Instigator Blog

Can you walk and chew gum at the same time? Of course you can!

Not only that but you can also talk on your cellphone, eat lunch, hold a conversation with your friend walking beside you (who is simultaneously thumbing away like a fiend on his BlackBerry), adjust your tie and avoid oncoming pedestrians.

You’re a Master Multitasker.

And guess what? You’re not productive.

The New York Times is reporting research done by a couple of scientists that shows the detrimental affects of multitasking on productivity.

It makes sense. We’re inundated with email, phone calls and instant messages. We’re constantly connected which has many advantages; one of which is not productivity.

We’re all insanely pressed for time, working harder, working longer hours. Maybe we wouldn’t have to if we stopped multitasking as much.

Entrepreneurs are fond of using the juggler to represent their lives. “Do you know how many balls I’m juggling?”

We know this is true, we know that entrepreneurs always have a thousand things on the go.

But I would much prefer to use the biathlon to shape my thoughts on productivity and multitasking.

It’s not a well-known sport, but the biathlon goes like this — cross-country ski like a maniac from target to target, and shoot like a sniper with a rifle as quickly as you can. From Point A to Point B. Get something done with laser-focus at each stop.

You’ll never stop multitasking - it’s impossible. It’s the way we are. But, I’ve been focusing a great deal on getting things done lately and staying focused, and here’s a few recommendations:

1. End Your Day Making a List for the Next One. At the end of a work day make a to-do list of what needs to be accomplished the following day. You never want to wake up wondering, “What was I supposed to do today?” You want to jump right into things as quickly and efficiently as possible.
2. Listen to Loud Music. When it’s time to spend a few hours focused on something, try tuning into some loud music. I find loud music works to drown out other thoughts and helps me ignore what’s going on around me. It helps me stay focused on the task at hand. If the music is too quiet it’s just one more thing tugging at my mind.
3. Turn Distracting Things Into Tasks. A number of things are ultra-distracting: checking email, networking/socializing (particularly online), reading blogs and catching up on the news. We do these things throughout the day, almost non-stop. Instead, turn these “endless to-dos” into actual tasks. “I’m going to spend 20 minutes clearing my backlog of email.” Or, “I’m going to get through my RSS feeds and make a list of topics to research further.” The point is to turn something that’s typically a distraction into a productive, goal-centric task.
4. Give Yourself Time to Goof Off. No one is 100% productive all the time. It’s impossible. And you’ll find it next to impossible to stop multitasking. So don’t try to eliminate multitasking completely. Give yourself time during the day, when you’re getting a bit tired or during a snack break, to multitask like a madman. Chat online with friends, while surfing the Web, filing paperwork and organizing the photos on your computer. Multitask till your heart’s content. Just don’t try and do anything extremely important.

Multitaskers are proud of the fact that they can do a thousand things at once. But one has to wonder whether they ever finish anything, and whether the quality of their work is where it needs to be?

I’m a great multitasker, but I’d rather be a laser-focused, gun-toting biathlete with incredible speed and endurance.

Photo by cwg2007

Very few people write headlines for search engines.

Very few people write headlines for digg.

Even FEWER people write headlines for people.

Many people think the purpose of writing better headlines is for search engines or sites like digg. It can be. There’s no denying the importance of search engines for long-term traffic growth, or the opportunity of social bookmarking sites like digg to drive thousands of visitors to your blog very quickly. But great headlines will work for search engines, digg and your audience.

And what bloggers are missing is that their audience wants better headlines.

Here’s why:

1. There’s an insane amount of content out there. And we’re putting more online by the second, not less. People need more and more ways to differentiate worthwhile content from stuff they’ll skip. A great headline is tops as a differentiator.
2. People’s attention is precious. You should value a person’s attention much more than you do, because as quickly as they give you a bit of it, they can take that attention away. Headlines grab attention. Their the single most effective way of grabbing attention. Content matters. Design matters. Headlines rule when it comes to getting noticed.

These two issues affect your blog’s success with PEOPLE - no matter how they find your blog - be it through a search engine, link, randomly or digg.

It’s not about search engines, digg, or anything other than people and how best to reach them, grab their attention and give them what they want.

The Headline Isn’t Secondary to the Content

Too often, people write great content but don’t focus whatsoever on their headlines. The headline is an afterthought - a necessity to publish a blog post - but not critical to it’s success. Wrong.

And this is wrong regardless of how you measure success - be it traffic to an individual post, traffic to your blog, digg, search engine pick up, comments, etc.

A headline is the doorway to your blog post. If it’s a great headline, you’ve opened the door wide open - a reader will walk through happily, devour your content and move to the next step: read more, comment, email you, sign-up via RSS. You’ve hooked them. And it’s not about being cheesy or fake. It’s just good copywriting.

