Bill Gates was able to get into programming at an early age because the prep school he attended gave students access to a GE mainframe computer. Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, had a private programming tutor growing up. And while that early coding education wasn’t the only factor that led to those guys becoming incredibly successful developers (and, ya know, billionaires), it certainly didn’t hurt either.

The majority of us, however, didn’t grow up with this type of exposure to the world of coding. And many of us are still unclear how it all works — how writing and combining complex strings of words and characters can lead to the creation of web browsers, websites, operating systems, smartphone apps, and more.

The good news: It’s never too late to learn. And to help you learn how to code (or to simply help you better understand how coding works), we’ve put together an exhaustive list of resources. Let’s dive in.

16 Resources for Learning How to Code

Online Coding Schools

1) Codeacademy

Now boasting more than 25 million users, Codeacademy is one of the most popular resources for learning how to code on the planet. The online education platform offers interactive coding courses across several different programming languages, including JavaScript, Python, and Ruby. They also have courses that cover markup languages (e.g., HTML) and stylesheet languages (e.g., CSS).

And just to clarify: These aren’t lecture-style courses we’re talking about here. You actually get to do some hands-on coding and see changes in real-time. Best of all: Codeacademy courses are 100% free.

2) Khan Academy

Another major player in the coding education space is the nonprofit Khan Academy, whose mission is to “provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.” Like Code Academy, Khan Academy offers courses in several different programming languages, which include interactive segments where you get to play around with code.

The one major difference is that Khan Academy courses rely more heavily on video. Founder Salman Khan got the idea for the academy after creating and sharing tutorials on YouTube.

3) Treehouse

Online technology school Treehouse offers coding courses from beginner level to expert. But unlike the first two options on this list, you’ll need to fork over some cash before you can start learning. For $25 per month, you can gain access to Treehouse’s library of 1,000+ videos and take interactive coding challenges. For $49 per month, you can unlock bonus content and gain the ability to download videos for watching offline.

4) Code School

The aptly named Code School follows a similar model as Treehouse: students watch video tutorials, and then get a chance to put what they’ve learned into action with interactive coding challenges. For $29 per month, you can get access to Code School’s 50+ courses and 200 videos. (There’s also a free option, FYI, which gives you access to 10 of their courses.)

5) Code Avengers

Code Avengers is another online coding school, which provides interactive courses on JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and more. While some of the introductory courses are free, you have to pay around $30 a pop to unlock the more advanced ones. (Note: You can save money by buying multiple courses in a bundle.)

6) Bento

Founded by Stack Overflow developer Jon Chan, Bento is free a coding education website that offers two distinct ways to learn. One option is to follow learning tracks, which feature educational content that’s been curated by professional programmers. The second option is to look through the Bento Grid (pictured below), which is a meticulously organized collection of the top coding resources on the web.

7) MIT OpenCourseWare 

MIT OpenCourseWare is a free online library of course materials from more than 2,200 MIT graduate and undergraduate courses. The idea behind the program, according to MIT School of Engineering Professor Dick K.P. Yue, is simple: “to publish all of our course materials online and make them widely available to everyone.”

Each OpenCourseWare course consists of two components: an instruction component (e.g., a lecture or reading list), and a learning activity (e.g., an exam or assignment).

8) Programmr

Describing itself as the “Programmer’s Playground,” coding platform Programmr takes a more lighthearted approach to teaching people how to code. In addition to offering seven different interactive courses, Programmr lets you hone your skills through taking challenges, signing up for projects, and even entering coding contents where you can win cash prizes.

9) Udacity

Similar in spirit to MIT OpenCourseWare, Udacity got its start in 2011 as a way to make Stanford University computer science courses available for free. Since then, it has evolved into an education platform that offers courses and “nanodegree programs” from educational institutions as well as tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

10) Coursera

Coursera is a for-profit, ed-tech company that offers massive open online courses, also known as “MOOCs.” MOOCs are courses from universities and other institutions that have been made available online with few (if any) limits on who can participate in them.

With more than 15 million users, Coursera is one of the largest providers of MOOCs in the world, and offers hundreds on programming and related fields. One of their most popular MOOCs at the moment: University of Michigan’s “Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python).”

