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News Home Archive Lifehack.org</h3> <subtitle type="text">Daily digest and pointer on productivity, getting things done and lifehacks</subtitle> <updated>2008-04-24T03:23:56Z</updated> <generator uri="http://wordpress.org/" version="2.5">WordPress</generator> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.lifehack.org" /> <id>http://www.lifehack.org/feed/atom</id> <link rel="self" href="http://www.lifehack.org/feed/" type="application/atom+xml" /><feedburner:emailServiceId>71799</feedburner:emailServiceId><feedburner:feedburnerHostname>http://www.feedburner.com</feedburner:feedburnerHostname><feedburner:browserFriendly>This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site, subject to copyright and fair use.</feedburner:browserFriendly><entry> <author> <name>Dustin Wax</name> <uri>http://www.dwax.org</uri> </author> <title type="html">10 Ways to Pimp Your Blog</h3> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LifeHack/~3/276192319/10-ways-to-pimp-your-blog.html" /> <id>http://www.lifehack.org/?p=5535</id> <updated>2008-04-24T03:22:22Z</updated> <published>2008-04-23T14:00:50Z</published> <category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="Communication" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="Featured" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="blog" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="blogging" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="community" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="marketing" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="promotion" /> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/10-ways-to-pimp-your-blog.html#comments" thr:count="11" /> <link rel="replies" type="appication/atom+xml" href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/10-ways-to-pimp-your-blog.html/feed/atom" thr:count="11" /> <thr:total>11</thr:total> <content type="html"><div class="bigphoto"><img src="http://www.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2008/04/20080423-pimped_car.png" alt="Pimp Your Blog" title="20080423-pimped_car" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5536" /></div> <p>A couple months ago, I wrote a <a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/the-newbie-guide-to-blogging.html">newbie’s guide to blogging</a> to help you get started with blogging. If you’ve been blogging for a little while now, you might be looking at how you can take the next step. To that end, this post offers 10 ways to “pimp” your blog, both in the sense of “tricking out” your blog to make it more attractive and more useful, and in the sense of pushing your blog to earn more readers, subscribers, and (hopefully) fans.</p> <h2></h2> <h2>Getting over the hump (or is it a Dip?)</h2> <p>Launching a blog can be a heady experience, especially if it’s your first blog. Suddenly, what you have to say is “out there”, potentially available to millions of readers. You feel something like the pamphleteers of the French and American Revolution must have felt, sending your ideas forth into the Great Wide World. </p> <p>  <p>Pretty soon, you might see a few readers, even get a comment of two, and that feels pretty good. After a couple of weeks of watching your statistics slowly inch into the double digits and waiting anxiously for the next comment, though, the initial enthusiasm fades a bit, and the realization sets in that blogging is long-term work. The Internet is littered with thousands, maybe millions of blogs that were abandoned after a few weeks or months. </p> <p>If you’re writing good content and actively marketing your blog, though, there’s no reason why you should get discouraged as you slide into your first <a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/the_dip/">dip</a>. Although it can be frustrating to commit your brilliant thoughts to the ether knowing only a handful of people are reading it, you’re doing important work for the long-term success of your site. You’re building up an archive of content that search engines will eventually be directing traffic to (Google, for instance, likes to see several months to a year of content on a blog before it starts bumping it up in search results), you’re building up a reputation, and you’re building a core readership — people who will link to your blog, bringing it to a slightly larger audience, who will also link, increasing the audience a little bit more, and so on. </p> <p>If you’re serious about blogging, the only thing to do at this point is to power through the dip. Spend some time buttressing your site’s functionality to make it more useful to your future readers (and avoid having to do much renovation later when the number of people it will confuse is vastly greater). And commit about the same amount of time you spend writing your blog to promoting it to keep that growth process moving forward.</p> <h2>Gussy it up a bit!</h2> <p>The first group of tips are ways to add functionality or improve the way your blog looks. The idea is to turn your factory-stock ‘04 Taurus into a lean, mean, street-racing machine. Let’s get started:</p> <ol> <li>First things first: <strong>UNPIMP YOUR BLOG! </strong>That’s right. Like a pimply-faced teen with no money who puts plastic wheel covers and fuzzy dice in his grandmother’s Civic hoping to impress the hot rod babes, beginning bloggers tend to put a lot of cra… er, “stuff” on their blogs. Counters. Chat rooms. Off-site forums. Badges for every web service and social network imaginable. LOL-Cats. Glitter art.