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Whether you’re a project leader at a software development company, a university, or a marketing agency, facing down a big project can feel overwhelming. If you dive in right away, ditching organization for the sake of saving time, you’ll probably end up swamped with what feels like an impossible amount of work.
Even worse, the people you’re completing the project for—your stakeholders—may be breathing down your neck as the deadline looms.
Using a project management methodology can help you organize your team and get the job done well. Two of the most popular project management methodologies are Agile and Waterfall. Which one should you choose for your project?
To see which tools we recommend for Agile project management, see our top list below. Many of these can also be used to implement the Waterfall methodology or a hybrid of both.
You can read our full reviews of each project management tool here.
As its name suggests, Agile methodology is flexible. Teams break tasks up into manageable sections and work on these sections at the same time, frequently collaborating with stakeholders as they work to meet short-term deadlines known as sprints.
In nature, a waterfall starts at one point and flows straight down to its destination, and that’s exactly…
Dead people have clarity. The rest of us feel confused.
You’ll find a two-headed chicken in the Odditorium of St. Petersburg’s Museum of Natural History. You probably know what being two-headed feels like.
Solution-seekers feel confused. No confusion – no solutions.
Stop seeking solutions if you can’t accept confusion.
A little stress brings your brain to life. A lot of stress makes you stupid.
Confusion is opportunity to grow.
Humility enhances joy. Accept your limitations.
Pressure to find perfect answers paralyzes. The question is, “How can we make things better,” not, “How can we make things perfect?”
Forget about it. Play pool. Take a walk. Lie in the grass. Give your brain space to work on its own.
Play when you feel confused.
Attend the Mike the Headless Chicken Festival.
Stress often goes down when you consider the worst that could happen. There are obvious exceptions to this rule.
Restate the problem. Approach it from multiple angles.
Craft an ‘I want’ statement.
Use your ‘I want’ statement to guide efforts. How does this help you get what you want?
Big tip: When you feel confused, go with your highest point of clarity.
How can leaders address confusion?
What shouldn’t you do when confusion sets in?
4 Questions When Seeking Clarity
4 Ways to Stop Resisting Breakthrough
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Lose weight and burn belly fat without dieting.
Replacing some fatty foods with alternatives that are lower in fat reduces belly fat and weight, studies find.
People in many studies lost weight without reducing their food intake, only by making relatively small changes to what they eat.
One example is to swap to low fat yoghurt and milk and remove the fat from meat.
Another suggestion would be to change snacks that are high in fat, like cake and biscuits, to lower fat alternatives, such as fruit.
The more fat people cut from their diet, the greater their weight loss, studies show.
These change do not just cause weight loss, they also help reduce levels of bad cholesterol and lower blood pressure.
The conclusions come from 33 different randomised controlled trials, the gold standard of scientific experimentation.
Dr Lee Hooper, the study’s first author, explained:
“The weight reduction that we found when people ate less fat was remarkably consistent – we saw it in almost every trial.
Those who cut down more on fat, lost more weight.
The effect isn’t dramatic, like going on a diet.
The research specifically looked at people who were cutting down on fat, but didn’t aim to lose weight – so they were continuing to consume a normal amount of food.
What surprised us was that they did lose weight, their BMI decreased and their waists became slimmer.”
There were 73,589 people in total involved in the studies, which were carried out around the world.
The results showed that people lost an average of 3.5 pounds and reduced their waist circumference by 0.5cm after reducing fat from their diet.
Dr Hooper continued:
“And remember, this isn’t a diet, so don’t take it to extremes, but work out a way of eating that you can stick to permanently.
Keeping healthy is not just about fat and weight – but cutting down on fat, especially saturated fat, is a great start.
Being physically active, not smoking, drinking alcohol in moderation, eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, and drinking plenty of fluid also help to keep us healthy.
We just need to get in the habit of doing these things.”
The study was published in the British Medical Journal (Hooper et al., 2012).
Finding a good writer for your content is so important, not everyone’s styles will match your brand voice, not everyone has the same skill set, not everyone is what you’re looking for!
1. Make sure you’re searching on platforms with a wide reach.
2. Ditch interviews! Give them a project from your editorial calendar, and see what they do with it!
3. Make sure your guidelines are crystal clear! Give them some direction on the content you’re having them write.
Julia McCoy is the creator of The Content Transformation System and The Content Hacker. Starting at 19 years old, she built a brand from $75 to over $5 million in gross revenue. She’s also a six-time bestselling author and host of The Content Transformation podcast.
Ecommerce grew 33.6% between 2020 and 2021, and experts believe there’s plenty of room for growth. Projections indicate that ecommerce sales could grow from today’s $3.3 trillion to $5.4 trillion by 2026. Furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be a ceiling for how much the industry might grow.
There are many entry points into ecommerce. However, dropshipping remains one of the most accessible means of breaking into the lucrative global online market. Dropshipping requires minimal startup capital, is flexible, and is easy to scale.
Dropshipping is also potentially lucrative, with an estimated global market value of $128.6 billion in 2020. This figure is expected to grow to $476.1 billion by 2026. The market conditions and outlook couldn’t be better for someone wishing to start a dropshipping business.
However, like any kind of business, dropshipping has its challenges and drawbacks. One of the biggest challenges is choosing a viable dropshipping product. It’s a competitive space with low barriers to entry, so it’s important that you set yourself up for success from the start.
Dropshipping is no different from any other retail business. You’ll need to understand your products and your audience. With near-infinite products to explore, picking the winners is easier said than done.
Here are nine tips to ensure you pick the best dropshipping products.
