Awesome Links #27: Social Sharing, Teapot Timer, Focus

As we head into the holiday season, this edition of Awesome Links focuses on fundamental themes that are of particular importance at this time of year: sharing, time management and focus. While we need to work at improving on all these fronts throughout they ear, the end of the year tends to make it that much more difficult to do.

A Guide to Centralizing Your Social Sharing With Amplify

If you like sharing with your online friends what you come across on the web, then you know it consumes time —  often a lot of time. So centralizing your social sharing could add a huge boost to your productivity. The guide on Guiding Tech talks about a tool called Amplify that can help you with that.

Use Your Teapot as a Productivity-Boosting Timer

Sometimes, a few minutes of focus is all you need to get a job done. Adam Dachis from Lifehacker knows that and suggests that you use a teapot (or a coffee maker) as the timer. The idea is to get that work done before you hear the whistle signaling that tea is ready. A cup of tea is your reward — but only if you have completed the task. A simple productivity booster.

Focus on what you’re good at, and nothing else!

Neil Patel on his QuickSprout blog has a great post that talks about the essential ingredient of a successful business — or any successful individual for that matter. If you start focusing at what you are really good at, you will see that the results come sooner. Worth a read.

The Holiday Season Slow-Down: The Importance of “Making a List”

Our sister site Freelance Switch has some suggestions on the holiday slow-down for freelancers, and how to make the best use of this time of the year. Freelancers (and others) who experience a slow down in their work during this period could utilize this period to organize, deal with taxes, look for loose ends in their work and step up on their marketing efforts. All good advice.

Lessons from Less

And finally, we’ve got a post on Zen Habits where guest author Courtney Carver talks about her experiences from doing less in life. We know that Leo, the man behind the blog, is a huge fan of doing less, using less and adding more simplicity to life. The author of this post led a super busy life — and was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Then she decided to do less, stay fit and be happy.