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6 Reasons Why You Need To Dream Big

January 28, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Dream Big

No matter how small or big, we all have dreams and aspirations. Dreaming small is the easier option because it is easier to make small dreams come true. Reaching 1,000 followers on any social network is a small dream. Reaching 1 million followers is a bigger dream.

All of the successful people in the world got to where they are by dreaming big. Seth Godin does not strive to make 100 sales per book. He strives to turn each of his books into an empowering movement that allows him to spread his message farther and donate to his favorite charities. Mark Zuckerberg’s dream for Facebook’s growth didn’t stop at 1 million users, and it didn’t stop at 1 billion users either.

One of the simplest ways to be successful is by dreaming big. If you don’t dream big, here are six reasons why you need to start:

#1: Only Big Dreamers Become Successful

No one became successful by dreaming small and having no faith in their ideas. Successful individuals reached their status by dreaming of big dreams. Dreaming big is the more challenging road to take, but the more challenging road is often the road worth pursuing.

#2: You Will Ask Yourself Three Questions In Life

Online marketer Brendon Burchard has a solid eight figure income, multiple successful products, and over 1 million Facebook fans among other things. At the end of all of his videos, Burchard shares this message with his readers, “Live fully, love openly, and make your difference, today.”

Burchard did not simply choose those three statements from a hat. He came up with those three statements after a life changing car accident where he asked himself three questions: “Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?” Those are the three questions people ask themselves as their lives approach the end.

Now that you know which questions you are going to ask yourself at the end of your life, continue living your life and taking the actions that will allow you to answer yes to all three of those questions. Don’t strive for 1/3 or 2/3. This is your life we are talking about, not a quiz score that has a small impact on the final average. Dreaming big increases your chances of answering yes to all three of those questions.

#3: You’ll Have A Bigger Box To Play With

Did you know that our dreams are like boxes? Believe it or not, there are ceilings that stop us from going upward. It is possible to reach a number of followers or subscribers and then hit a ceiling where the number ceases to increase. Maybe you may hit your ceiling on your Twitter growth once you hit 25,000 Twitter followers.

How then are there people with millions of Twitter followers? The answer is that every individual’s ceiling is at a different height. Boxes have a finite amount of space, and once using up all of the space, many people simply pursue the next big thing and flip-flop from one niche/social network/passion/business to another while leaving everything else behind forever.

Big boxes get created by dreaming big. Luckily, the size of a box can be modified at anytime. When successful people’s big dreams approach reality, these successful people dream bigger. Brendon Burchard had big dream after big dream about how he would make $1 million every year, $10 million every year, and then $20 million every year. Burchard now makes over $20 million every year, and he is already dreaming big and thinking about making $30 million every year. Once you dream big and continue to dream big, you will increase your chances of becoming successful at what you want to thrive in.

#4: You Will Challenge Yourself

When we throw challenges into our lives, our lives can get very exciting very fast. Last year, with the Christmas break approaching, I decided to put in so much work for my business before the break that I would be able to relax for most of the Christmas break (entrepreneurs need their downtime too).

I also decided to pull of this plan during junior year. I did two month’s worth of business work in just 18 days, and I also studied for tests and completed my homework. As a result of cramming all of this work over an 18 day period, I did not have to work nearly as hard over the Christmas break.

I dreamed big by thinking I could do things like write 40 blog posts, finish reading two books, and completing a training course (among other things) in 18 days. I embraced the challenge and got all of those goals accomplished. When I challenge myself in this manner, I strengthen my productivity.

Within that 18 day span, I used every ounce of time I had to either complete schoolwork or work within my business. By challenging myself when school is in session, I set myself up to be more productive over the summer. Every summer, schoolwork and going to school are no longer on the to-do list. In the summer, I gain an extra 10 hours every day because I am not going to school and doing homework for those 10 hours.

