8 Things Everybody Ought to Know About Concentrating “Music helps me concentrate,” Mike said to me glancing briefly over his shoulder. Mike was in his room writing a paper for his U.S. History class. On his desk next to his computer sat crunched Red Bulls, empty Gatorade bottles, some extra pocket change and scattered pieces of paper. In the pocket of his sweat pants rested a blaring iPod with a chord that dangled near the floor, almost touching against his Adidas sandals. Mike made a shift about every thirty seconds between all of the above. Do you know a person like this? The Science Behind Concentration In the above account, Mike’s obviously stuck in a routine that many of us may have found ourselves in, yet in the moment we feel it’s almost an impossible routine to get out of. When we constantly multitask to get things done, we’re not multitasking, we’re rapidly shifting our attention. Phase 1: Blood Rush Alert When Mike decides to start writing his History essay, blood rushes to his anterior prefrontal cortex. Phase 2: Find and Execute
6 Simple Ways For Freelancers To Increase Productivity | How-To Advertisement The best part about being a freelancer is having the freedom to set your own schedule and make your own rules. This, however, can also be the worst part. Without the normal structure of an office environment, many would-be freelancers find themselves wondering at the end of the day where all their time went. Getting the most out of your workday can be tough. So, to help, we present some simple ways that freelancers can increase their productivity. 1. Define Your Working Hours Having set working hours creates a feeling of accountability and puts a premium on your time, making you less likely to waste it. Take Breaks Studies show that people who take short breaks during the work day tend to get more done . 2. Set Goals Without goals, we would quickly find ourselves bumbling through life aimlessly. Create To-Do Lists Use your goal list for the week to create your daily to-do lists. Break Up Large Tasks Into Managable Pieces Track Your Time Evaluate Your Performance 3. 4. 5. Go Mobile
Free CV templates - the way to go? Free CV templates are rife on the Internet. It seems like everybody and anybody is offering free CV templates on websites. And the funny thing is that people use them. People look for them, they copy them and paste in their details and fire the CV off to whatever job their are applying for. And then they seem disappointed when they get no response. Is it surprising that the pre-formatted CV you sent to the recruiter didn’t capture their attention? Be original because free CV’s usually aren’t! Your CV is the first point of contact with you have with your potential employer. By using one of these free CV templates, you substantially lower your chances that the recruiter will remember you. You have to be original. So what use are free CV templates? Information! If you are new to job hunting, then knowing what to put into your CV can be hard – even working out how it should look can be difficult. But shouldn’t CV’s be in a conventional format? Yes and no. Take web design for example. Summary
101 Ideas to Get More Freelance Work and Generate New Client Leads Since FreelanceSwitch started, there is one question that I get asked more often than any other. How can a freelancer find more work and generate new client leads? Well at FreelanceSwitch we don’t shy away from the pressing questions. So as the kicker for a new series on how to get more freelance work, we have put together an enormous list of ideas, ranging from ones that take 10 seconds to 10 days. And now without further ado, here they are, your 101 ideas: Word of Mouth is The Go Enlist your family and friends to spread the word about your services Send out an email to everyone in your address book, announcing what you do, where you are and what you can offer Ask your satisfied clients for referrals Offer free consultations to new referrals Consider a referral or finders fee Love Those Clients Get in touch with past and current clients when you have a new service to offer them Get in touch with past and current clients when you have completed a flagship project Start a newsletter Talk the Talk
5 Complimentary Skills to Graphic Design | You the Designer Articles January 7, 2009 In today’s economy competition is rougher than ever and even before this economic down turn I had mentioned how competitive the field of graphic design was getting and how more and more job listings were looking for multi-talented designers. By this I mean many employers want you to not only be a graphic designer, but also a web designer with knowledge of multiple coding language and much more. If you are freelancing from home than you will need even more skills to make the most of your home business so you can bring in as much steady income as possible. 1. Web design is probably the most valuable skill to have as a graphic designer. 2. Designers often have backgrounds in fine art such as drawing and illustration, but end up putting their focus on commercial graphic design which can create a disconnect from their fine art origins. 3. Online marketing is an essential skill for anyone looking to make the most of their freelance design business. 4. 5.
20 Creative Resume Designs Which Will Amaze Any Potential Employer A great showcase design post of some truly creative and inspiration CV designs which im sure would blow away any potential employer. The post focus on creative designs which make use of creative layout and designs which focus on colour. We would love for you to share within the comments your favourite designs from the post 1.My Resume 2.Creative Resume I Designed for Class 3.Creative resume – Francis 4.Creative resume – Michael Anderson 5.Creative resume – Chuckdlay 6.Creative resume – Sean Mcnolly 7.Creative resume – Jolie Odell 8.Creative resume – Suyjoy 9.Creative resume – Mari Rybak 10.Creative resume – Gregg Dizzia 11.Creative resume – Tudor Deleanu 12.Creative resume – Pau Morgan 13.Creative resume – 3-D resume 14.Creative resume – Sofiane 15.Creative resume -Katie Rennar 16.Creative resume -Martin 17.Creative resume -Adam 18.Creative resume -Anna Yeina 19.Creative resume -Doni 20.Creative resume -Doni
How To Track Down & Scout Out Influencers You’ve heard it a lot. The key to your social dominance lies in your ability to connect with your brand influencers and get them to pass on your content and their networks just how great you are. It’s well-intentioned advice but it means nothing if you don’t know who these influencers are and how to go about identifying them. That’s the tricky part. So how do you do it? But before I do, let’s back up. As a brand, why should you even care? It betters customer service: We live in a world where all customers are not created equal. So how do you go about identifying these people so that you can reach out to them? Scout your own community The easiest way to hunt out brand influencers is to start in your own community. Who are the people who not only comment on your blog regularly, but who help start discussions? Start keeping a list of the names and faces you most often see stepping up in your community. Collect social usernames Not into hunting down social usernames for your customers?
