This weekend also seems to sum up 2009 for me. I’ve severed business relationships that were taking more than they were giving. I’ve spun off several blogs from Sparkplugging that just didn’t fit the small business niche. I’ve dumped toxic people out of my life. I’ve stopped pursuing PR opportunities. I’m turning down speaking gigs. And I’ve stopped doing anything for my business that doesn’t have a tangible ROI (Return on Investment).

Like I said last week, I’ve never been happier, or more profitable.

A Silver Lining in Almost Losing it All

If there was a silver lining in my health scare this spring, it was that it forced me to cut the dead weight in my business & life and focus only on things that matter: my family, my happiness and my financial security. And I will be the first to admit that it probably took facing a potentially deadly diagnosis for me to be willing to let go of so much.

It’s not a path I recommend, truthfully.

But I do recommend getting rid of crap in your business and your life that isn’t directly making you happier, healthier, or richer. I might have more dead weight to cut – but I’m flying higher than ever now that I’m not carrying around so much baggage that was holding me back. And that includes a dumpster full of junk that is now out of my house!

So This Week is all About the UN-To-Do List!

Do you have anything you do that you’ve realized isn’t really worth the time and effort you’re putting into it? Do you have clients you should have fired months ago? Do you go to events that produce no good leads? Do you spend time socializing networking online instead of getting work done?

At this point, I’m kind of hard pressed to come up with another thing I need to get rid of – but I can think of one conversation I’ve been putting off that I MUST have this week. And it will determine the future of one of the bigger projects on my plate.

So this week, I promise I will have that conversation, or Kiva gets $100.

So what are you NOT going to do this week?

Remember to check out the stories, conversations and $5,000 sweeps at You.Propelled on DivineCaroline, as they have sponsored this series of posts that has been getting my butt into gear this fall!

• Flickr – to search for Creative Commons Licensed images to use on blog posts
• WordPress.org Codex – to search for code snippets, functions and template tags
• WordPress forum – to look up solutions to problems
• Youtube – to find videos that I can blog about or add to my site/resources etc
• Internet marketing forums – to see what people are saying about a topic I want to write about and question they are asking

Each one of those web sites have their very own search feature so what is the problem? No problem. I just like to cut out a few steps and clicks if possible because some of these sites especially WordPress, I search several times a day. Bookmarking and navigating to these sites take time.

So, I installed this cool little Firefox plugin called Add to Search Bar. This lets me add the search function for any web site to my Firefox Search Bar. Which means less looking up for a web site in the overloaded bookmarks folder and less clicking to get to the right page to search.

Lately I’ve been giving a ton of thought to the whole internet fame thing – and the last 6 months have completely changed my attitude about PR for PR’s sake. I used to think that any publicity is good publicity. But after experiencing it, I can honestly say it ain’t all that. Sure, it’s a huge ego boost, and sure, it opens doors, and sure, I could be leveraging all of my big PR moments into book deals, big name clients, more speaking gigs, and more television appearances.

But that is not the business I want to be in.

When I started Sparkplugging, I wanted to create an advertising and affiliate based website that would generate passive income even when I was helping my kids with their homework or out boating with the family. The business of internet fame is the exact opposite of that – not only did I have to work to become ‘famous’, I had to work even harder to maintain it. The impact on my work schedule was gruesome – and the impact on my bottom line was similarly pitiful.

This summer I completely backed away from all of my PR and social media promotion, and focused solely on creating content and search engine optimization. And by the end of August, I earned more in 30 days than I had all last year.

The reason I say this is because I had no idea how much time I was wasting on something I thought was important to my business – only to find that simple hard work is what really pays the bills.

It’s not glorious work.

I won’t be getting on TV any time soon for it.

Nobody has asked to interview me about it.

I’m not getting any speaking gigs because of it.

And I’ve never been happier with my business.

So, my Monday Motivation question for our readers today is this:

If you are struggling with your business, are you doing anything that isn’t giving you a return on your investment of time or money?

And if you just buckled down and did the unsexy, boring, and tedious work that needs to be done, how much better off do you think you would be?

In the spirit of decidedly unsexy, my Monday Motivation to do list is:

• Finish my YTD balance sheet by noon on Wednesday
• Clear out 200 emails from my inbox by end of day Wednesday, and
• Pay two bills before I go to sleep tonight

If I don’t have all of this done by the end of the day tomorrow, I’ll throw down another $250 loan to Kiva entrepreneurs.