#5: You Will Put In More Work

As you challenge yourself by dreaming big, you will also put in more work towards your goals. You will put in more work and effort if one of your big dreams is to gain 5,000 subscribers in three months than if you had a smaller dream of only gaining 500 subscribers in three months. More research will get conducted, and more work will be done towards getting you closer to your big dream. Remember that it is possible in the world we know to achieve dynamic results in a short amount of time. You may not be an overnight success, but some people went from no income to six figure incomes in less than two years (although these people are rare to find, they do exist, and you can join that rare group of people by dreaming big).

#6: You Will Realize How Important You And Your Time Are

You are important, and so is your time. This tip finds its way into many blog posts and books, but not everyone recognizes how important they and their time are. The truth is that we are all mortal, and mortality is a powerful motivational force unlike any other motivational force in the world.

Once you realize your time is limited, and you challenge yourself by dreaming big, you will also realize how important it is for you to accomplish those big dreams. One of the worst things to possibly do is to never manifest your big dream into something remarkable.

We only get to live once, so we must make the best out of our lives.

In Conclusion

Dreaming big is essential towards living a successful life. The most successful people in the world continue dreaming big to this day, so it works. Dreaming big extends your scope of possibility, and as you move closer to your big dream, you will also feel a surge of confidence. This surge of confidence will be very helpful when you come up with bigger dreams and continue putting in the work and effort to make your big dreams come true.

What were your thoughts about the article? Do you dream big for any other reasons? Please share your thoughts below.

How To Write 10,000 Words Every Day

January 26, 2015 by Marc Guberti 8 Comments

How much would your life change if you could write 10,000 words every day? I know that may sound like a strange question, but hear me out. For a blogger, that could mean having months of blog posts scheduled in advance in just one week of work. For a self-published author, that could mean self-publishing three books every month. Self-publishing these extra books can lead to more revenue, and having all of those blog posts scheduled in advance creates more time to launch training courses and promote products.

For me, having the ability to write 10,000 words every day allows me to write books at a fast pace and have blog posts scheduled in advance. I utilized this ability to completely systematize the writing part of my business for a few months so I could focus on creating more Udemy courses, membership sites, and other big product ideas that I come up with (you’ll be seeing a bunch of them very soon).

One of the best tips I could give to write more words every day is to create outlines for the content you plan on writing. I write down all of the key points I want to discuss in a blog post before I actually go and write that blog post. When I am writing a book, I always plan out the book’s structure before I start writing it.

Writing 10,000 words every day also requires that you spend a good portion of your time writing. Many people give themselves big goals but do not give themselves a sufficient amount of time to accomplish those goals. Many people want to write 10,000 words every day, but most people only give themselves 1-2 hours to accomplish this goal.

Even if you give yourself two hours to write 10,000 words, that’s 5,000 words every hour. Do you have enough concentration and ideas laid out for you to write 83 words every minute (more than one word every second)? If you look away for a few seconds, it takes a few seconds for the computer to show what you typed, scratch at an itch, or you made a mistake and want to rephrase a sentence at any point in those two hours, then you are falling behind. That sounds really harsh, but that is the standard people create for themselves when they don’t give themselves enough time to write the content.

When I write 10,000 words every day, I typically give myself 5-6 hour to get the job done (since I don’t work for someone else, I can do that). That means I am writing at most 2,000 words every hour. This adds up to a more flexible 33 words per minute. At this writing rate, you can scratch an itch or rephrase a sentence in peace while ensuring that you reach your goal. If you want to accomplish a big goal, you have to put in a large amount of time and effort towards that goal.

Finally, you must write about something you enjoy. If your fingers are not flying across the keyboard, and you are not passionate about the topics you choose to write about, then writing will become more of a chore than a fun activity. The most successful writers see writing as a fun activity primarily because they have full control over what they write about. The same writers who write New York Times bestselling books would feel uncomfortable writing about topics that they knew nothing about or despised. Find your niche, and write about it. When you decide to expand your niche, only expand your writing to the topics you have a passion for.

In Conclusion

Writing 10,000 words every day is a challenging task, but it is not impossible. You can write more words each day by applying the tactics in this blog posts. The most important tactic in this blog post is to write about the topics you are passionate about. Without the passion for the topic, none of the other tips can fall into place.

