Gettting Things Done!

Have you read the book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity? This book spawned the name of this website Minds Like Water. The books author, David Allen, talks about a state of being called mind like water.

What happens when you toss a stone into a completely calm pool of water?

Ripples emanate from the center in perfect response to the impact of the stone. The water neither underreacts nor overreacts. It simply reacts appropriately to the situation, then it returns to calm.

Unfortunately, I’m obviously not following the teachings of this book because I am not Getting Things Done and falling behind on this project.

My new estimated time for launch is going to be this Sunday, April 5th. I hope to have all of the details hammered out by then.

3 Simple Rules To Choosing A Blog Topic

How do I choose a blog topic? There are many schools of thought on how to choose a blog topic. These are my 3 simple rules.

3 Simple Rules To Choosing A Blog Topic

1. Choose a topic you’re passionate about.
2. Choose a topic you’re interested in learning.
3. Choose a topic where you’re an expert in the field.

Now you may be asking why should I follow these three rules. One reason…it makes it much easier to create content. I believe most blogs fail because they don’t consistently produce content.

Do My 3 Blogs Follow The 3 Simple Rules?

I’m currently writing to three blogs:

1. The Global Workplace - A place to learn online productivity tools to help people better communicate with family and friends.
   
   • I am passionate about learning new technologies.
   • Many of the topics I write about are new tools I’ve just learned.
   • Some consider me authority on these topics others consider me a newbie.
2. Minds Like Water - Not just a blog, but used to update our community on everyone’s blogging progress.
   
   • I’m definitely passionate about teaching my family and friends better communication using online tools. Although this site will be more about updating our community on everyone’s blogging progress…The Global Workplace will be teaching people the tools to being more productive.
   • A lot of these things I’m still learning.
   • Just like The Global Workplace I’d be considered an expert by some and a newbie by others.
3. Puppy In Training - My view on dogs and puppies.
   • I’m passionate about dogs and puppies.
   • I continually want to learn more about dogs, puppies, and training.
   • Though I don’t know everything I do consider myself somewhat of an authority on training dogs.

So my tip for the week…try to choose a topic that falls into at least one of my three simple rules and you’ll have a much easier time producing content for your blog. By the way, I also wrote a little bit on this topic at The Global Workplace - How To Choose Your Blog Topic.

Good luck choosing your blog topic and as always if you have any questions or advice please leave us a comment in the comments area below.

The Global Workplace - What Is A Blog?

The featured article of the week comes from The Global Workplace and covers one of our key concepts: What Is A Blog? For more information on this weeks featured article go to the following link:

The Global Workplace - What Is A Blog?

Do you have a  great article and would like it to be considered for the “Article Of The Week”? Then please submit me your best article for the week no later then end of day Friday. You can submit your article through our contact form.

The Global Workplace

The Global Workplace is where you will find all of your lessons on building your blog, online productivity tools, and other information to help you learn to work from any system anywhere.

The Global Workplace will be updated daily Monday through Friday just like every other blog that is a part of the Minds Like Water program. Remember we are a communication network for family and friends. To get the most out of this make sure you visit the Minds Like Water website at least once a week and The Global Workplace daily.

Statistics For Week Ending April 12, 2008

I’ll calculate statistics on Saturdays. I won’t calculate our first group of statistics until April 12, 2008. Good luck to everyone!

April 2008 Featured Blog - Puppy In Training

Puppy In Training - A Guide Dog Puppy Raiser’s Blog To Raising Dogs And Puppies

What’s This Blog All About?

How did the Puppy In Training website come to be? When friends and family learned that I was raising a guide dog puppy in training I suddenly became an authority on dogs and puppies. I have read several books on dogs, dog training, dog tricks, and puppies, but never really considered myself an authority. I’m a fairly knowledgeable person on dogs, but I also have a tremendous resource including Linus’s trainer Sue Myles, Stetson’s trainer Ramona Audette, our entire Orange County Guide Dog’s of America group, the good people working at Guide Dogs of America in Sylmar, CA, and the power of the internet.

Why Puppy In Training?

“Puppy In Training” is the writing on Stetson’s training vest. Stetson is a Guide Dog puppy in training for the non-profit organization Guide Dogs of America and will hopefully some day be a full-fledged Guide Dog. I’m using these pages to share insight on his training as well as things I learn about Stetson, my rescue dog Linus, and all the doggy related questions I hear from day-to-day.

How Are You Different?

You can find many blogs on dogs and dog training. You can also find several blogs about my adventures as a guide dog puppy raiser. My goal is to blend the two together. I plan on adding value to each one of my articles by applying my knowledge and experience as a guide dog puppy raiser to every article I publish.

Puppy In Training is updated every weekday and every once in a while on weekends. Many of the images are of my dogs and other guide dog puppy’s in training from my group. Some images are taken from the web. If you see one that belongs to you then email me at ckmorita at gmail dot com and I will gladly credit it accordingly or remove it immediately.

Visit the Puppy In Training blog at http://puppyintraining.com.

Welcome To Minds Like Water!

Welcome to the Minds Like Water website! I just wanted to give you a quick summary of what this website is all about and how to navigate through the pages.

What We’re All About

Take a look at our tagline under our logo in the top left corner. “A Communication Network For Family And Friends.” Basically what we’re trying to do here is use technology (mainly internet productivity tools) to help improve our communication with family and friends. How will we do this? Three things:

1. Minds Like Water Website - The goal of Minds Like Water is to track everyone’s progress. We’ll also feature top articles, weekly videos, and general information.
2. The Global Workplace Website - The Global Workplace will feature daily lessons to help you become more productive and a better communicator.
3. Build Your Own Blog - Choose your passion or something you’d like to learn about and update your site daily.

Navigating This Website

To give you the quick rundown on this website here are a few pointers on how to navigate the site.

1. There are two horizontal navigation bars. The first is dark grey and the second is blue. The dark grey navigation bar is the general information on the Minds Like Water website. The blue navigation bar are the Minds Like Water Network blog categories. Everyone’s blog is listed in one of these categories.
2. The box directly below the horizontal navigation will have featured information. The tabs are clickable and will show additional featured stories.
3. The box on the upper right will show a featured video. Please watch these videos as they will contain valuable information
4. The featured photos box will show the top bloggers for the week.
5. The featured categories box will show weekly featured categories.
6. The blog review box will show blog reviews.

That’s about it. Navigation is not too bad. Just play around with the site for a bit. I hope this is somewhat helpful.

A Little Bit About What You Can Expect

Hi Everyone,

I noticed this morning that I had several subscribers to my blog. I just wanted to give everyone a short breakdown on what we are up to:

1. I’m trying to prep this site for launch on April 1st 2008- so please be patient with us.
2. This blog will most likely not have daily posts, but will definitely have weekly updates at the least.
3. This site will work in conjunction with my other site The Global Workplace. I plan on posting daily (Monday - Friday) to The Global Workplace.

Well I hope that explains things a little bit. Everything should come together around April 1st, so please stay tuned. I’ll do my best to keep you updated on my progress.

Thanks,
Colby

By the way, if you have any specific questions please leave me a comment and I’ll get back to you asap.