Doing One Thing At a Time

It’s automatic: you wake up, check your phone, grab breakfast on the go, head to work, check your phone, send a text, call your clients, and begin working. You do all of this without ever really noticing what’s going on.

You don’t have to pay attention to everything at all once, but you should pay attention to the here and now. This isn’t a new concept, but it can be revolutionary. It’s like zen–if you are totally focused, totally engrossed in one thing at a time, you can experience that thing fully. You can actually be there instead of running through the motions. You can communicate more fully with your customers; you can design more focused brands; you can actually connect with what you’re doing.

How many things are you focused on right now? How many tabs are open on your computer? How many text messages are you in the middle of? The urge to do more, be more, and see, touch, taste, more–all at once–is all around us. So how do we stop it? Well, we can’t. Not really. And we don’t really need to stop it, but we do need to take a step back.

Prioritize what you’re doing. It’s not about doing more or doing less, it’s about engaging fully with each activity you participate in. Are you creating a blog? Don’t watch T.V., send an email, or flip through websites at the same time. Are you at work? Stick to a minimum-tab rule: don’t open more tabs on your computer than you need at any one time. If you’re driving to work, don’t worry about the 10 things you have to do when you get there, focus on the road. Focus on the moment you’re in.

You may realize that all of this is important, but it might be hard to see why. It’s pretty simple–we can’t actually multitask. We can shift tasks quickly. But whenever we shift tasks, our brains can get overwhelmed. That makes it harder to get stuff done, harder to finish tasks, and, more importantly, harder to be here now.

Merry Christmas

We’ve had a really full year of hard work, laughter, and a lot of fun. We worked with some amazing new clients and we grew our team a bit!  We can’t believe how quickly 2014 has come and gone, but we’re excited to celebrate Christmas and welcome 2015 with open arms… and some time off.

We’ll be out of the office beginning December 24, returning January 5. We might be a little slow responding to emails, but if it’s an emergency we’ll do our best to make ourselves available.

We’ll spend our break hanging with friends and family and probably diving into those personal projects we never seem to have time for. Here’s to hoping you enjoy every minute of this holiday season, too!

To all of the EM family near and far, we wish you happy holidays.

–Entermotion

3 Things To Change About Your Blog

To make a blog successful, you must make sure that you are providing regularly updated posts that your readers want to read.

Your blog should be about one main thing. Focusing your topics makes it easier for like-minded individuals to find you, it makes it easier for readers to continue reading your blog, and it makes people feel better–when your readers know what to expect, they are more likely to come back. They are more likely to share and pin your posts. They are more likely to remember your articles.

The amount of posts you create can affect the amount (or lack) of readers that you have. If you post five times a day, your readers might be overwhelmed and feel frustrated when they can’t read all of your blogs, but if you post every three months, your readers won’t come back and refresh your page. So what’s the balance? It all sort of depends on a few factors. What are you capable of doing? You don’t want to outstretch yourself or your topics. You want a balance between what’s comfortable for you and what’s good for your readers. There is no one right way; it just depends on you and your needs. Whatever you decide, though, keep it consistent.

Don’t just throw in random content. We love to read about your personal life, but only if it pertains to the topic you’re writing about. If you have a Chihuahua named Skippy and he always barks when you’re trying to dance to Ke$ha, that might be a cute and funny story, but unless it ties into your blog post in a relevant way, don’t use it. Your readers will be able to tell when you’re throwing in content just to fill up the page. If you have nothing real to say, don’t say anything at all.

Remember that your blog is about your business and your brand–keep your information relevant, easy to read, and related to the theme of your company.

A Little Every Day

At Entermotion, we know that every little bit counts, which is why we love contributing to the Dollar A Day program. Dollar A Day is a really easy way to support the companies you love and to discover new companies to support. Every day, they showcase a new nonprofit and everybody has the ability to donate $1 to that company. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but those dollars add up. So far, 871 people have signed up to donate, and we love being part of a large team of funders.

We’ve supported the Solar Electric Light Fund, The Trevor Project, Echoing Green Foundation, the Give Back Yoga Foundation, and a bunch of other nonprofit organizations. It’s easy to sign up and support nonprofit organizations and, like the title indicates, if everyone puts $1 a day, the world can be made that much better.

Your Blog Wish List

We’ve all been there. It’s 3 p.m. on a Friday. You’ve been working since 9 a.m., and the idea of creating blog content seems just about as fun as cleaning the toilet with a toothbrush. You realize that you need strong blog content to gain and keep your clients interested, but what should you do if you hate writing content?

The first step you will need to take is to write or outsource content. If you hate writing blog content, your readers will be able to tell immediately. You won’t be engaged or engaging, and your readers will slowly fall off. Now, you don’t have to blog every day, but you should try to create a weekly and monthly blogging plan so that you can outsource if you need to. Allowing content writers to create personalized or targeted blog content will allow you to focus on other parts of your business. So the first item on your wish list should be to find a blogger.

The second item on your wish list follows naturally from the first: create and organize your blog content. We love using the Jumpchart app that we created because it makes it easy to collaborate on projects. If you hire a blogger or decide to do it yourself, the second item on your blogging wish list should be Jumpchart. It doesn’t matter how compelling your blog content is if you can’t keep track of your blogs. Once you create a Jumpchart account, you will be able to track updates, liaise with your authors and web developers, and set up weekly or monthly blogging goals.

The third item on your wish list has less to do with organizing and writing, and more to do with design. You may have awesome content, but you need to have a great way to show off that content. Having a well-designed website will ensure that your content gets read and that you get more clients. Once you decide on a design firm, you should check out our post on things to ask your designer or design firm.

The last thing you should do is congratulate yourself. Running a successful blog or website is hard. You’ve put in the hours, found a blogger, organized your blog content, and set yourself up with a solid designer. The work is far from over, and every day is going to bring a new challenge, but to really see your blog’s success, you have to step back and be proud of what you’ve created. If you aren’t proud of your work, no one else will be.