I’m grateful to RGN and the You.Propelled community, as it’s because of their sponsorship that I am getting so much done lately. You can thank them for my reappearance on this blog, because otherwise I would still be search engine optimizing and creating content for my kids network. I’d encourage you to get something done and enter a proclamation on their site, because it’s even more satisfying than crossing something off your to-do list (because I’m so unsexy like that).

So what are you going to get done today?

This post is sponsored by Propel® for the You.Propelled Program.

A timer – it truly is super weird. For someone who works hard not to be ruled by a punch clock, the timer often helps me focus the most. Not only that, it also helps me track billable hours. Yeah I’m old school like that. While I do have a physical timer – preferred for offline work, I also use a digital and tiny timer on my computer. The best in my humble opinion is a simple, dirt cheap but very functional timer, Egg Timer Plus from Sardine software (love the name). Only $5

Evernote – *sigh* I could write a book about Evernote. It is a web clipper (clip text, images etc from the web), a note taker, a task planner, a recipe organizer – you name it, you can probably find a way to use it for that. To me it’s a huge virtual inbox but that’s nothing new. What I love best about this is, you can capture almost any kind of data from anywhere. From your desktop and directly from your cell phone this is a huge selling point for me. The only thing it doesn’t have is a calendar but it is definitely a 2nd brain.

Filebox eXtender – got tired of clicking and clicking and clicking through folders to find the file I want. If you make a concious effort to notice it, you usually revisit a couple of folders pretty regularly throughout the day, week and month. I wanted a way to quickly jump to these folders which are also contained within many parent folders. Filebox eXtender does that. Love it. Sadly, it is no longer being actively support. There have been some reported issues for some people but they do have a Windows Vista and Windows 7 version. It is free.

QTTabBar – lets you have tabs in Windows Explorer. I have not installed it yet, will definitely install it shortly. Going by my love of tabs on Firefox, QTTabBar may quickly be a must have.

Gmail Labels, Filter and auto Archive feature – The sky will not fall on your head if you don’t read every single email that comes through your inbox. A big volume of our emails are probably not supposed to be acted upon anyhow so just – stuff them. You don’t have to see them but you may need them at some point in the future. Create a label and make sure you check the “Skip inbox” checkbox, mark as read and assign it a label – e.g. Receipts. Then filter all PayPal emails or even emails you get from the ‘Gurus’ or subscription list this way. Let Gmail to that petty work for you.

GridMove - this is one killer app – at least for me. I used to call GridMove the poor (wo)man’s 2nd monitor. Now that I have a 2nd monitor, I find I need it more! It separates your monitor into grids – you can even create your own layouts or download the many contributed by users. When you click on the middle mouse button and drag a window, it will show you the many grids you can drag the window to. It will ’snap’ into place. Eliminating the need to manually resize windows. This is great for working with code and web sites – see the effect of your changes on one side and the code on another. It’s also come in real handy during household budgeting day. I can see my own spreadsheet on one side and the checking account on the other.

A Macro – Feels like Deja Vu. I’ve mentioned this one before Oh yeah! Right here. See, they all tie in together. A Macro does repetitive tasks for you so you don’t have to remember or do it manually. Saving you tons of time. It can launch applications for you, perform certain functions on a schedule and even type for you. Get it. Use it. DirectAccess has saved me 17 hours of typing. How do I know? Because it gives me a neat little chart estimate. It’ probably more than than though because I use it launch programs and open folders, I save the time required to search for the program from a programs list – or the time to find that elusive folder.

A Workflow or system if you prefer to call it that – Some people respond better to mindmaps, some people prefer lists – whichever you decide, using tools like wikis and Bubbl.us and Gliffy help you create a workflow faster and also edit them easier so if there are changes in your workflow, everyone else on your team won’t be stuck with archaic versions.

Bartering your valuable skills is a fantastic way to get the products and services you need to move forward with your business goals.  It’s especially attractive with your business budget is tight!

Get What You Need!

Since this is Labor Day Weekend, and since last year’s swap meet was so successful, I think this is a perfect time to revive the fun and open up the comments for you to share what you have to offer and what you’re looking for in return.

