How many projects are you currently juggling?  I bet it’s a lot of them.  This is what is referred to as macro-multitasking.  And I bet that, just like me, you’re proud that you can keep all those plates spinning at the same time.  It’s quite a feat, and it makes for a great party trick.  (Dramatization: “What me?  Oh not much.  I run 3 web businesses, a design firm, I’m an actor, and I have a blog, and, oh, I also have a day job.  By the way, I teach horseback riding in my spare time, and I run triathlons.  Sooo, what do you do?")

The question that I’ve been asking myself is, “Does macro-multitasking actually serve my purpose?” I was prodded and kicked to ask this question by a good business podcast, and for that I send my thanks to the author.  Is jumping aboard on most of the opportunities that I come across getting me closer to my goals and to the kind of life that I want to be living?  The answer is a little complex, but it eventually boils down to one word.  No. Macro-multitasking is bad for me.

The bottom line is that I spend a little time on each of a lot of projects, and none of them moves forward very quickly.  Then I wonder why I don’t see more results for all the effort I’m putting in.  It’s discouraging at times, but mostly it leads me to think I need to find a better opportunity, and so I add another project to my plate.  (Does anyone else see a pattern?)

Now think of your role models, and of people who have been successful.  Maybe they’ve done a lot of things in their life, but did they do all of them at the same time?  Since I live in California, does anyone know our favorite politician / movie star / body-builder?  But did he do it all at the same time?  No, the difference is focus, and patience.

Of late, I’ve been applying this to my business life, and I’m starting to see results.  I decided that out of the dozen things that I’m “working on,” I am going to focus on and prioritize two of them - 1. web design and 2. information marketing.  Web design to pay the bills and learn the skills, and information marketing to create the residual income that I’m always talking about.  I’m happy to say that my web design client base has grown steadily, and I even have two large, exciting projects coming up.  As for information marketing, give me a couple of weeks...I see my first products on the horizon.

Technorati Tags: ais, focus, macromultitasking, multitasking, podcasts, priorities, productivity, success, solopreneur, webdesign, worksmart

“There is no such thing as multi-tasking.” This was the premise of a business podcast I recently listened to.  And you know what?  It’s absolutely true.  No matter how good you think you are at juggling multiple tasks at once, you’re not actually doing multiple things at once, you’re just switching rapidly between one task and another.  There’s no denying that some people are much better at this than others, but they are still only “switch-tasking” and there is always a cost associated with switching from one task to another.  Focus, in the end, is the way to go.

Take a closer look, are you really writing an email and talking on the phone at the same time?  Or reading the newspaper and having a conversation with your partner?  How about participating in that meeting while going through the emails on your Crackberry?  The truth is that your mind is switching rapidly from one task to the other, but it’s still only focusing on one task at a time.  And no matter how good you are at switching between tasks, there is still a cost in terms of time and focus associated with making that switch.  It takes a little time to switch your mental frame, and once you do switch, your capacity to perform that task will be less than if you had maintained a single focus throughout.

Take the example of writing an email and talking on the phone.  You type a few words while trying to listen to the other person and make a spelling mistake.  Not only that, but you didn’t catch everything they said.  You stop typing, think a little, and give your answer, then focus your attention back on the email while the other person responds.  This goes back and forth, and you do neither task well.  Moreover, it takes you longer than if you had done each task individually.

There is one caveat in that this concept only applies to mental tasks.  If you combine a physical task and a mental task, switch-tasking doesn’t apply.  For example, you can have a conversation while doing the dishes.  Or read a book while exercising on your stationary bike.  Or listen to a podcast while jogging.  These situations don’t often come up in the workplace however, unless you’re always cleaning your desk or shredding documents.

So there it is.  If you want to increase your productivity, focus on the task at hand, and only on the task at hand.  Don’t keep your email open in the background, don’t answer phone calls, and don’t check CNN or Bloglines.  You’ll be amazed at how much faster you get through your tasks and how much more you can get done during the day.  Here are a few quick tips to reduce the amount of switch tasking you do during the day.

• Don’t check email, or the news, or blogs, or anything, first thing in the morning.  Not only do you loose your momentum and your most productive hour, you also set yourself up to keep switching back and forth throughout the day.


• Instead, write down your two or three most important tasks for the day and work through them sequentially.


• When you do email, DO email.  Read it, then respond or file it away.  Keep that inbox empty and see how good it feels.


• When you talk on the phone, get through all your calls.  This is harder to do, but if you have a number of calls you need to make, block of an hour and get through all of them.


• Minimize interruptions.  Close the email, turn off the cell, and close your door if you have to.  When your coworkers see how much more you get done, they’ll understand the closed-door policy (at least for a few hours a day!)

