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Book Publicity Horror Stories...

First let me say that I don't have any book publicity horror stories of my own, but I can start us off with a happy book publicity tale which I'll try to spook-ify as best I can. ;-)

Once upon a time, I was supposed to be coordinating publicity for Andy's book Blogwild!.

I say "supposed to be" because I don't think he really needed anyone to try to get him publicity. It seemed like journalists and major newspapers and magazines just miraculously "found" him.

While I was researching and writing to hosts of obscure internet radio shows trying to get him some air time, he would IM me to say, "I'm on the phone with 60 Minutes!" or "USA Today called," or "The Wall Street Journal just put me on their 'must read' list".

Mind you, none of this publicity was solicited. They just "found" him via his blog or other interviews he'd done.

I think that he's been so successful with garnering major publicity because he laid the ground work for a marketing machine years and years ago (before his book was even published) when he started his blog and got his name all over the internet.

A little Halloween treat...

Happy Halloween! See more at Cute Overload.

The Top 5 Ways To Immediately Improve Your Life

"Getting Things Done" guru Merlin Mann wrote a post called "Merlin's top 5 super-obvious, "no-duh" ways to immediately improve your life" that caught my eye a while ago.

Ironically, I've been so swamped that I haven't had time to write about it on eSoup until now.

Apparently I haven't been "getting things done" enough. Also, apparently one needs to do more than just read and write about productivity to have it make an impact in one's life. :-)

Since I started the 4-Hour Workday Experiment and have had a chance to talk to others who were doing it also, I've noticed some common observations emerging from almost everyone (myself included).

Folks are excited, hopeful, and they want to make better use of their time, but training yourself to handle your workflow in a more efficient manner, getting yourself to adopt new ways of working, and also coming up with a plan that is customized to your needs and suits your lifestyle sometimes feels like a Hurculean task.

Some days things just flow and go smoothly, and other days all hell breaks loose.

Here are some of my favorite tidbits of conversations I've had with folks over the past couple months surrounding the quest for the "optimally productive" grail:

• "Sometimes obsessing over being productive is just another form of procrastination."
• "Organization isn't an accomplishment."
• "Planning isn't progress."
• "GTD is not working."

The consensus with everyone is that being optimally productive can sometimes seem like a whole lot of work!