SEHRISH NAEEM - 7 Steps to Incredible Personal Productivity

SEHRISH NAEEM Says: 

Practical advice to turn an average workday into an incredibly productive day.

Occasionally  You Need To Go The Extra Mile. 

Sometimes you need to complete a major project, tackle a task you’ve put off, or just knock out a ton of work in one day.

Here’s the best way to turn a normal workday into an incredibly productive workday:

1. Let Everyone Know. 

Interruptions destroy focus and kill productivity. So are the guilt trips your family "sometimes unintentionally" lay on you. Let coworkers and family know you’re planning a “project day.” Tell key customers too. Announce you will be tied up on, say, Tuesday, and that you will respond to calls and emails on Thursday. Let people know who to contact in an emergency. Some will get with you before Tuesday, and the rest will make a mental note you’re not available. In either case, you’re covered.

Plus you get the “peer pressure” benefit: When you tell people you plan to finish a project you will be more likely to see the job through. Peer pressure can be positive motivation harness it.

2. Set a Target. 

Don’t plan your project day based on fuzzy parameters like, “I will stay at it as long as possible,” or, “I won’t leave until I no longer feel productive.” Those approaches give you an easy out. Commit to working for as long as you estimate it will take. Pick a number.

There’s a cool benefit to this approach too: The longer the time frame you set the quicker the early hours seem to go by. When I worked in manufacturing we normally worked eight-hour shifts. The hours before lunch seemed endless; the last two hours of the day were even worse. During busy periods we worked twelve hour shifts and the mornings seemed to fly by something about knowing you will be working for a long time allows you to stop checking the clock. When you know you’re in for a long haul your mind automatically adapts. Try it, it works.

3. Start Unusually Early or Unusually Late. 

When you step outside your norm, your perspective of time shifts as well. Start at 5 a.m. or revisit your college days and start at 6 p.m. and work through the night. Set the stage for an unusually productive day by dramatically changing your normal routine.

4. Delay Gratification. 

Say you like to listen to music while you work. Don’t, at least for the first couple of hours. That way, when your enthusiasm really starts to wane, turning on the music will perk you back up. Hold off on whatever things you use to brighten up your workday, at least for a while. Delayed gratification is always better gratification, and in this case can provide just the spark you need to keep going.

5. Refuel and Recharge Before You Need To. 

When endurance athletes wait until they are thirsty to drink they’ve waited too long. The same premise applies at work. Have a snack a little earlier than normal. Start drinking water right immediately. If you normally sit, stand up before you start to feel stiff or cramped. If you normally stand, sit before your back stiffens or your legs ache. Be proactive so discomfort can’t dampen your motivation or weaken your resolve.

And make sure you plan meals wisely. Don’t take an hour for lunch. Plan food ahead of time that you can prepare and eat quickly. The goal is to refuel, re-hydrate, and keep on rolling. Remember, this is an unusual day treat it that way.

6. Don’t Take Rest Breaks. Take Productivity Breaks.

Newton’s Law of Productivity states that a productive person in motion tends to stay in motion. Maintaining momentum is everything. Don’t take a TV or Internet break. Take breaks that reinforce your sense of activity and accomplishment. Take a quick walk and think about what you’re tackling next. Then jump back in. Even a few minutes spent in the land of inactivity make it hard to regain momentum.

7. Don’t Stop until it’s done. 

Stopping simply because you’re tired or bored is habit-forming. (Plus you’re always capable of doing more than you think.) If the only barrier to completion is effort or motivation, stay at it and bust through that barrier.

Think about your normal workday; at some point you typically think, “That’s it. That’s all I have in me today.” That limit was set long ago, but it’s an artificial limit based on habit. Pushing through the “pain” is a habit anyone can develop, and when you do, you automatically set your effort limit a little higher making you capable of even more on a regular basis.

SEHRISH NAEEM - How Groundbreaking Thinkers Spread Their Ideas

SEHRISH NAEEM Says: 

Got great ideas? Channel your inner Steve Jobs and start spreading them around. Here's how.

let’s go a step farther and talk about the logistics of getting your ideas noticed. But before we do, remember:

The audience won’t come to you. 

Forget “build it and they will come.” Follow a “find them so they will come” strategy. It’s a time-honored approach; most groundbreaking thinkers built their following by writing for and appearing on news sites, blogs, etc. other than their own.