Word-of-Mouth - How to Activate Viral Campaigns (or Why Social and Sharing Are Not the Same) By now, many marketers have dabbled in social media—launching contests, promotions, and branding campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs. But what many marketers fail to understand is that "social" is not the same as "sharing." Simply slapping up social media content and hoping it works to build brand awareness and drive sales is not enough. Many brands fail to get maximum exposure for their social media campaigns because they don't take the extra step to activate viral sharing of their content. And if marketers don't identify their key influencers and motivate them to share, they're missing out on the real promise of social media: Social content works best when it's shared. People who visit a campaign link after it's shared with them convert at up to four times the rate of those who just happen upon it, according to some industry research. 1. You've probably heard about the 1% rule: Only 1% of your brand's social media followers are responsible for the majority of sharing.
Which Social Sites Are Best for Which Marketing Outcomes? [INFOGRAPHIC] Is Flickr good for SEO? Can Tumblr drive traffic? If these questions are part of your day-to-day work, hold onto your hats; here's an infographic that's actually useful for a change. If you're doing any social media marketing, here's something for your to print out and hang up near your desk as a handy point of reference. CMO.com, together with SEO firm 97th Floor, have created this chart showing which social networks are best for various organizational, CRM and marketing goals. For example, if you need massive pageviews for your site or a client's site, Facebook and Twitter are just so-so for referring their users to your content. When you think about best-in-class social media campaigns and true leaders in social media marketing, you realize that most of the time, creative and successful marketing teams pick a specific platform for a specific reason; this chart gives you the tip of the iceburg when it comes to making the right choice for your own company's or clients' campaigns.
7 Lessons for Better Networking with Social Media Soren Gordhamer is the organizer of the Wisdom 2.0 Conference, which brings together staff from Google, Facebook, and Twitter with others to explore living wisely in our modern age. Mashable readers can use code ‘Mashable‘ for a discount when registering. Social media allows us to discover, connect, and engage with new people of interest. Many of us are on both sides of this relationship — sometimes making the connection, sometimes receiving the invitation. 1. If you want to contact someone you have never communicated with before, do some research. It also helps to discover what level of participation they have on various social networks (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) to see which places may be best to engage them. Lesson: Go where they are. 2. This cannot be emphasized enough, and it is probably my toughest challenge. Brevity is built right into Twitter, making it a great platform for making a first connection. Lesson: Less is more. 3. Lesson: Say what you need to and then let it go. 4. 5.
SWOT analysis | Strengths and weaknesses How far is my company away from failure? The question itself sounds like an admission of inadequacy. The confident manager surely doesn't walk around waiting for nemesis to strike. Rather, confident people strut the stage like a colossus, with all the certainty, say, of Bill Gates. One of management's trustiest tools is the SWOT analysis. 1. AN INTIMIDATING LISTThe thirteenth question, of course, is whether, if any of the dozen apply to your business, you are doing anything effective to counter the Threat or, better still, to convert Threat into true Opportunity. IBM led in every important market of the time: mainframes, communications, mainframe storage, mincomputers, and personal computers. In the first place, never concentrate just on your own or anybody else's Strengths. Second, market share and leadership by size are not strongpoints in themselves. REACTION IN CRISISIn the case of Compaq v IBM, curiously enough, the answers were all negative. 1. 1. 1. 5.
24 Typographic, Clean and Minimalist Motifs to Inspire | Web Des Typography is one of the basic elements of print media, web layouts and clothing designs. Below you’ll find a collection of 24 beautiful and creative typography designs to inspire you that will allow you to expand your knowledge base of what typography really is. If you don’t want to miss out our next posts, you can Subscribe to the 2Experts Design Blog or follow us on twitter [postadsense] How to write a corporate Twitter strategy (…and here’s one I made earlier) (Cross-posted from the Cabinet Office digital engagement blog, with thanks for the guest spot.) You might think a 20-page strategy a bit over the top for a tool like Twitter. After all, microblogging is a low-barrier to entry, low-risk and low-resource channel relative to other corporate communications overheads like a blog or printed newsletter. But, having held back my JFDI inclinations long enough to sit down and write a proper plan for BIS‘s corporate Twitter account, I was surprised by just how much there is to say – and quite how worth saying it is, especially now the platform is more mature and less forgiving of mistakes. So in case it’s of use to others who are thinking of doing the same, I’ve turned BIS’s Twitter strategy into this generic template for any government Department: Template Twitter Strategy for Government Departments – visit Scribd for a bigger version or to downloadEdit: Download as a PDF (if you’re having trouble with Scribd) I hope you’ll find it useful too.