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How did the original Top Ten Productivity Tips (TTPT) get started?
I was listening to a recording of Paulette Ensign as she was being interviewed by Rebecca Morgan of Speaker Net News (www.SpeakerNetNews.com) as I was driving along in the car, going far, far away across Nevada. I had not been familiar with Paulette before this interview (or at least I didn't think I was, but it turns out I had purchased one of her cassette programs through Career Track many years ago).
Paulette was talking about writing and how easy it was to just write tips and share what you know and I thought, Gosh, I could do that. And the more I kept listening, the more I thought This is something that I have to do. I'm pretty excited to tell you that Paulette, who is the tips booklet queen (www.TipsBooklets.com), has already submitted two sets of tips to be included in the new series. I am one of her many big fans and we have formed a great professional and somewhat personal relationship over the last couple of years - although we have yet met face to face (I hope to change that before too long, however).
So, I re-listened to the recording to help get the ideas firmly in my mind (plus, I was driving all the way from Reno to Pahrump and had plenty of time). As soon as I got to town and got checked into my hotel room, I went to the local Wal-Mart to buy a couple of sets of index cards. I could hardly wait to get back to my room! Once there, I just started writing ideas on index cards. Generally, I wrote a topic or category at the top of the index card. My thinking was, Oh, I could write tips about this, tips about that - all related to productivity. I didn't know what would happen with them.
I started carrying these cards around with me everywhere because I would either come up with a whole new idea for a set of tips or I would use one of the topics to just prompt myself to just think, Okay, well, if I'm going to write tips about organizing your files, what's a tip on that?
And that, as they say, was the beginning. By the fall, I had generated enough sets of tips to 'launch' the original Top Ten Productivity Tips - with a handful of subscribers. These tips have continued to be written, revised, and subscribed to by thousands of folks around the world - and it's a free service, which I am thankful to be able to provide.
How are you defining productivity, for the purposes of the TTPT?
I use "productivity" fairly broadly. It's not time management only, it's not information management only, it's not clutter (vs. no clutter); it's broader than that. So here's what you can focus on: We want the people who read what the Top Ten Productivity Tips you have written to learn ways
to do what they need to do more easily,
more peacefully,
and more predictably.
To repeat this... Productivity is being able to do what you need to do - more easily and/or more peacefully and/or more predictably.
You can ask yourself, when you're writing out your ideas: Hey, are these tips going to either help coaches or entrepreneurs or principals or professors or teachers or women or writers? (which are the current series that will be launched in early 2010).
Just ask yourself when you're generating your sets of tips: Are these tips going to help the coaches who read this do their work or live their life more easily, more peacefully, and more predictably? Is this going to help the writers - if you're writing for the writing set - Will this help writers be able to write more productively, e.g., more easily? And so forth.
The current Top Ten Productivity Tips are free. Are these new series going to be free to subscribers, as well?
Amazingly... yes. Call me a nut, but that's how it's going to work. Incredible information for people to access for free.
Are the Top Ten Productivity Tips in one giant group or are there separate series?
The seven different series (coaches, entrepreneurs, principals, professors, women, & writers) will all be completely separate. Subscribers will choose which of these series they want to receive. So, for example, somebody who is a principal, could say, "You know what? I need ideas for how do I make sure that I'm helping the new teachers in my building... How can I be more productive doing that?" and they could seek help through the Top Ten Productivity Tips for Principals (dot com - coming soon). Or, "How in the world can I possibly manage all the paperwork that comes from Central Office?" What are some productivity tips for that? That's what they are going to be looking for, vs. ideas for writers or for professors.
Other groups will be interested in tips that are specific to them, e.g., writers will sign up for the TTPT for Writers; women will sign up for the TTPT for Women, Professors will register for the TTPT for Professors, and so on.
Could we have a glossary (definition of terms)?
Series: Each of the distinct groups or categories of the new Top Ten Productivity Tips will be referred to as a series. There are 8 series at this time and you may submit to series #2 - 8 since the original series is, in essence, complete:
- Top Ten Productivity Tips (the original series)
- Top Ten Productivity Tips for Coaches
- Top Ten Productivity Tips for Entrepreneurs
- Top Ten Productivity Tips for Principals
- Top Ten Productivity Tips for Professors
- Top Ten Productivity Tips for Teachers
- Top Ten Productivity Tips for Women
- Top Ten Productivity Tips for Writers
Set: Each group of Top Ten Productivity Tips you submit is called a set. Here are example titles for 'sets' that someone might submit:
- Top Ten Productivity Tips for writing when you're under deadline (to be included in the TTPT for Writers series)
- Top Ten Productivity Tips for coaches who coach only one day each week (to be included in the TTPT for Coaches series)
- Top Ten Productivity Tips for collecting money from your students for book orders (to be included in the TTPT for Teachers series)
- Top Ten Productivity Tips for getting everyone in your household to do chores - so you don't have to do all of them (to be included in the TTPT for Women series)
- Top Ten Productivity Tips for choosing a graphic designer (to be included in the TTPT for Entrepreneurs series)
Who owns the copyright for the tips that are contributed?