5 Tips for Writing Great Headlines

The most important tip is to spend a lot more time and thought on headline writing. Learn how to do it. Check out what others recommend about writing great headlines. Study blog posts for their content and their headlines. Look at the list of “most popular posts” in my sidebar…

Here are 5 additional tips:

1. Be Descriptive. The biggest headline mistake is not being descriptive enough. If I don’t have an idea about the subject of your blog post from reading the headline, there’s a very good chance I won’t read it. Don’t worry if your post titles end up being longer. Many people seem to go for 2-3 word titles, which are very hard to make descriptive.
2. Use Powerful Words. A headline is a sales pitch. Every blogger is a salesperson, and your headline is the best tool you’ve got. Engaging, powerful words draw readers in. Think: Top, Free, How, Secret, You. Think about action words that encourage people to do something.
3. Be Personal. People need to feel like you’re speaking directly to them. Being more personal in a headline can help. An example: 5 Phrases You Never Want To Hear In A Presentation. Not 5 phrases someone else doesn’t want to hear, but 5 phrases YOU don’t want to hear. I’m talking to you.
4. Be Bold. More than the use of powerful, engaging words, being bold is about taking a stand with your headline. The headline is the perfect place to state an opinion. It’s the perfect place to make it clear that you’ve just written the BEST post ever on your subject matter. Be brave and claim ownership of something great.
5. Ask Questions. Question headlines work because they draw people in to get an answer. It’s a great format for a headline, but the same tips above still apply. Make the question as engaging, brazen, powerful and descriptive as possible. And answer it in your post…

Don’t Ignore Your Blog Post Headlines

Failing to write a great headline is tantamount to ignoring your audience. Even if your blog is extremely personal in nature, a journal only your friends read, and search engines or digg are not of real concern, it doesn’t matter. Great headlines are about people, whether you have an audience of 5 or 5,000,000.

Great headlines will help with search engines.

Great headlines will help with digg.

But those aren’t the reasons you should focus on great headline writing. Gaining advantages in search engines and digg are just benefits of writing great headlines for people.

You need to write great headlines to grow a successful blog.

The folks at Pronet Advertising have just released a Flash-based online game called Search Engine Smackdown.

The game is simple - pick a fighter - Larry or Sergey from Google, Bill or Paul from Microsoft, Jerry or David from Yahoo, and duke it out by answering a number of search engine related questions.

How many people will really pick Bill Gates as their fighter of choice? Come on!

Some of the questions are easy, but others are definitely a bit more challenging. And, most of the questions are quite interesting too. You’ll have some fun and you might just learn something too!

I’ve already asked them to add a Pause button, and I’m sure they’ll make a handful of improvements over time.

Go play Search Engine Smackdown!

This is a great example of buzz marketing at its finest. It’s fun, catchy, and helps Pronet extend and develop its brand and reputation in the markets where it does business. Nice job.

Over the last week I came across 4 great blog-related resources that I wanted to share:

1. 66 Ways To Build Links in 2007 - Brandon Hopkins has a huge list of ways to build links. It’s one of those blog posts you should bookmark and keep re-visiting every so often. Marketing and promoting your blog should be a never ending process, and a good chunk of that work is in link building.
2. WordPress Plugin Directory - WordPress has finally put together a comprehensive plugin list and organized it neatly and properly. Already I’ve found a few plugins I wasn’t aware of, including some very popular ones that warrant more investigation. This will very quickly become the de facto resource for all WordPress users when looking for plugins.
3. MultiSubmit - A neat little tool that lets you submit a blog post to multiple social bookmarking type sites all at once. You can pick which ones you want to be setup for, and it’s an incredibly easy process. It doesn’t work for StumbleUpon though, which is too bad because StumbleUpon is a great service. Still, it’s a very fast way to get a blog post put into the most popular social bookmarking sites including digg, reddit, Netscape and del.icio.us.
4. Blogged Out - Darren Cronian is starting almost from the beginning, introducing people to ways they can promote and improve their blogs. The information to-date is basic, but it’s always smart to start at the basics and learn along with others. Darren’s goal is to run Blogged Out for 3 months, earn $1,900 and donate 40% to charity.

Hope you enjoy these resources!

A few days ago I was stuck behind a bus, late for a meeting. And not just any meeting. An important meeting. (Are there any other kinds? Heh. Kidding.)

Between cursing myself out for not leaving 10 minutes earlier (too busy checking email - stupid) and scrounging around in the car for a mint (Swiss cheese for lunch right before - stupid again) I stared up at the huge ass of this bus and quickly contemplated my options.

I didn’t really have any, short of waiting and driving forward at the pace of a dead turtle.

That gave me some time to think, and quite quickly, the Blogger Mindset kicked in. Questions started popping into my brain —

• “What’s relevant about that bus to my life right now?”
• “What can I say about a bus on my blog? Why would anyone care?”
• “What parallels can I draw between the bus, being stuck behind it, being late and the world of business?”
• “Is the bus real? Am I real?”

A nascent thought formed in my head. Competition. That big, fat, unmoving bus was competition. In my case, competition to get where I needed to go - but so many parallels in today’s crazy-paced tech world can be drawn between that bus and your competition.

I thought about the competition I’ll be facing with my new startup. A lot of it looks like that bus. But what’s your competition look like?

Don’t Obsess Over Competition But Keep An Eye Out

I don’t advocate tracking your competitors’ every moves, but sometimes they just hit you right in the face. They’re so slow, big, unmotivated and uninteresting but they’re there. And they can still be quite dangerous. Just imagine if any of these animals sat on you…

Be Yourself - Be Better

Turn the question around for a moment and ask yourself, “What do I look like?”

What’s your “one thing” that’ll make you stand out? What’s unique about you?

When faced with competition like my bus, or any other big beastie, I always think:

• Be faster.
• Be more daring.
• Be smarter.
• Be more adaptable.

What do you look like?

Let’s hope it’s not that bus…

Photos by baconstand, bobfoldsfive, erglatz and spynotebook