11) edX

Like Coursera, edX is a MOOC provider that serves millions of students. Some of their most popular courses (which are starting soon) include IIT Bombay’s “Fundamentals of Computer Science” and an HTML5 introduction course that was developed by W3C and Intel. 

Unlike Coursera, edX is a nonprofit and it’s open source, so anyone can build tools for and contribute features to the edX platform. 

12) Udemy

Offering courses like the popular “Complete Java Developer Course,” Udemy is another (for-profit) MOOC provider that can help you develop your coding skills. One of the unique features of Udemy is that anyone can sign up to become an instructor and create their own course.

Coding Apps

13) Scratch

While it was designed for kids and teenagers, the educational web app Scratch — created at the MIT Media Lab — can be a fun way for adults to learn about the basics of coding. The app lets you program your own games, animations, and interactive stories, and you can share these coded creations with others via Scratch’s online community.

14) Hopscotch

The free iPhone and iPad app Hopscotch is another fun option for learning coding basics. With Hopscotch, you can create unique games and share them with others so anyone can play. There are also in-app tutorials that provide line-by-line instructions for creating specific types of games. Hopscotch currently has 4.5 stars in the app store (based on 515 ratings).

15) Codea

Wired once referred to Codea as the “Garageband of Coding.” The $14.99 iPad app is like a grown-up version of Hopscotch. Through tapping, dragging, and dropping different elements, you can code up games, simulations, and other visual creations. Codea currently has 4.5 stars in the app store (based on 746 ratings).

Free

HubSpot Resource

16) HTML Hacks for Marketers: Decoded

This site page, which we co-created with Codeacademy, is a great starting point for marketers who want to understand the basics of HTML, a.k.a. “the language of the web.” From formatting text, to customizing colors, to creating internal page links, this free resource provides HTML tips and tricks that will definitely come in handy.

Know of any other great resources for learning how to code? Share them in the comments section below.

It was senior year of college. My friend and I were walking home from squash practice and she asked me what I’d been up to that day.

I started with my overnight shift as an EMT and ambulance driver. Then, I told her about my early morning classes, followed by the long bus ride to an even longer day at my internship. I went on to talk about the other class I attended, and how I stopped to grab a quick bite to eat before making my way to squash practice.

She stopped me.

“Lindsay, I think you’re addicted to doing things.” 

I laughed. At the time, I didn’t fully understanding the gravity of the problem. Years later, although the activities have changed, the addiction — or whatever it is — certainly hasn’t. And the struggle to keep it under control can sometimes feel very real.

Is Busyness an Addiction?

How many of you out there wrestle with the urge to jam-pack your schedule? You might crave free time, but that white space on your calendar can actually induce anxiety.

Some people call this “chaos addiction.” It’s not an official diagnosis — and, frankly, the word “addiction” seems a little heavy to me. Busyness isn’t a chemical, nor is it even a specific act. My interpretation is that this “addiction” is more an expression of anxiety or compulsive behavior.

This feeling might seem familiar to you if …

• You feel “at your best” when you’re at your busiest.
• When you do find yourself doing nothing, you feel guilty for not being measurably productive.
• You like when people point out how busy you are.
• You have trouble distinguishing the importance of time spent with loved ones, for example, over time spent checking things off the list.

I want to make a careful distinction here: This isn’t the same as being a “workaholic.” It’s not that we feel the urge to fill up our free time with work. Instead, we want to fill it with stuff — playing in a softball league, helping out a friend with her latest app idea, grabbing coffee with our middle school friend’s sister’s boyfriend who just moved into town … you get the picture. 

In 2007, Psychologist Dr. Keith Lee wrote a book about his own and others’ experiences with chaos addiction, called Addicted to Chaos: The Journey from Extreme to Serene. The description reads,

In a culture where the ‘extreme theme’ has become the norm, people are increasingly seduced into believing that intensity equals being alive. This type of life may produce heart-pounding excitement, but the absence of this addictive energy can bring about withdrawal, fear, and restlessness that is unbearable.”

Dr. Lee isn’t alone in thinking perennial busyness can be detrimental. Others have theorized that it serves as an effective escape, or a way to numb yourself — hence the comparison to an addiction.

Are You Falling Into the ‘Busy’ Trap?