Are you a skilled writer in need of a new blog header graphic?  Offer to write a couple of killer articles for a graphic designer in need of content.  Are you a virtual assistant in need of a gift for your best friend’s birthday?  Offer to provide your services in exchange for personal care products.

The options are endless – just make your pitch and see what happens!

Let’s Swap!

Leave a comment below that shares what you have to offer for barter in enough detail that someone can make a decision about it.  If you know exactly what you’d like to barter for, lay that out to.  If you’re not sure, you can say that you’re open to creative offers.

Be sure to include contact information!  Your Twitter user name would be good.

Who knows what sort of swap connections we’ll make this weekend   Let’s go for it!

The lessons I’ve learned in the last 4 months probably surpass the lessons I’ve learned in my first 3 1/2 years of blogging. Many of them were lessons I really didn’t want to learn, to be totally truthful with you. But I’ve come off one of the best summers of my life, so I’m grateful for all that I’ve gone through.

I’m finding, now that it’s almost September, that the whole ‘back to school’ season isn’t just a big expensive wardrobe makeover for my kids, but it’s something I’ve never outgrown. Every fall I get the urge to buckle down, start new things, and focus on getting work done. Kind of like a New Years Resolution – only kicked off by Labor Day instead!

So today I am reviving an old “eMoms at Home” tradition that probably only a handful of you remember: Monday Motivation. Every Monday I would make my to-do list for the day public, and hold myself accountable with consequences if I didn’t do what I said I was going to do. Our ad network also just launched a new motivational community on Divine Caroline and it all seemed like a great excuse for me to whip my butt into gear and get some stuff done this week! (Plus, if you share something you did to streamline or enhance you life today at You.Propelled, you can be entered to win $5000.)

Today I will:

• Grab a conference call with the wonderful Kelly McCausey
• Clean out 500 emails from my inbox
• Run 2 errands
• Walk my kids home from school

If I don’t have these things done by the time I go to bed tonight, I will donate $250 to Kiva.

So what are you going to get done today?

This post is sponsored by Propel® for the You.Propelled Program.

Password manager – I use Roboform on the PC and 1Password on the Mac, others I know use LastPass and Xmarks. Whatever you decide on, a password manager really helps logging in and out of those many affiliate accounts a breeze.

Affiliate link plugin for WordPress – there are a few out there. What does it do? You set a keyword for example “SparkplugU” and tell it to link to your affiliate URL each time SparkplugU is found. All automatic and works for older posts too.

Zemanta – this is a Firefox plugin that will make photo, books, DVD and website resources suggestions for you based on what you are writing about. You can link it up to Amazon – if you’re still their affiliate – and make it easy to add links to products found in Amazon.

A macro utility – Tired of typing your affiliate URL again and again? Copying and pasting is OK but still takes time to open your file, look it up, copy and paste. Too many actions. Use a macro utility. I use something called DirectAccess that helps me do a bunch of things, but one of my favorite uses is for it to help me type in URLs. Instead of typing, I enter a short code and hit ‘End’ the software types the links for me, reducing the amount of typing I do.

Lynette enjoys discovering new ways to use technology or new technologies to use in a business and in turn help her clients apply them. You can find also Lynette at her blog, Twitter and Facebook

I’ve been using FIVE instant message systems for a long time.  Well, six if you count Twitter.  (I know Twitter isn’t for IM, but it often gets used the way.)

I started out with ICQ way back in the old days but didn’t stick with it.  I moved onto Yahoo and somewhere along the way I started using AOL and MSN messengers because some friend or family member was using it.  Add Gtalk and Skype and I’m a mess.

Yes, I know there are tools that mesh them all together but I don’t think that’s my answer. I just want to be in one place, you know?

I’ve chosen Skype for my primary contact client.  I use SkypeIn for my business telephone line and SkypeOut for the calls I need to make.  I’ve got a lot of my near and dears as Skype contacts and all of the most important numbers saved as well.   I’ve even got a tool on my BlackBerry to keep me in touch when I’m away.

Confession: Gtalk is still on my Gmail screen but I think of it more as ‘extra speedy email’ than instant messaging

A wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked Web pages, using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor, within the browser.

So, in other words, it is a web site builder. What’s so special about that?

