When was the last time you thought about documentation for your small business?

You may have a small, intimate team that is very familiar with the everyday going ons and where everything is -- but what happens when you need to expand and grow your team? Or worse, what happens when someone who was critical to your business leaves or has to be let go?

Granted documentation is not in any way sexy(nor is it remotely approaching any level of fun) in the context of the business world; and the IT realm is notorious for not documenting their processes and critical information. Some workers are intimidated by forms and 'business speak', while some are afraid that if things are written down it jeopardizes their job security. Some just don't like writing.

A few years back I was working with a very large pharmaceudical company on decomissioning a mainframe, and the hired Data Warehouse expert flat out refused to do documentation. This resulted in not only causing a rift in the team, a loss of respect for that worker, but ultimately got him fired. If a large corporation expects all workers to be able to document their work, so should smaller businesses.

It is critical to your business and its growth that how you do your business (from steps A to Z) and how information is used and manipulated is written down.

Here are some steps to ease the process:

1. Use a template: Create a simple, yet professional template with your company title or logo so that the reader can easily tell what the subject is about, who wrote it, and when it was last changed. MS Word has many great templates you can modify to suit your needs. And make sure your employees use them.
2. Think like a new hire: If you were just hired for your company, what information do you need? Do you need an email account? Remote access / VPN? Who are my contacts? For every type, a structured instructional should exist for who requests for what (in old change management speak it was who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) and who should be informed. A graphical chart also helps.
3. Draw up an organization chart: It doesn't matter if your company only has five people or 50. Make sure everyone understands how your business is organized and who reports to whom.
4. Collect technical resources in one place: For all of your IT resources (software and hardware) any piece of documentation (manual, instructions, even README text files) should be collected and stored in a shareable structured repository (broken out into logical directories and subdirectories that make sense), so others may refer to them as resources.

A good example is LeTip International who has a secure online repository of documentation to be used by their distributed members for their local chapters and regions.

You may start on this journey and it may be painful, especially if you're the only responsible person doing this work, but believe me -- it will be worth it as your business grows. If your organization is larger and have a great number of documents, you may want to investigate document repository systems to manage them. If there is interest in learning about some open source repository systems, let me know and I will write on them.

Hope this helps!

Today started bad and only got worse. It's days like these that make me want to escape to a log cabin in the mountains somewhere far away. Ever feel like that?

It started with me feeling nauseous and only got worse with me making someone angry, which then made me feel physically sick.

This isn't the first bad day on record, nor will it be the last. Quite a few of you will have much more valid bad-day reasons than my small troubles. But the woe we feel is real to us, even when trivial to others.

So it's not new, we all get those days, and if we are going to get anywhere we have to keep plugging away.

What keeps us going?

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I am writing a special report for Hive subscribers and I have come to a realization. I need deadlines. I hate them but I need them. Sound familiar?

Without a deadline I don't know where to stop. I scope-bloat, I gold plate and ultimately I don't finish. With a deadline I stress but I do complete my work and get it out of the door.

So my solution is to create an artificial deadline. This will not work without pressure so I have told Ryan I will finish by end of today. If I do complete the report then my deadline is met. If I do not finish on time then I have let Ryan down and I have broken my promise.

I didn't say it was fun, but it is working to focus my efforts and stop me getting distracted. Well, other than telling you guys about it ;)

If you want to read the report you will need to sign up to the Hive and look out for it this week ...

Do you follow your competing blogs?
Do you comment on them?

Transfer a long comment into your own article!

1. If I read the comments following an article I love to read short comments.
2. Rule: Long comments should better reside in their own article.
3. Don't hesitate to leave your own Trackback, Related or Follow-Up comment.

Speaking of Follow-Ups: They are one of the greatest sources to dive deeper into a specific subject. You can write about specific aspects of a subject in your own style and length. It's like taking up the ball...

Transfer your reading input into great blog output!

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Despite much success in 2007, my biggest downfall, by far, was not staying on task. I worked in fuzzy mode, bordering on chaos mode. I jumped from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing to thing, without finishing the sentence. Each day, when I woke up, I really had no freakin' clue what I was going to do. I just did what seemed most pressing.

This fuzzy, chaotic, haphazard work pattern wasn't all bad. I did, after all, far exceed my goals set last January and within a year came to hire 7 employees. Last January, I couldn't have imagined generating the sort of revenue that I'm now generating...not to mention having a plan to generate it.

