With 2009 just hours away, there’s hope, expectation, and reservation in the air.

A few thoughts: 2009 will be the year of…

The self-employed

There is one key attribute to success that most do not realize.  Everyone is self-employed.  Whether you work for a corporation or have your own freelance company…you are essentially self-employed.

If you work for a company as an employee and get a W2 at the end of the year, you are still in theory a one person company and your product is…you.  Your time, your creativity, and your talent…that’s what you get paid for.

In 2009, I believe we will see people take more responsibility for their own progress and careers.  Instead of leaning on job security - which is a mind game anyway - we will lean towards independently looking towards progressing ourselves.  You are your own boss…even if you have to answer to someone.

Through this realization, we will see people branch out into other areas.  You no longer have 1 job…you may open up a side business selling info products, freelancing, blogging - who knows.

2009 will be the year of the self-employed.

Shifting priorities

As retirement accounts dry up, loans are called, and credit lines are reduced we need to optimize and adapt for the better.  What were priorities in 2007 and 2008 will change this year.

From families and businesses paying off their debt and re-structuring their expenses to save more to real estate investors going crazy over bargains to be had.

From workaholics spending more time with their families to students finding new ways to pay for school so they don’t have to borrow.

From parents taking back control of their retirement by not relying on extremely leveraged institutions for help to college savings accounts being started for new born babies.

2009 will be the year of shifting priorities.

Inbound Marketing

As marketing morphs into consumer interaction and corporate execs become transparent a new way of reaching your audience is taking hold.  Inbound Marketing is the process of building your brand and evoking consumer loyalty through communication, relationships, and an equally satisfying need to make our world a better place.

Utilizing Search Engine Optimization, Brand Marketing, Social Media, and overall Reputation management; start-ups will compete with giants by creating communities for niche markets and taking over market share through quality products/services and Inbound Marketing.  If you build it correctly, they will come.

2009 will be the year of Inbound Marketing.

Personal Branding

In line with being self-employed, the personal brand comes into play.  No longer do consumers only care about the product or service, they now care about the people behind the curtain.  With so many companies faltering in 2008 it becomes increasingly important to put your money towards the leadership behind a cause.

With the transparency that social media networks bring to executives, personal brand will play a big role in consumer confidence.  This is extremely apparent when you look at Apple and Steve Jobs…then the challenge is how do you pass on “your brand” to the company yet still take it with you when the time comes.

2009 will be the year of Personal Branding

Twitter Emergence

Many people are confused by how to monetize or even utilize social media networks.  Whether it’s Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, or twitter, they are confused.  And rightly so…these applications have a feature set but it’s up to the users to determine how that feature set is used.

In 2009, I see twitter emerging to a mass audience.  Whether they know how to use it or not, twitter offers something the other networks are not geared towards..the ability to find and connect with strangers of like mind.  Networking and building, this is where I see twitter exploding.

2009 will be the year of twitter emergence.

On a side note, if you are interested in a really cool twitter showcase coming in January ‘09 - follow me @arifgan - details to come early Jan…seriously, you don’t want to miss this one.

Now, on to you…our readers are clever, creative, and determined so let’s hear it…

2009 will be the year of?

Here’s the deal…we all want to and need to accomplish specific tasks to be successful in what we do.  If you are employed, you better do your “job” or you won’t have one.  And if you are self-employed, well…you know this better than anyone, you have to stay productive.

Successful people are driven and focused.  They may not be caught up on episodes of Survivor, Heroes, How I met your mother, or any other TV shows, but they have their priorities straight.  If you are caught up on your favorite TV shows, maybe you are just much more efficient than me

This post is geared towards freelancers, entrepreneurs, and business people…there is some overlap to those working traditional W2 jobs.

1. Make a list, People like lists!  A list is easier to skim and read if needed.

By making a list, you are creating action items for yourself.  You can look down at that piece of paper and follow it…don’t worry about how big the items are, just make a list of no more than 5 items you MUST get done and prioritize them in order of what is MOST important.  Why limit to 5? To not overwhelm you with a list of the top 182 things you must accomplish this week.

There are different ways of determining what’s most important…that’s for another post Coming soon…

Keep your list handy, it’s funny how our minds forget what’s next and while we try to remember we take a quick peek at Twitter, Facebook, Break, or some other distraction.  Once you are done with item #1, CROS IT OFF.  Seriously, take a marker and feel a sense of accomplishment by marking it complete.

Now, if the project or task is too large for one sitting, you may have to time box it.  Which means, creating a time limit and working on it with determination and focus during that time box and then if needed, creating another time box on a different day to re-visit the project and continue to make progress.

Thoughts from twitter: @acclimedia - When a deadline is looming, I always take a step back and create an action plan of what needs to be done, complete w/an outline.The key is to organize into mini tasks you can ‘check off.’ If it’s a writing assignment, get a shell down on paper you can expand upon.

2. Close your email program, don’t just minimize it.

Close it down, you are less likely to hit the Send/Receive if it’s closed and you have to wait for it to re-open.  In almost every case, email can wait. If something is EXTREMELY important, they will call.  Checking email every few minutes creates distraction that is hard to recover from, do it often enough and you will rob yourself unknowingly.