What were your thoughts on these writing tips? Do you have any other writing tips for us? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

The Three Most Debated Blogging Practices

January 23, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Blogging Practices

Millions of blogs now dominate the web, and over 150,000 blogs are created every day. Throughout this strong run blogging has had over the years, thousands of tips, books, and training courses have been created to empower people with the knowledge they need to become successful bloggers.

However, some of the advice in products and articles about blogging contradict each other. In many cases, contradictions occur because both sides of the argument can lead to better results. These contradictions have led debate around a bunch of blogging practices for several years. In this article, I am going to discuss my thoughts on the three most debated blogging practices.

#1: Blogging Frequency

I could probably write an entire book on this one blogging practice. Many people say you should blog consistently while a few people say you should blog inconsistently. People have mixed opinions about whether to publish daily, weekly, or at a frequency in between. Few bloggers suggest only publishing one blog post every month, but some bloggers succeed by writing at that frequency. Few bloggers suggest publishing multiple blog posts every day, but some bloggers publish new content at that rate, and get phenomenal results from it.

My blogging frequency has been around all of those spectrums. My Red Sox Blog was updated inconsistently. Sometimes, I would update it every day. At other times, I would update it every week or month, but never in a consistent pattern. That blog was basically my crash course to blogging in general.

Then, I wrote a Lego blog that got updated every week or two depending on how many other obligations I had. Then, I wrote a blog called Yugioh Philosophy that got updated every day. Once this blog you are reading surpassed the Yugioh Philosophy Blog in traffic and my overall passion went to digital marketing, I decided it was time to focus all of my efforts on this blog. In a few months, I went from daily posts to one blog post every 12 hours. Now, I only update this blog three times every week.

Here are the five reasons I decided to update my blog only three times every week:

If you write longer blog posts, readers stay on your blog for a longer period of time. This is great for SEO.
Longer blog posts tend to get shared the most, and most of the articles on Page 1 of Google are over 2,000 words long.
Writing fewer blog posts makes writer’s block less likely because I only have to think about three ideas every week instead of 14 (writer’s block was a commonplace back then).
I can go more in depth on the topics I choose to write about.
It is less time consuming. Writing longer blog posts is less time consuming than writing shorter blog posts but spend most of the time struggling to think of the next sentence.

My recommendation is to write one blog post every day to get a feel for blogging, and once you become a passionate blogger, write three lengthy blog posts every week.

#2: Blog Post Length

I touched upon this debated blogging practice earlier, so I’ll be more brief than before. Seth Godin is one of the few people who gets away with short blog posts (that’s because he has a powerful influence over millions of people). However, the blog posts on QuickSprout (QuickSprout gets hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors) indicate that longer blog posts are the ones that become popular on the search engines and get shared more often.

Typically, the longer blog post gets more traffic than the shorter one. Search engines detect more keywords (but don’t overstuff your blog posts with keywords since that hurts SEO), and people read the longer blog posts for a longer period of time (this results in more engagement and subscribers). Just by writing longer blog posts, I almost doubled the amount of time people spend on my blog.

#3: Pop-Ups and Advertisements

One thing I am against is putting advertisements on a blog. Many people see advertisements as distractions that don’t bring in enough money (if you’re getting paid $1 a day for advertisements on your blog, then that’s more than most people). Instead of promoting ads on your blog, you should promote your products and subscription box so you can build valuable relationships that turn into more revenue than a pesky ad that brings in a few pennies per click.

At first glance, pop-ups look like giant ads. Pop-ups used to annoy me, but I have come to appreciate them. In fact, I use a pop-up on this blog to promote my free eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter (you can grab your free copy here). In fact, if you haven’t seen it already, you may see it soon enough. Pop-ups are not giant ads; they are giant calls to action. Pop-ups allow your readers to know in a nutshell what they get for entering their name and email address. If you are looking for a reliable pop-up, then look no farther than Pop-Up Domination. I used Pop-Up Domination to create my own pop-up, and the entire process of creating your own pop-up and connecting your email service is simple and straightforward.