Now that I know what works, I've decided to put more structure on my time and those of my employees in 2008. The idea is that my company can increase cash flow by being more intentional about the way we use our time.

As a model, for your benefit, here's an example map of a 40 Hour Work Week that I might implement for myself:

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Sample Blog Editorial Calendar?

I love the idea of creating an editorial calendar for at least a couple of the blogs I maintain. For some reason though I get hung up on the idea of it and haven't been able to fully commit to creating one yet. Does anyone have one of your own that you'd like to share, or tips on how to create one?

Hope Wilbanks asked for an answer. The Helping Bloggers Succeed task force sent out some heroes to help. In the ongoing effort to make the Internet a better place the crowd has found many answers: How To create an editorial calendar

Let me see if we can get out some additional practical advice for you...

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Web entrepreneurs, especially those who work outside the confines of the traditional workspace, often have trouble managing their time.

This article proves 10 time-tested methods to get more work done than before AND free up the time we tend to 'borrow' from outside our work schedule.

These suggestions are work well for bloggers, entrepreneurs and especially anyone whose work routine needs to be flexible because of their family / social circumstances. The key is to integrate these habits into your daily routine, otherwise it's not going to bring you any results.

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This article was inspired by an offhand rant in an IM session with David - thank you for listening mate.

Over the weekend I was looking at my own life (you know, the usual introspective Sundays) when I was - to put it mildly - interrupted by another whining session from someone who has been seeking success all their life and hasn't achieved it. It made me angry at the time (hence the rant) but after a while I figured that for most people, going from failure to success was a process that they just couldn't get started on.

I've tried to catalog that process here. It all starts with a plea to ...

10. Stop Whining.

The world is a tough place, we get it. We ALL GET IT. You're not doing yourself any favors by focusing on the bad stuff. In fact, you're just polluting the world and bringing down the energy of the people unfortunate enough to be in hearing distance at the time (or as the case may be, to read what you write). The faster you get over your self-importance and start working on making things better (you know, real shit, like working on that linkbait that you can't crack, or those blog posts that you don't have the time for, or outsourcing that theme you just don't know how to code), the faster you'll get to where you want to be.

The fastest way to stop focusing on what's wrong and start working on improving your current condition is to...

9. Channel Your Energies

Suppose that you're shafted in a project you're working on - the person who's hired you collects the work and makes off without paying you. Understandably, you're angry. But how would you deal with this anger? Venting is good (and necessary), but there is a difference between using that anger to achieve something positive and letting that anger eat you up inside.

Could you set in place practices that ensure that you get paid for 100% of your projects? Is there some way you can get back at the person who's wronged you (religion allows for revenge, in case you're objecting) without spending too much time / energy (publicly cataloging this incident on your blog / website / forum you frequent)?

At every junction of your life you're presented by choices - and (as I venture dangerously into feel-good mumbo-jumbo) you've got a responsibility to yourself to make the right choices - the ones that help you move your life forward and take you towards your goals.

If something evokes a strong emotional reaction, find an outlet, get the initial and strongest reaction out of your system and then channel your remaining emotions into something constructive. To do this, you have to...

8. Focus

It's easy to tell yourself that you must focus on a particular task, in practice its virtually impossible to do so if you have problems with paying attention. There's no big secret to razor-sharp focus - barring genetic pre-dispositions and childhood habits, the best you can do to help yourself focus is to:

• catalog distractions and ruthlessly eliminate them.
• setup a stable daily routine for your work - forming stable work habits are the best way to get (and stay) focused on your work.

The biggest obstacle to focused effort is your resistance to doing tasks / work that you're not interested in (and in contrast, the easiest way to build focus is to work on something you enjoy). This leads us to the next two steps...

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The idea is simple - do not open your email, visit forums, hit your blog's comments, open your rss reader, visit your favourite websites...in other words, do not ANY type of 'input' in your working hours until you have the time allocated to 'ACT' on that input.

For example, it's common practice for bloggers to open up their email inbox several times a day to 'scan' for important emails. Depending on the amount of emails one gets, this can mean a few quick responses and then leaving those emails that require a longer response lying in wait till late night. At night, you might not have the time / energy to write long responses and those emails get left on next day.

Or, when we hit up our RSS reader without scheduling time to blog about any news item we find interesting. What happens if we come across something worth blogging about? It goes in the bookmarks, and those bookmarks keep adding up until you have to do some spring cleaning or the load becomes so overwhelming that you have to dump them and start afresh.

