment is like.

7 Characteristics of a Productive Work Environment:

Below, we’ll cover seven characteristics of focused companies. We’ll identify how to adopt focused principles within your organization. Implementing these principles will allow you to get more done in less time; thus, allowing you to work less.

1. Whiteboards

Successful project management systems revolve around people, not Gantt charts. I’ve tried almost every project management system, customer relationship management system and planning system. Even the ones that claim to be unique have failed when put to the test of actual use. Most of them touted features as their competitive edge. You’ll see a long chart with check-boxes next to features like RSS Feeds, iPhone Synching and dashboards. Every organization I’ve been a part of progresses through the same stage. We try a new, “innovative” project management tool (usually one that I find and get all excited about), we try it out for three months, and then ditch it for the old, reliable white-board. I’m a fan of whiteboards because they’re open, free and are usually used with a group. It’s the ultimate collaborative tool. It’s a tool that relies on people, not of features. For one to create a focused work environment, you must adopt tools that are simple, people-centered and invite collaboration. In my experience, nothing beats the whiteboard.

Yet, there’s a sad occurrence that takes place in many organizations. After a certain period, sophisticated project management tools replace whiteboards. “Whiteboards don’t scale,” someone will say. It is within these transitions that the focus of your organization may deteriorate. Yet, after a certain period of testing out the latest, greatest feature-rich project software, they’ll likely go back to the old reliable whiteboard.

The whiteboard drives focus and collaboration due to three primary characteristics:

1. Face-to-face: When you’re setting tasks and to-do items on a whiteboard, you’re in the presence of people. Getting an item assigned to you while talking about items on a whiteboard is much better than opening up your email and seeing that you’ve been assigned an item.
2. Natural: The whiteboard conforms to the person; the person doesn’t conform to the whiteboard. There’s no learning curve. The whiteboard is a natural project management tool.
3. Batching: Depending on the whiteboard you use, there will be limited space. This is a good thing. The whiteboard has limits, meaning you can’t write down 100 items that need to be done and then forecast them. When you see a sheet that has 100 to-do items on it, it’s both overwhelming and daunting. This usually results in nothing getting done, or half-assed work getting done. You forget that there’s a starting point. The whiteboard allows you to batch your projects into chunks. I highly recommend pruning your projects so that there’s only 10-15 items total (for a group of up to 5 people). This encourages small victories, not a long, drawn out war. That not only gets old, it becomes tiresome for your team.

In brief, I highly suggest using a whiteboard for your team. It encourages focus, collaboration and effectiveness due to the constraints it presents (limited space).

2. Open Space Is Overrated

Openness is overrated. I know what you’re thinking. “You just preached openness in the section above on whiteboards, now you’re saying it’s overrated?” Yes. Well, sort of. Open office environments are overrated (i.e. those environments where everyone’s sitting next to one another and there’s no personal offices). In our era of open-source technology and transparency, startups have shifted towards office spaces that espouse openness. You’ll find desks stacked immediately next to one another, and a proud CEO will proclaim that this drives collaboration and innovation. However if you look closer, or if you’ve worked in such an environment, you know what this really engenders: distraction.

I’m not a proponent of work environments where people work immediately next to one another in a cramped space. I believe that you should plan with people, and execute without them. A focused environment provides each employee with their own desk and own personal space. In the middle of your entire office floor, it’s excellent to have open space and places for people to collaborate on white-boards, pool tables or whatever. But it’s critical to have at least some space that allows you to shut the door and get work done in an environment that rids itself of noise, distraction and people. My belief in private, distraction-free workspace is not just driven by personal experience. In Scott Belsky’s book on productivity, “Making Ideas Happen,” he outlines the findings of a study by Joan Meyers-Levy, a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota.[1] She discovered that the nature of your workspace has a direct effect on the end result of your work-product. Working in small-ceiling, confined spaces allows you to focus more on critical details; whereas working in open, high-ceiling spaces fosters a big-picture, collaborative style of thinking.

Bottom line: collaborate with people, work without people.