In Conclusion

Out of all of the blogging practices I have implemented and seen others implement, these are the three practices that have received the most debate. I myself have debated these very issues multiple times throughout various blog posts, and as I continued to write blog post after blog post, my views of these topics slowly changed.

I used to believe in short and simple daily blog posts, but now I only write three long, information-packed blog posts every week. I used to think that pop-ups were evil, but now I run them on my blog (and they increase subscribers quite nicely). I knew right from the start that advertising was evil, and I can never imagine a day when a pesky ad finds its way on my blog. I do use Adsense for my YouTube videos, but putting those ads on my blog would be too much for me to bear.

In the end, your views on these blogging practices will change based on how you implement these blogging practices and how your needs change. You may never implement advertisements, but you may realize it’s time to put a pop-up on your blog.

What are your thoughts on these three blogging practices? Do you have any other blogging practices that you would like to open for debate? Please share your thoughts and other blogging practices below.

6 Ways To Grow Your Email List With Social Media

January 21, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Did you know that your email list reflects your income? This is a powerful statement that has been backed by marketers throughout the industry. Some of the marketers who back this statement have tens of thousands of subscribers. Others have over 1 million. Their earnings don’t lie. The people with tens of thousands of subscribers are making six figure incomes, and the people with millions of subscribers make millions of dollars in income every year.

Many people who focus their time on growing a large social media audience may feel silly, wondering where all of those hours went. I know the feeling. Before I optimized my blog to get more subscribers, my income level would be the same even when my Twitter audience started to grow at a rapid pace. At some points, I wondered why I didn’t just entirely switch from growing my social media audience to growing an email list.

The truth, I quickly realized, is that they both help each other grow. Trying to grow a social media audience and growing an email list at the same time allows those two areas to grow faster than they would if you focused on one area at a time. You can promote your social networks to your email list, and you can promote your landing pages on your social networks.

This article will discuss six of the methods you can use to grow your email list with the help of social media. Stumbling across these methods allowed me to more effectively utilize my Twitter presence. Twitter is now one of my streams of indirect revenue that continues to build my email list, a direct source of revenue. The same can be true for any social networks, but only if you implement these six methods:

#1: Pin Your Landing Page To The Top Of Your Social Media Feeds

Twitter and Facebook give its users the option to pin one of their posts to the top of their feeds. These posts automatically get seen by everyone who visits your social media account’s page which gives those pinned posts more visibility. You can use these pinned posts to promote your blog’s landing pages that are designed to get more subscribers.

If you don’t have a landing page for your blog yet, then you need to create one. I use Optimize Press for my landing pages.

#2: Promote Your Landing Pages Every Day

Even if your landing page is pinned to the top of your feed, not everyone will check out your feed. Some people who view your tweet or Facebook post may decide to read the post but not click on your name. In these cases, the pinned landing page never gets seen.

That is why it is important to promote your landing page every day. Some social media marketers tweet promote their landing pages 10 times every day. Promoting your landing page every day will give that landing page more attention. The extra attention your landing page gains from constantly getting reposted over a long period of time will lead to more subscribers.

#3: Offer An Irresistible Free Prize On Your Landing Page

Landing pages with irresistible free prizes convert better than landing pages without irresistible free prizes. You want your free prizes to align with your niche and your audience’s interests. On this landing page, I give away my eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter. You want to lead people to a landing page that converts well, not a landing page that simply begs for a name and email address.

#4: Create And Promote Multiple Landing Pages

Once you create one landing page, you can create another landing page with its own free prize, and then another one after that. As you increase your library of free prizes, one of those free prizes is bound to get a visitor’s attention. If you write one book about SEO, another book about social media, and another book about growing an email list, then you will have more free offers that can potentially lead to more subscribers.

You can lead repeat subscribers through different autoresponders based on which list they subscribe to. You can use these autoresponders to provide value and eventually promote one of your products that is related to the free prize. This is a great strategy to get more sales. Kim Garst utilizes this strategy very effectively. She has multiple landing pages that she promotes on Twitter every day, and each of those landing pages has its own autoresponder sequence that promotes her own products that are related to her free prizes.