Or...when we hit forums where we network frequently only to browse and not to comment / reply on threads.

All such activities take up time - valuable time - from our daily routine. Instead of checking your email 5 times in 4 minute segments, you could easily check it once a day in 20 minutes, and in that time you will respond to more emails and get more things done than in the 5 short breaks during the day. The same goes for blogging (you've already read an article once, and if you leave it for later, you'll have to read it again. It maybe only a few minutes of time but once you add that time up you can build an amazing debt of time.

I get distracted easily, so it's a continuous battle to avoid such time wasters, especially when I'm not going to 'do anything about them'.

If you really need a 5-10 minute break, get off your butt and excercise - if you're a blogger, you probably need it more than a quick trip to your inbox to check your mail for the 3rd time in the day.

As bloggers and site owners we often focus on quality content and providing value to our readers. Unfortunately, our 'quality' content is NOT providing maximum value to readers.

They might be loving it, and it may make you a blogging rock star, but are they using your advice? And materially benefiting from it?

Really?

Three years ago I was strapped for cash and in a fit of desperation, turned to the Internet for ways to make money. Through RentACoder I started picking up writing projects, and soon I met a guy who wanted a writer for his email newsletter. He was selling software through his one-page website, and the newsletter was geared to compliment and support the software.

Over the next year and a half, we tested and tracked the responses of two specific types of articles - a how-to article discussing a specific SEO strategy and a how-to article that used the software to demonstrate an SEO strategy.

The software-oriented articles won every single time, hands down.

The takeaway lesson wasn't that a piece of software is more attention-grabbing than quality content.

The lesson is that if you give your readers a systematic way to do things and show them how to do it, you will get a much better response.

A reusable system that 'just works' every single time is a valuable resource that will keep your readers coming back for more and more.

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Writing is nothing like computer programming. The latter is scientific yet was relatively easy for me, when I did it for a living. I could reuse code fragments and thus produce large, functioning programs in just a few days. Writing isn't like that. While hyperlinks are probably the equivalent of code reuse, writing involves a wholly different process. There is only so much "system" you can apply. In thirty years, I've never suffered coder's block. Ever. I used to brag that I've never suffered from writer's block, either. At least, not until I started writing full-time for a living. That is, multi-blogging professionally.

Mind you, it's not that I don't know what to write about. I've done a lot of research into what topics are popular and/or profitable, and my blogging contracts already define my topic parameters. So you think it'd be easy to write, right? Wrong. The problem is, there's more and more "invisible" pressure to be linkworthy, and when you write on as many blogs as I do, it's not easy. That doesn't mean that every one I write for is expecting linkbait out of each article, considering that most of what I write is a combination of news summary and my spin. So, in fact, much of the pressure is of my own creation, my drive to be a better blogger.

Still, if you let such feelings carry too far, you do suffer from writer's block - or whatever you'd like to call it. And then you end up with unproductive months, which is bad for your clients and bad for your business. So what do you do when you've got some sort of writer's block? Here are some suggestions that have worked for me in the past, and a few of which worked for me this week, after a month of bad writer's block.

1. Take a break and treat yourself.
   If you work from home, get up and get away somewhere. I headed downtown a few days ago to try out a new restaurant and treat myself to blank sketchbooks, a packet of original Moleskines journals, and some new rollerball and fountain pens. And you know what? It worked. I started writing this article you're reading on the bus ride home.

2. Draw a diagram.
   Despite my writer's block, I've been producing a lot of diagrams lately, as well as screencasts. Your diagrams don't even have to serious, as this hilarious Venn diagram attests to. [via Digg] If you're not having any luck in this area, maybe you've got a spreadsheet that helps you in your daily blogging activities. Consider sharing that with your readers by using a web-based spreadsheet app such as ZohoSheet or Google Spreadsheets.

3. Record a podcast.
   Do something other than writing. If you have something to say, try actually speaking it instead of writing it. You can find cheapo $1 microphones that do almost as good a job as a better $50 mic. Maybe not broadcast quality, but okay for an occasional podcast, or just for fun. And go get Audacity, the very well put-together cross-platform audio recording software for free, to help you record and convert audio formats. There are also a multitude of blogging platform plugins to help you publish your podcast files.

4. Produce a screencast.
   If voice work isn't your thing, maybe you're good at using a piece of software and you can capture a screencast of how to use a certain feature. (Practice up, because later this year, I'll be looking for paid contributors to Tubetorial, which is a SplashPress site that I'm currently editing.) You can use the free Camstudio to record a screencast.

