Our Greatest Asset in the New Year

You’ve likely read a handful of posts, tweets, and articles online when it comes to everything of the New Year. There are some really great nuggets out there.

Which brings you here.

What to do with all those fancy ideas?

How to implement all those power tips?

Don’t.

What?

Don’t.

Don’t seek to implement many of those things, without focusing on the main thing. Your greatest asset.

Well, that’s what I’m doing. Focusing on a skill. Well, skills that master all other skills.

Skills that help marketers implement. Get more done. Fast.

Let me share with you what I mean.

Our Greatest Asset in the New Year

Marketing is about leverage.

Marketing is about timing.

We all have varying amount of money, talents, and social currency.

Time, however, is the great equalizer. It levels the playing field. Some of us may live longer than others, or have more remaining years on this mud ball, but we all only have 24 hours in a day.

Time is our greatest asset, and should be leveraged as well.

Regular Reminders of Your Greatest Asset

A New Year, hopefully causes us to reflect on the last year. Perhaps this year, you are going through life, holidays, birthdays missing someone who was around at this time last year. It could be a family member or a friend who was taken suddenly.

In any case, life is faithful to remind us of its fragility. If it takes its proper effect, it compels us to as questions, and ultimately ask questions of ourselves as to how we are spending our days.

Time is your greatest asset in the New Year. As it is for all of us. Leveraged well, it can make a greater impact in your marketing.

I thought I’d share two things I’m doing to improve my use of this asset. Let’s get down to brass tacks shall we?

Using a Timer

There are a multitude of distractions in the online world. Every service is competing for our attention. We may have varying degrees of effectiveness in doing so, but it is important to shut it off. The best way to do this I’ve found is by using a timer (more on this here).

I’m now experimenting moving away from a kitchen timer and going with a pomodoro timer on my Android device (it’s here). A screenshot of the app starts off this post.

It’s nice because it is very visible, and it ticks out-loud. The idea behind the pomodoro technique is that the human brain works best with short bursts of focus, followed by a break. An Italian graduate student in the late 80s discovered that time to be 25 minutes focus, and a 5 minute break.

Before Pomodoro I found 55 minutes of focus and 5 minute break was effective, but I am looking forward to the results of this updated approach.

Learning to Read Again …FAST

As a result of joining Infusionsoft, I was extended the offer to learn how to speed read. There is huge value there, as this is what I do a lot of, and can be a huge leverage point. I’m relatively new to this and finding it to be hard work. No speed writing class yet, tho, chime below in if you know of one.

The greatest challenge is changing how I read. Reading by grouping words in chunks, and turning off the 4th grade voice in your head is not easy when you’ve been reading as I have for this many years.

I’m encouraged that it is worth the effort, as I think of reading books in 1/2 or 1/4 of the time that I do without speed reading.

If it makes sense I will post an update on my speed reading achievements as they unfold.

If we agree that our greatest asset is time, it’s worth considering new ways to maximize it. Above are two ways I’m moving to do so…any more than that and my effectiveness goes down. What about you, what are you doing to leverage time in the coming months? Chime in below.