3. Shake-up Your Workspace

The section on focused goals revolves around setting one three-word goal and carrying it out within three months. In order to avoid a slump, I’ve found it helpful to rearrange your workspace every three months, as well. Likely, it’s been a while since you’ve carried out some office-space spring cleaning. One day, on a late Friday afternoon or whenever there’s down-time, stop everything, shut your door, and rearrange your workspace. If you have an insanely-heavy desk, just rearrange easy-to move items like your monitor or some other easy-to-arrange objects. I’ve found that this simple act re-energizes me. It acts almost like a reset button in how you work. I’ll cover what types of personal work-environments you should strive for next.

4. Seek Rags, Not Riches

The success stories we see on Oprah have a very similar storyline. A person is poor, starting from nothing, then hits it big, and becomes rich. The world loves rags to riches stories. It feels right, it feels natural and it feels fair. We’re so accustomed to seeing riches emanate from rags that it’s actually beneficial to put yourself in rags to reach success. What I mean is that you should strive for constraints in your work environment. You must put yourself in a position of hunger. If you’re a startup, this means being lean, and not fat with venture capital. If you’re a government organization, it means doing something incredible with a small budget.

The projects that always fail are those with an endless budget and an undefined date. The successful undertakings, the ones that hit it out of the park, are those that have constraints. For instance, “We need to reach 40,000 people on a $10,000 budget within three weeks.” Those projects tend to do better than, “Let’s reach as many people as possible, in however long it takes us, on an endless budget.”

Within your personal workspace, seeking constraints means creating a simple, minimalistic environment to get work done. So often I see pictures of work-spaces that have plants, bonsai trees, comfy chairs, food, snacks, couches and televisions. What they’ve done is transformed workspace into a bedroom. This is dangerous and hurts one’s ability to focus. Instead, put yourself in an uncomfortable, small, windowless environment. Knock out your work in a couple hours, and then get out and collaborate!

Bottom line: Seek constraints. Seek rags, not riches. This philosophy will lead you to riches.

5. Ditch Robert’s Rules

Meetings can be cancerous to your organization. Not only that, they can kill morale. Yet even those that proclaim that they hate meetings, too, end up holding them. Why? There are a number of reasons: insecurity (is everything OK, let’s hold a meeting to find out), boredom (what else am I going to do with my time?) or simply because they think they should hold meetings because other companies do. If you’re heading to a meeting without a clear agenda, and a clear goal, boycott the meeting or bring a book–because nothing important will get done.

In order to maintain focus and effectiveness, always set an agenda and a time limit if you’re holding a meeting. Do this by meeting thirty minutes before you have a phone call. Give yourself a reason to keep things swift, quick and action-oriented. Additionally, keep the meeting small (3 people or less), and have only one problem to solve. I’ve also found it helpful to not hold any regular meetings. Make meetings impromptu. Meet because something needs to get done, not for the sake of meeting.

Robert’s Rules is a book that tells you how you should meet. This is fine, and actually effective for government-run organizations. But if you’re trying to implement it within a startup, or innovative environment, you’ve just let out a toxic bomb. Put the fire out immediately and throw Robert’s Rules out the window. Don’t talk about “Old business forever.” Don’t assign a Corresponding Secretary to take notes about the meeting. Nobody reads them anyways. Decide on something that needs to be solved. Bring your planner, and write down the next action of how to solve it.

Adopting flexible, action-oriented meeting principles will allow your organization to not get distracted and maintain focus on its main goal. Speaking of which, we’ll cover organizational goals next.

6. Building an Organization Built on Meaning

The worst thing you can do to your startup, team or organization is be secretive. Obviously, there’s details that not everyone should know. However, if you’ve got people at the top making plans, and having others carry out those plans without understanding why they’re carrying out their daily activities, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. And more, you’re killing your organization’s culture.

Focus-driven organizations are those that are working towards something. They’re organizations that have a clear-cut goal that is not only communicated, the goal is understood. Just as you should set focused goals for yourself personally to carry out in three months, so too should your company.