The web site building feature is not the interesting part. The interesting part is the fact that anyone can create, edit, add on and correct the information on the page anytime, anywhere using just a simple web browser. It’s kind of like Bob writing a proposal which he then sends out to Nancy and Jack for them to look over. They scribble their notes or cross out lines of text and send it back to Bob. Many people working on one document. The only difference is, the document is web based and everyone who has access to it can view it – instead of being passed around.

Yet how does something like this fit into a small, solo entrepreneur business like most of us have? The best answer – a wiki would make a fantastic knowledge repository. Here’s why.

We solo entrepreneurs carry an awful lot in our heads. I used to think this was great but these days, I don’t want to remember. I want to offload because my memory is not always accurate or reliable , it helps a lot to unload what’s in our heads onto writing. Writing (or in this case typing) things down makes us more relaxed since we know the information is filed away safely and not forgotten. When you have less to remember, you’ll also function better. Kind of like our computer memory. The more you load it, the slower it becomes until it finishes processing everything.

Writing things down is also great when you outsource your tasks. Now, you don’t have to spend so much time training someone. We still have to invest a little bit of training to get someone new up to speed but if you have tasks and procedures documented, your personal time commitment is reduced. You can tell them to study/read the document and ask you questions if unclear. Great time saver.

Again, where does the wiki fit in? I think a wiki is perfect for internal documentation like this especially when you outsource your tasks because then, the burden of keeping accurate documents is distributed. Sure you can just as easily write up documentation on your word processor and send it out but if your VA makes a suggestion that you decide to implement or if there’s a change in policy or a simple edit for clarity, you still have to edit the document.

Using a wiki, your VA can edit the document without having to wait on you or have files sent to each other. This can reduce email volume plus, any edits become live immediately. The result, your team always has access to the latest information.

How do you set up a wiki? You have the option of installing the scripts on your own web site. This is probably better if you’re not comfortable storing information on a third party site and aren’t afraid of a little geek speak. You could check these out:

• MediaWiki
• DokuWiki
• WikkaWiki

Or you can have completely hosted wikis like:

• Pbwiki
• Wetpaint

Lynette enjoys discovering new ways to use technology or new technologies to use in a business and in turn help her clients apply them. You can find also Lynette at her blog, Twitter and Facebook

My favorite is Genbook. This is a pretty complete system. They offer a free basic account where you can take advantage of most of their features. You can start scheduling appointments online in a matter of minutes. I love the ability to assign staff to certain services. It is super simple to use but not lacking in customization. Just tons of features for free. Premium accounts start at $39.99 a month and you also get the ability to take payments before scheduling the appointment. Perfect for any offline service who doesn’t have an e-commerce component yet.

Other services in this area include

• Acuity who also offer a free account have have two other levels at $10 and $19 a month.
• Schedulicity at $29/month for one user and $49/month for 2-20 users.
• Appointment-plus who has three plans beginning at $39/month.

Prefer to do it yourself? Whenever there are fully hosted software, you will usually find standalone software that you can pay for a one time fee, get it installed on your own web site and managed yourself. Here are a few I came across.

• Schedule Organizer
• hitAppoint
• A Plus Appointment

Lynette enjoys discovering new ways to use technology or new technologies to use in a business and in turn help her clients apply them. You can find also Lynette at her blog, Twitter and Facebook

If you ask a question on Facebook, you’ll only get responses from your own network of friends. That may not be a bad thing, yet, I believe in the wisdom of the crowd. I’ve received some really good answers to my questions I get from Twitter come from people who don’t know me, don’t follow me and vice versa.

This is not saying my peeps don’t have good answers. They do but throwing a question out on twitter is like polling the real public whereas asking your fans/friends is like – well, asking your friends which can skew your results depending on what you ask. Anyhow, I’m going down a different rabbit hole here so let’s get back to the point.

Besides asking questions myself, I like to search Twitter. Sometimes it is to find questions that I can answer or write a blog post about. Sometimes, to find people or experts whom I can feature. Other times, to find good stuff to share with others. These are just a few search phrases that can be used to achieve all that.

Find questions to answer or to blog about

• “Does anyone know”
• “Anyone know”
• “How do I”
• “How do you”

To find experts

• “Available for interview”
• “Expert available”

Finding holidays/events to blog about

• “Month is” e.g. “August is”

Looking to hire someone?