#5: Grow Multiple Social Media Audiences

Once you grow a large audience on a social network, look for the next social network to master. The more social networks you master, and the larger those audiences grow, the more visibility your landing pages will get. More visibility for a landing page never hurt any marketer. You can use some of the revenue you generate from your new subscribers to promote your social networks to the next level. I have been experimenting with buying visibility from Twiends to grow my Twitter audience (this is different from buying fake followers. I would never do that to my reputation), and by the end of 2015, my goal is to utilize Facebook Ads. No matter how large your social media audience is now, it can always grow.

#6: Provide Valuable Content

Consistently providing valuable content over a long period of time is what entices people to enter their name and email address on your landing pages. Numerous people who visit your landing pages will have read some of your blog posts. When your potential subscribes decide whether the free prize is truly worthy of an email address or not, those potential subscribers will think of the value you provide in your blog posts.

Providing valuable content for free is okay. It allows you to build the long-term relationships that lead to returning customers.

In Conclusion

Social media is the best source of indirect revenue on the web. Where you lead people on your social networks determines how much of your revenue your social networks are responsible for. One of the most powerful ways to generate revenue with your social networks is by promoting landing pages so you can grow your email list. Promoting the landing pages you currently have and create others in the future so you can get more subscribers and put your current subscribers into new autoresponder sequences.

What were your thoughts on the methods discussed in this article? Did you have a favorite? Do you have an additional method that you use to grow your email list with social media? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

7 Ways To Get Your Blog Visitors To Engage With You

January 19, 2015 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Blog Visitors Engaging

Are you writing valuable blog posts, but you wish more people would leave comments? Do you wish some of your visitors would share your blog posts more often?

The most successful blogs are the ones that get readers to engage with the content. The more readers engage with the content by reading and sharing it, the more likely those readers are to come back, view more of your content, and eventually buy your products. However, the majority of blogs on the web are not getting the amount of engagement they deserve.

Some bloggers are writing valuable content, but that valuable content does not have any comments or social shares to show for it. Even though some of these blog posts may be getting traffic, conversations are not developing, and visitors are not sharing them enough. In order to boost engagement in your blog posts so more people comment and share them, follow these seven methods.

#1: Have A Good Headline

Many people read a blog post’s headline to determine whether that blog post is good to read or not. Visitors who get confused by the headline don’t bother reading the rest of the content. It is the catchy, informative, hilarious, stunning, and headlines with numbers/statistics/case studies that bring forth attention. You can either focus on one of those elements or combine multiple elements together. It is possible to write an informative blog post headline with some numbers included. It is also possible to write a blog post headline that indicates a hilarious case study.

One of the easier ways to write better headlines is by looking at how the top people in your niche write their headlines. What are the common patterns that the top people in your niche use? Once you identify top patterns, see how you can replicate these top patterns while putting in your own personal touch.

#2: Ask Questions In Your Blog Post

Did you know that asking questions is a great way to perk up a reader’s interest in your content? Asking questions throughout your blog posts, especially at the beginning, adds the conversation component to your blog posts.

Many bloggers write their blog posts like one-sided conversations that basically say, “Do this. Do these other things. Here’s a nice summary of what I said. You’ll do fine.” Some blog posts forget the 4th part because the typical blogger is so focused on providing value. The 4th part is having a conversation with your reader.

Asking questions allows the sense of having a conversation to return to our writing. When you have a conversation with a reader through your writing, that reader will be more likely to continue the conversation by leaving a comment. Maybe the reader enjoyed the conversation so much that the reader will share your blog post on one of her social networks.

#3: Encourage Comments In The Final Paragraph

Ask, and you will receive more times than not. Why not give it a try? That’s what I thought when I added a final paragraph that encouraged comments, and I have been pleased with the results. In this final paragraph, you can simply summarize the blog post, ask a few questions, and then ask your readers for their opinion about your article or if they would like to contribute (does the reader have another tip that she would like to share?).

