Of all of the problems we face on a daily basis, procrastination is undoubtedly one of the most destructive. It is human nature to procrastinate mundane chores and mindnumbing tasks. But there is a price to pay... the slowly increasing pile of work that really must be completed begins to grow higher and even more daunting to begin.

One of the more effective techniques I have found for overcoming procrastination is to take on the most unpleasant task first. The temptation is to put off the more unpleasant tasks for last. The problem with this is that the task will only become more unpleasant with the passing of time, and it will distract you from making progress where you need it most.

It's so funny how easy it is to put off doing the things we know we have to do. But when you take that one unpleasant task -- the one you really don't want to work on -- and you actually make some significant progress, your mind takes on a euphoric sense of accomplishment that drives your enthusiasm, motivation, and ability to be productive, to great new levels. It was the unpleasant task that was keeping you from being truly productive and effective.

Get the hard task out of the way, or at least make significant progress, you will find an improved mental attitude that comes with taking on difficult challenges and succeeding.

Labels: work

The adage states "Rome was not built in a day" ... and yet God created all of the heavens and the earth in only six days. I'm not sure if this makes me less impressed with Rome, or more impressed with God.

This month officially marks our 10 year anniversary. We started in a spare bedroom with a printer, a computer, a few contacts and a Ford Ranger. Today, our 6000 square-foot facility employs more than 20 people, we have more than 150 active clients, and a reputation as being the leader in our field in all of South Texas.

What took 10 years to build could end much faster if proper care is not taken to ensure that each day is seen as an opportunity to get better. Getting better is a never-ending process. In our industry, the moment a cutting-edge solution is created an alternative solution presents itself.

We must never allow ourselves to be so totally distracted by the day-to-day fires that we lose focus of the never-ending process of improvement. Every failure is an opportunity. Every mistake is an opportunity. As we continue to grow and improve our processes and our communications, we must seize these opportunities. By taking ownership of our shortcomings, we will reduce the likelihood of repeat occurrences and increase the distance that separates our company from competitors.

What a joy it is to work with the caliber of people that make up MPC Studios, and how exciting it is to peer into the future and see the potential of what we may become in the next 10 years. It will require much patience and persistence... and it will be fun.

There are many things that separate our company from the competition. We have outstanding design, we have cutting edge programming capabilities and numerous offerings that make us better than the alternatives that are available to our customers. There is one tool that we do not use enough. It is a highly effective tool that makes clients happy, or at the very least -- keeps them from being angry. That tool is: Communication!

One of the things I learned many years ago was that if you're going to be late paying a bill, contact the creditor and let them know. This does not mean you will be paying the bill on time, but it does mean the creditor knows that you're not trying to avoid them, ignore them, disrespect them, or think you will never have to pay the bill. It's called communication. Client's love communication.

They may not like what you have to tell them, especially if you are letting them know that their request has not yet been completed, or may actually cost them more money. But at least they know. They don't spend days wondering whether or not someone is working on their request, that they have been forgotten in the pile of never completed requests.

Often times, a simple e-mail will suffice. More often than not however, the most professional and polite manner of communicating is with your voice. Having a two-minute phone conversation with the client may actually require less time to explain the situation than a long and confusing e-mail which can cause more confusion than a conversation. Written words don't have inflection or emphasis -- they are words that are interpreted in the manner the recipient reads them. A conversation, although possibly uncomfortable, reduces the likelihood for confusion and allows for immediate feedback should the client have questions or objections.

The most recent example of this involved one of our television station clients. They had exceeded the 90,000 commercial streams for which they had budgeted each month. Their options were to either increase their budget, or to have their commercial segment display a black screen for the remainder of the month. They chose to have a black screen display, but they were extremely thankful that we had taken a moment of time to communicate the problem and the options they had available. Had they discovered this on their own, there is no doubt in my mind that they would have been angry and justifiably so. Communicating problems directly to the client, explaining the situation and providing solutions, clarification and expectations can increase customer confidence and eliminate many fires that never need to start.

Communication does not need to be long-winded or provide more details than is necessary to explain the situation. It can be short and to the point -- but it must clearly convey the issue so that the client understands. A follow-up e-mail is always a good idea to quickly summarize the discussion. This provides a paper trail that can prove to be very beneficial, and reminds the client once again a summary of the issue that was conveyed.

Communicate, communicate often, provide sufficient details, get to the point and move on. And don't forget, once an issue is resolved that was important enough to contact the client in the first place, communicate the resolution. Nothing makes a client feel like someone cares more than communication.

Google Apps in the Workplace: Mail

I have been beta testing Google Apps for my company since early January and after 4 months of use we have finally migrated the entire office onto this service. The response has been mostly positive and the transition painless.

We have found the internal chat to be most useful as an alternative to our internal Openfire / Spark setup and the SPAM filtering is a long awaited relief. The SPAM filter was actually a driving force for the migration as more and more of our office staff became overwhelmed with SPAM.

Although I am biased towards Google and their services there are some issues that are worth pointing out to people thinking about using Google Aps or people already using it.

Issues when Migrating to Google Aps Mail

1. Uploader Problems

The most diffcult issue I encountered was the Outlook transfer tool, that allows users to upload email, folders, and contacts from Outlook. Users that are most dependent on email, and thus most likely to be annoyed by any inconvenience when accessing email, tend to have alot of email. Unfortunately the upload process can be lengthy and the uploader will not transfer emails larger than 16mb. Although that seems like a reasonable restriction, it does not fail gracefully. In our case, the uploader froze up rather than moving past the large email.

2. Labels versus Folders

Other than technical difficulties, there is somewhat of a learning curve for users moving from Outlook or other POP clients. The concept of folders is very ingrained in the user experience and weening them off is its own challenge. In practice search and labels can be a more effective method of organizing but the upload tool mentioned above also does the user the disservice of creating a label for each folder in Outlook. This sets up the user for the misconception that labels are equivalent to folders. In my experience labels begin to lose their effectiveness at the point that a user has to search through the list of labels. Better for users to create a limited set of labels and use search and broad categorization to organize their mail.

How to Post to Blogger using Google Docs

Yesterday a number of us had the pleasure of discussing SEO with Darrin Ward throughout the day and one of the many things he urged us to do was to start a blog for our company. Now that we've migrated our office to Google Aps and many of us are using Google Docs it makes sense to use these tools to create our blog posts. Assuming you are already setup with a Blogger account, follow these steps to begin posting blog entries.


1. Create a new Google Document and write something, preferably interesting and non-litigious, finish the document by saving it
2. Click Share >> Publish as web page
3. Click on "Edit your blog site settings"
4. Enter your blogger user name and password and the blogId, which in this case is 5428516483543674218
5. Save your settings and click on publish post



Assuming everything went smoothly, your Google Document should now appear as a post on your blog!