Write it down

advice comes from Jane Wurwand, CEO of Dermologica via Entrepreneur:
"I try and stay curious all the time so when I’m driving around LA or whatever city I’m in I’m always trying to pay attention to everything that’s happening — the way a menu is written, the way a plate is served, the way a booking is taken or customer interaction."
Wurwand recommends carrying a notebook everywhere you go and writing literally everything down.
She says she keeps a running commentary of her stream of consciousness and then uses it when she is looking for ideas or product names. She recalls one instance when she went to a bar and it took her seven minutes to be seated because a girl working at the bar was on her phone. She wrote that down and it later reminded her to pay more attention to customer service at her own front desk operations.
“Gather thoughts a bit like a magpie, put them together in a written book, keep it on you at all times and then all the time your subconscious is working on it and chewing it. Then when you spit it out, you’re like 'Oh I like that idea!' ”

The Beauty of Lists

This is from Adam Savage, at adamsavage.com, who looks to be an uberproductive individual and has some advice on lists.  This is excerpted from WIRED.

"Lists are how I parse and amange the world.  I make lists for fun (I have more than 17,000 palindromes) and to relax (I can eliminate distractions and focus on what's important.)  But mostly I make lists for projects.  This can be daunting.  Breaking something big into its constituent parts will help you organize your thoughts, but it can also force you to confront the depth of your ignorance and the hugeness of your task. 

That's OK.  The project maybe the lion, but the list is your whip.

The first think I write down is whatever I hope to end up with... 

Eventually, I'll create a folder called Adam's Progress. As I chug along, I take photos with my phone and drop them into this folder for a quick reference of how far I've come.  These images provide inspiration and momentum. A list of what I've already done make the list of what's left to do a bit more manageable.  And when I'm finished, this older will be my diary of the entire project. It's something I'll keep forever.

Biz Advice

From Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce

"Be an Industry Disruptor

" My four rules are: Build a great product, build demand in any way you can, make sure you have a distribution organization to fulfill the deman, and make sure your customers are happy-and that is the first rule, bu the way. those are the four elements. Is your product better than anyone else's-is it easier, more efficinet, simpler? Can you explain to people how it's better?  Can you position it correctly in thier minds? Tha's what you're talking about-consciousness.  When you talk about disruption, a market is just a group of people.  Can you sell it, distribute it, get people to try it?  Can you get it adopted? Then if you get tha customer satisfaction, it starts all over again.

Website Tweaks

The references for webcopy are many, and not sure where this one came from.  Again from random notes on my desk that I'm plowing through.

A joke
A quote
A statistic
A headline
A name
Solutions to real problems.  Benefits not features
Happiness
An easier life
Security
Entertainment
Paint a living portrait
Get testimonials, add a P.S.
Be visually atractive, short paragraphs, dialogue when appropriate, bullet, wide margins, staggered Right margin
"Most writers slough off the most important part of their trade, editing their stuff, honing it and honing it until it gets an edge like a bullfighters killing sword."
"Cut off their heads, cut off their feet, delete every 6th word.  Readers want concise, simple writing." Elmore Leonard "I try to leave out the part people skip."
Read aloud. Read aloud yourself. Hypnotic writing has to be easy, simple and clear.
Take a break.  Cut and past and change the order.  Use bullets.  Use quotes.  Write stories, create mental images that lead to a waking trance.

The Resistance

Notes found while cleaning up my desk. Inserting this photo of Diana Vreeland, having just seen "The Eye Has to Travel" yesterday.  She was an utter force and extremely inspiring, a tonic.
 I'm pretty sure these are from Seth Godin, about the "resistance."  This is extremely pertinent to anyone who is self-employed who faces no external deadlines.  These are all paraphrased.

-You don't need more genius, you need less resistance.

-Freedom(meaning free time, no boss) feeds the resistance.  Your tasks are vague and hard to measure.  Freedom makes it easy to hide, easy to find excuses.

-There is stalling, a waste, an insidious plot to keep you from doing your real work

-Get around resistance with multiple paths, and different ways to win.  No one proposal is do or die.

-The work is feeding, amplifying, and glorifying the daemon.

-Which ever way the wind of resistance is, that's the way to head in your work. (So powerful a concept...)

-The closer you get to surfacing and defeating resistance, the harder it fights.

-Dream bigger

-Strip away anything that looks productive but doesn't involve shipping

Do nothing between projects-alone with your thoughts with the resistance.