</p> <p>Most of this stuff isn’t making your blog any quicker, easier to use, or (let’s be honest) more attractive. It’s just cluttering it up and making it harder to find the good content your readers came to read. Be vicious in decluttering your blog — if a particular element adds no useful function for your readers, either a) lose it, b) move it to your “About” page (if it says something meaningful about you), or c) move it to a private page that only you have access to. </li> <li><strong>Install a new theme</strong>: While you don’t want to get into the habit of changing your site’s layout all the time, now that you’ve been driving it for a couple of months it’s a good time to ask whether your theme is everything it could be. Most popular blogging platforms offer hundreds, if not <em>thousands</em> of free themes — Google the name of your blogging platform and the phrase “free themes” and check out the first few search results. Put some thought into the mood you want your site to convey — is it serious and professional, fun and whimsical, tech-savvy, homey, country, urban? There’s bound to be several themes for any mood you can dream up. </li> <li><strong>Revise your “About” page: </strong>New bloggers tend to give short shrift to their “About” page. If your writing is at all good, people will want to know about the person behind the voice. Flesh out your bio with information about your background, experience, and reasons for blogging. This is also the place to put all those links to your profile on various social networks that you stripped from the front page while un-pimping. </li> <li><strong>Create an “Archive” page: </strong>Most blogging software will automatically post links to monthly (or even weekly) archive pages into the sidebar of your blog. While this can look pretty neat when you’re just getting started, after a while that list starts getting pretty long — and it’s debatable whether it’s useful to let your readers browse by date, anyway. Before the list gets too unruly, move it to its own page (put a link to “Archives” in its place on the front page). Better yet, create a page with links to your archives by category or tag as well as by date. </li> <li><strong>Add or update your logo: </strong>Most blogging programs create a nicely formatted header with your blog’s title and maybe a tagline, which is good, but if you’re in it for the long haul, you’re going to want a stronger brand image than just a title. Create — or have a graphics-savvy friend or even a professional create for you — a cool logo that says something interesting about you and your blog. This can be as simple as the title or its initials in a cool font that expresses the tone of your site, or an actual graphic (think: Nike’s “Swoosh”) that sums up the way you want your readers to feel.</li> </ol> <h2>Work the streets</h2> <p>Making your blog friendlier to readers won’t do much good if you don’t bring more readers to the site for a look. To build up traffic, you’re going to need to reach beyond your site and put links in places where your potential readers are likely to see them. Here are a few ideas:</p> <ol style="counter-reset: item 5" start="6"> <li><strong>Add links to all your profiles:</strong> It seems obvious, but so many people don’t even fill out a profile on social networking sites — leaving a great resource untapped. If you participate to any significant degree on networks like Twitter, Pownce, Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so on, people will check out your profile to find out more. <em>Those are exactly the people you want reading your site!</em> Make sure you give them a link that’s clearly marked as your site (so many people put their <em>favorite</em> sites in their profiles; make sure yours stands out as <em>yours</em>). </li> <li><strong>Recognize active commenters: </strong>Respond to as many comments on your site as possible. Then, click through to your commenter’s sites and leave comments there. Build up a community of like-minded readers — ideally with your site as the “hub”. Some people post weekly or monthly “thank you” posts with links to the top 10 or 20 commenter’s sites — this not only helps build up a sense of warmth and goodwill, it makes it more likely that your readers with websites will link back to you. </li> <li><strong>Write at least one <em>valuable</em> comment a day on someone else’s site.</strong> This is basically the above tip, inside-out. Leave good, insightful comments on other people’s sites — a sort of “mini-version” of your own site’s content — to get people interested in you. Remember, some people recognize quality commenters, by linking to their site and even by creating new posts around the points made in their best comments. </li> <li><strong>Invite someone to guest post:</strong> In my <a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/the-newbie-guide-to-blogging.html">newbie guide to blogging</a> I suggested approaching well-established bloggers about writing a post for their sites. Once you get a little traction in your niche, you can also ask other bloggers if they’d like to do a post on your own blog — maybe as an exchange. You post on their site, they post on yours — you’ll both enjoy the opportunity to write for a slightly different audience, and of course you’ll both link to the other blogger’s site where your new post can be found. </li> <li><strong>Create a massive resource post:</strong> Put your knowledge of your niche to work creating a massive resource — the 50 best sites in your niche, 100 great posts on your topic, 25 great web tools, etc. Make sure that you keep the filler to a minimum (there’s nothing wrong with posting the best 47 sites, instead of adding 3 more so-so sites to make it an even 50). This kind of post is often referred to as “linkbait”, because if it’s useful, a lot of people will link to it and/or bookmark it to return to later. </li> </ol> <p>Of course, you can always pay for traffic — you can buy StumbleUpon hits and Google ads and place banners on other people’s sites. It’s uncertain how powerful this kind of promotion is — some experts believe that on-line advertising doesn’t help <em>anyone</em>, and blogs are a special case even among online brands. While you can build a short-term spike in traffic through paid placements, it’s much harder to build long-term return traffic — that is, “fans” — in any way other than providing quality, meaningful stuff for them to read, both at your site and around the Web. </p> <p>In my experience, the people who go for the quick burst of traffic rarely offer any reason to stick around. The ones who write well, show they’re serious, and have some staying power — the ones who manage to get over that first bout of doldrums a month or so into their blog’s life — those are the ones worth following. Follow some or all of the tips above, and you’ll be part of that select group. </p> <p>If you’ve been blogging for a while, let us know: how did you manage that first plateau — and all the slow periods since? What are your tips for bloggers whose feet are wet but they want to make sure they’ve built a strong enough foundation to make it for the long haul? Tell us your tips in the comments!</p> <hr/><em>Dustin M. Wax is a contributing editor and project manager at lifehack.org. He is also the creator of <a href="http://www.writerstechnology.com">The Writer's Technology Companion</a>, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and women's studies in Las Vegas, NV. His personal site can be found at <a href="http://www.dwax.org">dwax.org</a>.</em></p><p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/?p=5535&akst_action=share-this" title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_5535" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow">Bookmark or Share this with a friend!</a> </p><h3>Related Posts</h3><ul class="related_post"><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/the-newbie-guide-to-blogging.html" title="The Newbie Guide to Blogging">The Newbie Guide to Blogging</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/simplified-marketing-plans.html" title="Simplified Marketing Plans">Simplified Marketing Plans</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/how-to-be-a-good-neighbor-in-an-attention-economy.html" title="How to Be a Good Neighbor In an Attention Economy">How to Be a Good Neighbor In an Attention Economy</a></li><li><a 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border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=cQxq1Ag"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=cQxq1Ag" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=Y2oe6ZG"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=Y2oe6ZG" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=wZF89QG"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=wZF89QG" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=yp2A5dG"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=yp2A5dG" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LifeHack/~4/276192319" height="1" width="1"/></content></entry> <entry> <author> <name>Adrian</name> <uri>http://www.adriansavage.com/</uri> </author> <title type="html">The Other Epidemic Of Obesity</h3> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LifeHack/~3/276156020/the-other-epidemic-of-obesity.html" /> <id>http://www.lifehack.org/?p=5523</id> <updated>2008-04-20T23:34:58Z</updated> <published>2008-04-23T13:00:59Z</published> <category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="Money" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="Productivity" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="business" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="career" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="success" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="waste" /> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/the-other-epidemic-of-obesity.html#comments" thr:count="4" /> <link rel="replies" type="appication/atom+xml" href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/the-other-epidemic-of-obesity.html/feed/atom" thr:count="4" /> <thr:total>4</thr:total> <content type="html"><h2>It’s high time business slimmed down and stopped fooling itself with crash ‘diets’ of job cuts and outsourcing</h2> <div class="photo"><img src='http://www.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2008/04/fat_cat.jpg' alt='A real "fat cat"' /></div> <b>The media are happy to keep reminding us that people in the developed world, especially the United States, are growing ever fatter; that obesity starts in childhood and continues thereafter to pump itself up on a diet of junk food, sodas, and ’super-sized’ portions. </p> <p>Yet what we almost never hear about is the exact same process going on in our businesses. Here it’s not junk food that is the problem, it’s junk activities and the ‘empty calories’ of time wasted on things that have no real bearing on business success.</b></p> <p>Just like many overweight individuals, business also has its diet fads — few of which ever work for more than a short time. When the bloat gets big enough to squash profits, organizations rush to shed jobs and cut back on ’soft targets’ like training and research. For a while, the panacea was outsourcing overseas — until that got too expensive.</p> <p>All these fads tackle the symptoms, but never the underlying cause. It’s just the same with individuals in their working lives. They ‘fatten up’ their schedules and working days with empty calories: activit amounts of time while producing little or nothing of any real use.</p> <h2>Corporate ‘empty calories’</h2> <p>What are these productivity and time wasters? At a corporate level, they include endless meetings and PowerPoint presentations, which waste time both in preparation and delivery; providing reports no one reads and statistics nobody uses or understands; preparing budgets that conceal the truth and quarterly figures that do the same; dreaming up projects and initiatives that spawn countless working groups — until they are dropped like all those before them; engaging in petty, inter-departmental feuds and internal warfare; the endless rules and regulations dreamed up by head office types seeking to justify their existence; and — worst of all — spending money asking external consultants to provide options and answers to problems that are totally the responsibility of in-house management.