Thursday 26 January 2017

How to Train Your Brain to Stay Focused

How to Train Your Brain to Stay Focused
Nadia Goodman

As an entrepreneur, you have a lot on your plate.
Staying focused can be tough with a constant stream of employees, clients, emails, and phone calls demanding your attention. Amid the noise, understanding your brain’s limitations
and working around them can improve your focus and increase your productivity.
Our brains are finely attuned to distraction, so today's digital environment makes it especially hard to focus. "Distractions signal that something has changed," says David Rock, co-founder
of the NeuroLeadership Institute and author of Your Brain at Work (HarperCollins, 2009).
"A distraction is an alert says, 'Orient your attention here now; this could be dangerous.'"
The brain's reaction is automatic and virtually unstoppable.

While multitasking is an important skill, it also has a downside.
"It reduces our intelligence, literally dropping our IQ," Rock says. "We make mistakes,
miss subtle cues, fly off the handle when we shouldn't, or spell things wrong." 
To make matters worse, distraction feels great. "Your brain's reward circuit lights up when you multitask,” Rock says, meaning that you get an emotional high when you're doing a lot at once. 
Ultimately, the goal is not constant focus, but a short period of distraction-free time every day. "Twenty minutes a day of deep focus could be transformative," Rock says. 
Try these three tips to help you become more focused and productive:

1. Do creative work first.
Typically, we do mindless work first and build up to the toughest tasks.
That drains your energy and lowers your focus.
"An hour into doing your work, you've got a lot less capacity than (at the beginning)," Rock says. "Every decision we make tires the brain."
In order to focus effectively, reverse the order. Check off the tasks that require creativity
or concentration first thing in the morning, and then move on to easier work,
like deleting emails or scheduling meetings, later in the day.

2. Allocate your time deliberately.
By studying thousands of people,
Rock found that we are truly focused for an average of only six hours per week.
"You want to be really diligent with what you put into those hours," he says.
Most people focus best in the morning or late at night,
and Rock's studies show that 90 percent of people do their best thinking outside the office.
Notice where and when you focus best, then allocate your toughest tasks for those moments.

3. Train your mind like a muscle.
When multitasking is the norm, your brain quickly adapts. You lose the ability to focus
as distraction becomes a habit. "We've trained our brains to be unfocused," Rock says.
Practice concentration by turning off all distractions and committing your attention to a single task. Start small, maybe five minutes per day, and work up to larger chunks of time.
If you find your mind wandering, just return to the task at hand. 
"It’s just like getting fit," Rock says. "You have to build the muscle to be focused."

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225321

Turbo Charged Reading: Read more>>>Read fast>>>Remember all>>>Years later
Contact M’reen at: read@turbochargedreading.com

You can pre-read all your course material for internal knowing.
I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube  
How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
All aspects of regular, each-word reading and education.
Turbo Charged Reading uses these skills significantly faster
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com       many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com      just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

Friday 20 January 2017

4 Ways to Win at Local Content Marketing

4 Ways to Win at Local Content Marketing
Aaron Agius

When it comes to marketing content to local customers, you have to take a unique approach
- the tactics that work for big businesses aren’t going to resonate with the target audience
in your town. So what do you need to do differently?
Here, I’ll discuss a new approach for marketing content to local customers.

1. Feature local experts in your content.
Most local marketers focus nearly all their content on their business alone,
but there are a lot of benefits to also bringing in other local experts
related to your niche. Incorporate quotes and interviews with local experts,
or find other ways to feature them in your content through collaboration. 
As long as they’re not your direct competitors, you can work with them 
to create a mutually beneficial relationship to expand your audience base. 
Besides, keeping all your content focused on your business alone
sets you up for some limitations. For one, you miss out on the fact that 92 percent of consumers trust third-party recommendations more than brand content. At the same time, sharing content through influencers can increase conversions by three to ten times.
If you’ve taken the time to feature others in your content,
it won’t be very difficult to encourage them to share it with their audiences as well.  

2. Look for opportunities to boost your local prowess.
One of the most basic marketing tactics to find local customers is by hosting
or participating in local events, which I definitely recommend as well. Some options include:
Becoming an event sponsor
Attending trade shows
Donating goods or services to a good cause
These are not only good networking opportunities to build brand awareness,
they’re also great fodder for content creation. Take and share pictures from an event
and create blog posts about the experience. Another important way to boost your local prowess through content is by taking advantage of trending news opportunities. Use Google Trends 
to research what people are talking about in your local area. If there’s a relevant topic
related to your niche, you can write about it on your blog. Google favors prominent news 
in SERPs, so you’re likely to get a boost there for relevance. 
If you can be considered an expert on a topic,
then you can also build local prowess by offering quotes to journalists for news stories. 
Just sign up for Help A Reporter Out (HARO). Journalists post queries on this platform
that you can respond to; getting you and your brand in the news.

3. Focus heavily on encouraging reviews.
This is an important strategy for businesses of any size, but positive reviews are even more crucial for local business success. If you’re working on building your local SEO, the first step is
getting set up on Google My Business. This makes it possible for you to show up in Google’s specialized local search results. Your reviews appear prominently within those results.
This user-generated content is going to have a major impact on whether people decide to visit
your business’s website from searches. Considering that 74 percent of people primarily use portals like Google to find local businesses, this is an area you can’t ignore.
Additionally, Google reviews aren’t the only areas that you on which you should target your focus. Just as endorsements from influencers boost your credibility, reviews from happy customers on review sites -  your website and search engines
 - will help draw in more customers.