#4: Respond To Comments

Asking questions in your blog posts brings back that sense of having a conversation. Commenting allows your readers to continue that conversation. However, many bloggers make the mistake of turning the comments section into a one-sided conversation. These bloggers simply approve each comment they get without responding.

Some of your readers want to have conversations on the web, and if you have a big audience and great credentials, people will enjoy having a conversation with you. There are a group of people with incredible credentials that we would all want to have a conversation with. The people in this group differ for every individual, but we have that group of people who we would like to talk with. Some of your most devoted readers will regard you with such high esteem that, for the reader, you may fall into that special category. When you respond to all of the comments you get, there is a chance that you respond to a reader who greatly appreciates what you do.

You may notice that I make it a point to respond to every comment I get. Responding to comments allows me to build stronger connections with my readers, know who visits often, and even have long conversations with one person about one blog post. Having a conversation with your reader is like giving them the free prize they didn’t expect. Many of them will come back, read your blog often, and comment on other blog posts that you write (and therefore have more conversations with you).

Some readers may feel encouraged to comment because they know I will respond to them. Responding to comments also doubles the total number of comments my blog posts have. If 10 different people comment on one of my blog posts, the blog post actually shows up with 20 comments because I respond to all of the comments.

The higher number builds social proof (a blog post with 20 comments must be getting more attention than a blog post with 10 comments) that leads to more people reading that particular blog post and then leaving their own comments as well.

#5: Post Valuable Content

No matter how many questions you ask in your blog post, readers are only going to read a blog post from start to finish if that blog post provides value. The value is ultimately what makes readers read entire blog posts and want to comment at the end. You have no control over whether the reader comments on your blog post or not. The only way your reader is going to comment is if that reader wants to leave a comment.

Valuable content will encourage the reader to leave a comment, often out of gratitude. Then, follow through by responding to the comment, and you may end up having a long conversation with one of your readers. These long conversations are good because some readers who have long conversations with you may feel inclined to buy your products.

#6: Make Your Visitors Stay On Your Blog For A Longer Period Of Time

Some of the visitors who stumble across your blog may decide that the first blog post they read is not the right one for them. If a reader interested in Twitter advice first stumbles across about Instagram advice, then the Instagram blog post is not the right one for that particular reader. Many readers who feel as if the content is not the right content for them will look for something else to read (either another article on your blog or someone else’s blog).

It is at this point when many readers click on the back button. On blogs that are optimized to solve this issue, readers who initially did not find what they were looking for don’t click the back button. Instead, they find a desirable article on your blog before clicking the back button. These optimized blogs make it easy for visitors to view categories, popular articles, and the archives. The more organized your blog is, the longer people will stick around.

Another factor that will make people stick around for a longer period of time is the length of your blog posts. Longer blog posts get people to stick around for a longer period of time. In less than one month after writing longer blog posts, I was able to get my visitors to stay on my blog from an average of one minute and 20 seconds to an average of two minutes and 10 seconds. That is a dramatic increase in the blogging industry. Readers who read your content for a longer period of time will be more likely to comment on your articles.

#7: Make Visitors Appreciate You

I believe this method is one of the most forgotten methods to get more comments on blog posts. There are some readers who comment on certain blogs because they like the blogger. This is one of the best ways to get more comments on your blog because it establishes a powerful connection between you and the reader. These are the types of connections that lead to returning visitors, subscribers, customers, and opportunities.

In Conclusion

Getting more people to comment on your blog posts no longer has to be impossible. Although implementing these tactics may not bring forth overnight results, these methods will help your blog posts get more engagement over the long-term. This engagement is crucial towards strengthening the relationship between you and your readers. You can tell who your most devoted readers are based on the number of comments they have left in the past.

How did you like this blog post? Which tip was your favorite? Do you have any additional tips for us to boost the engagement we get from our blog posts? Please share below.