</p> <p>Most such corporate ‘junk food’ emanates from the executive suite. Like the real stuff, it ‘fattens’ the organization — demanding resources, time, and energy — while providing nothing to further the business. Much of it is only there to satisfy some person’s lust for power, or provide ‘information’ to justify a piece of blatant self-interest. It’s intake without any healthy nutritional value in business terms.</p> <p>The outcome is sluggish, bloated, top-heavy organizations addicted to the sweet indulgences provided by eager consultants, busily fattening their pay-checks on ‘busy work,’ while distracting managers from the fact that they need to shape up, slim down, and start doing what they are paid to do — and doing it themselves.</p> <h2>Individuals and their bloated calendars</h2> <p>It’s not simply corporations that become addicted to ‘binge eating’ on useless activities, followed by crash diets of lay-offs and budget cuts. Individual managers do it as well, alternating between adding to their overwork and taking up the latest productivity fad to try to slim down again afterwards.</p> <p>For such individuals, empty calories include notorious time-wasters like constant Instant Messaging; sending useless e-mails to everyone imaginable; calling pointless meetings to provide the illusion of being in control; continual micro-management (for the same reason); demanding that people check-in constantly — even when there is nothing to report; and running from meeting to meeting, convinced that a packed schedule indicates importance, when all it proves is that they rarely devote any time to their real jobs.</p> <p>Corporations filled with people like this find that the number of managers constantly rises (all these activities demand more and more people to keep them going), while those who do the real work are ‘thinned out’ to pay the cost of management bloating.</p> <h2>Productivity means never wasting time on what doesn’t matter</h2> <p>At every level, the simplest way to drive up productivity is to remove waste. Don’t spend time on what isn’t relevant to the business. Don’t apply energy to what doesn’t matter. Don’t allocate people and resources to activities that contribute nothing to the objectives of the business. Don’t add to red tape, dream up new ways to enforce compliance with petty rules, demand useless statistics, or massage the egos of those at the top.</p> <p>People who genuinely lose weight know there is only one way to do it: by cutting back on their intake of calories and increasing the amount they exercise. Everything else is useless.</p> <p>It’s the same for business and working individuals: cut out the ‘empty calories’ that clutter up your schedule. Increase the time you spend exercising the responsibilities that matter. Stay right away from expensive, heavily advertised junk foods peddled by consultants.</p> <p>If you do that, your career will be healthier, your calendar will slim down to a surprising degree, and you’ll start enjoying your work again. After all, carrying all that extra weight around every day is tiring in itself, while massaging the boss’s ego is pretty disgusting work — especially compared with spending time on your real interests.</p> <hr/><em>After graduating from Cambridge University, Adrian's career spanned local and national government, a series of corporate executive positions, and a partnership in a global consulting and business services firm, from which he retired as CEO of their US consulting arm. He runs two blogs: <a href="http://www.slowleadership.org/blog/">Slow Leadership</a> and <a href="http://www.slower-living.org">Slower Living</a> and has published two books on the practice of leadership.</em></p><p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/?p=5523&akst_action=share-this" title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_5523" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow">Bookmark or Share this with a friend!</a> </p><h3>Related Posts</h3><ul class="related_post"><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/management/8-ways-to-take-it-to-the-next-level.html" title="8 Ways to Take It to the Next Level">8 Ways to Take It to the Next Level</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/success-recipes-most-people-know-but-too-few-follow.html" title="Success recipes most people know, but too few follow">Success recipes most people know, but too few follow</a></li><li><a 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href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=S7Zz3jg"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=S7Zz3jg" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=4oZHvqG"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=4oZHvqG" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=0pPFZmG"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=0pPFZmG" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=7J5zX3G"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=7J5zX3G" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LifeHack/~4/276156020" height="1" width="1"/></content></entry> <entry> <author> <name>Thursday Bram</name> </author> <title type="html">Handwriting: A Skill For A Digital Age</h3> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LifeHack/~3/275404694/handwriting-a-skill-for-a-digital-age.html" /> <id>http://www.lifehack.org/?p=5534</id> <updated>2008-04-21T19:06:37Z</updated> <published>2008-04-22T13:30:34Z</published> <category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="Communication" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="Featured" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="handwriting" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="health" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="studying" /> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/handwriting-a-skill-for-a-digital-age.html#comments" thr:count="27" /> <link rel="replies" type="appication/atom+xml" href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/handwriting-a-skill-for-a-digital-age.html/feed/atom" thr:count="27" /> <thr:total>27</thr:total> <content type="html"><div class="bigphoto"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5533" title="Handwritten" src="http://www.