You own them. The writer. You will maintain your copyright, so one of the things that you can put in your contact information or resource box is the little copyright symbol © and then your name or your company's name - whatever/whoever it is that owns your intellectual property.
The agreement is that when you send me a list of Top Ten Productivity Tips, you know that I'm publishing it through my outlets, but that you maintain the copyright. I will not own the copyright to what you do; you'll own the copyright.
Should I recommend other writers for the Top Ten Productivity Tips?
Yes, if they are knowledgeable!! For example, if you are one of the people who writes tips for the TTPT for Coaches, you want to recruit other excellent coaches to write for us. That way, subscribers know that there are consistent, practical, reasonable ideas that are going to be coming for them when they subscribe. This ensures that subscribers stay with it and that they keep learning and that they keep getting better - and that they recommend the Top Ten Productivity Tips to their friends and colleagues.
What is the timeline for the Top Ten Productivity Tips: New Project?
December 2009:
- Graphics designed,
- Website conceptualized and designed,
- Begin recruiting excellent contributors,
- Begin receiving sets of Top Ten Productivity Tips from the new contributors.
January 2010:
- Website built and launched,
- Email templates designed,
- Continue recruiting excellent contributors,
- Continue receiving sets of Top Ten Productivity Tips from contributors,
- Begin inputting new Top Tens (into the new templates),
- Begin promotion of the new series,
- Allow subscriptions to commence!
February 2010 - the future:
- Continue recruiting excellent contributors,
- Continue receiving sets of Top Ten Productivity Tips from contributors,
- Continue inputting new Top Tens (into the special templates),
- Continue promotion of the new series,
- Welcome new subscribers - daily!
What I've listed above is my projection and my expectation. With that being said, I know there are many moving parts including graphic designers, web people, coders, all these folks - plus we are in the middle of the December holidays. I already know that when I said, "Oh, and by the way, I'd really like this whole new giant website and some new graphics, etc... How fast can you get this done?" people thought, What a fine time for you to be asking, Meggin. But I believe we are going to be right on or pretty darned close to this projection... so get your tips sent in as quickly as possible.
Will all the new Top Ten Productivity Tips series be launched at the
same time?
In short... no. The reason I am encouraging people to get their sets of tips sent in as soon as possible is because that will help determine which series gets launched first. I will make my decision when I see how many submissions I have (and by when).
All of these will launch sometime in spring of 2010. I certainly believe that or I wouldn't be getting graphics and webpages done for all 7 of the new series. But let's just say that by the middle of January, I have 14 submissions for the TTPT for Coaches and only 7 for the TTPT for Teachers. That means the TTPT for Coaches will be launched before the one for teachers. This is because I do not want to be scrambling week to week, thinking Oh my gosh, I wonder if I have anything to send out to the subscribers from this series. I am not going to launch a series until I have at least 10 weeks of TTPTs loaded into the system and ready to go. So, bottom line is that nothing is going to go live at all until I have at least 10 submissions for that series.
How long will my ideas be 'out there' for people to access?
With the web, it's pretty much forever, which is what we want, in this case. Whatever you write will continue to be 'out there' for others to access and learn from (and to find out about you!) for a very long time. We will have new subscribers every single week - as well as our continuing subscribers.
Let's say you submit your ideas and the very first time your tips are released happens to be in February 2010. Yours would come early because you're one of the first contributors. New subscribers could receive your tips in February, but there will be new subscribers a year from now and if your set of tips was one of the early ones, then they will get yours a year from now - at the same point in the 'cycle.' This set up always keeps your name - and what you do - out there.
What expectations should all the contributors have of each other
(and of Emphasis on Excellence, Inc. & Meggin)?
#1 is great writing and practical ideas for the readers!!
#2 is the expectation that we have of one another as contributors that we will all promote the project. As I indicated earlier, if you are writing sets of Top Ten Productivity Tips for Professors, then I would have an expectation - as would the other people who are writing for professors - that you will be telling people about it. You'll say, "Hey, here's a good resource," to your colleagues, for example. This lets more people benefit from the information and join in the conversation. We want as many people learning from you and the other contributors as possible.
Some of you have very formal lists that you can promote to, others of you have groups of friends or colleagues that you can promote it, some of you have websites, and some of you have contacts within traditional media. Social media is another one of the excellent announcement and promotion opportunities.
So there is an expectation that you don't just write your set of tips and then not do anything to let people know that you've done so and will be published. I am expecting that you are going to let people know Hey, I had something accepted. I'm going to be published here. If you are interested in this topic, here is a resource for you. Whatever we write (in nearly every instance), we would love to have readers for it. So let's agree that we can all expect great writing and sharing of the resource.
#3 is your expectation that through my company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc, we will do an excellent job of getting these tips put into the template that we will be using and uploaded to the shopping cart. Rest assured that everything will be done in an excellent fashion and in a timely fashion.
#4 is that you can expect that I will be doing an extensive amount of promotion on this - not only as it gets launched, but also continuing into the future. I wouldn't have invested this much time and money into it, nor would I have asked you to invest your time into this, if I don't intend to do everything I can to promote the project and make it successful. And I have every belief that it will be successful.
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