4. Take advantage of paid social media
When many small businesses plan their marketing budgets, they write off paid social media
as a content distribution option that’s out of their means. However, there are a few points
that demonstrate how the strategy is actually completely essential for your business. 
For one - organic engagement on social media is falling.
It has been on Facebook for a while, and not coincidentally,
this began around the time the platform started offering paid content distribution options.
It’s no mystery why Facebook, Twitter, and others want to encourage brands to use
their paid options; they favor those over organic posts. Effective social media marketing
is no longer free. Another important point is that paid social media is really quite affordable,
even for small businesses. All the platforms have small minimum advertising investments
and give you complete control over how much you’re willing to spend for impressions, engagement, clicks, etc. 
These platforms have a plethora of super-specific demographic information.
They put the most relevant promoted posts in front of the right audience. 
Just take a look at what Facebook Audience Insights can tell you about your target audience 
based on location, age, interests, Facebook behavior, purchasing behavior, and more. 
A lot of what makes content great doesn’t have to do with business type. 
But if you want to be optimally effective at content marketing to local customers,
there are some strategies you should follow that apply to your unique situation. Take advantage
of the advice in this post to jumpstart your efforts to engage with local customers effectively.

 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/275838?utm_source=Latest&utm_medium=site&utm_campaign=iScroll

Turbo Charged Reading: Read fast>>>Read fast>>>Remember all>>>Years later
Contact M’reen at: read@turbochargedreading.com

You can TCR software and engineering manuals for spontaneous recall – or pass that exam.
I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube  
How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
All aspects of regular, each-word reading and education.
Turbo Charged Reading uses these skills significantly faster
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com        just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

Saturday 14 January 2017

471 I have the financial burden dumped on me and my husband does not work.





FasterEFT is a blend of traditional tapping and Neuro Linguistic Programming created by
Robert G. Smith who shows this lady how to Re-Frame and acknowledge her financial contribution to her family along with Owning her Worth and Value and Standing Up for
what and who she represents.

Turbo Charged Reading: Read More>>>Read fast>>>Remember all>>>Years later
Contact M’reen at: read@turbochargedreading.com

You can TCR specialist and language dictionaries that are spontaneously accessed.
I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube 
How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
All aspects of regular, each-word reading and education.
Turbo Charged Reading uses these skills significantly faster
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com        just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

Monday 2 January 2017

Looking At Nature Makes You More Focused At Work



Looking At Nature Makes You More Focused At Work
Nitya Rajan

By the time I've finished writing this story I would have checked Instagram, Facebook,
Twitter and my Emails at least once, maybe twice.
As much as we may want to deny it, the constant barrage of notifications
that light up our smartphones can be a little distracting.
Science has come up with a surprisingly simple solution to deal with our growing attention deficit: stare at a green roof.
According to a study from the University of Melbourne,
images of greenery work better to boost our attention.
They took 150 participants and split them into two groups. 
One cohort were shown a concrete roof during their micro-breaks 
while the others could look out to a "flowering meadow green roof."
The results: the "green roof" group made "significantly less errors 
and demonstrated superior concentration on the second half of the task, 
compared to those who viewed the concrete roof."
While most of us don't have the luxury of working in an office with a view,
the researchers suggested that images of nature could also help boost attention.
Lead researcher Dr Kate Lee, from the University of Melbourne Faculty of Science, said:
We know that green roofs are great for the environment, 
but now we can say that they boost attention too. Imagine the impact that has for thousands of employees working in nearby offices," Dr Lee said.
"This study showed us that looking at an image of nature for less than a minute
was all it took to help people perform better on our task.
What Lee and her team should have included in the study is 
whether a 40-second micro-break on a smartphone works in the same way as nature.
Surely scrolling through Instagram's offering of mountains and meadows is equally helpful?
Well, we're off to check Instagram in the name of science.
We'll strictly be looking at #Greenroof of course.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/05/26/nature-screensavers-will-make-you-more-focused_n_7441042.html

40-second green roof views sustain attention:
The role of micro-breaks in attention restoration
Highlights
Neuroscience techniques provide direct empirical support for attention restoration theory.
A micro-break viewing a green, but not concrete roof city scene, sustains attention.
The green roof city scene perceived as more restorative than concrete roof city scene.
Results suggest city nature is valuable for healthy cities and workplaces.

Abstract
Based on attention restoration theory we proposed that micro-breaks spent viewing 
a city scene with a flowering meadow green roof would boost sustained attention. 
Sustained attention is crucial in daily life and underlies successful cognitive functioning. 
We compared the effects of 40-s views
of two different city scenes on 150 university students' sustained attention.
Participants completed the task at baseline, were randomly assigned to view a flowering meadow green roof or a bare concrete roof, and completed the task again at post-treatment.
Participants who briefly viewed the green roof made significantly lower omission errors, 
and showed more consistent responding to the task compared to participants 
who viewed the concrete roof.
We argue that this reflects boosts to sub-cortical arousal and cortical attention control.
Our results extend attention restoration theory by providing direct experimental evidence for the benefits of micro-breaks and for city green roofs.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494415000328

Turbo Charged Reading: Read more>>>Read fast>>>Remember all>>>Years later
Contact M’reen at: read@turbochargedreading.com

You can TCR software/engineering manuals for spontaneous recall – or pass that exam.
I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and rememberwhat I’ve read.
I can TCR an academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube  
How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
All aspects of regular, each-word reading and education.
Turbo Charged Reading uses these skills significantly faster
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com    many ways for you to work with the stresses of life

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”