That’s it for now.  Productivity and focus are important, especially so for internet solopreneurs.  So find out what works for you and apply it.

This post, by the way, is dedicated to Lisa, the best switch-tasker I know.

Technorati Tags: focus, procrastination, solopreneur, multitasking, entrepreneurship, productivity, switchtasking, worksmart

If you live in one of the major US cities then you’ve most likely used Craigslist to find a place, or buy or sell something. This is also true for many large, international cities. The breath and depth of the Craigslist marketplace are amazing, as is the instantaneous nature of its transactions. If you stop and think about it, the process and economics involved are like nothing we’ve seen before.

Just a few short years ago, if you wanted to sell something, you had to take out a classfied ad, which was an expensive and somewhat lengthy process. The same was the case if you wanted to advertise a service you provided, and this is the topic I want to focus on here.

The marketing side of a services business used to be an expensive and difficult process. Ads, classifieds, trade journals, posters, flyers, etc. But the web as whole, and especially Craigslist (in the US) have taken huge steps to democratize the process. As a solopreneur providing webdesign I can generate leads and results virtually for free, and by investing only a few hours of my time per week. This is a big deal, heck, it’s one of the factors that enables me to even be a solopreneur.
To be sure, the price of advertising on Craigslist means that there is lots of competition, but there are even more business prospects. Write a good ad and demonstrate that you’re good at what you do, then sit back and watch the prospects roll in.

So without futher ado, here are some tips to getting results with Craigslist:

1. Be Consistent. You won’t get good results from your ads if you post them irregularly, or if you go weeks without posting. Look into the rules for your city to see how often you’re allowed to repost, then do it. You want to have a fresh ad up as often as possible.


2. Be Real. Prospects looking for your services on Craigslist aren’t interested in haughty ads and big corporations. Be down to earth, and to the point. Fancy graphics are not necessary (though CL does allow HTML and CSS). Make sure your personality comes through and that the prospects know why it would be good to work with you.


3. Use Keywords. Here’s a place where you can get a real advantage. Many users don’t just browse CL, they search. And most advertisers write their ads without considering what their customers might be searching for. So at the bottom of your ad provide a list of keywords that your customers might be searching for. (And make it smaller and lighter using CSS)


4. List a Phone Number. Some customers are old fashioned and prefer to call you.  About 25% of my leads call in rather than email.


5. Test, Test, Test. Try different ad copy. Try using graphics and CSS, and try plain text. Try lots of links, and try none. Try different categories. Try different cities, if you can provide your service at a distance. And then keep track of your results. Ad titles and the random-generated emails provided by CL make it possible to see which ads, cities and categories perform best, so you can improve your results over time.

Best of luck, and happy craigslisting!

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Soon after launching TextU.org yesterday I received a few comments and emails from the AIS community pointing out potential pitfalls.  Thanks for your feedback!  It’s good to have smart people watching your back.  Nathan Waters cleverly pointed out that this would be a great vehicle for spamming.  You could just use an enemy’s phone number and tell your 17,000 MySpace friends to bug him.  Guincho Guy also pointed out this and several other problems.

Yup, the potential for headaches is definitely there, and I hadn’t put much thought into it up front.  Basically, I figured that any messages a user gets as a result of putting up a box on his profile are his responsibility.  If he has a LOT of friends, that’s his issue.  But, I hadn’t thought about people using others’ numbers maliciously.  Good point.

So I came up with a fix for that one.  Getting the code is now a two step process.  You enter your cell number and carrier, and I send you a random PIN.  On the next page, you enter that PIN to receive your MySpace code.  Simple enough.

If you have a minute, can you do me a favor?  Test it out for me, and let me know if it breaks.  It’s at TextU.org.  I tested out, but a sample size of 1 would make my CS professors cringe.

Amid the sweltering heat of a garage-bound office of one and the loud buzz from an ultra-fast fan, TextU.org launched today, to little fanfare and even less pageviews.  TextU is the latest wonder-project of serial entrepreneur CeGoFer, a cuban-salsa dancing recluse operating out of glamorous Culver City.

What the heck is it, you ask?  TextU.org allows you to become the last-bite-of-the-mango on your MySpace, by putting up yet another cool widget.  Simply give the script your cell phone number and carrier (which are encrypted and not stored) and TextU spits out a piece of code you can paste into your MySpace profile which allows your 13728 friends to text message you, right from your MySpace profile.  Ah-so, imagine the possibilities!

So why not give it a try?  It takes 30 seconds and the most you can lose is a few minutes of your time, checking out the stone-dumb messages that user ~*~ Wo$A#i**(~ %^_^ keeps sending to your phone.

Be the shizzle.  Do it at TextU.org