Entries Tagged 'Craft' ↓

In our last installment of this series, we discussed setting the vision for your organization and developing SOPs. At least, that’s what the series list says.

When I started writing this series, it was more like unconnected braingoo than a series of linear thinking. I did some scaffold-assisted planning and saw that some structure would make the series make more sense. That said, I discussed setting the vision last time because all of the suggestions below require that your team knows what you want them to do.

Okay, you’ve set your vision. Great! Here are some suggestions on how to help them execute your vision:

• Use the 4/5s Rule

No one likes getting handed the project that someone’s been sitting on until the last minute. The 4/5s rule states you should give your team 4/5 of the time allotted for the project to complete it.

For example, if you have ten working days to complete a project, you should have the rough details of the project in their hands within two working days. You can’t always do this - urgency strikes and things have to happen now - but it’s a good rule to work by. But the only way you can actually use this one is to…

• Give Them Enough Guidance to Get the Job Done and No More

If you try to plan everything down to the minute detail, you are mis-allocating your time and taking execution time away from your team. You are their leader - they need guidance on what you want done, not on how to do it. You’ve already set your vision and approved SOPs, so all they need is the critical requirements to get the job done.

An easy way to ask yourself whether you’re giving them too much information is to ask yourself if you’re telling them what to do or if you’re telling them how to do it. If you’re telling them how they should do the job, either they aren’t trained for the job or you’re wasting everyone’s time.

If they don’t know how to do it, get them trained. If they already know how to do it, get out of the way and let them do it. The goal is to get your operators better at doing their jobs in the company than you are - you make decisions, they execute those decisions.

In my experience, you make better, more adaptable teammates by giving them as much latitude as possible and they often do a better job than you could have estimated if you leave them alone and let them do what you pay and train them to do. This is hard to do because you have to learn that…

• How They’ll Do It Is Different Than How You’d Do It, but That’s (Usually) Okay

You probably think you know exactly how to get something done. Stop right now and get over yourself. You can’t do everything, and it’s not your job - learn to accept that people are going to do things different than you would and to look at the end result objectively.

As long as they’re doing the job within legal, ethical, and procedural parameters, they’ve gotten the job done. If they go outside of those parameters, it’s your job to push them back in them.

The key thing here is for you to take note of the process. Their way may be significantly slower than your way, in which case you’ll probably want to step in and show them a more efficient way. Their way may be significantly faster than your way, in which case you’ll need to learn from them, praise them for their efforts, and make that part of your organization’s standard operating procedures.

• Use Their Time Wisely

People hate to have their time wasted, and as their leader, it is your responsibility to ensure that people have enough to do to justify their being away from their families and free time.

As a general rule, give them more than you think they can do - people complain more fervently about not having anything to do than about having more to do than they can do. You can always triage tasks for them if they need it, but it’s pretty apparent when you’re just trying to find something for them to do to fill time.

If you’ve set the vision for the organization and you encourage initiative, your junior leaders will start to make things happen. Think about how Google does business: 20% of their employees’ time can be spent on side projects that interest them. I don’t think the G-team will ever have to worry about their employees watching the clock and being unproductive. But they’ve set a vision for innovation…

You’ve no doubt noticed that I continually use the words “guide” and “lead” rather than stronger words like “direct”. This is intentional: people don’t like someone looking over their shoulder while they work while constantly telling them how to do what they’re doing. It’s unproductive and generally demoralizing - they are trained adults that show up to do what they know how to do.

The next installation in this series is about spreading teamthink throughout your organization. If you’d like to learn more about the Art of Leadership, get FREE updates by Email or by RSS.

This post is a continuation of The Elements of Leadership series. Knowing your team is critical if you are to lead them, but knowing what you want them to do is just as paramount.

Your job as the leader of your team is to effectively communicate your vision for the organization and to initiate and finalize standard operating procedures. With these two pieces in place, your team will know the direction you want the organization to go and they’ll know how to react without you being there.

Communicate Your Vision

Where is your organization going? Who does what jobs? What does success and failure look like?

These are hard questions that only you can determine. If you want your organization to make $100,000 dollars this quarter, make that goal public. Talk about it with your team. Explain why it’s important to the organization that you do so. No one should be left in the dark about it, and everyone should know how their job helps advance that goal.

Perhaps you’re not in the business of making money, but rather you’re in the business of educating people. Define the standards you consider relevant to education and some threshold for people to aspire to. Talk to your teachers to see how they think they can help achieve that goal. Every employee who shows up to work should know how their job relates to that goal.

