A lot of people struggle with establishing processes for their businesses.  It feels bureaucratic, stifling and it can be some serious work up front to get things documented and figured out.

However it’s not rocket science…by any stretch of the imagination.

The trick, assuming that you’re a business that’s already up and running is that you are already following a process.  You may not be following it consistently, you may not have a great handle on all of the components (i.e. it’s not written anywhere) but in order to get the work done you are following certain steps to go from start to finished.

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Picture this – you’re in the middle of a 10 day vacation at a cabin in a beautiful resort area.  There’s no cell phone coverage, the weather is great and you haven’t even turned on the TV in days.  You are in a stress free state – nothing you have to do right now, nothing to think about, nothing to remember…you’re practically floating.

What if you could take that feeling into your day to day work filled world?  How much more productive would you be if you were truly focused only on the task at hand?  Not thinking about phone calls you need to make, errands you need to run, stuff that you have to get done…not only would you get more done, you’d feel really good about it as well!

The key to that feeling of relief that you get on vacation or when you’re mind is empty because you’re concentrating and ‘in the zone’ is getting all of the stuff out of your head!  You need to clear your mind.

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Are you the king of your jungle?  Master of your own domain (oh wait…that’s something completely different)! 

What I’m getting at is do you feel like you’re in full control of your time and what you do with it?  Are you productive?

If you’re like most people, that answer is a resounding NO!  You’re buried in emails, crushed by voicemails, swamped with action items and you hate to even think about the things that are buried somewhere on your desk.

What you really need is to get more done…be more productive…or is it?

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   photo by scragz

Social media gets lots of hype – some of it’s even justified!  There are more than 400 Million users on Facebook (and they’re spending more time on there than ever before).  Businesses are rapidly jumping on board and starting to figure out how to participate and you can’t swing a cat without hitting a new alternative social media application like Foursquare or Biznik.

However it’s not all sunshine and roses in Social Media land – in fact there are some things going on that are downright scary!

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  photo by randysonofrobert 

If you want to use social media for your business, you’ve got to be consistent.  Your social media presence is a garden and if you want your garden to look good and grow, you’ve got to routinely maintain it. 

You need to water your garden, trim and prune the plants, create new beds, add more plants – there’s lots of work to do.  But to keep that garden healthy and growing, you can’t do a burst of work, then wait a month before you do something else and expect to have much staying alive.

The first thing you have to do is have a social media plan that you can live with – don’t sign up for more than you’re going to be able to live up to on a regular basis.  The other thing you need are some tools that can help you stay on top of things.  The good news is there are a lot of tools that can help you maintain that consistent presence.

Here are a couple that I use:

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