5. Make a SplashCast.
   Have a number of images and screencasts that you'd like to integrate together into one presentation? Try SplashCast or other tools.

6. Blog some TV.
   There's nothing like blogging a show while you're watching it to really fire up your creative juices. There's really very little planning needed - it's all stream of consciousness. Reality shows are good for this, and if you pick the right ones, you can build a bit of seasonal traffic to your blogs.

7. Go see a movie.
   It's partially the simple act of getting away from your unproductive writing activities, but also the opportunity for some different creative input.

8. Read a book.
   Since I started blogging full-time, I've barely read anything in print, and miss doing so sorely. I find lately, though, that if I actually take 15-30 minutes per day to read offline, not only does it relax me, but it doesn't seriously affect my work time. Do this and you can even blog about the book.

9. Write fiction, lyrics or poetry.
   When I was a  paid technical writer, between programming gigs, I found it very hard to come home after work and write fiction. They involve two different mindsets, at least for me, and the activities couldn't coexist on the same calendar day. But blogging is much more creative in nature, the way I do it, and can coexist with fiction writing. Try it. Start by creating a story premise, writing down a list of events in sequence (and which characters are involved) and see where your story goes from there.

10. Write something irrelevant but fun.
    Make up something to write. Or try Jason Rekulak's The Writer's Block (non-affil.), which is a small, cube-shaped book of writing inspiration. There's also Naomi Epel's The Observation Deck (non-affil.), which contains an instruction book and a packet of flash-style cards to help spark your creative juices. When I remember to use these, they've helped me considerably.

11. Write something important.
    Maybe you've never written your will. Or is there anything else important that you might write?

12. Write a list.
    Write it point form, without details, and see what develops over time. It might turn into listbait, once you beef it up with details and relevant hyperlinks. (A list is only a list. Turn it into a useful resource to become linkworthy.)

13. Write your future bio and/or obituary.
    Imagine that if you were, say, a subject of A&E's Biography show, what would people say about you? What do you want them to be saying? Write that down. Now go a step further. What do you want to be remembered for, when you leave this mortal coil? Write that down.

14. Write summaries of other bloggers' posts.
    When I can't decide some days what to blog about, I start by reading a batch of posts by other bloggers, then writing a few sentences of summary for each post. A topic may catch my interest, and a post will form on its own out of one or more summaries.

15. Laugh.
    Laughing relieves stress and tension, and brings down inhibitions. It's long been touted as a curative for many reasons. Laugh heartily and you'll see why. I make it a habit to watch at least an hour of comedy every day.

What works for you, when you're suffering from writer's block?

Are you at the point where you're getting multiple daily blogging projects but not sure how to manage them? Many people have trouble managing multiple projects, often feeling overwhelmed. I'm sometimes amongst that group, and I find myself changing my project management methodology to suit my mood, environment and deadlines. Some are more ideal than others for when you're blocked and can't seem to complete your work. I'm highlighting here two ways that you can approach a group of projects, regardless of the size and frequency of each. The second method, multi-tasking, is in my opinion more productive.

The SplashCast below consists of two frames. The first is an image of the way that people usually complete a group of projects: focus on project 1, complete each step, then move on to the next project. In this mode, you don't really think of each task as being distinct - the task is the entire project. I've diagrammed each project as consisting of sub-tasks, then.

The second frame shows an alternate tactic that requires a bit more thought and organization. Instead of completing one project fully before moving on, you split each up into actual sub-tasks and interleave the whole lot of them any way you feel comfortable. In this case, I've shown the completion of each step 1 across the projects before moving to step 2. This lets ideas brew in your mind while still letting you get some work completed. If something new pops into your mind, you can then refine your work by editing what you've written.

Note: to advance to the second frame, press the start button, then hover your mouse over the SplashCast area and click on the advance arrow at top right.

I've left out the "research" step for simplicity, to focus on the writing tasks.  The reason for the second approach is that it helps seed your mind with article ideas and lets the "background processes" of your brain mull them over while you work on another task. This is especially ideal if for whatever reason (ADD, hypothyroid problems, anxiety, stress, guilt, laziness) you cannot focus on a single project before moving on to another one.

As well, I also find that if I "sleep" on articles at least one night before they're posted, they usually turn out better - less typos, more cohesion, etc. What's more, if I'm feeling overwhelmed with the work, breaking the projects down into tasks allows me to focus on a little piece at a time while feeling a degree of control. Also, if I only have a partial story, sleeping on it usually gives me ideas on how to complete it.

