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Before the shot clock was modified and installed into the
game of basketball teams would employ a four corners
offense to significantly slow the game down. The offense
was developed and popularized by long-time North Carolina
head coach Dean Smith in the early 1960s. You may be
thinking, "What does this basketball strategy have to do
with me and time management"? The answer is simple. To
become effective at controlling your choices, which
ultimately lets you make better choices, you have to become
an "effective worker". To become an "effective worker" you
must understand and deploy the concept of slowing down to
speed up. Slowing down to speed up allows one to do the
right things, for the right reasons, at the right time. To
summarize an "effective worker" is a results worker versus
an activity worker. This slow down to speed up strategy is
opposite of what most people think about when they think
about time management. For most time management translates
into managing time better so one can get more done in the
time available. The challenge to this logic is you can not
manage time. Everyone receives 86, 400 seconds each day.
Once those seconds are gone you get none of them back.
Therefore time is an irreplaceable asset. With a bank
account if you spend $100 dollars you can put $200 back in
the bank to replace the first $100 and have $100 for the
future. Unfortunately when your 86,400 seconds are gone you
can not replace or get any of them back. The solution for
trying to manage an irreplaceable asset like time is to
become effective. Becoming effective means you know how to
slow down the clock to make better choices in the moment.
The outcome, as in basketball, is you will only make a shot
with the highest probability of scoring. By making a better
choice in the moment one can become more effective. At the
Gulas Group we call this strategy one of many best practice
processes. The return for individuals, teams and
organizations from these best practice processes comes in
when you apply them to tool boxes like Microsoft Outlook,
Lotus Notes, GroupWise or any CRM software program in an
effort to create organizational consistency around planning
and organizing. Let us take a top down view of what
comprises the four corners offense of time management. The
first corner in this strategy is called Do it Now. The
second corner is titled Decide When. The third corner is
titled Delegate and the fourth corner is named Delete/ Dump.
- Do it Now
- Decide When (date Activate)
- Delegate it
- Delete Dump it
The remaining part of this article will review how to apply
one tactic within the four corner strategy that carries the
greatest value to individuals and teams. The four corner
tactic with the greatest value is titled Decide When. To
understand the Decide When tactic in the four corners
strategy one has to think in terms of a 90 degree drawing
of two lines on a piece of paper. On the vertical axis is
all the 50 or so to do's or what I call doable details.
Each doable detail represents an X on the vertical axis
line. Above the horizontal axis line one writes in seven
names of the week Sunday to Saturday. Now instead of
building a vertical what to do list on the vertical axis
line you will slow down in the moment of choice and ask
yourself these questions: what is this doable detail and
when do I need to do it and where do I store it till I need
it For example in the moment of choice on Friday morning I
realize this is a memo that I need to reply to and write to
Steve on Tuesday. Therefore, I move this doable detail to
Tuesday's list. Next I ask where I want to store the
information till it is needed again? Since it is an e-mail
I can insert it into to Steve's contact record notes
section or insert a hyperlink in the notes section. The net
effect is I now have a horizontal when to do list versus a
vertical what to do list. Now think about the power of
using this best practice process of date activating into a
tool box like Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, GroupWise or
any CRM software program. One can get a sense that just
using one of the four corner tactics like decide when, will
allow you to make better choices in the moment, by slowing
down to speed up. At the same time it gives you an
opportunity to rapidly retrieve information from the future
across the horizontal when to do list. This impact becomes
even greater when one applies the best practice process of
prioritizing the when to do list based on importance,
highest values and urgency. Look for more best practice
four corner tactics in future articles.
----------------------------------------------------
Ted Gulas, President of the Gulas Group, specializes in the
development of "Human Capital", by guiding individuals,
teams and organizations to their goals. This is done by re
tooling a critical but often overlooked asset of the 21st
century the "knowledge worker". Since 1989 Ted's
organization is focused in three areas for results;
assessments, workload/time planning and sales development.
http://www.gulasgroup.com
College Football - The Train Has Left the Station, and Michigan State Missed the Departure
Copyright © 2009 Ed Bagley
When the train was ready to pull out of the station this
year at East Lansing, the Michigan State University
Spartans had a chance to enjoy every stop on their way to
an unbeaten season.