If you can’t immediately articulate in one sentence at least three short-term goals for your organization, stop the train now and figure them out. Rate them by importance in case your organization comes into the situation that not all goals can be achieved at the same time. If you, as their leader, can’t do it, your organization won’t be able to do it.

I’ve worked in places where I had no idea what the goals of the organization actually were. It’s not that they didn’t have any, but that the goals where so convoluted and inconsistent that when it came time to make decisions, I didn’t know what I should do. The only resolve was to ask someone, who asked someone else, who asked someone else, until someone finally decide what to do.

Don’t do this to your team. People naturally want to succeed - your job is to let them know what success looks like.

Develop Standard Operating Procedures

Every organization should have standard operating procedures. These procedures document the standard actions to be taken in certain situations.

I was in a sports store yesterday and their credit card server had crashed. Despite the fact that it took forever to process my order, I was impressed with the store’s response. They doubled up cashiers at registers and one cashier prepared the order to be handwritten and the other did the writing. It was clear that they done this before and had developed an efficient system.

I’ve been in other stores where this has happened and they closed down their registers. The store managers and employees had no idea what to do, and rather than continue to get sales, they turned customers away or asked them to shop for an additional twenty or thirty minutes (yeah right!).

The difference in the two stores was the leadership of the managers. The managers of the first store anticipated this problem and developed a system in case that problem happened. The employees of the store didn’t have to try to figure it out on their own - they grabbed their credit card slips and kept going.

The real value of standard operating procedures comes in the training and integration of new people. Rather than having to learn everything the hard way, new team members can pick up the document and see basically how the organization runs.

It’s important to keep in mind that you personally don’t have to write the standard operating procedures. In fact, you shouldn’t. Harness the intelligence and experience of those people who have actually been doing the job and let/make them do it. Review the standard operating procedures and other get them corrected or approve them.

Clearly communicating your vision and developing standard operating procedures allows your organization to run without you getting in the way of normal operations. Your team knows what you want them to do (since you’ve shared your vision), and they know how to do them (since you’ve developed the organizations standard operating procedures). This frees you up to lead, guide, mentor, and decide - which is what you should be doing.

The next installment in this series is on guiding your organization and using your team’s time wisely. If you’d like to learn more about the Art of Leadership, get FREE updates by Email or by RSS.

This post is a continuation of The Elements of Leadership. To effectively lead people, you have to know who they are.

I’m not talking about learning their names and positions. Where do they live? What’s their spouses’ and kids’ names? Who are their favorite musicians and sports teams? These are the types of questions that begin to give an indication of what they value and who they really are.

Take the time to get to know the people you work with - nothing lets people know you care about them as people, rather than as workers, than if you talk to them about things they care about.

I suggest you…

• Start with who you primarily work with and build your way out

I’ve got 156 people in my company, and I’ll never actually have a chance to talk on a personal level with most of them. However, I see my middle and senior supervisors often - so rather than being overwhelmed with 156 people, I started with the 15-20 people that I work with. I know them well enough now, so I’m starting to move to out from there.

• Talk to people who aren’t in cliques

Every organization has people who aren’t in the “in” crowd. Make sure you take the time to talk to them so that they know they’re part of the team. Not only are you helping them, you’re helping your organization because these people can become fiercely loyal and will work when everyone else is looking at the clock. They will ride with you through the gates of hell - all because you took the time to ask them how their third-grader was doing.

• Use notecards to help you learn who they are

When I deployed, I made notecards that had the Soldier’s name on one side and relevant information on the back. I wanted to know their age, birth date, their hometown, their civilian occupation, and their family information (spouse’s name and occupation and kids’ names and ages). That’s a lot of information, but when I had downtime on missions or back in garrison, I’d start flipping through the notecards- it took me about a month to do it. It definitely helped with camaraderie, and, if nothing else, they knew I cared enough to try.

Obviously, you may not need to know their civilian occupation if they work with you, but the rest is a pretty good start.

The next installment in this series is about defining your vision for your organization. If you’d like to learn more about the art of leadership, get FREE updates by Email or by RSS.

The art of leadership takes years to learn, mainly because knowing how to lead requires knowledge of yourself, knowledge of those you lead, and knowing how to get things done. Despite these variables, there are elements of leadership that will apply in any context.

I’ve been in a leadership role in one shape or another for about 16 years, and I started thinking about these elements the other day while driving to military training. It started as tips I was going to share with my new lieutenant during our first counseling session - but I figured I’d share it with everyone.