There are nearly infinite potential dropshipping products. Unfortunately, while it sounds great on paper, only a minority of products sell well. Recent estimates suggest that only around 10%-20% of dropshippers are successful.
The trick is to find out which products sell well. Each product in your catalog should have profit potential out of the gate. Try to focus your attention on the products successful drop shippers are selling, the latest trends, and products with a lot…
“Being able to effectively communicate is the most important skill any leader can possess.” Richard Branson
If it doesn’t matter to you, stay out of the conversation.
Everyone knows when you’re talking out of your butt.
You look stupid when you’re impressed with your own knowledge.
Talking is learning in some cases. But usually, the person who talks the most learns the least.
If you don’t know why you’re opening your mouth, keep it shut.
#6. You’re offering unrequested advice.
Fixers irritate listeners.
Things that seem important to you may be irrelevant to others.
Don’t answer questions people aren’t asking.
Listening comes before speaking.
“Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.” Bernard Baruch
Every time you can’t wait for someone to stop talking – so you can spout your wisdom – the conversation is a waste of time.
Always talk ‘with’. Never talk ‘at’.
You have a goal every time you open your mouth. It helps to know what that goal is.
Rule #1: Only open your mouth to make something better.
What leadership communication tips can you suggest?
What are some dumb communication strategies?
If Words Had Calories – Suggestions for Bloviators
Opinion | Talk Less. Listen More. Here’s How
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Focusing on how habits are initiated is key to getting regular exercise.
Exercise makes people more extraverted and agreeable, research finds.
These are just two of the positive changes that modest amounts of exercise can have on personality.
Exercise also increases people’s conscientiousness and makes them more open to experience.
A few of the benefits of these personality changes include:
In contrast, those who remain sedentary tend to see the opposite pattern of changes to their personality.
These include reduced agreeableness, being more closed to experience and less conscientious.
The conclusions come from a study of over six thousand people who were followed for more than twenty years.
They each completed surveys that asked them about their personalities and levels of exercise.
The results showed that only relatively small amounts of exercise were linked to positive changes in personality over the years.
The study’s authors write:
“A physically inactive lifestyle has a range of long-term
biological, health and cognitive outcomes, such as higher risk of frailty, worse mental and physical health and declines in
memory and executive functions.Such outcomes, in turn, may have a long-term impact on personality, such as reductions in the tendency to be self-disciplined and organized or to be exploratory and curious.
Indeed, cognitive decline, greater frailty, and more
depressive symptoms and disease burden have been associated with reduced conscientiousness and openness over time.”
Focusing on how habits are initiated is key to getting regular exercise, studies have found.
It’s all about making sure there are regular cues which prompt you to automatically exercise.
To create good exercise habits, you should focus on what starts you exercising, not what type of exercise you do.
The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Stephan et al., 2018).
Content marketing is vital in developing your audience’s “know, like and trust” factor. It can overcome objections before they happen, increase the perceived value of your offers, and increase customer lifetime. This simple framework will teach you how to create compelling content and repurpose it for multiple platforms in about 2-hours per month.
There are two categories of content that every business needs in their content marketing strategy. Core Content and Hygiene Content.
Core Content is the core of your marketing efforts. It should deliver incredible value and include an opt-in. Creating Core Content is resource intensive, so how do you fill in the gaps in your content calendar? Hygiene Content.
Hygiene Content serves the vital purpose of staying present and relevant to your audience. If Core Content is your 6-month intensive dental cleaning, Hygiene Content is brushing your teeth daily. Creating one type won’t guarantee dental (or content) disaster but combining both is ideal.
Core Content = Quality
Hygiene Content = Quantity
Hygiene Content allows you to create the quantity of content you need to be present and relevant in the highly competitive content marketing world without draining your resources or becoming a full-time content marketer.
It’s the most important content you create and is directly related to your customers’ biggest problems and how you solve them. To create Core Content, choose 2-5 core topics or categories. These should be the topics most important to your customer and directly related to your solution. Let’s look at an example.
Tim’s Tax Team is a small business accounting firm specializing in tax filing and corporate tax breaks. Their customers’ biggest challenges are meeting corporate tax requirements, proper record keeping, and audits.
Tim’s Tax Team Core Content Topics
Tim’s Tax Team Core Content Examples
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Hygiene Content is the in-between content that keeps your brand in the hearts and minds of your customers without taking hours to create. It provides value and entertainment but doesn’t have the same depth as your core content.
Hygiene Content topics are relevant to your customer but don’t necessarily have to be related to the problem you solve or your offers. To create Hygiene Content, identify 3-5 topics relevant to your ideal customer or related to your industry. Let’s look at Tim’s Tax Team again.
Tim’s…
When it comes to project management, the Agile philosophy stands out among the rest. It combines several tools to create better organization, communication, and productivity for your team.
Scrum is only a small part of Agile solutions, but it can make all the difference for your business. Since scrum is a piece of the whole here, you don’t technically have to choose between them. However, if you’re looking for a comprehensive, all-inclusive solution, Agile has much more to give.
Many Agile solutions are built for ease of use, including Monday.com. However, it can take more effort to combine multiple methodologies.
You have to figure out how to use each one and whether it’s right for your team. Then, you need to put them together to see if they increase team productivity long-term. Building a whole Agile system for your team takes some trial and error, which can delay starting valuable projects.
Scrum has one of the shortest learning curves as an individual Agile solution. Once you get Zoho or another scrum solution, you have access to boards that you can arrange in whatever way works for your team.
Zoho uses a drag and drop system modeled after physical whiteboards in software engineering. Its initially simple setup…
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