Every communications director has a to-do list a mile long, and it gets longer every day. What’s the secret to keeping that list in check? It’s all about creating a workflow for ideas BEFORE they make it onto your editorial calendar or to-do list. Here are three tips to get you started: Idea Parking Lot…
It’s tough to implement methods that keep your nonprofit marketing organized and on track when you can’t effectively manage your own time, attention and energy. Here are 8 productivity practices that have worked for me in some way or another at various times in my career and that I know have worked for other communications…
Communications is a creative and constantly changing field with many different options and choices. Communications team are usually understaffed. Too many ideas and not enough resources to implement them: It’s a perfect storm that can sink your communications strategy if you aren’t careful. Whether those good ideas come flowing in from program staff, board members,…
In their book, Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World (Amazon), Donald Sull and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt define simple rules as “shortcut strategies that save time and effort by focusing our attention and simplifying the way we process information.” They help us simplify complex systems and decisions so that we can move more quickly…
If you look at the preliminary results from our 2017 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report Survey, email marketing, print marketing, the website/blog and social media marketing are almost identical in the rankings for how much time nonprofit staff are spending on them. This chart shows a weighted average where 2 is “a limited amount of time” and 3…
Feel like you’d be more productive if you could just manage your own attention better and limit distractions? I’ve got a challenge for you . . . pick one of the four tactics below and use it every day for a week. Do not (repeat) do not try them all! Pick just one and see…
How long should you spend working on an email newsletter? How much time do you need to invest in Facebook or Twitter to improve your engagement? While we can give you rough, anecdotal answers to questions like these, I’d much rather see you answer the questions for yourself. With your real-life data, you can then…
This Thursday, February 11th at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Pacific) Carson Tate, author of Work Simply, will join us for a FREE webinar – Work Simply: Embracing the Power of Your Personal Productivity Style. During the webinar, Carson will discuss how to prioritize your work based on the way you think and process information. You and…
Next Thursday, February 11th at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Pacific) Carson Tate, author of Work Simply, will join us for a FREE webinar – Work Simply: Embracing the Power of Your Personal Productivity Style. During the webinar, Carson will discuss how to prioritize your work based on the way you think and process information. Take the…
One of my favorite books from last year? Work Simply: Embracing the Power of Your Personal Productivity Style by Carson Tate. I am so excited about this book because it makes so much sense. Whether or not any particular productivity tip will work for you or not depends on your personal productivity style. If you’ve been frustrated…
Read virtually anything on productivity, and you’ll come across the concept of chunking out your time: working on one specific thing at a specific time. The idea is to avoid unproductive multitasking and always letting the urgent overtake the important. But how you actually do that can take lots of different forms, including Calendar Time…
Time and money — we never seem to have enough of either in the nonprofit sector. In theory, you can raise an unlimited amount of money with the right skills and dedication to the job. But time is finite — we all get the same 24 hours each day. Right? While that is technically true,…