Online is easiest.

The following can be applied to a variety of media, but unless you already have a reasonable profile it makes sense to start online: greater access to decision-makers, a broad spectrum of outlets and opportunities to choose from, and most articles last forever and generate a SEO boost. (While a TV appearance could generate great exposure, once it has aired it’s gone. Afterwards the clip may be stored online but your mom is the only person who will ever watch it.)

So after you’ve created your wish list of blogs and websites:

Don’t write anything—yet. 

Any blogger who doesn’t want you to tailor your message to their audience doesn’t have an audience. Successful blogs (and news/information sites) have a specific theme and focus. A site that will accept the same post you would write for your own blog isn’t worth writing for… or is competing for the same audience and won’t want you. Actually writing the piece is the last thing you’ll do before contacting an editor or blogger.

Understand no one cares what you need. 

Your goal may be to spread your message, raise your profile, and build an audience… but bloggers and editors don’t care. Their goal is to build their audience. Whatever you provide must first help them. In order to do that…

Focus on their needs. 

The key is to really know the site, not just the front page and editor/blogger bio. Read a number of posts, sift through reader comments, and work through older posts to detect patterns, ongoing themes, and gradual shifts in perspective or direction. That will help you…

Understand how to tailor your message to the site audience. 

The site’s audience doesn’t care about what you want to say—they care about what they want to read. If they want “different” they can go elsewhere. Whatever you write must fit snugly with the overall theme of the site, so develop a mental image of the average site visitor. While you may know your audience, the goal is to know the site’s audience. Then you will…

Understand how to tailor your pitch to the blogger or editor.

 Here are the three questions bloggers and editors ask themselves when they read a pitch:

• Is my current audience interested, and
• Will this help grow my audience, and
• Does the association with the contributor boost the image and profile of my site?

When you pitch, your job is to make sure the answers to all of those questions are “yes.”

Discard 80 percent of your message. 

I know you’ve worked really hard on your unique selling propositions and elevator speeches. You are one in-depth, on-point individual. That’s great—but not in this case. The looser the association with the audience the less of your message you can successfully shoehorn into both your pitch and the eventual content. You must look past your USP and find a slant and approach that resonates with the audience. That means at least 80 percent (and preferably more) of the content must be useful and offer how-to or actionable advice—specific to the audience. Where boosting your reputation, expertise, or credibility is concerned, think implicit, not explicit. Great actionable content implies expertise.

Pitch individually—and with content.

 Now that you know the needs of the site and the audience you’re ready to pitch. Every site is unique and every pitch must be unique. Don’t take the easy way out and just say, “I would love to guest post…” Write and attach the article. While it could seem like a waste of time to write an article that may never be published, most bloggers and editors will at least skim what you send—and that’s when all the homework you did pays off.

Still not sure you’re ready to get your ideas noticed? Next week I’ll tie the process together with a step-by-step example that turns theory into action.

SEHRISH NAEEM- 5 Ways to Be Known as a Groundbreaking Thinker

Sehrish Naeem Says:

Everyone has ideas; it's how you execute them that will get you noticed. Adopting these five principles will help.

Would you like to be seen as a groundbreaker and a visionary? Want to be the Seth Godin of your field or the Malcolm Gladwell (possibly with a different hairstyle) of your industry?

You can—but it’s not easy. And it takes a lot more than sitting at a computer while the children are nestled all snug in their beds and visions of thought leadership dance in your head.

How do I know? Some of my clients are truly visionaries and leaders in their fields. I know what they’ve done to set themselves apart. In a few cases I’ve helped, but mostly I’ve marveled at their approach, energy, and most importantly persistence.

To be seen as a groundbreaking thinker, here are a few principles you must embrace:

You must start with show, not tell.  

Everyone has ideas. Ideas are cheap. Talk is even cheaper. We listen to leading thinkers because their ideas have been validated by success. Think about it: Would anyone consider Tony Hsieh to be a leading thinker in customer service and employee engagement if Zappos hadn’t experienced tremendous growth? Sure, occasionally a Chris Anderson will popularize a concept like the Long Tail, but he had already built a platform at Wired where he could share his ideas. (A visionary without a platform is a tree that falls in the forest and makes no sound.)  When you prove your vision is valid, gaining recognition for visionary thinking is much easier.

If everyone agrees, you’re preaching to the choir. 