They could have run the table at the pool hall. They could
have had a scenic and exciting journey, rising right up to
become one of the elite teams in the country. In addition
to the usual stops on the journey, the Spartans had two of
their three biggest hurdles—Michigan and
Iowa—at home, and did not even have to face Ohio
State because of the Big Ten scheduling rotation.
So much for perfect journeys.
When the train pulled out of the station this year,
Michigan State missed the departure for the second stop.
After blowing away a Division 1-AA Montana State team 44-3
in their opener at home, there must have been a lot of
chest pounding because the Spartans laid an egg against
their next opponent at home—Central Michigan.
The 1-A Chippewas from the mid-level Mid American
Conference, apparently only slightly less accomplished than
teams from the mighty Big Ten, came to East Lansing to win.
The Spartans showed up, but did not convince anyone that
they were ready for the season they should have had. A lack
of focus, attitude and execution did them in, 29-27.
Starting the season at 1-1, they did little to straighten
themselves out as they lost away games at Notre Dame 33-30
and Wisconsin 38-30 to slip to 1-3.
After beating Michigan at home 26-20 in overtime, they took
care of Illinois 24-14 and Northwestern 24-14, bringing
their record to 4-3.
When the now 9-0 Iowa Hawkeyes came to town, the Spartans
could have won but lost 15-13, and they compounded their
problems by giving up 42 points to Minnesota on the road
and losing by 8, 42-34. So the Michigan State Spartans now
sit at a humble 4-5, probably wondering what hit them.
Next up is Western Michigan at home. The Broncos are
another powerhouse team from Michigan with a 4-5 mark.
The Broncos are most certainly to be feared since they have
beaten such illustrious teams as 151st-ranked, 1-AA
Hofstra, 145th-ranked Miami of Ohio, 125th-ranked Toledo,
and 110th-ranked Buffalo. The Broncos are ranked 112th
among 120 major college programs.
Despite the tremendous odds against themselves, the
Spartans just might be able to beat the Broncos and even
their record to 5-5. Should they do so, they just might
have a shot at becoming bowl eligible at Purdue, or at home
against an 8-1 Penn State team that plans on using them for
fodder.
So what really went wrong at Michigan State this year?
Well, one thing is that coach Mark Dantonio wanted two good
quarterbacks and got them in Kirk Cousins and Keith Nichol,
who are both sophomores. Unfortunately, Dantonio could not
make up his mind who was better quarterback so he rotated
them—generally a bad mistake.
Dantonio did not put his total confidence in either player
and thus denied one of them the opportunity to become the
leader on offense. Think of Tim Tebow of the Florida
Gators, or Jake Locker of the Washington Huskies.
When a team rotates quarterbacks and the team wins every
game, it is still not the best situation, but it can work.
The minute a team starts losing, something Michigan State
has done a lot of this year, it does not work.
Name me one top team nationally that rotates quarterbacks.
Name me one national championship team, any one, that has
rotated quarterbacks.
The problem is the players, not actually meaning to, begin
to polarize their loyalty. They begin to point fingers and
lay blame. When a team loses, all players can be criticized
for their play, so they manufacture excuses for not
performing up to their potential.
Here is my message to Dantonio and Michigan State: Pick one
of the two, back him, put your confidence in him, play him
only until he succeeds or fails after several games. Do not
dump him too soon or neither quarterback will get the
experience they need to develop their leadership talent.
In the meantime, would it be such a bad thing if you
crushed Western Michigan and Purdue and became bowl
eligible? Maybe there is not a bowl game that would want
the Spartans this year, but let's find out.
(Disclaimer: Ed Bagley is a 1966 graduate of Michigan State
University who was there when the Spartans had their
back-to-back National Championship teams under Duffy
Daugherty in 1965 and 1966.)
----------------------------------------------------
Check out "Ed Bagley's Top 25 Poll" for Week 9 and find out
why the Oregon Ducks are getting the bum's rush in the
national ranking polls.
"The Glory Years of the Green and White Michigan State
University Football Teams – Part 1"
"The Glory Years of the Green and White Michigan State
University Football Teams – Part 2"
http://www.edbagleyblog.com
http://www.edbagleyblog.com/Sports.html
Traffic is the lifeblood of our online business. The more
the merrier in most cases.
For marketers though, this isn't always the case.
Marketers must have targeted traffic and to earn full from
it, they need to know where it is coming from. If you are
unaware of where your traffic is coming from, then you
aren't which traffic generation methods are working.
Many marketers make no effort to track their visitors.