Many people think military leadership is different than civilian leadership. What’s different in the military setting is that the scope of leadership is greater - the elements are the same. The elements that keep your team working under fire when they’ve been up for too many hours are the same ones that keep your team together after a strong push at work.

There’s a lot to the art of leadership, so I’ll split this into a series. I’ll try to keep the post size manageable, and they’re not in any particular order. And we’re off…

Teach Your Team about the Three Types of Decisions

There are three main types of decisions that your team will have to make.

1. The decisions they can make on their own without letting you know

These are the routine decisions that they make to get their job done on a daily basis. They have no obvious long-term repercussions for your organization, and you just frankly don’t need to be included in the process.

2. The decisions they can make on their own but they have to let you know they made them

Your team has to make some decisions on the fly, but sometimes you need to know they made the decision. As a general rule, if there are obvious positive or negative long-term fiscal, legal, or public relations repercussions, you probably want to know so you’re not blindsided by the information.

3. The decisions they can’t make and must defer to you
   

There are just some decisions that no one but you, as their leader, can make. They need to know what these are so they a) don’t make them and b) learn to anticipate when a process is going to lead to this type of decision.

It takes a while for people to learn these types of decisions. On the one hand, you don’t want to have it where they can’t make any decisions without deferring to you, and on the other, you don’t want them to make decisions they shouldn’t be making. It is your responsibility as their leader to help them through this lengthy learning process.

When someone comes to you with a decision of the first type, kindly thank them for letting you know and let them know that they don’t have to tell you about it in the future. If it’s a good decision, praise her to encourage her budding initiative.

When you get blindsided by information that you should have been told, find the project manager and kindly let them know that you applaud them for making the decision but that it’s something you needed to know.  If it’s a bad decision, clearly and calmly explain why it was a bad decision - your goal is to teach them to make good decisions without you.

If someone makes a decision that fell within your domain as a leader, kindly let them know that they overstepped their boundaries and that in the future all decisions of that type need to be deferred to you. If it’s a great decision, praise the hell out of the her and consider including her on important decision-making committees.

Above all, present a clear vision of the organization’s goals and encourage people to take as much initiative as they can to advance those goals. The more they advance your vision on their own without stepping outside of legal, fiscal, or procedural parameters, the more time you have to make strategic decisions and plan for the future success of your organization.

The next installment in this series is about getting to know your team. If you’d like to learn more about the art of leadership, get FREE updates by Email or by RSS.

One of the best things about blogs is that they evolve through time. One of the worst things about blogs is that they evolve through time.

That said, I’ve added some pages that I hope add value to you and make this site more interactive. I wanted to take a second and highlight these changes, as it may not be apparent for those of you who have been reading the RSS Feed but not visiting the site.

I also wanted to highlight this to explain my slower rate of creation and completion of some of the series and planners I’m working on. Rather than trying to do everything at once, I put those projects on pause and finished the makeover of this site.

Here’s the new stuff, handily linked in case you’d like to check it out from your reader. I hope you take a few minutes to stop by:

• A revised “About” page

I never really liked my old about page, so this one’s been reworked. For once, a quick and clear statement of what this blog is about! I hope you like it.

• A “Free Planners” page

Rather than having to jump through posts, or keep track of what post is related to which download, I’ve added this page to keep track of all things having to do with the planners. If I change or create anything planner- or tool-wise, it’ll all be changed here at the top so you can grab it quickly.

(Shameless appeal for help: Please “like” the free planner page on StumbleUpon and “tag” it on Del.icio.us. I’d like to continue to work on these projects and provide them to everyone freely, and the additional traffic from these sources helps me gauge interest and motivates me to work on them a bit more. Thanks a ton!)

• A Most Popular Post Page

I’ll go through every couple of weeks and add/arrange the most popular post on PF here. The value-added feature here is that each post will have a quick excerpt to let you know what it’s about.

• A Friend Me Page

I use a few of the social media services pretty regularly and would love to see what you’re liking, digging, tagging, reading, and tweeting. I’ve added the services I use and my username in case you’d like to share with me. Friend Me!

• A Skribit Widget (in the sidebar)

The skribit widget allows you to post and vote on things you’d like me to write about or work on. I currently have a list of five questions, but I really encourage you to use this widget to help motivate me to work on the things you’re interested in. I’d much rather be part of a dialog, and I appreciate you all guiding me and expressing your preferences.