12 Tips To Increase Your Productivity

January 16, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Your productivity is one of the factors that determines how much you accomplish in your lifetime. The most productive people are the ones who get the celebrity status, the full-time income, and exert the most influence on our culture. The most successful people throughout history have shown the ability to be productive, and many of these people have shown a desire to be more productive than they already were. Productivity is a core element of success, and these 12 tips will help you increase your productivity so that core element of success can be strengthened in your own life.

#1: Wake Up Earlier

We are at our peak level of productivity in the morning because we have more willpower in the morning than any other time of the day. In addition, if you get a good amount of sleep (7.5 hours), you will feel refreshed. It is important to work while you feel refreshed instead of starting your work a few minute before you take a nap. When you work, you must be wide awake. If you are feeling drowsy, take the nap before you work. It is better to nap, wake up later, and put in valuable work than it is to work while tired and produce a subpar experience for your existing and potential customers.

#2: Write Down Your Goals

Studies have shown that writing down your goals dramatically increases your odds of you accomplishing your goals because it gives you more commitment to accomplish those goals. While typed goals can be deleted, your hand-writing is always there. If you erase with a pencil, you will still see some of your writing from before. If you use white out to remove the goals you wrote with a pen, you will know something (your goals) is underneath the white out.

Writing down your goals also makes it easier to remember them. It is easier to remember something that you repeatedly write down than it is to remember something that you think of but never write down.

Let’s say you wanted to remember the definition of a word like didactic. Here’s the definition:

Didactic—teaching; instructive

If you have never crossed paths with this word, and you wanted to memorize it, you would have to look at it again and again. If you only read this word’s definition once, then you probably won’t remember it a week from now unless you have the perfect memory. Writing the word didactic and its definition will allow you to remember that definition more than simply reading it on your computer’s screen.

#3: Have Goals For The Week

Chances are your productivity skyrockets when there is an imminent deadline. It’s one of the universal truths. Many students spend more time on Monday studying for the big test on Wednesday than for the big test on the upcoming Monday. The closer something is, the more we work on it. This ideology is why many New Year’s resolutions fail. They are too far away, and the urgency of those New Year’s resolutions only start to manifest themselves in November.

Imagine how productive you would be if you had a deadline, that sense of urgency, all year round.

Giving yourself goals for the week creates that sense of urgency, the same sense that allows you to get more done. You don’t want your first week to feel overwhelming, so it is important for you to work your way up. Eventually, you will accomplish goals beyond your wildest dreams in just one week. Using this approach allowed me to write 20,000 words in two days when, at one time, I thought it would take me two weeks to reach the same milestone. You may go from writing five blog posts every week to writing five blog posts every day. I should know. When Christmas approached, I put in extra work so I could enjoy the break. Part of the extra work involved me writing as many as 10 blog posts in a given day (and all of them were over 1,000 words long).

#4: Create Day By Day Plans

I am a big believer in utilizing stepping stones that allow you to see the steps you need to take in order to accomplish a certain goal. Day by day plans allow you to know what you need to do each day for a week and therefore boost your productivity for that week. In other words, if you want to write 14 blog posts this week, writing two blog posts every day should be a part of your day by day plan.

Day by day plans make your goals for the week look possible. I have gone as far as 18 days with a day by day plan, and they work effectively. We are hardwired to perform steps that are given to us. Therefore, if we give ourselves our own steps to follow (that can, when combined, accomplish your goals for the week), we are already hardwired to accomplish those steps. Granted, don’t expect yourself to write 100 novels in one week if you write that down as a goal, but you will accomplish more than what you thought you were capable of.

#5: Know What You Want To Do

Knowing what you want to do in life is just as important as effective planning and everything else that goes along the lines of increasing your productivity. Identify the one thing you want to do in life and spend half of your time pursuing that dream or goal. If you have not read Gary Keller’s The ONE THING, then I recommend grabbing your copy now. Here are more details about why you need to find and focus on your ONE Thing.

#6: Raise Your Bar

No matter where we are now, we could both be putting in more effort. I could launch more products, make them more valuable, find more ways to grow my blog, and read more books (among other things). We can never settle with where we are because it is settling with where we are that ultimately makes us disappear in irrelevancy.

