jody fransch

7 Bad Eating Habits that Affect Your Productivity

Jody — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:57:42 +0000

Eating is a very important activity. We spend a large percentage of our life eating. Yet many people take this essential activity for granted and don’t really care how and what they eat. I do understand that many people are not as careful as I am about what goes into their body. I read an interesting article the other day which highlighted these bad habits and how they affect an entrepreneurs productivity. It really got me thinking about my own eating habits and how I can improve them.

Although the source article of this post was targeted to entrepreneurs, I believe that everyone who wants to be productive in any capacity can benefit from the points mentioned. Here are seven of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to their diets:

1. Missing breakfast

When you break down the word “breakfast”, you see that you are actually “breaking” a 6-10 hour “fast”. If you skip breakfast you will probably start feeling hungry around mid-morning which is about 15 hours since you last ate. Food is fuel for your body. When your body is not properly fueled, your brain will not be able to work at maximum capacity and you may experience fatigue, dizziness and even aggressiveness.

Don’t skip breakfast!

Rather, eat foods which are high in protein (cereals, nuts, eggs). They will help you stay fuller for longer. Stay away from all that sugary stuff.

2. Consuming too much sugar

With regards to being productive you want to watch your sugar intake because you want to avoid the peaks and valleys that come with consuming a lot of sugar and you also want to watch the empty calories you

Remember to Sharpen the Saw

Jody — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:54:59 +0000

The story is told of a very strong woodcutter who asked for a job at a timber merchant. He got the job and was very excited to start working as the pay and working conditions were great. His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was to fell the trees.

The first day the woodcutter brought 15 trees. The boss congratulated him and told him to continue with his good work. Highly motivated by the words of his boss the woodcutter tried harder the next day but he could only bring 10 trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he could only bring 7 trees. Day after day he was bringing less trees. The woodcutter thought that he was losing his strength. So he went to the boss to apologize and explained that he did not know what was going on. The boss the asked him a simple question: “When was the last time you sharpened the blade your axe?”

Habit #7 in Steve Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is called “Sharpen the Saw.”

I have seen that most people in practice, fail to understand what sharpening the saw really means. If you are overworked and your productivity starts to decrease, one may think that they need to take a break and go on holiday. However, that isn’t sharpening the saw — that’s putting the saw down. When you put down a dull blade for a while, it will still be dull when you pick it up again.

Therefore, sharpening the saw is in fact an actual activity as the story suggests. Think of the benefits your would reap if you begin to start sharpening the saws in your life. Here are a few saw-sharpening ideas:

Exercise
Improve your diet
Educate yourself (read, listen to audio programs, attend seminars)
Learn a new skill
Write in your journal/start a blog
Set some new goals or review/update your old goals
Read this blog

What we need to understand is that downtime is not the same as sharpening the saw. For example, the woodcutter can become even more productive by sharpening the blade, studying new woodcutting techniques, working out in order to become stronger, and learning from his fellow woodcutters.

When we feel stressed and burnt out, it’s good to take some time off, but it is what we do in that time off that is of real benefit. Attending a seminar, reading an inspirational book, or even having an interesting conversation with someone we admire is an example of really sharpening the saw. These activities also increase our energy and motivation.

Question: How are your various blades doing? Your skills, your knowledge, state of your body, your relationships, your motivation — are they all still sharp? If not, which ones are dull and what can you do to sharpen them?

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The Media World is Changing Fast — Really Fast!

Jody — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:42:57 +0000

I recently came across the latest “Did You Know” video, version 4.0. It’s a really fascinating video which I think everybody who is interested in technology, media, and trends should see. The only problem is that the statistics go by so fast making them hard to really absorb. However, I managed to find the stats transcribed on Michael Hyatt’s blog (Thanks Mike!) which I will list below the video.

Here are the facts:

A surge of new technologies and social media innovations are altering the media landscape.

Convergence is everywhere. It is easier than ever before to reach a large audience, but harder than ever to really connect with it.

These changes are affecting the way people behave. Are you ready for the future?

Well over 1 million new books are published worldwide every year.

A Google Book Search scanner can digitize 1,000 pages an hour.

Americans have access to:

1 trillion web pages
65,000 iPhone apps
10,500 radio stations
5,500 magazines
200+ cable TV networks

There are 240 million TVs in the U.S.; 2 million are in bathrooms. When was the last time you read a newspaper in the loo?