We live in a culture that celebrates being crazy busy: “Western society puts a high value on being busy,” wrote Dr. Christiane Northup, a women’s health expert and New York Times best-selling author. “We are conditioned to believe that being busy equates to being good, worthy, and successful.”

One way people justify the addiction? By humblebragging about just how busy they are. We’ve all encountered this type of bragging: It’s that modest, even self-deprecating rundown of how much someone did or has to do, with the underlying purpose of drawing attention to how accomplished they are.

In his article for Harvard Business Review, renowned business leader Greg McKeown calls it “The More Bubble,” and argues society has granted us permission to be proud of it.

“This bubble is being enabled by an unholy alliance between three powerful trends: smart phones, social media, and extreme consumerism,” he explained. “The result is not just information overload, but opinion overload. We are more aware than at any time in history of what everyone else is doing and, therefore, what we ‘should’ be doing.”

“In the process, we have been sold a bill of goods: that success means being supermen and superwomen who can get it all done. Of course, we back-door-brag about being busy: it’s code for being successful and important,” he went on to suggest. 

Where does the “supermen and superwomen” imperative come from? In the business world, it often comes from the cultural expectations of high achievement. As McKeown explains, it also comes from the impression we get that everyone is doing tons of cool stuff all the time. 

It’s an interesting take: Is our “addiction” to chaos and busyness driven more by habit and boredom — even shame?

Whatever it is, the busy humblebrag is just a coping mechanism. Most of us aren’t genuinely proud of our chaotic lives … we just hide behind the reverence every time we fail to break the cycle. And while being ambitious (to some degree) is obviously a great thing, it’s important that we don’t allow these cultural expectations to push us to the point of burnout. 

Are you “addicted” to being busy? How do you cope? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.

If I had a nickel for every hour I wasted trying to figure something out in Excel, I’d have quite the coin collection. 

Don’t get me wrong: Excel is an extremely powerful tool when it comes to collecting and analyzing data. But unless you’re a power user, it can be tricky to get the hang of it. If you’re not well versed in the tool’s functionality, even little things like resizing columns and inserting comments can cause you to have to stop and think. 

Download our free guide to Excel here to learn the essential skills you should know.

Luckily, the folks at Best STL put together the following infographic on time-saving Excel shortcuts. While the shortcuts are pretty basic, they’re guaranteed to simplify the way you navigate the tool. Check ’em out below. 

This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Sales Blog. To read more content like this, subscribe to Sales.

“Just checking in” emails are the worst. If you’re sending an email, it’s obvious that you’re checking in. You don’t need to say it again.

Plus, “just checking in” emails don’t provide any value to buyers. They don’t care that you want to get in touch with them, especially if you haven’t already provided them with a compelling reason to do so.

But people often send “just checking in” emails because they’re so easy. It takes almost no thought or time to write some variation of, “Hi [Person of Interest’s Name], I haven’t heard back from you, so I wanted to check in. Cheers, [Your Name].”

In fact, I timed that and it took 19 seconds for me to type.

But the ease of writing these “just checking in” emails — i.e. the thing that them so tempting to send — is the same reason they’re worthless: They’re easy to write because they don’t provide any value to your buyer.

If they never responded to your first email, chances are they didn’t feel it was worth their time. Why would you reinforce that impression by wasting their time even more?

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should stop following up with prospects — just that you put slightly more effort into it. Below are 23 things to reference in a follow-up email besides the obvious fact that you’re checking in.

23 Email Subjects That Are Better Than “Just Checking In”

If they never responded:

1. Send them a short piece of actionable advice.
2. Send over a longer how-to guide and offer to follow up in person if they want.
3. Point out a weakness in their business that should be fixed.
4. Share an article relevant to their industry or profession.
5. Respond to a social message, then follow up with more resources.
6. Answer one of their questions on an online forum, then follow up with more resources.
7. Reference a relevant blog post they just published.
8. Send them a blog post your company has just published.
9. Recommend an event in their area.
10. Invite them to an upcoming webinar or educational event your company is hosting.
11. Send them a link to relevant press coverage of one of your highest-profile customers.
12. Call attention to something their competitor is doing well and ask how they plan to address it.
13. Bring up a common challenge your buyers face and ask if they’re experiencing it.
14. Send a, “Did this email get buried?” email.
15. Ask if they’re still interested in achieving X goal, then provide a suggestion for how to get there.
16. Send a breakup email to close the loop.