So, with those projects completed, I can begin anew on some other fallow projects. The highest priority for working projects will be the Productivity Planners, especially the recreation of the Weekly Productivity Planner and the Monthly Productivity Planner. I’ll also be picking up the Practicing the Virtues series. If you’d like to see anything else or are just really interested to see anything in particular, drop a comment and let me know.

As always, I appreciate your support. Thanks for helping me add value to the world in my own way.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming…

In my last post I ran through a list of Big Days that I’ve done a horrible job of honoring. One Big Day that’s not on the list is Mother’s Day. Of course, if we had children, it would be on the list.

I also mentioned getting thoughtful gifts for Big Days. Well, the folks over at SiteBuildIt! have decided that they’re going to honor mothers with their first Mother’s Day special! Get a second SBI! subscription for just $100 more!

To make the deal even sweeter, SBI! is offering its massive, 258 page Make Your Words Sell e-book for free! This has been selling for $29.95, but now they’re just giving it away.

Here’s what you’ll be getting:

• A proven Video Action Guide that teaches you how to build a great site that sells.

In the week I spent following the action guide, I learned more about building effective webpages than I have in about four years of reading about it. The positive changes at this blog are largely due to my applying lessons learned from SBI! to this blog. I can’t speak highly enough about it.

• Tools that help you pick your domain name, niche, and theme.

The integral tools offered by SBI! supplement the Video Action Guide and help you determine what pages to build. The tools that give a rough indicator of profitability were especially helpful, as it’s not at all cool to build a page you’re passionate with the intent to monetize it only to find out that it’s not likely to be profitable.

• Access to a friendly, service-center forum community

SBI! and its customers are a tight knit group. I’ve seen answers to people’s questions show up minutes after the question were posted, people giving extended, follow-up suggestions, and people generally helping each other toward success.

• Periodic articles from the SBI! team that keep you informed about important information from the news and blogs across the interwebs.

Ken and his staff do an excellent job of reading and summarizing the important stuff from the interwebs. It’s a real time saver.

• A Win-Win Deal

Should you get a SBI! subscription and think it’s not worth the value, they refund the entire amount of your purchase and give you the domain name and pages you have built. There is nothing to lose.

“Every woman must have..a room of her own” - Virginia Woolf

There are a lot of reasons why a Mom might want her own income generating website. Perhaps she wants to make some extra income while having the flexibility to stay at home. Perhaps she wants something to get lost in when the kids are asleep or away at school. The bottomline is that every woman needs a space of her own, and that’s what you’ll be giving her with her own SBI! subscription. Click the link for more information on why SBI! works for Work at Home Moms.

But SBI! isn’t just for Moms that are still taking care of their children. Maybe Mom is retired but would still like to have her own income generating website. SBI! is so easy to use and good at teaching the fundamentals that, if (older) Mom can type, she can build income generating webpages. Click the link for more information on why SBI! works for Retirees.

But here’s the deal: this special is scheduled to end tomorrow, May 11th! You have to move quickly on this one!

Still not sold? What information do you need?:

• Proof that SBI! Works?
• A Traffic Test?
• A Comparison?
• Sample SBI! Sites?
• The testimony of other, more well-known bloggers?
• Do you just have questions about SBI!?

Do I think this is a great product? You bet. I use it and I love it. Check it out, for the Mother in your life.

Spring is in the air, and it seems as if the blogosphere has been a bit more quiet than normal. While the quantity of writing is down, the quality seems to be better. Enjoy the roundup!

• Why Your Loved Ones Want You To Fail - IttyBiz

Why do your loved ones want you to fail? Shouldn’t they be rooting for your success? Naomi gives a lot of reasons why they want you to fail, with some tips on what to do about it.

• Ten Top Tops to Overcome Obstacles to Success - My Super-Charged Life

In my experience, people who are unsuccessful tend to think that those who are successful have had it easier than they have. The fact is that the successful people have just learned to overcome obstacles. Jeff gives ten tips to overcome obstacles to success.

• What Do You Do if You’re Satisfied? - Bloggrrl

I’ve been reading Michelle’s blog for a long time, and there’s a new wind in the air over there. At one point in time, she was writing to quit a job she hated. She no longer hates that job - so the question is what to do now. Why I find this interesting is that people on change in the face of two things: 1) discomfort, and 2) the desire to become better. But, the desire to become better, for a lot of people, doesn’t have a lot of motivational force. Or maybe people who have the desire to become better are not comfortable being less than they could be, so it’s still discomfort doing the work. Definitely something to think about.