By paying for advertising and not tracking your traffic you
are losing money! You must realize what advertising
methods are producing income. You can then increase your
profit by doing more of the adverts that are effective and
less of those which aren't.
Traffic tracking doesn't have to be hard. There are scripts
and services you can buy that will monitor your website
visitors for you. The features and price of these vary
greatly.
A script or service often makes it easier for you to track
your traffic.
Google Analytics provides a easy way to track your
visitors. This service is free to use. The good thing
about it is that it provides detailed stats and can track
very nearly anything. The bad thing is that it provides in
depth statistics and can track very nearly anything!
The complexity of it is a good and a bad thing because you
can find out so much about your website that it will
initially mystify you. However, once you have spent some
time understanding the results it will prove very useful.
You must first insert the code in to your web site. This
is a unique code for each website and must be put just
before the closing body tag at the end of each page.
Once it is reporting data, you need to drive a decent
amount of traffic to your site to get some good results.
As well as tracking all activity, Analytics provides an
overlay map showing you where your visitors click on your
website. By linking Analytics with Adsense and Adwords you
can understand how well these are performing for you.
A significant benefit of Analytics is it allows for goal
tracking which can track sales and subscriptions. If you
have a membership script on your website it can be complex
to get it working, but it is worth using.
The big appeal to most marketers is the fact that it has a
lot of features, more than many scripts and is completely
free. Google get to see how your traffic interacts with
your web site but that's a small trade off for such
in-depth analytics
Using Google Analytics will give you a good understanding
of where your traffic comes from as well as what it does
when it gets to your website. This information will assist
you to increase your conversion rate and your profits.
----------------------------------------------------
Learn more about tracking your traffic by visiting:
http://www.easycash4life.com/
Arthor:
Annette Lode
When it's time for a vacation, almost every member in your
group will have very strong ideas on what constitutes the
perfect holiday. Given the rather mind-boggling range of
choices, deciding upon the best destination will be far
from easy.
A cruise holiday offers distinct advantages over
traditional forms of travel, and allows you to avoid all
the stress and hassle of planning a memorable vacation.
Advantages of Cruising
Cruises allow you to visit many ports of call. Depending on
your preference, you can visit many different destinations
or spend time on-board.
Most cruise ships afford a variety of on-board
entertainment facilities, allowing you to interact with
people from different cultures and catering to the tastes
of each member in your group.
A cruise saves you time. Also, since everything will be
taken care of by the cruise-liner, you can spare yourself
the agony of having to make travel arrangements, pack
suitcases or plan meals.
Most cruise holidays offer great value for money and are
inclusive of food and on-board activities. Some services
could cost extra, but since you'll know this beforehand,
you're in control of your budget.
The Biggest Cruise Ships
There are a large number of cruise liners with
state-of-the-art facilities. According to the
Travel+Lesiure Magazine, the most enviable cruises to be on
this year are:
A Mexican Riviera cruise on the Splendor with the Carnival
Line.
The Caribbean, Mediterranean, and a journey from
Southampton, England to Rome on the Solstice or the Equinox
with the Celebrity Line.
Northern Europe, Mediterranean from December, Dubai,
Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Oman on the Costa Luminosa;
Rome, Savona, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Tunis, Malta
and Palermo on the Costa Pacifica, with the Costa Cruises
Line; and
The Baltic region, Canada, New England and the Caribbean on
the Eurodam with the Holland America Line.
Most Popular Cruise Destinations
Some of the tried and tested cruises include: Caribbean
Cruise; South Pacific or Hawaiian Island Cruise; Alaskan
Cruise; Polar Cruises; Transatlantic Ocean Cruise; River
Cruises (the Danube in Europe, the fjords in Norway, the
Mississippi in United States, the Nile in Egypt); Galapagos
Island Cruises; European Cruises: Mediterranean, Northern
Europe and Baltic, Greek and Canary Islands; Mexican
Riviera Cruise.
South African Cruises: Best Times for a Cruise
While the following months offer the most favourable
weather conditions, prices could prove to be steep. If you
want cheaper options, travel during the off-season months.
Peak season itineraries are as follows: Alaskan Cruise:
June to August; Bermuda Cruise: April through Mid-November;
Caribbean Cruise: Year round; December through April are
particularly good; Mediterranean Cruise: April through
November; Northern Europe and Baltic cruises: May to
October; Greek and Canary Islands: March to December;
Hawaiian Islands: November through February; Mexican
Cruise: Year round.