If any of these trigger events occur:

1. Congratulate a potential decision maker on a promotion: A former champion could now influence a purchase decision.
2. Reach out to a decision maker after a blocker leaves the company: The road may be clearer for you for make a sale.
3. Reach out to a new C-level executive: High-level changes can indicate a change in strategy.
4. Congratulate them on a funding round: More resources usually means growth, and growth means addressing priorities that weren’t previously top-of-mind.
5. Ask whether newly created positions relevant to your product reflect new company initiatives: Strategic shifts indicate changing needs.

If you lost the deal:

1. Check how things are going a month after implementing a competitor’s product.
2. Check how things are going as their contract with a competitor is winding down.

Bonus: 6 Times You Should Send a “Just Checking In” Email

Of course, every rule has an exception. If you’ve already started a sales process, there are many scenarios that could warrant a “just checking in” email. Usually, however, these scenarios have two things in common:

• Your prospect made a commitment to do something and hasn’t done it, or has gone dark.
• An email or call following up on any of these situations should presumably be focused on that missed commitment — it’s not just a generic check-in.

Any or all of the following situations all but necessitate a “just checking in” call or email:

1. If they told you to reach back out in X days/weeks/months.
2. If they went dark after a call.
3. If they didn’t show up to a scheduled call.
4. If they told you they needed a few days to make an internal evaluation, then went dark.
5. If they committed to to signing a contract and didn’t.
6. If they started a product trial but you haven’t heard back on their progress.

The rule of thumb for “just checking in” emails is essentially this: If you have a good reason to reach out or new value to provide, reach out.

If you don’t, think of one. And if you can’t think of a single legitimate reason to follow up that would be beneficial to the recipient, don’t. Spend your time crafting more helpful emails, and the recipients will thank you for it.

This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Agency Post. To read more content like this, subscribe to Agency Post. 

Ads that make people share and buy can usually be summed up in one word: emotional.

That should be no surprise. Studies show that people rely on emotions, rather than information, to make brand decisions — and that emotional responses to ads are more influential on a person’s intent to buy than the content of an ad.

As Douglas Van Praet, author of Unconscious Branding: How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketing, wrote in Fast Company, “The most startling truth is we don’t even think our way to logical solutions. We feel our way to reason. Emotions are the substrate, the base layer of neural circuitry underpinning even rational deliberation. Emotions don’t hinder decisions. They constitute the foundation on which they’re made!”

Unruly, which ranks the most viral ads each year, found that the most-shared ads of 2015 relied heavily on emotional content, specifically friendship, inspiration, warmth, and happiness. Examples include Android’s Friends Furever and Kleenex’s Unlikely Best Friends.

This emotional awareness from brands hasn’t always been the case, though. In the 1990s and early 2000s, advertisers were more concerned with humor and sarcasm. 

Pereira & O’Dell’s chief creative officer PJ Pereira said: “I think what’s happened is that the ad industry has spent the last decade celebrating bitterness and cynicism and being mean to people. For a while it was great because it was different from everyone else, and then it became a trend and people got sick of it. It wasn’t funny or interesting anymore. So when things started to pop with a totally opposite voice, the customers totally reacted.”

How Emotion Is Used in Advertising

Historically, people have recognized six core emotions: happy, surprised, afraid, disgusted, angry, and sad.

However, in 2014, the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology published research stating that the distinction between four of these emotions were based on social interactions and constructs. Instead, human emotion is based on four basic emotions: happy, sad, afraid/surprised, and angry/disgusted.

Based on these four categories, let’s look at how brands are using emotions to drive connection and awareness:

1) Happy

Brands want to be associated with smiling, laughing, happy customers, and positivity has been shown to increase sharing and engagement. A study in 2010 of the most-emailed New York Times articles found that emotional articles were shared more often, and positive posts were shared more than negative ones. 

The most-shared ad of last year — and of all time — was Android’s Friends Furever, showing clips of unlikely and undeniably cute animal friends.

