Brilliant Business Books » Resources

How to make the most of your website

Emily — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 09:57:00 +0000

Head on over to the Webfooted Designs blog for the first part of our Top 10 tips for making the most of your website article. Second part coming soon!

Can’t resist a new time management system

Emily — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:59:35 +0000

It’s true, I just can’t help myself. Whilst looking through the resources section of the site to check that all the links are still current (a job I still have to finish) I got distracted by Mark Forster’s blog on time management and in particular his Autofocus V. 4 system.

Time management is one of my obsessions. I’m always trying to reinvent my approach to time management. I’ve got a couple of cracking books that I use – I see that I haven’t reviewed either of them yet, so will be adding reviews in the coming weeks. However, I’m always interested in trying something new. I find rejigging things occasionally can give me a new lease of life.

So, I’m going to have a go at the autofocus system. Actually, now that I’ve read about it I’m itching to start. Once I’m up and running I should have a list split into two sections – Backlog and Active List. I can then use the system laid out by Mark to work through the list in a focused way. That’s the theory at least – have a look at Mark’s instructions for a step-by-step explanation of how it works.

Brilliant mind mapping tool

Emily — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:38:54 +0000

I made a real find yesterday morning and haven’t been able to stop playing with it since. It’s free mind mapping software. We were talking about mind mapping on the course on Tuesday and that inspired me to have a go, but not being that great with pen and paper (have lost the ability to write because I use the computer too much) I thought I’d see if there is a way of doing it on the computer. An lo and behold there is!

It’s a really quick download (just 8MB) and took literally seconds to install, so very lightweight. It basically works just like doing a mindmap on paper – you start with a central point and then work out, branching in whichever direction you want. If your map starts getting a bit on the big side (which my first one did) you can open and close the various ‘nodes’ (the bits branching off) so you can see everything or just the parent node. It’s fab. What I particularly liked about it was that I wasn’t limited to what would fit on a sheet of paper – if I’d tried to do my mind map on paper I would soon have run out of room, but this just lets you keep going. You can export in various formats (PDF, JPEG etc.) so that you can then use the resulting map in other documents.

So, having installed it for the first time yesterday morning I did a mind map of our business (that was a bigun), a mind map of what I needed to do that day (which I then kept up on the screen and ticked things off as I did them, lovely ), and a couple of mind maps to work out the structure of client websites, one of which we PDFed and sent to the client to have a look at. Talk about being instantly useful!

Confidence boosting link

Emily — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:09:50 +0000

As my current reading is on the subject of confidence I’ve been doing some looking around for related websites. The BBC has a good secton on improving your confidence, which includes some practical exercises to boost your confidence. Definitely looks like it’s worth spending a bit of time there and seeing what they have to say.

Another blog added to blogroll

Emily — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 17:14:44 +0000

The latest addition to the resources page is Steve Parks’ blog on entrepreneurship. Steve doesn’t post that regularly but when he does it’s always a good read. I particularly enjoy his thoughts arising from train journeys – sitting on a train obviously gets the thoughts flowing for him.

Great business forum

Emily — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:00:24 +0000

Over the last couple of days I’ve joined A1 Business Forums. I’m really impressed so far and am gradually getting to know how it works. Every forum seems to have its own personality and the feeling I’m getting from this one so far is that it’s very friendly and accepting – great if you’re a bit shy about going on and introducing yourself. I got a really warm welcome which made me want to stay and explore a bit more.

One for ‘business communities’ on the resources page.

Small business podcasts

Emily — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:57:20 +0000

When I’m working on a task that doesn’t take too much brain-power I like to listen to some podcasts aimed at small businesses. I’ve added a couple of my favourites to the resources:

SmallBizPod: Business Podcast for Entrepreneurs, business owners and start up businesses
Mind Your Own Business: Business Podcast for Entrepreneurs, business owners and start up businesses

I’m sure I will be adding more in the coming weeks, so if podcasts are your thing do stay tuned

Another online networking site

Emily — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:18:15 +0000

Following on the theme from yesterday, I’ve also joined up on a site called Workology. Looks like it might be an interesting one – social networking but for people who don’t necessarily work regular hours. The reasoning being that you can find people to work with or get work from. Again, I haven’t had much of a chance to do anything on the site besides sign up and start entering my details but it’s a nice looking site and I think it might have potential.

Online networking

Emily — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 12:44:57 +0000

I’m trying out a new networking organisation that a friend has recommended to me: 4Networking. It looks like they have groups in quite a few locations around the country and offer levels of membership depending on what you want to do. Unfortunately they don’t have a group in Cornwall yet, which makes going to meetings completely out of the question for us – we’re as west as you can get, so Plymouth is a bit too far for regular events. So I’m starting out by trying the free online membership, which means that I get to put my profile on the site, contribute articles and participate in the forums. I’ve got as far as putting in my profile so must now spend a bit of time exploring the site and seeing what is going on in the forums.

One for the resources page I think.