Cruises in South Africa
South Africa is becoming a popular cruising destination and
is also a departure point for some lovely cruises. Some of
the more popular South African cruises are:
The Barra Lodge Cruise: Spend time on one of Mozambique's
most unspoiled beaches. The Indian Ocean offers great
bathing possibilities all year round.
The Christmas Cruise: Enjoy delicious seafood, bask on the
sun-kissed beaches, bathe in the turquoise blue waters and
consort with the seagulls! Barra Lodge, Maputo and
Portuguese Island are covered on this exciting cruise.
Island Discovery Cruise: Stops at Durban, Pointe des
Galets, Port Louis, Mayotte Is, Nosy Be, Maputo and
Portuguese Island.
Other popular ports are Richards Bay, Cape Town and/or Port
Elizabeth.
----------------------------------------------------
http://www.bidorbuy.co.za is South Africa's largest online
marketplace. Buyers and sellers come to bidorbuy to buy and
sell virtually anything in auction format or at fixed
prices.
Contact details: bidorbuy Marketing Department; email
promotion@bidorbuy.co.za, web site http://www.bidorbuy.co.za
Many marketers invest thousands of dollars and hundreds of
hours generating traffic to their websites. Often, the
expense of acquiring the traffic is much more than the
meagre income made from the site itself.
Aside from the standard traffic generation methods, there
are additional Web 2.0 methods you can use to enhance your
visits.
One site in particular has the ability to make substantial
amounts of traffic rapidly.
This site is Stumbleupon.com. It has a large following of
people who are can't think of what else to do. The basic
premise is that you find a site you think is appealing (you
Stumbled Upon it) and submit it to Stumbleupon.
Visitors to Stumbleupon can look through the sites other
people have found. Votes from visitors determine how often
it is viewed.
Stumbleupon appeals to people who want to see what other
people are up to. People can see what other people are
doing and vote - something which is becoming ingrained into
out culture.
In order for your site to do well on Stumbleupon it must be
the kind of site that people will want to pass on and
recommend. Sales letters don't tend to do very well, but
controversial or contrarian articles do. Anything that is
cute, funny or entertaining will do well.
This may be an article, a video, or anything of a similar
ilk. Whatever you decide upon must be of interest to your
market. Combining a major event or news subject with your
subject can give it more interest to your potential buyers.
With a bit of planning, this can be done.
It is better for you if someone else does the first
Stumbleupon. This could be a friend, family or an
outsourcer. They will need some space separated tags as
well as a description and to know which category to place
it in for you.
After the initial Stumble, it needs other people to also
Stumble it to say they like it. This helps get more views
and starts a viral effect. Place a Stumbleupon button on
your website in order to make it straightforward for
visitors to vote.
Stumbleupon can send you thousands of visitors in a day
with an article with wide ranging appeal. This is a
powerful site you must be incorporating into your business
strategy. With the traffic potential from this site, you
are missing out on valuable backlinks and massive amounts
of traffic if you are not using it.
----------------------------------------------------
Learn more about social bookmarking techniques by visiting:
http://www.easycash4life.com/
Arthor:
Annette Lode
Today's lifestyle is full of stress. Competitive work
stress, family and home stress, and even stress from
leisure activities such as softball leagues, can add up to
make life unhealthy for the most health-minded of us all.
There are some foods that will help take some of the stress
off your body so that your mind can do its thing.
Milk is one of the most underrated antioxidants around
today. Whole milk is nearly completely absent from the
American household and skim has been relegated to cooking
and breakfast cereals only. Yes just a glass of milk a day
helps reduce stress and stave off depression. Milk is an
excellent source of vitamin D. Lack of vitamin D has been
linked to depression. Vitamin D is also produced by the
body when exposed to sunlight. During long winter
months—when there is not a lot of sun—a nice
glass of milk helps to boost your vitamin D levels.
Bringing your own snacks to work is a big help, too. Carrot
sticks and broccoli florets are two favorites. Vegetables
contain vitamins that our bodies need when we have a lot of
stress. They also contain potassium for endurance and to
help calm our nerves. Also remember that having veggies as
a snack is much less fattening than say, that snack
cake—which will give you a sugar rush then leave you
depleted and tired. Vegetables will give you the long term
energy you need to get through the day.