• “Hire me”
• “Available for hire”

More search options

If you think you will be searching some of these phrases over and over again, you can also save your search. After you complete your search, just click on the “Save this search” link on the top right corner of your search results list.

If you want to narrow down your search, filter out the noise, consider using these search operators.

Lynette enjoys discovering new ways to use technology or new technologies to use in a business and in turn help her clients apply them. You can find also Lynette at her blog, Twitter and Facebook

Image by Melodi T

The good news is, most small business owners know the importance of backups and many of them do it religiously. For that I commend them. That is one of the basic must-dos on your list and it should never end. The not so good part is, a large number of small to micro business owners I speak to, keep only one copy of their backups. Usually on the external drive.

Maybe it is just me, having experienced one too many backup disasters. Maybe it’s the result of having this drummed into my head by my IT mentor, but one backup can quickly and easily die on you. Not long ago, a good friend and fellow online business owner learned that the hard way. Her computer went down – no problem. She whips out her backup but alas! The backup is corrupted. Cannot be restored – basically, useless. I’ve had my fair share of those too and the feeling is absolutely devastating.

Which is why, these days, I don’t keep just one copy of backups. But wait a minute! Before you go making multiple backups, you need to know that these too may not necessarily be helpful if you are going to store them all in the same place. In other words, if you have two backups on your external drive, the drive goes dead – all your backups are gone. Having one copy on Drive A and another copy on Drive B is better but still…

What happens if there is a natural disaster and you lose everything in your home and subsequently your home office?

Awww come on Lynette! That’s a lot of speculation. You can’t live on assumptions. Maybe not, but I’ve witnessed the realization of these fears too often. One of the best and most unfortunate example is what happened during hurricane Katrina or the Tsunami that wrecked South East Asia and beyond.

No one could have anticipated the extent of damage and it can all happen in a blink of an eye. Which is why I do keep a copy of my backups at home, but there’s also a copy on third party servers. To be exact, I use Mozy. How will this help?

Well, if anything happened to my home – touch wood and says a little prayer – I won’t be dead in the water. I could purchase a new computer, order the backup or restore it directly from Mozy servers and be back in business in a day or two. That’s how and that’s what keeps me a loyal Mozy user. You don’t have to use Mozy though they are great. There are other services like Carbonite. The point is to have an off-location backup on hand. It can really save you from complete loss.

Lynette enjoys discovering new ways to use technology or new technologies to use in a business and in turn help her clients apply them. You can find also Lynette at her blog, Twitter and Facebook

We are honored to be included on such a great list.  There are some amazing websites there we encourage you to check out.

You’ll find Sparkplugging tn the Productivity at Work section.

The plugin that grabbed my attention is WP-Invoice.

In my business I accept payments both through a merchant account and through PayPal and my shopping cart is all set up with both.  Where I have had trouble is in the area of freelance work and other odds and ends that I accept payments for now and then.  I either have to log into PayPal to create an invoice or have them call me to give me a credit card – which means I have to log into my virtual terminal.

With this plugin I can create an invoice in a snap and email it to the client for action.  They can choose to pay me through their PayPal account or with a credit card through my merchant account. It’s much more automated and it keeps a nice record of past invoices.

It is a small change but it will save me time and you gotta love that.

If you’re not keeping in eye on our Tools, News & Technology Blog, you may be missing some great time saving solutions.

This week’s Spark an Idea Thursday is all about Finishing What We Start.

We entrepreneurs are great Starters but we’re often poor Finishers. It takes a lot of determination to take a project through to completion. The Sparkplugging Author’s have some great advice for us.

• Susan says that sometimes we’re just not motivated.
• Leslie says she’s organizationally challenged.
• Crissy says to think an idea through before starting.
• Jenn says unfinished projects don’t make you money.
• Lynette says to work with a mentor or a partner to get things done.
• Bill says it’s time to man up!

Next week I really want to enlist you – the awesome Sparkplugging Reader in our Spark an Idea Meme! Will you join the Sparkplugging Authors as they Spark an Idea about Email. Share a favorite pet peeve, managementtool or writing tips for better email.