Set one company-wide goal every three months and communicate it with your employees. Make sure everyone understands exactly why they’re working towards this goal. This is critical, as understanding why you’re working towards something translates to meaning, which converts to purpose (and, of course, focus). If someone interviews your company’s CEO and an employee in a separate room, their answers should be completely the same. If asked the question, “What’s your purpose, what’s your plan and what are you guys working towards?” Their answers should literally mirror one another. If you’ve got a mission statement, and nobody can recall or recite it, ditch it. Replace it by setting a focused goal every quarter, and communicating the meaning behind the goal to each employee. This simple practice will lead to a focused organization. And according to successful startups, focusing on the right things is critical to success.

7. Don’t Get Fat at Work

The last element that you should consider when at work is not to get fat. In brief, don’t eat a massive lunch. When I say, ‘seek rags, not riches,’ I mean it. You’ll find that there’s two types of organizations: fat ones, and lean ones. You can tell which one is which by their cafeteria (if they even have one).

I know of two organizations that exemplify fat vs. lean quite clearly.  One organization has raised millions in venture capital and they have lunch catered to their offices everyday. These aren’t just lunches. These are Thanksgiving dinner-style lunches. At 2pm, it’s game-over. Everyone’s in a food coma. They hit that point where no more work gets done.

The other office has a personal cook that arrives everyday and cooks them lean, light, healthy lunches.

After 365 days of this, which work environment do you think gets more done? Which one do you think is more productive?

Bottom line: Don’t get fat at work.

Conclusion

In conclusion, venture capitalists look for great people. Great people create an environment that is filled with focus.

Creating a focused environment can be embodied within six characteristics and practices:

1. Implementing natural, people-centered tools (whiteboard)
2. Creating a focused work environment (one that prevents distraction)
3. Shaking-up your workspace every three months
4. Seeking rags, not riches (constraints)
5. Holding focused meetings (brief and to the point)
6. Setting focused goals (make sure everyone at your organization understands the why behind their actions)
7. Don’t eat a lot at work

Please tweet this, share it with your friends and feel free to add any more practical productivity tips!

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My journey with outsourcing began in college.

I wish I could say that I accomplished something. I wish I could say that my decision to outsource made me money, or even just saved me time. Yet, I can’t. I did everything wrong.

I saved up $800 for outsourcing tasks (which was also my net worth at the time). I decided to “invest” this into my first business. Six weeks later, I had nothing. Actually, I take that back. I did have something. I now possessed irrelevant and error-ridden work product from the people I outsourced to (Irrelevant research reports, spreadsheets, and a half-done website). And it was my fault.

Looking back, I really didn’t have the right reasons to outsource in the first place. What started it all was listening to a friend brag that he was outsourcing everything. He said he was building a business and didn’t have to do anything. This sounded neat, I thought. But what pushed me over the edge was hearing the media talk about outsourcing. Thomas Friedman in “The World is Flat,” wrote about how miraculous outsourcing is, and how the world is changing forever. The message from him gave me the sense that if I didn’t outsource, I’ll miss the boat. So with my brain’s FMO decision making process (“Fear of Missing Out”), I decided to jump into the outsourcing game head-first.

When I was outsourcing my tasks, I walked around campus arrogantly. I felt innovative. I felt cutting-edge. I remember listening to my professors lecture on some theoretical concept, and then getting distracted by an IM on my phone from a worker in India. I bragged to family and friends that I was working smart, not hard. I told others around family gatherings that academia was out of touch with reality. “I’m listening to pedantic professors with an army of workers in India building my business.” But the bragging would be cut short by the reality that I was failing to outsource effectively.

In those days, I outsourced tasks like, “Determine the market size of Israel-based startups by writing a 30-page paper supporting your findings.” You see, my first business idea was strategy consulting. This was genius because I had absolutely zero business experience (sarcasm). I reasoned that because I had put hundreds of hours into studying strategic models and theoretical business concepts, I could create my own business that taught this to others. Turns out, business school is different from the real-world. It took me about six months of denial, and living paycheck-to-paycheck before it set in that I wasn’t creating much value. Actually, this really set in when I discovered that my younger sister, who was working at Golden Spoon, was pulling in more cash than me. That was a hilariously painful reality.

There’s two lessons in the story above: First, fail fast and move on. Second, don’t outsource for the sake of outsourcing. We’ll concentrate on number two: how to outsource effectively.