Suggested by @kristofcreative

3. Get your groove on.

Put on some music. I prefer to zone out, I have a play list in iTunes for working out, for chilling, and for productivity.  You know what gets you going, make a play list, put on some head phones and get cracking in your “productivity zone.”

Suggested by @idesignstudios - Selene actually suggested TOOL specifically.

4. Know your vices.

Turn your blackberry/smart phone off, fill up your water bottle - you know what defeats you. Admit it and then overcome it.

We love to be connected, but studies show that multi-tasking doesn’t help much.  By dividing our attention, we cheat ourselves of valuable productivity.  Know your vices. Let me say that again, KNOW your vices and take control over them.  If you have a bad habit of hitting up Facebook while you are “thinking”, stop it.  Make it a reward…set an alarm, after X number of hours of focused attention on your project, then you can chill on Facebook for Y number of minutes.  If you get up often to get a drink, fill up your water bottle ahead of time.

Suggested by @minjae - turn off your blackberry

5. Turn off twitter, TweetDeck, or whatever you use.

If you aren’t on twitter…you need to be, it’s a GREAT networking tool.  But it’s also the essence of wasted utilization when used incorrectly or at the wrong time.  The Internet NEVER stops.  Twitter NEVER stops, you can not keep up with it all…you may be able to with 500 followers, but you can’t at 60,000 followers.  Don’t worry about it, you will miss something at some point and that’s okay.  Life goes on, when you get back on you can contribute and interact, but feel okay about missing a few things.  The productivity trade-off is immense.

The same goes for Digg, RSS Blog feeds, etc.  Block out time for those; don’t let them steal your time.

Suggested by @andysowards

6. If the van is rocking, don’t come knocking.

Let people know that you are in a “Do Not Disturb” state of mind.  People will respect it and if they have an emergency, they will interrupt you.  The point is to let others know that you wish to not be disturbed so that you can focus.  If you don’t tell them, you can’t blame them for the distraction.

7. Keep it clean.

When your work space is organized, it’s easier to keep your mind organized.  A cluttered environment creates opportunities for distraction, frustration, and excuses.  You’ll stay more organized in your thoughts and you’ll be able to accomplish more if your workspace is organized and geared for productivity.

5 ways to stay de-cluttered by the Container store - more lists

8. Be prone to action.

The longer you delay, the more time you are wasting by thinking about what you need to get done.  This is a tough mental block…aka procrastination.  Just know that those prone to action succeed more often…I’m not saying you should give up if you are a lazy SOB, but if you were that lazy then you probably would not be reading a blog post on how to focus and get sh*t done.

9. Take control of your most valuable resource.

I directed a large tech team at a publicly traded company and the culture of that company was very reactive.  It took me a while to get out of the mindset of sitting there and waiting for a fire to put out.

Take control of your day and decide what you will get done, choose what will bring the highest results and choose what you will focus on.  You can still block out time for those reactive moments because we all know that fires will come, but you don’t have to let them rule how your day will be spent.  After all, that’s what you are doing - spending your most valuable resource - decide ahead of time how you are going to spend your time.

10.  Be present, physically and mentally.

When you are spending time with your family, do you have a hard time letting go of work?  If you spend your work time focusing on being productive with business related tasks then it becomes easier to spend your family or personal time just focusing on things other than business.

The more productive you stay in your business the easier it is to feel accomplished and let go during personal time.  Your family and your friends will appreciate this.  As they fret, you’ll be the one that “has it all figured out.” 

10.5. Keep true to your purpose.

Why do you do what you do?  Are you trying to make a difference in the world? Are you trying to provide for your family?  Are you saving up for an Aston Martin Vanquish?  Whatever your motive, keep it in mind…determination follows passion, what is your passion and purpose?

Focus, stay determined, and most of all - Don’t let it beat you!

I KNOW you have a tactic that I didn’t mention…how do YOU stay focused?

An added FYI - I just setup our Wordpress > Twitter plugin and it works great.  Easy too.  Took < 3 minutes.

You can see it work here:

http://twitter.com/arifgan

Social Networking can be a pain.  I mean, you have a blog, you have a twitter account, Facebook, LinkedIn, and a myriad of other accounts.  There are tools out there to allow you to aggregate all of the data but what about syndication?

Well, that is the brilliance of RSS.  Here’s a quick video about RSS feeds and what they are:

Here are 2 tools that will help you tie your social networks together:

1. Wordpress just announced a LinkedIn plugin.  Now, you can link up your Wordpress blog to LinkedIn so anything you post on your Wordpress blog will automatically be syndicated to LinkedIn.

Here is a quick video:

There are also a few others tools out there to keep you connected.

2. Here is a tool for connecting Wordpress to twitter…as you post on your blog, this little plugin can automatically create a tinyurl and post it to your twitter feed. Which can then be broadcast via text messaging, etc.

Click here for a twitter plugin for wordpress with tinyurl API support.  It sounds tough to install, but it’s easy

Thanks to OpenSocial…Social Networks are merging together…but it’s also another way for Google to track you down.