• Your Mid-Life Crisis: The Rules - Dumb Little Man

Lori, who, as far as I can tell, is neither dumb nor a man (I haven’t ruled out little, yet) gives rules for managing the ole’ Mid-Life Crisis. I think it’s good information for managing radical change and aging, in general.

• 70 Simple Power Tao Secret Hacks to Writing the Perfect Productivity Article, Plus a Guide and System for Doing It - The Growing Life

I can’t write 90% of my posts now without thinking about Clay’s parody post. Parody is so effective when it’s so true. Thanks, Clay, for completely ruining my Friday Meditations, Planner Series, Virtue Series, and just about anything else I was going to write- oh, and ruining the chance to use a picture of me jumping…

• No One Is Good at Multitasking - Productivity Planner

Before my productivity engine came to a bloody, screeching halt, I used to believe that I needed to become better at multitasking. If I could do more tasks in the same amount of time, I thought, I could get more done in less time. Rubbish, lies, and deceptions. Chris’s post comes to the same conclusion, but his is backed by research.

• 16 Ways to Keep a Razor-Sharp Focus at Work - Zen Habits

Now you know that I think multitasking is bunk, and the opposite of multitasking is focusing on one task at a time. Glen’s great guest post on Zen Habits hits the spot on how to stay focused while you work.

• Offline Reading - Productivity 501

Part of my growing and learning process is to continually read offline material. Don’t get me wrong - I love a lot of the material written online, but Mark gives four downsides to online material that I find true. Of course, the hard part is finding time to get good reading time in for both mediums.

• How to Avoid Making Stupid Mistakes - Scott H Young

Part of life is knowing how to recover from stupid mistakes, but another, even more important part, is figuring out how to avoid them in the first place. Scott’s insightful post helps with the latter aspect. My favorite: “Metaphors are your intellectual weapons to prevent mistakes.” And I’ve made it known how I feel about metaphors.

• 5 Signs You’ve Married Your Problems (and how to divorce them) - Jonathan Mead

Having problems is bad enough. Being married to them is worse. Jonathan’s excellent post gives the five signs that you’ve married your problems - and ways to file for divorce. And these divorces won’t be so damned expensive.

• 10 Reasons to Use an Exercise Ball as Your Chair - GearFire

Our physical condition is an important aspect of our productivity, and I’m always looking for easy ways to exercise or condition my body, especially if I can do that while doing something else. I like sitting on my exercise ball instead of other chairs for many of the reasons Geoff lists. It’s a great way to exercise your core without actively thinking about it or trying to.

• Word Porn: Reader Challenge

Every Friday, Amy has a post on Word Pr0n, where she introduces cool words to use instead of our more mundane and hackneyed mutterings. I challenged her to find words to replace the overused “sweet” and “awesome.” She accepts the challenge and delivers with some august pickings with resplendent uses.

• Why Does the Thunder Hide The Rain - The Next 45 Years

I love personal development posts that come from deep within people. Alex’s post had me from hello with the quote from Socrates - but it went much further to talk about his relationship with his mother. Great honesty and sincerity in this one - thanks for sharing, Alex, and I hope you find peace through breaking the cycle.

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed. Thank you for your time and support!

I’m going to jump on the meme suggested by Chris Brogan and take it one step further. I’m an active commenter, but I haven’t done as many link travologues as I’d like to, so I’ll make up some ground today.

• 8 Ways to Be Ruthless With Your Time - Lifehack

Thursday Bram, who I have no reason to suspect is otherwise ruthless, gives sound tips for getting your time back.

• Mama’s Girls - SHE-POWER

Another installation of the fiction series that Kelly is running. She’s great at giving you enough information for the story to evolve while having that same bit of information prompt more questions. Her non-fictions is just as good.

• Madonna and Freelancing: An “Ah-Ha” Marketing Moment - Quiet Rebel Writer

Amy deftly moves from a mini-rant on the “madonna versus whore dichotomy” to “you’re either valued and attractive, or you’re not (as a freelancer).” It’s not what Amy says, but how she says it, that has me return to her blog everyday.

• Is Alltop.com Jumping The Shark Already? - MonkMojo’s 1000 Cuts

MonkMojo and I go back a long ways, and I’m really proud that he, too, has been added to Alltop. Have I mentioned how much I love Alltop? Great job, MonkMojo - and keep the infotainment going!