When Coca-Cola recently changed its tagline from “Open Happiness” to “Taste the Feeling,” it maintained its focus on happy images of people connecting and engaging one another, such as the below ad showing the bond between siblings.

2) Sad

I watch a lot of ads. (Hey, it’s a requirement for the job.) I’ve noticed that, increasingly, those ads have turn me into a blubbering, emotional wreck. There’s nothing like a good cry at work on a regular basis to make your desk neighbors question your stability.

In the past few years, as brands have recognized the popularity of emotional content, more and more companies have focused on creating inspirational and moving ads.

MetLife Hong Kong produced this heartbreaking ad featuring a daughter who describes all the things she loves about her dad, yet the story breaks down when she also describes all the ways he lies to her.

For the Sochi Olympic Games in 2014, P&G continued its theme of recognizing mothers and their unwavering support.

3) Afraid/Surprised

Fear is a natural instinct — one that helps us to react appropriately to threats to increase our chance of survival.

Fear creates urgency and prompts us to take action; to change or more importantly for this story, buy something that will prevent terrible things from happening. As Don Draper said in a Mad Men episode, “Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay.”

A lot of scare-vertising tactics can be seen in commercials to prevent drunk driving and cigarette smoking. The World Wildlife Fund is one brand known for its controversial and fear-inducing imagery.

Image Credit: Trend Hunter Eco

However, this approach is risky. In 2015, Nationwide released an ad during the Super Bowl to promote conversations about child safety and preventable injuries in the home. The ad was disturbing to many viewers. The video features a young boy who talks about all the things he’ll never do, and ends with the line “I couldn’t grow up because I died from an accident.” While attention-grabbing, the ad was called depressing and insensitive by viewers and the CMO of Nationwide resigned from his position just a few months later.

Surprise can also take a positive form as can be seen in one of the best ads of 2015.

4) Angry/Disgusted

Most people think that it is best to avoid anger — it’s a negative emotion that will cause negative associations. But in some cases, anger can wake people up and spur action. We become angry when we see another person hurt or an injustice. Disgust and frustration can cause us to reconsider our perspective and ask important questions.

A study of the most popular images on imgur.com found that while negative emotions were less common in viral content than in positive, viral success happened when the negative images had an element of anticipation and surprise.

Always’ Like a Girl campaign, which won an Emmy, a Cannes Grand Prix award, and the Grand Clio award, uses a famous insult to grab your attention. 

Save the Children’s ad reminding people of the effect of the Syrian crisis on children provokes both sadness and anger.

Which emotions do you associate with specific brands? How have you used emotion in your client’s advertising? Let us know in the comments below.

You can set your small business apart in several ways, from your brand to the quality of your products. Still, even if you’re the top small business in your city, your audience is limited. How can you grow beyond the borders of your town? 

Now you’re probably considering an ecommerce option for your company. As with starting a business, adding online shopping is a whole new endeavor. Sure, you have your brand and your products taken care of, but there are a million new tasks to complete and even more things to learn. Why should you take the plunge?

1) Larger Customer Base

We touched on the potential for a larger customer base, but it’s important to realize just how large that base might become. With excellent inbound techniques, including stellar SEO, and a robust CMS, a small business could grow into a global powerhouse.

Scaling for growth is important for small businesses that turn to ecommerce models, because the potential reach for online shops is unlimited. While there is never the promise your company will grow to Amazon-like greatness, the possibility is always there.

2) Customers Choose Ecommerce 

The number of online shoppers has increased sharply within the past few years. Just three years ago, 36% of American shoppers completed their holiday shopping online. Last Christmas, that number jumped to 61%. Keep in mind, that’s only holiday shoppers that did all or most of their shopping online. If we study the number of people who’ve made at least one online purchase, the percentage would skyrocket. Even 39% of shoppers who prefer stores will investigate prices and brands online before buying.

3) Online Shopping Offers More Options

A large percentage of shoppers, 93% to be exact, actually prefer local business who offer online shopping. These buyers want to find something unique that’s not available anywhere else, but they still want the convenience of online buying. Others like to buy online and pick up at their local retailer.

