My Help Source

The Send to Kindle Button

Sending web content to Kindle is now easier than ever.

via www.kindlepost.com

Are you trying to make the best use of your time while dealing with a daily avalanche of information?

I know I am.

This new function will be a nice adjunct for those of us who digest a lot of online content, love our Kindles, and need to access that information across multiple platforms.

Let us know how it's working for you.

Goodbye Google Reader - Hello Feedly

 

Feedly Layout - Tidy, Easy-to-Navigate

Were you as surprised and bummed out as I when you heard the news that Google Reader was going the way of the buggy whip?

Google Reader had woven its way into my life and become as important as my morning coffee [almost!].

I am a professional procrastinator by nature, but decided I didn't want to wait until Google Reader goes goes dark on July 1st, so I scrambled to research alternatives.

After looking at a few RSS readers, I decided to go with feedly and I am very glad I did. Fortunately, the kind--and brilliant--geniuses at feedly saw the Google Reader thing coming and prepared to lessen the pain for people like me. They are even adding bandwidth and new servers to accommodate the Google immigrants.

One of Seth's Best - Signals vs. Causes

Seth Godin is always good, but this post is one of his best! 

It turns out that people who use Firefox are more likely to engage in certain online activities than those that use IE.

And it turns out that people who eat before bed are believed to gain more weight than those that don't.

Perhaps using Firefox makes you a different sort of surfer, or the timing of the calories has something to do with your metabilism.

More likely: The sort of person who takes the time to install a new browser is precisely the kind of person willing to use a new web service. The kind of person who makes a habit out of eating when bored (just before bed) might very well be the kind of person that has to wrestle with weight.

We see the same thing in outbound marketing. Spammers in Nigeria continue to...

Read the rest HERE

Clean Bathrooms (with thanks to Seth Godin)

Seth says:

Clean bathrooms

The facilities at DisneyWorld are clean. It's not a profit center, of course. They don't make them clean because they're going to charge you to use them. They make them clean because if they didn't, you'd have a reason not to come.

It turns out that just about everything we do involves cleaning the bathrooms. Creating an environment where care and trust are expressed. If you take a lot of time to ask, "how will this pay off," you're probably asking the wrong question. When you are trusted because you care, it's quite likely the revenue will take care of itself.

And Seth is right. Everything Disney does is designed and executed with one thought in mind -- to enhance their guests' experiences. 

Pitch Your Product, Service, Idea, or Self in Just 15 Seconds

Whether you know it or not, you are in an almost constant state of selling.

You don't even have to be in the sales business. In fact, you just have to be a living, breathing human being.

Don't fight this. Just accept it as fact and move on. 

Now that we've settled that, and with the selling part of you in mind, here's an excellent piece from Forbes, How to Pitch Anything in 15 Seconds, which will help you sell any product, service, idea, or even yourself with greater ease.

This piece, by Carmine Gallo, and its accompanying video will give you three very easy steps to help you build a message map that will equip you to pitch anything in just 15 seconds:

20 Ways to Build Better Fitness Environment

From Leo Babauta at Zen Habits, here are 20 small actions you can take RIGHT NOW to create a health- and wellness-friendly environment:

1. 

   Photo: Just one of the hundreds of Great Ideas at Herbivoracious
   Get rid of the snacks. Don’t keep them in your house or you’ll be more likely to eat them.
2. Don’t buy convenience food. You’re likely to eat this when you’re too tired to cook.
3. Instead, cook big batches of healthy food once a week. Have it in the fridge, ready to be heated up.
4. Take healthy snacks to work.
5. Create a healthy eating challenge with your coworkers.
6. Join Fitocracy (invite code: zenhabits) and make friends there. Log your activities.
7. Join a running club.
8. Find a workout partner.
9. Set up an appointment with your best friend to go walking or running every day.
10. Get a coach.
11. Set fitness challenges with your friends. Log them online, on Facebook or some other social site.
12. Have a chinup bar in your doorway, and do a chinup every time you walk by.
13. Join a sports team.
14. Have nuts and fruit with you when you’re on the go.
15. Make it hard to turn on the TV (put it in the closet or something).
16. Use a program like LeechBlock or Freedom to shut the Internet down at a certain time each day.
17. Have healthy potlucks with friends or family.
18. Publicly commit to posting body pics or measurements each week on your blog.
19. Make a list of healthy restaurants, or healthy meals at other restaurants, for when you feel like eating out.
20. Park farther away from things so you’ll walk more.

Click HERE to read more.

Improving your fitness is much easier when you've built the right environment. Set up your winning self-improvement settings to include the right foods, easy-to-access exercise opportunities, and like-minded fitness partners.

Leadership Begins at Home

"Why do some of the sharpest leaders step up in the workplace but flake out when they walk into their home? Is it fatigue? Work overload? Or are they just out of their element?" (Dave Stone, Southeast Christian Church)

Those are good questions, aren't they? We've all read or heard stories of brilliant CEOs, industrial giants, and civic leaders who've failed at their primary roles as husbands and fathers.

We also know the stories of Average Joes like you and me who get so busy "providing" that they forget to provide what their mates and kids really need and crave--a close relationship with their husbands and kids.

Dave Stone, author of Building Family Ties with Faith, Love, and Laughter and Raising Your Kids to Love the Lord, suggests three critical times when you can lead your family in Leadership Begins at Home, over at Michael Hyatt's blog:

How to Break Out of Your Creative Rut

From our friends over at Copyblogger:

Like this infographic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.

Don't Forget to Play!

 

"Playing in the Sand" by Lisa McDonald (www.freedigitalphotos.net)

 

Do you remember being a little kid?

I do.

Other than my chores, I had not a care in the world.

I followed the space program closely and have fond memories of waking early on the West Coast to watch the televised--In "Living Color!"--launches of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions with my mother. These were exciting days as the nation responded to President Kennedy's urgent call to land a man on the moon within the decade, but the threats that prompted his call to action escaped my attention. Duck and Cover! was just a game.

Maybe I should have put more effort into my studies, but I generally didn't let school work interfere with my fun time at home.

Instead of worrying about the past, present, or future, I simply played. I played all the time, even when I was supposed to be engaged in serious work!

Reduce Your Reading Time by Two-Thirds in Just 20-Minutes!

How would you like to cut your reading time by 60 percent or more...in just 20 minutes?

What would you accomplish with the extra time?

How much more could you read--and DO--if you read 300 percent faster?

It can be done. I know it because this is the same process I learned in a speed-reading course many years ago and it worked for me.

The primary difference is that the course I attended lasted about 16 hours, while the synopsis of the process that Tim Ferriss shares can be read in about 5 minutes.

Invest a few minutes to do this and let me know what you think. Post a comment or email me.