Participate in our meme by posting your Spark an Idea Thursday by 9am Eastern. Tweet me (@kellymccausey) about it and I’ll include your link in my round up in the afternoon Just grab our image and get your post ready for June 25th!

While Mashable was able to play with Google Wave and put out a fantastic review, there is still a lot left to be developed in the interface, and a few features that many have clamored for are yet to be implemented. So, it’s a bit premature to say exactly how small business will benefit from Google Wave, but I want to hear from you, readers, how you would implement this potentially game changing platform.

Most successful freelancers and small businesses depend on collaboration to get their work done. Whether it’s collaboration with their clients, suppliers, vendors, or other relationships, collaboration on a global scale is key.

If Wave works like it is supposed to then it will be a better version of IM, email, presentation software, and document sharing all rolled into one platform. Imagine being able to do all of those things without any need to purchase expensive software and have multiple things running on your computer at the same time.

If you don’t want to read the reviews that are out there, here’s a short list of Wave’s key features:

1. Collaborative editing. Any part of the communication can be edited by anyone participating in the wave.
2. Extensions. Applications and software robots can be built that will add functionality to your Wave.
3. Drag & Drop file uploads. Drag that video, picture, or important file and drop it into the wave which will then instantaneously share it with everyone involved in the conversation.
4. Embedding. Wave can be embedded as part of your existing website and add new communication features to your site.
5. Playback. Rewind and watch any editing or communicating that happened. Now you know what order it happened in, just in case you were confused.
6. Open source. Free, and able to be changed however you’d like.

So, as small business owners & entrepreneurs, I’m curious to hear how all of you would use Google Wave.

• What ideas come to mind?
• What problems does it help you solve?
• What problems can you solve for others by using this solution?

Leave your answers in the comments below.  We look foward to seeing your thoughts!

For further study:  Read more reviews on Techcrunch, CNET, and the Google I/O Wave release video

We’ve spread the fun around to five of our network blogs:

• The Home Office Organizer
• SOHO Tools & Tech
• eBay & eCommerce
• The Marketing Eggspert
• WAHM 2.0

Here’s the cool thing – you can enter on each blog if you wish!

To enter you will need to do two things:

1. Subscribe to that blog’s RSS feed.
2. Leave a comment on the contest post with a reliable email addres.

Of course, you are on your honor to subscribe to the RSS feed – we won’t know if you don’t – but everyone knows its bad blogging juju to break contest rules

Disclosure:  Sparkplugging has not been paid to offer this giveaway.

I’ve done it. Wendy’s done it. And it’s likely, if you have a home office, that you’ve done it as well.

Yeah, I know how the lyrics to this song goes: “I’m just eating so I can get a little work done while I’m feeding my face. That way I can get even more done in the day.” Ever hear yourself thinking that one?

So, is the reason you work from home so that you could sit at your desk and eat your lunch – alone…while sun warms the earth and the birds sing their little songs? Do you really think you’re more productive because you spend your lunch in front of the computer?

The truth is, it’s likely you’re not more productive, but less so, when you spend your lunch time at your desk. How could this be so? Well, first, you never work as effectively or efficiently when  you’re doing more than one task at a time. Eating is one task. Checking email, browsing the web, blogging, catching up on social media, building a spreadsheet, writing a proposal, designing a logo – all these are separate, individual tasks. you wouldn’t write a proposal while you’re checking email – so why would you combine eating with any of these?

Yet, efficiency isn’t the key. I’ve worked over some lunches, lightly snacking on my food while I focus greatly on finishing some project for a deadline. I’ve gotten work done doing it that way. But I do know that I’m simply not as effective as when I am only focused on the project.

The key is quality of life. More directly – quality of your business life.

If you’re working from home, it’s because you want too. Whether you’re a entrepreneur, a small business owner or working remote, you’re working from your home office because you can be. If this is true, stop and ask  yourself, “Why did I want to work from home?”

I’m going to guess that you’re not going to site reasons like, “so I could work at eat lunch at the same time.”

For most of us, working from home has something to do with the quality of our life. We think of working at home, we think of freedom, space, relaxed work environment, flexibility and things like that. Yet, are we living those qualities in the work we do? That’s the real question.