4) Lower Labor and Tax Costs

Expanding your business could mean opening more retail spaces, which brings its own set of challenges and costs. Staff, rental, and inventory equals a lot of overhead. An online presence can help expand beyond your one location without the addition of staff or retail space. In addition, tax regulations are different for each state, so sales taxes and income taxes, while tricky, could add up to less than physical stores might incur. 

5) Easier to Compete

Marketing and SEO play a huge part in growing an online presence. Think about it: you already provide better products and services than the big guys. Why wouldn’t a buyer choose you over the local chain mega-mart? Right now, they won’t choose you because they can’t find you. If they could find you… Well, you’d have those buyers locked down. 

If you’re still on the fence, investigate the possibilities. There really is no better way to grow your small business into a true force of retail than opening an e-tail branch to serve your buyers’ needs.  

“I’m sick of this.” “I hate this.” “Not again.” “Can’t stand it!” “I’m gonna quit.”

If you’ve ever thought — or said — those things about writing, you’re not alone. I’ve experienced those thoughts. As someone who writes a lot, I get it.

After a while, you get sick and tired of writing. You just want to quit. Is it that notorious condition known as writer’s block? It could be, but in many cases it’s a little bit different.

There are a few things going on:

• You’re bored with what you’re writing about. Boredom kills affection.
• You’ve exhausted your creative energy. Creativity, like a muscle, has its limits. Push it too hard, and it caves in.
• You need something more challenging. Lack of challenge — goals, vision, perspective — leads to disillusionment.
• You need some fresh experiences. Fresh experiences will give you a fresh perspective.

It’s time to figure out how to get your brain back on task. How do you get past the drudgery and enjoy writing again? Let’s talk through a few tips.

5 Ways to Fall Back in Love With Writing

1) Take a long break.

If you’re feeling a little burnt out, it’s probably a good idea to put some time and space between you and your writing. Depending on how much time you have, this might mean a 20-minute break or even a few days off.

When you take a break from writing it gives you time to recharge mentally. And if you’re truly meant to be writing, it’s not going to be long before you’re chomping at the bit again. You’ll feel it. The need to start writing again will surface.

If you’re really at rock bottom, I recommend taking a break longer than one week. Try two weeks … or even longer.

“But, Neil, I need content for my blog!”

Of course. But do you need low-quality content for your blog?

If you can’t write, you can’t write. Why force it? It’s better to take a break and come back with some good stuff, than to fry your brain and produce awful stuff.

If you decide to take a break, but still need to produce content, here are some tips:

• Recruit a colleague to write the content instead.
• Use Textbroker or Upwork to find a qualified content writer. (For tips on working with freelancers, read this.)
• Stop … and see what happens.

2) Write for five minutes about your thoughts and emotions surrounding your lack of writing affection.

Weird. I’m telling you to combat your lack of affection for writing by writing about how you feel about not feeling affectionate towards writing.

Uh, why?

Here’s the point of this exercise. It jogs the mind, and breaks you out of a funk.

Some evidence, please?

In a study published by the Academy of Management Journal, researchers rounded up a study group comprised of people who were discouraged over their job loss. They divided subjects into three groups:

1. They told one group of people to write about whatever came to mind — the “thoughts and emotions surrounding their job loss.”
2. Another group wrote about “non-traumatic topics.”
3. A control group did not write at all.

The results? Read the abstract for yourself:

Those assigned to write about the thoughts and emotions surrounding their job loss were reemployed more quickly than those who wrote about non-traumatic topics or who did not write at all. Expressive writing appeared to influence individuals’ attitudes about their old jobs and about finding new employment rather than their motivation to seek employment.”

When you ignore the feelings of dissatisfaction with writing, you’re just compounding the problem. The solution isn’t to ignore it and keep on truckin’. The solution is to stop, reflect, and face the feelings.

Sure, getting sick of writing isn’t the same as losing your job. But if expressive writing helped people cope with a job loss, it’s likely that it will help you engage with writing again.

3) Change your writing environment.

Your writing environment — the thoughts, habits, preparation, and place in which you work — has a profound impact on how you write. If you make changes to your environment, it could spark changes in how you perceive and respond to the task of writing.

