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Practice ‘habit layering’ and the mountain become hill and the hill just a bump.

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Good Habits to Develop

1. Set yourself some daily goals. Keep them realistic and achievable. That will give direction – so you don’t fritter your time.

2. Read inspirational books and blogs; hang around people who are positive.

3. Stay in touch with what’s happening in the world. We’re not just islands – we are part of one another.

4. Make the effort to stay in touch. Just a “like” on facebook, or a brief text message, conveys to that person that they matter to you.

5. Invest some time in your appearance and health. We’re more confident when we look and feel our best.

6. Pay attention to your priorities. Do what’s most important, and not most urgent, first. (Note: If you never learn to prioritise then everything seems urgent – and that’s what runs your life!)

7. Smile. It makes people feel more positive towards you – and it tends to lift our mood, and enhance our feelings, too.

8. Tidy as you go. It’s easier to work, and you’ll feel a lot less stressed, if you’re working somewhere that’s devoid of clutter. Also, if you tidy as you go then it feels less overwhelming.

9. Include some margin in your life so you don’t feel so stressed, as unexpected things always eat away our time. Expect that to happen – and leave some extra time.

10. Take time for yourself as you need to relax, unwind, recover, and recharge your batteries.

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Solarpunk Business Model: Co-ops

Growing up in southwestern Minnesota, I was exposed early on to farmers’ co-ops, and I’m shocked – SHOCKED, I tell you! – that the Solarpunk movement hasn’t embraced this already.

Co-ops are awesome. Basically, everybody who has a hand in production also gets a share in the profit.

In farming communities, this means everyone gets money from the corn they grow, while the Coop sells that corn to the big businesses that need it.

In Duluth, we have this grocery store called the Whole Foods Co-op that is owned by people in the community who shop there, and they actively do business with regional farmers.

So how would this look in a Solarpunk setting? Imagine a bike shop owned by the very people you see at the shop who are making and repairing the bikes. Or a fashion boutique where people can become members by contributing something (food? fabric? currency?) and the designer heavily marks down the prices for them. Or a bar where the bartenders and the regulars each have a stake in the place doing well.

We need more co-ops in our Solarpunk, people.

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HOW TO GET OVER COMMON CREATIVE FEARS (MAYBE)

an updated version of this post appears in my book THINGS ARE WHAT YOU MAKE OF THEM! 13 full-color chapters of illustrated essays like this for creative people of all kinds. you can get it here for $10.

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Dress for success!

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Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?

The long read: It is an industry like no other, with profit margins to rival Google – and it was created by one of Britain’s most notorious tycoons: Robert Maxwell

The core of Elsevier’s operation is in scientific journals, the weekly or monthly publications in which scientists share their results. Despite the narrow audience, scientific publishing is a remarkably big business. With total global revenues of more than £19bn, it weighs in somewhere between the recording and the film industries in size, but it is far more profitable. In 2010, Elsevier’s scientific publishing arm reported profits of £724m on just over £2bn in revenue. It was a 36% margin – higher than Apple, Google, or Amazon posted that year.

But Elsevier’s business model seemed a truly puzzling thing. In order to make money, a traditional publisher – say, a magazine – first has to cover a multitude of costs: it pays writers for the articles; it employs editors to commission, shape and check the articles; and it pays to distribute the finished product to subscribers and retailers. All of this is expensive, and successful magazines typically make profits of around 12-15%.

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Optimizing for Change: Make Your E-Commerce Business Stand Out! - Sells Like Hot Cakes Blog

In older posts, we learned about how widespread e-commerce has become. On a global scale, it is safe to say that you can find an e-commerce startup virtually all over the world. This scary fact comes with its merits and demerits. First of all, this means that more people will be prone to patronize online stores, which translates to a wider range of potential customers for you. However, on the negative side, it then becomes fairly easy for upcoming e-commerce businesses to get stuck in the sheep zone; copying … Read more

In older posts, we learned about how widespread e-commerce has become. On a global scale, it is safe to say that you can find an e-commerce startup virtually all over the world. This scary fact comes with its merits and demerits. First of all, this means that more people will be prone to patronize online stores, which translates to a wider range of potential customers for you. However, on the negative side, it then becomes fairly easy for upcoming e-commerce businesses to get stuck in the sheep zone; copying those that have gone before them and making the same mistakes.

If you don’t quit, and don’t cheat, and don’t run home when trouble arrives, you can only win.

Shelley Long (via beinchargeofyourlife)

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Why Use Google Analytics?

When it comes to running an online business, it is important that you have visibility into the performance of your site, particularly how your customers interact with your site. Luckily, there is a free tool out there called Google Analytics that will help you do this. Below is the purpose of Google Analytics, as well as some of the key features and capabilities.

Purpose of Google Analytics:

Understand Your Audience

Sell and Convert

Make Business Decisions

Understanding Your Audience:

Know Your Audience

Audience Data and Reporting - This feature allows you to dissect your audience: the kinds of people they are, where they come from, how they find your content, and how loyal and engaged they are.

Advanced Segments - This feature allows you to isolate and analyze subsets of your traffic, like organic traffic or visits that led to transactions.

Filters - This feature allows you to limit and modify the traffic data that appears in any given report view (Ex: You can exclude traffic from certain domains). 

Trace the Customer Path

Traffic Sources - This feature allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your referring sites, direct traffic, social media platforms, organic (unpaid) search keywords, and custom campaigns.

Map Overlay - This feature allows you to see your visitor stats broken down by continent, country and city, which will help you understand the real origins of your traffic and find the best places to invest for new opportunities.

See What Your Audience Is Doing

Behavior Reporting - This feature allows you to see new vs. returning visitors, how frequent visitors come to your site, how long visitors are staying on your site, etc.

Flow Visualization - This feature lets you see and analyze the path a visitor takes on your site. See where they came from, the pages they moved through, and where they exited your site.

In-Page Analytics - This feature allows to see how users really interact with your pages (Ex: see where are users clicking the most on your homepage).

Sell and Convert

Reach Your Performance Goals

Ecommerce Reporting - This feature allows you too see the performance of your products. Trace transactions right down to specific keywords, understand shopper behaviors, and adjust your shopping cart to build loyalty and improve sales.

Goals - This feature allows you to measure your sales, downloads, email signups, conversions, or define your own business goals.

Reach Peak Capacity

Real-Time Reporting - This feature allows you to see how many people are on your site right now, where they came from, and what they’re viewing.

Alerts and Intelligence Reports - This feature will call attention to any abnormal behavior happening on your site (Ex: A huge spike in traffic coming from a particular city or traffic source).

Site Search - When visitors can’t find what they want on your site, they search. This feature allows you to see what your visitors are really looking for, spot missed opportunities, and speed up time to conversion.

Site-Speed Analysis - This feature shows you load times across your site, so you can fix slow pages and make your visitors happier.

Make Business Decisions

Based on the information in Google Analytics, you will be able to make educated decisions regarding the following:

Product success and determination

How to better target and sell to your customers

Marketing and advertising strategies

Improved website design