Newspaper circulation is down 7 million over the last 25 years. But in the last 5 years, unique readers of online newspapers are up 30 million.

This year (2009), traditional advertising revenue is in steep decline:

Newspapers advertising is down 18.7%
TV advertising is down 10.1%
Radio advertising is down 11.7%
Magazine advertising is down 14.8%

Meanwhile, digital advertising is growing rapidly:

Mobile advertising is up 18.1%
Web advertising is up 9.2%

47% of broadcast television viewers say they would pay for ad-less programming.

More video was uploaded to YouTube in the last 2 months than if ABC, CBS, and NBC had been airing new content (with no re-runs) 24/7/365 since 1948 (which was when ABC started broadcasting).

ABC, CBS, and NBC collectively get 10 million unique visitors per month. These business have been around for a combined 200 years.

Myspace, Facebook, and YouTube collectively get 250 million unique visitors per month. None of these sites existed 6 years ago.

Forty million people have been Rickroll’d.

95% of all songs downloaded last year weren’t paid for.

Wikipedia launched in 2001. It now features over 13 million articles in more than 200 languages.

Cisco’s new data switch could move all of Wikipedia in .001 seconds. Makes the wifi at the local coffee shop seem really, really slow, huh?

Not slow: Ang Chuang Tang of Singapore. He typed a Guinness Book of World Records-approved 160-character text on his cell phone in 41.52 seconds. That’s about 4 characters per second. OMG!

Pop Quiz: how many text messages does the average teen send every month? 584? 1,150? 1,612? Nope. 2,272. Above Average: Brady James of Los Angeles, California sent 217,541 text messages in March 2009.

Nokia manufactures 13 cell phones every second. 1,898 since this video started,

Right now, 93% of U.S. adults own a cell phone. But ⅓ don’t feel safe using it for purchases—unless we are talking about pizza.

Dell claims to have earned $3 million via Twitter posts since 2007.

In February 2008, John McCain raised $11 million for his U.S. Presidential bid. That same month, Barack Obama attended no campaign fundraisers. Instead, Obama leveraged online networks to raise $55 million in those 29 days.

How are you using social networking sites?

Among larger U.S. companies, 17% have disciplined an employee for violating blog or messages board policies.
Twitter played an unprecedented role in sharing information during the 2009 Iranian presidential elections.
All mentions of the disputed election were bumped from Twitter’s trending topics list when news of Michael Jackson’s death broke.

Jackson, Swine Flu, and Barack Obama have been this year’s top subjects for malware distributing emails.

90% of the 200 billion emails sent every day are spam.

The mobile device will be the world’s primary connection tool to the Internet in 2020.

The computer in your cell phone today is a million times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful and about a hundred thou

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Inspiring Change Through Presentations

Jody — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:58:55 +0000

Have you ever sat through a bad presentation? Why was it bad? What do you remember about it? Well the answer to that last question is, probably nothing. All you can remember is that it was bad. I came across a really interesting presentation which I think all presenters and public speakers should see. It really shows how we are being killed by bad presentations and gives advice and solutions to making better ones.

Death by PowerPoint

My personal motto/tagline is: Speaking to others really matters. I believe that I can inspire and influence change by speaking to people about things that really matter. I also strongly believe that presentations, in essence, should help us to discuss and decide upon various issues that shape our individual lives and organizations.

When I prepare to give any presentation, I ask myself: “how can I give a good, memorable, amazing, and inspiring presentation?” With this in mind, I begin to develop it. Most of the time I try to use Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule when it comes to presentations: ten slides, presentation should be twenty minutes, and slides should contain no font smaller than thirty points. By using only ten slides you are forced to be to the point and include more pictures and illustrations to tell the story and make your point. This method also forces you as the presenter to really know your material instead of projecting it on a screen and reading it to your audience. At the end of the day, it just makes your presentation better and more memorable.

Question: What do you think about presentations? What elements do you include in yours which have a positive impact on the audience?

Speak Like Obama – Yes You Can!

Social Media is NOT a fad

Jody — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:06:41 +0000

Still think that social media is a fad? Erik Qualman of Socialnomics has put together a fantastic video called “Social Media Revolution”. For those of you who are still skeptical about social media and Web 2.0, this video will definitely change that…I hope! I have also included below some of his facts relating to this “revolution”.

A couple of interesting stats from Socialnomics:

#1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network.

#5. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia

#16. The 2nd largest search engine in the world is YouTube

#32. According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available

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