Why Outsourcing is Important

The thesis of this book doesn’t center around getting organized and concentrating better. It doesn’t even concentrate on getting things done. It centers on getting the right things done. It revolves around integrating a specific set of habits and actions that allow you to focus on important items in life, and outsource, delegate and not get distracted by the rest.

If you want to become a more focused person, the answer doesn’t arrive through doing uninteresting tasks in a half-assed manner. It centers on defining what you’re good at, what your purpose is, and carrying that out in the most effective way feasible. For all the other items that arise in life, you must find a way to rid yourself of them through outsourcing them, or getting them done through others that are passionate or proficient at carrying out the task.

In this chapter we’ll first explore when it’s appropriate to outsource (so that you’re not outsourcing for the sake of outsourcing like I did above), and then I’ll take you through a series of steps and practices that helped me outsource effectively.

When should you outsource?

The first step in outsourcing effectively concerns itself with the question of, “Should you even outsource this?” This is the most important step, and the most critical piece when beginning the journey of outsourcing. It doesn’t matter how well you define and communicate the task. If you’re outsourcing something that really isn’t that important, you’re wasting your time.

For this reason, I created the diagram above, which should help you decide when, where and with whom you should outsource your tasks. And yes, I outsourced this:

Special thank to Nicolas Franz and Italo Oliveira (rock stars) for getting this done.

In the end, if you decide to outsource, you’re left with three options of where to outsource your tasks:

1. Outsourcing to a rock star: I feel that this is the best-case scenario, because you know what you want and that you can rely on this person.
2. Outsourcing globally: Outsourcing globally is a good option if you know exactly what you want, and how a person should likely carry it out. Outsourcing globally enables the scenario where you’re sleeping and work is getting done. And that’s a really good feeling.
3. Outsourcing locally: If you’re a beginner, or you’re fairly new to outsourcing, I suggest using Craigslist for one reason: If you can’t really explain what you want, or how you want it carried out, you can meet for a cup of coffee face-to-face and iron out your confusion.

Before beginning the journey of outsourcing, make sure you review the diagram above. Otherwise you could be wasting time in the steps below.

Share this with your friends via email, Twitter, Facebook, or whatever floats your boat.

Just ensure that they don’t make the same mistake I, as well as many others make, outsourcing irrelevant tasks.

Critical Steps of Outsourcing Effectively

At the very core of outsourcing, we all know one thing: If you’re outsourcing, you have a problem. Don’t freak out. That’s not a bad thing. When outsourcing, you have an important problem that you’re willing to pay someone else to solve. And getting this problem solved effectively centers on two things: communication and people. You must ensure that you’ve effectively communicated what you want done, and you must ensure that you have the right person attempting to carry it out.

People that you outsource to are usually smarter than you think; however, for your own sake, you must write as if you’re speaking to someone who has no idea what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and what you’re looking for. In order to get this message across, I’ve outlined a 5-Step formula for outsourcing.

The 5 Steps to Effective Outsourcing:

When signing up for an outsourcing service like Odesk, or speaking with someone you found on Craigslist, you’ll want to get the following five elements communicated to them. Whether through Odesk’s messaging service, email or chat, make sure you communicate these five elements:

1. Background

The first step when outsourcing centers on giving the person some context as to who you are and what you do.

Example: “Hello, my name is John Smith. I live in Northern California and I have been in the real estate industry for 25 years. Basically, I help people sell their homes.”

2. Your Goal

The second step gives the person a sense of what you’d like to accomplish.

Example: “My goal is to break into the social media space by releasing 10 videos and having them appear on YouTube.”

3. My Problem

The third step centers on defining the problem. Usually the problem is implied by your goal (i.e. you don’t have the know-how to reach your goal); however, you must make sure that you clearly state your problem for yourself, as well as for the provider.

Example: “I’m having a tough time achieving this because I don’t know how to do any of the following items: 1) Edit the video, 2) Add music, 3) Add text introductions, 4) Upload it to YouTube. I do know how to record the video because I have a camera, though.”

4. Scenario

The fourth step is where you outline how you envision the outsourcing relationship to carry out.