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2008/04/handwriting.jpg" alt="Handwritten" /></div> <p>It seems like those of us who spend most of our day at a computer are slowly losing those handwriting skills our elementary school teachers spent years drilling into us. More than anything else, it’s a matter of disuse: many people hardly ever write anything out by hand and, if they do, it’s a quick note meant only to last until the next time they’re at a computer.</p> <p>But good handwriting is a skill worth honing, especially in a digital age, and for plenty more than writing your aging grandmother — although I’m sure she appreciates legible writing.<br /> </p> <h2>Bad Handwriting Kills</h2> <p>In any given year, approximately 7,000 people die because a pharmacist couldn’t read a prescription. And while prescription pads will likely become electronic in the future, there will always be professions that rely on hastily jotted notes. Not all of these jobs will go electronic any time soon. Consider construction sites: not practical places for most electronic devices. But if you wander around a building site before anyone gets around to painting, you’ll see pencil marks on most of the lumber. Measurements, locations and quantities are all written on the wall, and while an illegible note might not kill anyone, there’s a high likelihood it could cost a contractor some money.</p> <h2>Good Handwriting Saves Lives</h2> <p>There are several diseases and conditions that can affect the brain and, in turn, the motor skills required for writing notes by hand. Neurologists can often tell a great deal about what is happening inside someone’s skull by looking at samples of their handwriting — especially if they have past samples. For instance, you can follow the progression of Parkinson’s disease in a patient very clearly through writing samples — handwriting can show the affects of the disease even in very early stages.</p> <p>Different neurological disorders manifest themselves in different ways, especially on paper. Some can cause an overall decay in handwriting skills, while others can cause a patient to drop letters or words. There are, of course, a wide variety of psychologists who use graphology (handwriting analysis) for the purpose of understanding a person’s mindset as well. However, there is far more controversy about graphology than the simple observances made for the purpose of diagnosing neurological problems.</p> <h2>Handwriting as Learning Mechanism</h2> <p>Handwriting notes is a technique recommended by many educators as an excellent way to cement ideas in your mind. But handwritten notes work best if you can go back and look them over — and can tell just what they say. Pen and paper also offer a flexibility for diagramming that just isn’t available in word processing software. You can draw arrows quickly and create mind maps that aren’t restricted by a programmer that you’ve never met. You can even tear up paper (or use smaller pieces) and shift them around.</p> <p>Writing out papers or notes by hand can also help provide a certain amount of focus that is difficult — if not impossible — with a computer. I know I have trouble focusing on a writing project when I want to check my email, read a few blogs or generally distract myself with the internet. To keep myself on track, I’ve had to pick up a pad of paper and go somewhere without a computer. Some days, it’s the only way I can stay focused.</p> <h2>Preparing for Emergencies</h2> <p>What if your power goes out? Your Blackberry runs out of juice? You’re stranded away from a printer? There are times that legible handwriting is absolutely crucial. Whether the power is on or off, odds are you have work that must get done. You may have to write out a document by hand and FedEx it to a client, or you may be writing in order to type it up later. You may even have to scribble down the phone number of a tow truck. No matter which, the effort is worthless if no one can read it afterwards. It’s practically a version of Murphy’s Law: if you write down something important, it’s bound to be illegible.</p> <p>And there are jobs that may take you away from your computer — hard to believe, but true. If you’re interested in philanthropic work that will take you deep into a third world country, it’s in your best interest to have good handwriting. Even if you have access to email at all hours of the day, the people you might work with probably won’t.</p> <h2>Handwriting is a Digital Age Skill</h2> <p>Handwriting is an important skill — equally important to that ability to type 75 words per minute that you listed on your resume. You may not need to spend hours a day on perfecting your letters, but writing often enough to maintain a legible hand is worth your time. If nothing else, writing a long letter or outlining your next project can give your mouse hand a rest and stave off carpal tunnel syndrome a little while longer. Writing uses far different muscles in your hands than typing and can break up a series of repetitive actions: consider handwriting a stretching exercise.