Fruits, particularly citrus fruits, are good stress
fighters as well. Vitamin C helps to fortify our bodies and
reinforce our immune system against colds and infections.
Let's face it, as if life wasn't stressful enough, who
needs to do a presentation with a head cold?
Try replacing that second or third cup of coffee with a cup
of chicken soup. Chicken soup is not only a comfort food,
but it is a very valuable stress relieving tool and easy to
take with you to work in a thermos. Chicken soup is low in
fat and is chock-full with iron. Some of the components in
chicken soup have been found to have an anti-inflammatory
effect on the body, thus relieving stress. You also have
the added benefit of the sense of hominess that comes with
the aroma of the chicken broth wafting up from the mug.
Talk about a bonus!
Spicy foods—more accurately peppers and spicy
herbs—release endorphins into the brain causing a
sense of well being. Even if you don't really have anything
to feel good about, wouldn't it be nice to feel that way
regardless?
Proteins are the backbone of muscle-building, but they are
also directly responsible for fueling our everyday lives
and keeping us going. Replacing the candy jar with a bowl
of mixed nuts is highly recommended. Up your fish intake as
well, as fish contain Omega 3—which has been shown to
be a stress reliever. Fish is also a great source of
protein. Just do the gang at the office a favor and leave
the cans of sardines at home.
Just these few changes in dietary habit can have a good
affect on your health in the long term. In fact, if you
think about it, most of these changes have the added
benefit of tasting better than their snack food
counter-parts. Plus, it just feels nicer.
----------------------------------------------------
This article is brought to you by
The Platinum Recipes Collection:
http://www.platinumrecipescollection.com
The Platinum Recipes Collection is the Internet's Most
Comprehensive Recipes Collection.
We all buy salad dressings and with the exception of ranch
dressing, most sit in our refrigerator until we move or
they get up and walk out on their own. The salad dressing
market is being dominated by the ranch dressing cartels.
But you can single-handedly save the industry by
implementing these simple—and sometimes
unique—suggestions.
As a marinade for seafood, Caesar salad dressing is
incredible and very easy to use—particularly for
shrimp or other seafood you might be interested in
grilling. The steps are simple: put the seafood (let's say
shrimp) into a plastic container, pour in Caesar dressing
until the shrimp is covered. Cover the container in plastic
wrap and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. It is
recommended that you use "white" seafood. Halibut is great
like this. Salmon on the other hand might not be so great.
While on the subject of shrimp, a unique and great cocktail
sauce is just a couple of whisks away. Take a cup of
Catalina or French salad dressing and add horseradish to
taste. The zing from the dressing conspires with the heat
of the horseradish to confuse and titillate the taste buds.
This is not for the faint of heart, however.
Here's an idea to help you spruce up the backyard BBQ a
little: use Thousand Islands dressing in the place of
ketchup, mayonnaise or mustard. If it worked for the fast
food clown, it certainly will work great for you. For those
with a more sophisticated pallet, Blue Cheese is very good
on a burger as well.
Italian dressing is another great marinade. Use this one
for pork chops, steaks and even chicken. The acidic
properties of the dressing bring a nice zing to any dish
and the herbs will make any meat pop with flavor.
Honey Mustard is often overlooked as a dip for chicken and
vegetables, but how about as a cooking ingredient? The next
time you make a Cornish game hen, spoon some thinned down
honey mustard over the top. Be generous and keep covered
between bastings. The sweet and tangy flavor will come
through in the chicken.
It was hinted at the beginning of this article that there
would be no ranch dressing recipes. Unfortunately, it
doesn't seem like even the author can escape the power of
ranch. As far as dips go for wings and fried foods like
jalapeno poppers, a very easy and unconventional recipe
exists that will confound your guests as they try to guess
what you put in it. Save your packets of hot sauce from
Taco Bell for this one. Add about a dozen (to taste) to 2
cups of Ranch Dressing. Mix in a dash of garlic salt and
pepper and you have one of the best onion ring/fried food
dippers around.
Experiment with different combinations of dressings and
meats. Often, some of the most outlandish combinations will
result in a culinary masterpiece that will leave the
critics in your house scratching their heads. Remember,
have fun and nothing is off limits.
----------------------------------------------------
This article is brought to you by
The Platinum Recipes Collection:
http://www.platinumrecipescollection.com
The Platinum Recipes Collection is the Internet's Most
Comprehensive Recipes Collection.