Here is my ideal approach for completing a batch of daily posts:

1. Browse my feed subscriptions.
2. Take note of potential references and write down tentative article titles.
3. Write the outline of each article, or just a few bullet points to jog my memory. (However, if I'm completing each project before moving on, I may not use this step.)
4. Write rough drafts, then leave for a few hours or sleep on it.
5. When you return (i.e., in the morning), edit each draft. Now add external and internal (deep) links, if you haven't done so. If you're short of the word quota, search your archives for related stories and see if you can't work in a relevant summary tied to the new story.
6. Post.

Now, this "ideal" approach works best - for me anyway - when applying method 2, interleaved tasks. If I feel up to completing a single project before moving on, then I do so. However, I always feel that the interleaved method allows me to be more productive without sacrificing quality. It's not foolproof, and sometimes you'll still feel blocked - at which point you maybe need to get up from your desk and go for a walk.

You wouldn't think that working from home would be such a bad thing, right? I mean, you wake when you want, sleep when you want, work when you want. You can excercise whenever, take a stroll with the dogs, stay out of traffic. What's wrong with that?

Of course, you have to learn to budget revenue, to deal with the ups and downs of contracts. But if you have a bit of business sense, you should be able to learn that lesson. The more serious issue, which is very easy to forget, is health. Bloggers who work from home seem to be increasingly reporting a variety of health problems, or are more prone to them given the change in lifestyle.

1. Flu - though this isn't due to working at home, bloggers have been reporting serious cases of illness. I was lightheaded for a few hours today, but it passed. Last year, around this time, I was sick for days - something that hadn't happened to me for as long as I can remember.

2. Obesity - I've definitely gained weight working at home full-time for nearly a year now. I know it's bad, it's just not always easy to do something about it without a concerted effort.
3. Diabetes from obesity and inactivity. With diabetes becoming an epidemic, weight is something to watch very closely. I've tried to eat less per meal, but sometimes I end up snacking too often since it's easy to do so at home.
4. DVT - Deep vein thrombosis from inactivity or sitting in a cramped position for long hours, over extended periods. If you're over 40, or have had surgery or recently had a baby or surgery, or are susceptible to any number of risk factors. It's typically a traveller's disease but does strike people with sedentary lives.
5. Stroke or heart attack from DVT or other reasons.
6. Headaches from lack of fresh air.
7. Insomnia - especially if you work and sleep in the same room/ studio.
8. Hoarseness of throat, due to not speaking all day. Unless you conduct a lot of phone calls from home.

These are only a few ailments that someone working at home could be prone to. That's not to say that people working offline are not prone, but when you work at home, it's easy to forget to exercise or even leave the house for fresh air on a regular basis. Now, the question is, how do we remind ourselves to actually take a break when we're thinking, "I'll do it in a minute." Any suggestions? Scheduling your time like a regular job might be the key.

Sharon Sarmiento writes over at 901am, 5 ways to work less and get more done online. This is good advice that may help you if you're having a hard time managing your blogging schedule, whether you work full time at it or not. Particularly useful to me is point #1: restrict your work hours to increase efficiency. Kathy Sierra also talked about this over at the Headrush blog. If you're trying to learn in limited time, check out hacking knowledge: 77 ways to learn faster, deeper, and better.

Now, I guess I'm bad for this. Since 2005, I've been putting in 10-17 hour days blogging. When I first shrank the time spent in late 2005, I found that I got my work done regardless. The trick is that I had to leave my workspace and go do other things. So sometimes I'd shoot off to the local Farmer's Market or go see a movie or whatever. And I'd still get my scheduled blogging done (this was all my own work then). But when I started getting (ghost)blogging contracts in 2006, I started feeling guilty that I wasn't spending more time for my clients. Big mistake. So I did, and I allowed all sorts of distractions, getting less done in more time. And so I ended up in the same 10-17 hr/day trap.

Part of the problem in work for yourself is that it's easy to think you have the whole day to finish work. This is a mistake because your work will expand to fill that void, if you let it. You have to discipline yourself to structure your time - something I struggle with constantly.

Finally, as of two weeks ago, I got sick of blogging 7 days a week. How different was this when I was a workaholic in the "real" world? So I decided to shrink my work week to M-F, and leave Sat/Sundays for my own blogging. I just started this last week and it's getting better -- and I'm actually starting to get more work done than when I spent more time.

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