Most of us follow basic business principles. How we apply those principles may be (slightly) different because each of us is unique… but not really. To be a groundbreaker you must take a very different approach, and that means many people will disagree with your thinking even after you’ve proven you’re right. See push back as a sign you may really be on to something. But also make sure you’re prepared to take the heat when others attack—because they will.

You have to start small. 

Cobbling together a platform and building a following is incredibly hard. The Wall Street Journal won’t take your calls, but trade publications, local papers, radio stations, and moderately influential bloggers may, especially when you have something different to say and a story that proves your point. In some cases smaller mainstream media outlets not only don’t mind when you reach out, they want you to reach out, because many are starved for content. Be humble and speak and write for just about anyone who will have you. If you’re only willing to start at the top, you’ll never get started.

For a while no one will listen. 

And that’s okay. Groundbreakers not only have great ideas, they effectively communicate those ideas. You must be able to write and speak extremely well. Unless you have the resources to hire a ghostwriter to write articles, books, speeches, etc., it’s all on you. That’s another reason starting small is important; not only do you get to refine your message but you also get lots of practice writing and speaking.

And most importantly…

You must be sure the effort is worth it. 

If you’re a consultant or an author, being seen as a groundbreaking thinker can have a direct payoff. Heightened credibility and increased visibility can create broader opportunities, drive higher fees, and boost revenues. But in many cases the only boost you can receive is to your ego. Building a platform and an audience for your ideas is really, really hard. You’ll invest countless hours writing, speaking, promoting, and networking, possibly for very little return. Take a hard look at the tangible benefits you expect to receive. If you can’t quantify the return, put your time into other activities that will produce a real return.

If it’s just about your ego, you’ll never succeed, and in fact probably shouldn’t—because groundbreaking thinkers place all the emphasis on their ideas, not on themselves.

SEHRISH NAEEM - The Best Way to Become an Expert

Sehrish Naeem Say:

I shared ways to get your ideas out  

I left out one key element, though: You really need to be an expert before you can have groundbreaking ideas.

Oops.

“Being an expert is flat knowing that you can answer any question about the narrow field you serve. Essentially it boils down to two things: Know what you’re talking about, and present it with personal authenticity.”

So how do you become an expert? Here are the steps SEHRISH IRUM recommends:

Narrow your field of expertise so that you can go deeper within that field, whether vertical or horizontal

 You simply cannot be an expert in everything. If you try, you create a wide shallow pool instead of a deep well of knowledge.

Meanwhile, try to broaden your exposure to all sorts of things that do not fall within your area of declared expertise.

 Be a renaissance person. But, as David says, broaden your horizons on your own time; never  turn clients into victims because of your lack of expertise.

Apply your expertise repeatedly in similar situations. 

This is the only way you will notice patterns, and the essence of intelligence is pattern matching. That’s why the key to great chess players in pattern matching, or why the intelligence of young children can be tested even before they are verbal.

Here’s a pattern David sees in his field: Business owners are most introspective approximately nine months before their lease is up, simply because that’s the only time they make a long-term commitment to staying in business for the next three, five, or 10 years. He’s written down about 200 of these patterns and that allows him to diagnose a situation more quickly and reliably.

Quit trying to learn more, and just put yourself out there.

 After writing down the patterns, test them with clients and prospects and adjust where necessary. After that the only way to further your knowledge is to articulate it, because the clarity comes in the articulation, whether onstage or in a conference room. Articulation leads to points of view you deeply believe, not because you’ve read about them but because you’ve examined them repeatedly.

Think differently about the mistakes you make. When you are challenged on a particular recommendation, listen carefully and be open to the fact your pattern matching may have been flawed and led to an incorrect assumption. Being wrong is just part of the game, and if you are seldom wrong you aren’t taking enough risks—or you’re already a renowned expert.

Develop your insightful observations into a system. Price it as a diagnostic package, and now you have a real process that is likely different from all the “me too” processes that have spread like weeds on websites.

Articulate your system so well that you build a training module, and train all new employees in your system. 

If you don’t think enough of your process to train new employees that way, it’s really not a valuable process.

And one more thing. You’re probably a lot smarter than you think. Start taking the time now to articulate your ideas and the patterns you notice. You might even bring someone to client meetings just to write down all the smart things you say—because you will be at your best when you’re in front of a client and totally engaged in solving their problem.