</p> <p>And you don’t need to go to the extreme of calligraphy. All you need is a legible style of writing: writing as if you left your mental caps lock on can be a quick way to write an easy-to-read note. A suggestion to keep in mind, though, is that writing in capital letter or in print usually takes longer than cursive. If you’re going to work towards legible handwriting, cursive letters may be the most productive in the long run.</p> <hr/><em>Thursday Bram is a freelance journalist of over five years experience. She studied Communications at the University of Tulsa and is currently working on her MA in Communication Design. Her work has focused primarily on entrepreneurial topics. More information about Thursday is available at <a href="http://www.thursdaybram.com">thursdaybram.com</a>. </em></p><p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/?p=5534&akst_action=share-this" title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_5534" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow">Bookmark or Share this with a friend!</a> <p> <a href="http://www.fonosip.com/" target="_top"> <img src="http://fonosip.com/gifs/logo_ad14.gif" width=189 height=77 border=0 align=right alt="Logo Fonosip.com"></A> <a href="./rss.xml" target="_top">Subscribe with an RSS reader <img src="http://voip.brujula.net/gifs/rss.png" width=16 height=16 border=0></a> <a href="./archive/" target="_top">Older News Archive</A> <a href="./syndicate.html" target="_top">Add news to your web site</A> <a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=66b2c05330304248a29f2f3cb0c4f3b6&u=%%UNIQUEID%%"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=66b2c05330304248a29f2f3cb0c4f3b6&u=%%UNIQUEID%%" border="0"/></a> </td></tr> <td><BR><BR> <p> <a href="/dmoz/"> Top</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/Arts/"> Arts</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/Business/"> Business</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/Computers/"> Computers</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/Games/"> Games</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/Health/"> Health</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/Kids_and_Teens/"> Kids</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/News/"> News</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Recreation/"> Recreation</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Reference/"> Reference</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Regional/"> Regional</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Science/"> Science</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Shopping/"> Shopping</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Society/"> Society</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Sports/"> Sports</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/World/"> World</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/World/"> Languages</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/news/"> News</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/news/"> Blogs</a> <HR NOSHADE> <p><center> <!!--#exec cmd="/cgi-bin/banner"--> <table><td> <script type="text/javascript"> GA_googleFillSlot("news-banner-bottom"); </script> <td> <a href="http://www.ba.net/about/"> <img src="http://ba.net/gifs/adbrite-your-ad-here-banner.gif" style="background-color:#CCCCCC;border:none;padding:0;margin:0;" alt="Your Ad Here" width="11" height="60" border="0" align=right></a> </table> <p><br> <form method="POST" action="http://www.brujula.net/cgi-bin/buscar"> <input name="text" size="45"> <input type="submit" value="Search"> <input type="hidden" name="buscador" value="categorias-en"> </form> <br> <font size=1> <b>BA.net Brujula.Net</b> © 2008 <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/acerca/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">advertising</a> <br><br> <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">english</a> <A HREF="http://www.brujula.net/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">español</a> <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/italia/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">italiano</a> <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/germany/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">germany</a> <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/japan/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">japan</a> <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/france/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">france</a> <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/world/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">more</a> <A HREF="javascript:window.external.AddFavorite(window.location.href,document.title)" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">bookmark</A> </center> </td> </TABLE> </TD> <TD valign="top"><IMG src="http://www.brujula.net/gifs/sep3horiz.gif" width="23" height="1"></TD> <TD bgcolor="#333366" valign="top"><IMG src="http://www.brujula.net/gifs/sep3horiz.gif" width="3" height="1"></TD> </TR> <TR bgcolor="#ffffff"> <TD colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFCC66" valign="top"><IMG src="http://www.brujula.net/gifs/sep3horiz.gif" width="1" height="24" border="0"></TD> <TD colspan="3" valign="top"><IMG src="http://www.brujula.net/gifs/sep3horiz.gif" width="1" height="24" border="0"></TD> <TD rowspan="2" colspan="2" bgcolor="#333366" valign="middle"> <CENTER> <FONT color="#FFFFFF"><B>></B> </FONT> </CENTER> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD colspan="5" bgcolor="#333366" valign="top"><IMG src="http://www.brujula.net/gifs/sep3horiz.gif" width="1" height="3"></TD> </TR> <TR bgcolor="#666699"> <TD colspan="8"><IMG src="http://www.brujula.net/gifs/sep3horiz.gif" width="1" height="10"></TD> </TR> </TABLE> </BODY></HTML>