Nate Krueter, writing for Inside Higher Ed, explained it like this:

There is no ideal writing environment. The ideal is the set of circumstances that allows you to be productive. If you’re happy with your own productivity, both in terms of quantity and quality of writing, then perhaps your routines and environment ought not be monkeyed with. But if you’re dissatisfied with your writing patterns, perhaps a set of experiments is in order. Try working in a new environment, different in nature from where you typically work.”

He’s suggesting the same thing that I am: ”Try working in a new environment.”

When I run into a brick wall with my writing, I typically do something totally different with my writing environment — go outside with my laptop, go to a different room, write at a different time of day, whatever. Changes in environment can spark changes in your approach and attitude toward writing.

4) Read more interesting stuff.

What and how we read influences what and how we write. If you are sick and tired of writing, then what about reading? Again, the power of difference can be the catalyst.

If you’re used to reading material that only discusses your industry, try reading something from a different industry. Better yet, take a novel from off the shelf — something that you’ve been wanting to read for a while — and take some time to enjoy it.

You might be surprised by what happens:

• Your creativity skyrockets.
• You banish boring content.
• You’re fired up about writing.
• You begin to write with a passion.

5) Take intentional time out of your schedule to do nothing.

When you hate writing, your brain is stuck. It’s stuck on the negativity of writing. How do you break the logjam of negativity? By doing nothing. On purpose.

How does this work?

Neurologist Marcus Raichle conducted a study in which he analyzed MRI images of subjects completing various tasks. The study was innocuous enough in its hypotheses, but what Raichle discovered from the study was something he hadn’t expected: During times of activity, the brain’s salience network and central-executive network were hard at work — processing input, and exerting problem-solving skills.

That’s not a bad thing, but because the activity was so intense, it crowded out what Raichle called the default mode network.

Image Credit: Jeremey Duvall

The default work mode is a discrete brain system that is responsible for self-reflection and self-thought. The crazy thing is, the brain can only operate this way when you’re doing nothing. In Raichle’s study, the subjects were in “quiet repose either with eyes closed or with simple visual fixation.”

In other words, only by mental relaxation could the subjects prompt their brains to involuntarily process the thoughts, feelings, emotions, self-understanding, and presence that help to unlock creativity and greater insight.

What’s the takeaway? Give your brain a break. Chill. Walk. Sit. Do nothing. Visualize. Meditate. Take a nap. Whatever you do, give your brain a chance to return to its “default mode network,” and you’ll discover a refreshing state of creativity that you didn’t realize you had.

Feeling the love?

You don’t have to love writing in order to be good at it … but it sure does help.

When you enjoy your writing, you tend to do it so much better. Readers can tell if the author enjoys her topic. Your writing is clearer, livelier, and way more interesting.

But falling in love with writing is a tricky thing. You can’t force love — especially love for something as inanimate and conceptual as writing. However, you can change a few things in your mindset, your habits, your environment, and your activities to spark a change.

Who knows, you might come back with a passion for writing that makes your content even better than before.

Have you ever experienced a total loss of interest in writing? What did you do about it?

In small doses, stress can actually be an important part of our lives. It can motivate us and make us more productive. And, once it’s over, we might come out of that stressful situation all the better for it.

Too much stress, though, can be detrimental to your health, happiness, productivity, and relationships.

So what’s that healthy balance between being too stressed, and being not stressed enough? Is your current stress level manageable and healthy?

To help you figure out where you are on the stress scale (and what you can do about it), the folks over at Pound Place created the flowchart below. Start with the question at the top, and then follow the arrows to work your way to the bottom, where you’ll find out whether your stress is at a manageable level. 

So … how stressed are you? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.

“Learn by doing.” It’s a theory of productivity we’re taught at a very young age, from the moment our parents make us sit down and practice the piano. Because practice makes perfect, right?

Years later, the lesson doesn’t change. We’re taught time and time again that productivity equals practice, output, and action.

That’s why, in our working lives, we’re often focused on activity. What can we do right now that’ll cross something off the list? It can be easier for us to feel like we’re making progress and being productive when we have completed actions to show for it, no matter how menial those actions are. Checking the boxes just feels so good.

That, my friends, is called “completion bias” — and it may be preventing you from tackling your most important tasks and projects.

What is Completion Bias?

