Unsolicited Marketing Advice

E-mail Productivity

Merlin Mann of 43folders.com recently spoke to Googleplex employees regarding his inbox zero concepts in a presentation posted in video, audio and iTunes podcast formats. The presentation slides are also available separately (but not a substitute for the presentation itself). Living with an empty inbox can be a significant stress reducer since the quantity of e-mail messages sitting in one's inbox is a more significant stressor than number of e-mails that one receives, according to Mann. (Also see other Unsolicted posts on e-mail & productivity).

Sleep and Life Routine

Lifehacker.com recently pointed out two posts by Steve Pavlina that offer insights into optimizing your daily routine:

• 10 Ways to Optimize Your Normal Days - Habits that promise to bring order and focus.
• How to Become an Early Riser – Recommendations on sleep patterns, alarm clocks and more.

Ways to Add Margin

"Margin" is the extra space on a page that provides relief to our eyes. Without margin our eyes would fail due to the stress of words strung from edge to edge on the page. Author and physician Richard A. Swensen has developed the concept of improving "margin" in our lives as an approach to stress relief.

Swenson (Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives, The Overload Syndrome: Learning to Live Within Your Limits) was the featured speaker on Focus on the Family's daily radio show August 30-31. (OnePlace.com Link 1 2 /CD for purchase). His writings concentrate on ways to create margin in four areas of life: emotional energy, physical energy, time and finances. He covers the first two of these areas in his presentation:

Margin & Time

• Expect the unexpected –In Ecuador there is a saying, "every thing takes longer than it does." So we may as well plan for it as well as possible.
• Separate time from technology – Technology doesn't save time. One must discern when to use technology and when not to.
• Disconnect every once in a while -- Pretend that you live in 1850 one Tuesday night a month and see if you like it.

Margin & Emotional Energy

• Have good friends and nourish friendships -- We need to cultivate social supports to refill our tank of emotional energy
• Have a pet – they don't bite the way humans do.
• Practice reconciliation
• Laughter – And laugh at yourself, you'll never run out of material
• Faith – research has shown faith is associated with positive health benefits.

By simplifying our lives, we can be a blessing to other people. In order for us to give ourselves to others, we have to have something left to give – that "something" is margin in our lives.