• Awaken Your Inner Storyteller, Part 1 - Writing Power

Loren’s series on storytelling was really helpful and timely, as I was then considering how to spruce up my narratives. Pretty soon, I’ll have to start paying her tuition for the lessons she continually gives.

• Why You Should Roll Your Own Time Management System - LifeDev

Francis discusses something near and dear to my heart: Time Management Systems. It’s time to start rolling your own systems, and we’re here to help.

• Important vs. Urgent: 5 Ways to Focus on What Really Matters - PickTheBrain

Jonathan Mead’s at it again on Pick the Brain. Detangling the urgent from the important is hard to do, and Jonathan’s post delivers ways to split the two. Great work, as usual, Jonathan!

• On Eating Contexts for Breakfast and The Price of Radical Growth - The Growing Life

Clay Collins, my more talented alter-ego, really reached down to my core with this post, as I’ve been experiencing a lot of tension from radical growth here recently. The follow-up discussion is amazing, as well.

• The Small Business Happiness Scale: Where Are You? - IttyBiz

Jamie takes the reins (or better yet, is gracefully given them) from Naomi over at IttyBiz and writes a great post about adjusting one’s happiness scale when you’re running a small business.

• Keep a Journal to Solve Tough Problems - Scott H Young

I’m a big fan of journaling and writing to get myself out of complex problems. Scott Young has written a great post on how to do this.

• The Art of Not Finishing - David Seah

David Seah writes some of the best posts on productivity that can be found on the blogosphere, all mostly by accident and through honest introspection. His recent goodness starts with

The road to productivity is paved with clear steps leading to an act of completion; essentialy, it’s finish what you start. However, as I sit here contemplating the rather large list of difficult-to-break-down tasks I’ve given myself, I’m thinking that there might be another approach. That is to relax and not worry about finishing. Or, perhaps, restart constantly.

It’s a longish post, but it’s one of those that I will no doubt read a few times, peruse some of his other posts, and come back and read it again. Yes…I’m still his young Padawan.

On other notes, the Weekly Productivity Planner is taking shape! It will be out by Friday - unless I get bogged down in student papers for longer than I think I will. Stay tuned!

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed, commenting, or sharing it on StumbleUpon, del.i.cious, or Digg by using the handy form below. Thank you for your time and support!

The other day I mentioned that Clay Collins made it on Alltop’s Lifehack page. I didn’t do a great job of explaining what Alltop was then, but I wanted to take a second and do so now.

Alltop has provided such a great explanation of what they do that I’ll just give a sample from them:

You can think of an Alltop site as a “dashboard,” “table of contents,” or even a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet. To be clear, Alltop sites are starting points — they are not destinations per se. The bottom line is that we are trying to enhance your online reading by both displaying stories from the sites that you’re already visiting and helping you discover sites that you didn’t know existed. In this way, our goal is the “cessation of Internet stagnation.”

The way I’ve related to Alltop is that they’re much like the New York Times Bestseller List. They do the work to find good reads from different niches and help readers find those sites by displaying them on a single, aggregated page that lists the latest five stories on those sites. It’s a great way to check out your interests without managing a ton of blogs and sites.

What I like is that they really do help people discover new sites. Rather than just focusing on the old and known sites and blogs, they give new quality blogs a chance, since they have the expressed goals to “shake things up and urge people out of their comfort zones”, promote “sites that provide such high-quality information that we feel it’s our moral duty to tell the world about them,” and “help out underdogs and undiscovered gems.”

As a case in point, they’ve added Productive Flourishing to their Lifehacks page. They have really stuck out their collective neck for me, and I really, really appreciate it.

If you have a minute, run over and check Alltop out.

Will, Kathryn, and Guy - thanks for adding me to the Alltop family!

I just found out today that your friend and mine, Clay Collins, made it on Alltop’s Lifehack page.

I wanted to take a second to cheer him on and give him some gratz love.  For those of you who haven’t been following this blogging phenom, his first blog post on TheGrowingLife was on January 24, 2008.  That’s not a typo - 14 weeks (if I’m counting right) and the man is on Alltop.

I’ve been following him personally and professionally and can tell you that he’s been working his butt off and doing all of the right things to get visibility of his brand and his blog.

Am I envious (in the good way)?  You bet.  Am I proud? Absolutely.

I’d encourage you to cheer him on, but recognize that he may not be able to reply.  He’s currently fighting through the hellstorm of the Digg Effect.

Attaboy, Clay.  Attaboy.