Taking a little time to think about how your email looks from the standpoint of the recipient can go a long ways toward presenting a professional image. Here are eight things you should check to make sure, that when you send an email, it conveys the image you want. Setting Up Your Name to Show up Instead of Your Address - When you send an email, it should show your name in the "from" field. Sometimes people have it set to just show their email address. The worst setup is when it shows something like "NA." This is an example of how your emails should not look to someone else: This is an example of how the" to" field should appear when someone receives your message: Include Your … [Read more...] about Setup Your Email to Look Professional
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Paperless Office Experiment
I've talked before about how the paperless office is still a dream. As I look around my desk right now, I have stacks of paper requiring my attention in various places. We are halfway through 2007. Seriously, weren't we supposed to have flying cars and robots to do the dishes and fold the clothes by now? A paperless office seems like it should be normal by now, but it isn't. One of the things that has hindered the adoption of paperless technologies is the fact that they concentrate on the "paperless office" instead of focusing on a "paperless workflow". For example, if I have a paperless office that requires printing out incoming documents, signing them and then scanning them back in … [Read more...] about Paperless Office Experiment
Contest Winner Announced
We've been running an iPod giveaway contest for awhile and we now have a winner to announce. Mr. Chee Wee Ng from the Bet Shop Boy blog, was assigned to the number selected randomly using www.random.org. Thanks to everyone who participated. We'll probably be doing some more giveaways here in the near future. … [Read more...] about Contest Winner Announced
Tuesday’s Tip: Ziplock Bags for Wires
When we were moving down to Mexico in October, I had several miles worth of various cables that I needed to take with me. Network cables, audio cables, USB cables, adapters for various devices, etc. At that point I just had them all thrown into a box and it looked like a huge rats nest. I got to thinking about how it might look to a custom's officer and decided I needed something that looked a little less disorganized. My first idea was to wrap everything up with twist ties, but we didn't have any. So I eventually settled on using Ziplock sandwich bags. It turned out that this worked even better than the ties because it keeps the cables separate so they can't … [Read more...] about Tuesday’s Tip: Ziplock Bags for Wires
Productive Blogger: Starting Slow
One mistake I see new bloggers make is to start off by writing 20 posts all in the first week. Write as much as you can, but don't post all at once. Here is why. When you start of you will not have any readers. If you spread your great posts out over time, you have a better chance of people actually seeing your content. Obviously you can't decide not to post anything until you have a bunch of readers, but unless your posts are time sensitive, don't try to post 5 times a day when you have only 3 people subscribed. A better approach is to post once every two weeks for the first month or so, just to get your blog established and indexed in the search engines. Then start posting every … [Read more...] about Productive Blogger: Starting Slow
Advice for a New Professional
Congratulations to Legal Andrew on completing the bar exam. In this post he asks about advice for a new professional. Below are my thoughts. If you have any further suggestions for Andrew, please add them to the comments here or on his original post. 1. Live Beneath Your Means Your first year as a wage earner will really set the tone for how you spend money. Making a conscious decision to live below your means establishes a habit that will give you flexibility in the future. If you can afford a $1200 apartment, look for ones in the $800 range. When I started out after college, I tried to live on 20% of my income. Later on this gave me a great deal of flexibility that allowed me to … [Read more...] about Advice for a New Professional
Tuesday’s Tip: List of Important Numbers
Before my wife and I went to Mexico last October, we made a list of all the important numbers in our lives. We had credit card numbers, telephone numbers for credit card companies, passport numbers, bank account numbers, insurance policies, retirement accounts, drivers license numbers, online banking passwords etc. We wrote these all up on the computer, printed out a single copy and deleted the computer file. We then gave it to my parents to keep in a safety deposit box. If anything were to happen to one of us or if our wallets were stolen, there is a single place we can go to get all the important numbers we need. This took us a very small amount of time to put together, but if our … [Read more...] about Tuesday’s Tip: List of Important Numbers
Productive Blogger: Create a Series
Some topics are too large to be a single post. As you write a post ask yourself if you need to step back and deal with other related subjects as well. If so, then you might have a good candidate for a series. The best way to write a series is to start with your recap post. This is the post where you link back to all the posts in the series so people can find them all from one place. Write this post first and list the different posts that make up the series--even though you haven't written them yet. Then take this list and write a post for each item. Sometimes it is easiest to do this in a text editor so you can see all of the posts at once. This lets you jump back and forth if you … [Read more...] about Productive Blogger: Create a Series
Tuesday’s Tip: Handwritten Notes
The world we live in is so based around electronic communication that taking the time to do something the old fashion way can really make you stand out from the crowd. Following up meeting a new business contact with a short note in your own handwriting can form a lasting impression that would be difficult to achieve with email. If you've become too dependent on email's spell check, go ahead and write your message on the computer before copying it to your note. It may seem silly to do this, but if it lets you better compose your thoughts and makes you look professional, it is well worth the effort. … [Read more...] about Tuesday’s Tip: Handwritten Notes
Productive Blogger: Make a Top 100 List
Every blogger eventually feels like they have run out of ideas. To help counter this, you need to have a repository of ideas ready to go. I suggest trying to write a list of 100 tips. You may not ever publish this list, but having it gives you a place to store those little ideas as they come to you. More importantly it gives you a place to go when you need inspiration. I use this method for Productivity501. When I have some time to write, but none of my ideas seem good, I'll browse through my list and usually I'll find something that clicks. This idea is very similar to the post about inspiration not being evenly distributed. You have to capture inspiration when it comes to use when it is … [Read more...] about Productive Blogger: Make a Top 100 List