Example: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the following scenario would work: 1) I will record the video and send it to you via email, 2) You will carry out the items I outlined above, and then upload the YouTube video, 3) You will then send me the link to the video.”

5. Next step

The last step is essentially a “call to action” for those reading your job description. It’s critical in this step that you cater towards those that have done similar work in the past. You don’t want people who think they can solve your problem. You don’t want someone learning on your dime. Thus, ask them for their portfolio and past work.

Example: “If you feel you are suitable for this position, please email me with your portfolio and sample videos that you created.”

Last, here’s an important tip: Select the candidate with work product that fits your needs at a fair rate. Do not simply search for those that are the cheapest. Quality may suffer by employing this habit and you’ll end up wasting time. The goal is not to brag to your friends that you paid someone in the Philippines $3/hour for work. That’s not only immature, it’s ineffective. Your goal is to solve your problem with solid workers in an effective manner.

Ongoing services

The 5-step process above works great for projects; however, when there’s an ongoing task, you’ll need to employ another method to make it work. For instance, if you’re a small business looking to hire a social media manager that does all your tweeting, you don’t want to subject yourself with moving through the 5-steps above, and training many providers over and over again. You want to hire one provider, and have them execute your plan on an ongoing basis. For these type of tasks, the 5-step process above is necessary, but there’s an additional component: a checklist.

If you’re a checklist fanatic, or even if you’re not, a book I highly recommend picking up is “Checklist Manifesto.” It’s a book about the effectiveness of checklists. It’s astonishing how organizations can drastically improve, and lives can be saved by merely employing a checklist in your organization.

If I had to work off a checklist all day, I’d go nuts; yet there are certain people who prefer checklists. It gives them a sense of consistency and comfort. I find that those who seek out process-based tasks, really enjoy and value checklists. And that’s why I recommend it. I’ve been using this technique for about a year, and find that the people I outsource to absolutely love it. It enables them to not be micromanaged. I don’t constantly have to check in with them–I can just glance at their checklist.

You’ll want your checklist to be simple and separated as follows (usually in an excel or Google docs spreadsheet):

1. Checklist Item: Column where you outline that item you need done
2. Date: Within the date box, have them put in their initials (it somewhat bars against any b.s. taking place)

You’ll be surprised with how effective this simple tactic can be.

Final tips

In closing, it’s critical that you outsource for the purpose of getting important items done, not for the sake of outsourcing. In order to become a more focused person, it’s critical to understand your strengths, and master the art of outsourcing your weaknesses. If your strength is in development, and you lack design skills, it’s important that you understand design, but even more important that you know how to effectively outsource design.

By now, it’s clear that outsourcing is here to say. It’s no longer the future, but the present. But it’s not going anywhere. If you don’t outsource right now, don’t think that you’re missing out. You likely don’t need to because you’re not faced with a task so critical that it needs to be outsourced immediately. Yet, when you do find an appropriate item that needs to be outsourced, make sure that you follow the steps above. It will hopefully make your first outsourcing experience a lot more effective and enjoyable than mine.

As always, feel free to ask me any additional questions in the comment area below, and also feel free to suggest or add any tools or methods that have helped you outsource more effectively in the past.

Resources:

• I’ve used Elance, Asksunday and Getafreelancer, but I’ve found the best service to be ODesk. For some reason, I just find the service, the organization, the website and the providers to provide a better experience than the other ones. Admittedly, I haven’t tried the other ones for over a year, so maybe they’ve improved things. But barring any unforeseen scenario, I’ll continue using Odesk and continue recommending them.
• I’ve used 99designs for logos, blog headers and other items and found their model to be excellent for myself. I’m not sure how much designers like it, but I’ve been a satisfied customer whenever I’ve used their services.
• Last, but not least, Craigslist is a great tool for beginners because you can meet up with the person you’re outsourcing work to. Just make sure going into it that you understand the spammy nature of Craigslist. Tread lightly when looking for somone on craigslist because you may receive a hefty amount of spam. Additionally, make it clear that you’re only looking for a local provider. Otherwise, you’re better off simply going with Odesk.