The most successful entrepreneurs in the world are not settling, sitting at the beach, and watching the sunset. They are still in the business world, challenging traditional concepts, creating new products, speaking all over the world, and providing more value. Millionaires don’t retire. In fact, some millionaires become billionaires. Millionaires only get to become billionaires by constantly raising their bars higher even when they have enough money to retire.

When you raise your bar, you will challenge yourself to get more accomplished. Raising your bar higher allows you to raise your standard of excellence. Never settle with where you are. We can always do better than we are doing now. The athlete with a four minute and 30 second mile could run faster. There is no fence that stops us from moving forward. The only fences that stop us from moving forward are the ones that we build ourselves.

#7: Be Mindful Of Your Internet Browsing

One way to be more productive is by being less unproductive. One of the most unproductive activities people participate in is internet browsing. Whether internet browsing means checking fantasy sports or surfing on YouTube, we can be extremely unproductive on the internet. The internet is a double-edged sword because we can use it to boost our productivity or bring our productivity to a point lower than it ever was before.

When I realize I am surfing the internet too long, I use a tool called Mindful Browsing for Mac laptops and computers which allows me to block any website I choose. I can go back to the website at anytime, but I am notified that it has been blocked, and Mindful Browsing requires that its users wait for 10 seconds before having the ability to unblock a website. I often use Mindful Browsing to block my favorite social networks when I am writing blog posts and books.

#8: Unplug Your Computer

When I first stumbled across the method, I could not believe what I was reading. Regardless, I gave the method a try at school, and the results have been incredible. I never bring my charger with my to school, and I have seen my Mac dip below 30% in power. Sure enough, power getting drained from my computer created a sense of urgency where I focused on doing what was truly important. Less time for social media and checking statistics. More time for writing blog posts and books.

#9: Think Small Wins

Big wins, the typical wins we strive for, are just a series of small wins carried out over a long period of time. Thinking small wins allows you to turn accomplishment into habit. If you see yourself performing dozens of small wins every day (i.e. successfully walking the dog, writing a blog post, reading an article on the web), then it will be easier for you to accomplish the small wins that lead to big results.

#10: Say No

In many cases, I have become comfortable with saying no. I say no to certain types of work and opportunities that are not worth the effort. Saying no may be painful for some people, but saying no is critical towards your success as an entrepreneur. Saying no to time consuming activities allows you to focus more of your time on your work.

Sure enough, there are people who want to make everyone happy and be the “yes-men” of our generation. However, most of these people make others happy at the expense of their own happiness. You should never give up your happiness by saying yes too often. Not only does saying yes too often have the potential to damage your happiness, but in everything, there are tradeoffs. Not only should you think of what you are saying yes to, but you are also think of what you are saying no to. If you say yes to a friend’s request to attend a party (even if you don’t want to go), then you are saying no to your work and getting closer to accomplishing your goals that evening.

#11: Work Non-Stop In The Morning

Remember when I mentioned that you need to wake up earlier? Not only should you wake up earlier, but your entire morning should be dedicated to your work. It is the mornings when we are the most productive. If you want to talk with friends on the phone or play a game, then do so in the afternoon. The first hour of your day dictates how the rest of that day will go, so make that first hour and your entire morning count.

#12: Believe In Yourself

These tips only work for the individuals who believe in themselves. If you go through these tips without believing in your own abilities, then the thoughts of self-doubt and unworthiness will creep in. In reality, we are all worthy, and we are all miracles. The web has given us the power to share our unique messages to billions of people.

In Conclusion

Productive individuals are the ones who are leading their stampedes. Productivity sparks product creation, writing, and brings various areas of your business to the next level. Individuals who plan ahead are many steps ahead of the competition because they have a series of steps to follow, and our minds are hardwired to follow steps given to us. Major corporations have their marketing campaigns and plans scheduled years in advance. Planning works.

Without the belief in your own abilities, none of this will work. You need to build on the confidence you have and realize that you are valuable to the world. As Seth Godin would say, “The world is waiting. Now, go make a ruckus.”