So I suggest eating your lunch away from your desk – and if you can, away from your office. Go outside and enjoy the seasons. Eat lunch in the sun or under a tree. Sit, taste your food, chew it slowly and think about something other than work. Doesn’t matter what it is, just get your mind out of work. Feel the warmth of the sun, breathe the air – take deep, belly-full breaths and even close your eyes for a few moments and just relax (don’t fall asleep, though). Feel your feet or buttocks on the ground and just be present. Don’t worry about work – it’ll all the there when you return.

I do this almost daily. Yeah, the work-at-my-desk bug still gets me from time to time. But it’s seldom these days. I make my lunch a time to recharge and focus on living, rather than working. I take time to taste my food and feel my feet. All this helps me remember why I work so hard in the first place.

And if I want the biggest dose of why I work, I have lunch with my wife and kids. I get out of the office, sit down with my family and we all eat lunch together. In the warm months, we might make a picnic in the backyard under a tree for half an hour. Or we might sit under the porch while it’s raining and listen to the rain and talk and laugh. These times are special to me and to the kids. They remember daddy eating lunch with them – and I them. And I remember that they won’t be little forever (my oldest is 4) so I should cherish these times while I can.

Because I work from home, I can.

Where do you eat your lunch?

For those of you not on Twitter, you can skip this post and ignore us Tweeps.
(OR better yet, sign up and join us! Be sure to follow T2Z!)

(ON second thought, feel free to play along in the comments if you’d like to join us!)

Ever since I gave up my Monday Motivation tradition, I have sadly found that my inbox is still bursting at the seams. My new assistant Amber has been a tremendous help – but there are emails still unanswered that are over a month old at this point. This isn’t something I can hand off to someone else.

So drastic times call for drastic measures.

I call today, Wednesday, a Tweet 2 Zero Day

Tweet 2 Zero

If you have an inbox bursting at the seams, join me! Let’s use Twitter together to get our inbox email count down to ZERO.

It’s EASY >> For every 25 emails you get out of your inbox, either by deleting, archiving, or responding to them, post an update to Twitter that shares your progress.

And if you like using hashtags, add #T2Z to your tweets so that we can support each other and track our progress.

I have 717 emails as of this writing – Amber & I will track everyone’s tweets to see just how many emails we can extinguish together in one 24 hour period.

So kick of Tweet 2 Zero day with a tweet! How many emails are you starting with? Then come back to Twitter later and keep us posted on your progress!

Be sure to follow T2Z on Twitter if you want to see who else is participating and get regular totals of the emails banished from renting our headspace any longer!

But the real and wonderful reason I know I am going to pull this off is because I have a new VA who is infinitely better at responding to emails than I am. @JerseyMomma, I you!

But before I say Sayonara for good, I need one last push to clean out my inbox. Between being out of town for BlogHer and launching SparkplugU, my email situation has never been more bleak.

Try 747 emails. Hurl.

So let’s usher out Monday Motivation with a bang, shall we?

Step 1 – let us know what you are going to get done today, tomorrow, or this week (your to-do list, so to speak).

Step 2 – put it in a comment below or a post on your own site.

Step 3 - let us know what will motivate you to get it done – a reward, consequences, or whatever you need to think that will ensure you do what you say you are going to do. I’ve found that the public announcement and accountability is a particularly great motivator, but throw down consequences if you really need a kick in the pants to get stuff done! Unless, of course, you are working towards a new laptop too, in which case I think the reward is particularly motivating.

This week I will commit to:

I quite literally can’t face 747 749 emails in one day. So I am going to promise that every day I’ll knock off 150 emails from my ‘balance’ – including all of the emails that come in daily. I’m not sure that I’ll get much else done this week, actually!

So by the end of these days I will have this many emails left in my inbox:

Monday: 600

Tuesday: 450

Wednesday: 300

Thursday: 150

Friday: 0!!

If I don’t get all of this done by the end of the week, I will give one lucky Monday Motivation participant a 6 month pass to any class they want to take on SparkplugU.

So all you have to do to be in the running for this SparkplugU 6-Month Pass is to leave a comment or write a post with what you are committing to getting done this week before Thursday July 24. (I might just give away the pass anyway… wink.)

So what are you going to get done this week?

PS – Our first SparkplugU class launches tonight with Kelly McCausey’s Podcasting Bootcamp. If you want to register for this class and you happen to win at the end of the week, I’ll refund your registration fee!