I read widely as much and as often as I can. There is no shortage of good stuff to sift through. What I find particularly helpful are the top ten lists on different subjects. Oftentimes you can find great nuggets, tips, and hints that the author took the time to capture in word for you. The brevity of the “top ten list” also helps to minimize the reading if your strapped for time.

Okay, onward…

Sometimes you gotta say “No”. Especially if you have no possible way to meet the deadline. Taking on work you know you won’t be able to finish in time is a sure-fire way to destroy your credibility.

If there is no deadline, you pick one. Jobs have a way of sticking around for a long time without a deadline. They have a habit of getting bumped to the bottom of the list and never climbing up to completion. Having a deadline solves this sticky problem.

Plan your day; the night before. Allow your subconscious to work on it through out the night while you rest. Lots of data to support that which we’ll look at in the future.

Cut-off the time wasters. Twitter. You Tube. Facebook. All fun diversions but hardly profitable. Figure out your worth hourly and divide by 60. That’s your cost per minute. Multiply that by every minute you spend watching a pointless video or receiving a pointless message. Make it hard for yourself to access these things. Instead, use these diversions as a reward for a few hours of productive work instead.

Interruptions. We all have them. IM, text messages, and email alerts are great communication tools but a real distraction when doing focused work. Switch them off freeing you to concentrate on the job in front of you.

Carry a notebook and pen. Great ideas, random notes to self, and important names and dates need never be lost again. No matter how good you think your memory is, no matter how great the thought was, if you don’t record it, you’ll lose it. Take no chances.

Get enough sleep. Inadequate rest will lower your productivity. People are wired differently and it’s up to you do discover how much rest you need to perform at your best. I suggest you test different durations and see how you feel.

Do your research. If you write articles for pay or promotion you need to develop a tickler file for ideas. Don’t leave it to chance hoping for the best. Set up a file folder on your comp to dump snippets of interesting fodder for your target audience. Label a physical manilla folder “tickler” for hard copy storage of article ideas.

Mindmap or Web. A great tool that you use to dump the ideas in your brain onto a napkin, paper or document created on the computer. The medium used doesn’t matter. Getting the ideas down does.

Take a full day or two to set goals. Book a weekend out of town where you can go over the year ahead and plan. Personally, I like a day of quiet to unwind, reflect, and ponder, and another to record things I’d like to accomplish for the year. Think it, then ink it…

There we have it. Just for fun Google this: Top ten list for (whatever your interest)… I promise you you’ll find all kinds of good things here.