You know that feeling of pleasure you get when you cross something off your to-do list? For many of us, that’s a feeling we seek out multiple times a day. I’d been lying if I said I didn’t add tasks to my to-do list after I’d already completed them just so I could check them off.

Unfortunately, that pleasure can get us into trouble when it comes to productivity.

Enter completion bias: our natural tendency to focus too much on tasks that are easy to complete because completing things is psychologically rewarding. Why is this so bad? Because often, we focus on those easier tasks at the expense of the tasks that are more important.

“Completing simple tasks, such as answering emails or posting updates on your Twitter account, takes little time and allows you to check off items on your to-do list,” wrote Francisco Gino, a Harvard Business School professor who’s been studying completion bias and its affects on productivity at work with Bradley Staats of the UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

The reason we lean toward those easier tasks is (at least in part) thanks to our natural bias for action. Completing a task is an easy way to show progress, whether it’s to your boss, to your coworkers, or to yourself.

But in many circumstances, that can really backfire.

When Completion Bias Fails Us

In Gino and Staats’ unpublished research, they looked at the completion bias of physicians in the emergency department (ED) of a busy hospital, where patients arrive without appointments.

“Using data from about 43,000 distinct patient encounters, we found that physicians exhibit a bias toward completing easy tasks when confronted with an increased workload due to an increase in the number of arriving patients,” wrote Gino. In an ED setting, “easy tasks” refer to treating patients who are less sick.

At first, this might seem like a pretty solid strategy. By focusing on these less-sick patients, a doctor is “more productive” because these patients don’t stay in the ED as long. But, according to Gino and Staats, there are at least two problems with this approach:

1. Patients with more severe conditions wait longer.
2. With each “less sick” patient a doctor treats, that doctor slows down — so there’s a chance she’ll get tired and less effective on the job before she begins seeing those patients with more severe conditions.

How does this relate to an office setting? Think about the last time you were faced with a to-do list and decided to chip away at the smaller tasks first. For example, maybe you chose to spend the first two hours of your morning responding to mundane emails and ended up waiting until late morning to start on your most important to-do list item of the day.

By the time you start working on that important item, you’ve already expended precious energy and willpower, which some studies show is a limited resource that depletes throughout the day. In other words, you shouldn’t always let the size of a task inform your prioritization strategy. Instead, try focusing on pertinence first. 

A study by Dr. John Bargh, an award-winning psychology researcher, showed that this is more likely to happen before we start working on a big project. In an attempt to simulate real, productive work, our brains tend to focus on small, mindless tasks.

So if you’ve ever thought the night before a big presentation was the best time to clean your room, respond to your friend’s son’s girlfriend’s career question email, and tackle the pilot of 24, well … that’s why.

In theory, it should be easy to fight the urge to tackle those smaller tasks. Just recognize which tasks are the most important, and prioritize them, already! But we all know that’s easier said than done.

How to Plan & Triage

Planning and triaging is one effective way to tackle our natural tendency for instant gratification. The key is creating a to-do list, and then spending some time thinking about that to-do list. Go through each item on your list and rank them based on impact and effort. Then, rewrite your to-do list in order of importance.

The last part of this exercise is the most important one: Select one, single item as the absolute most important thing you need to get done that day. That’s going to be the item you want to start working on as soon as possible in the day.

If you feel your natural completion bias surfacing — or if you feel like you’re just plain procrastinating — catch yourself. The more self-aware you are, the more important items you’ll get done. If time-sensitive tasks surface that need to take priority over that one single item you selected, do your best to get them done as quickly as possible. Then, refocus your attention back to the task at hand. 

If your “most important item” is so complex that it’ll take more than that day to complete, try splitting that item into manageable chunks. 

HubSpot Co-Founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah said he likes to “‘deconstruct’ the large problem at hand into smaller, bite-sized chunks. Each of the individual, smaller things seem surmountable on their own, and it calms [him] to know that if [he] conquered all of those small things, [he’s] essentially conquered the big thing.”

Then, it’s time to take a deep breath, hunker down, and just get started. Sometimes, the biggest hurdle to being productive is simply doing it.

What other tips do you have for overcoming completion bias? Share with us in the comments.

I’m a sales geek. I grew up in my career through the sales ranks.

You see, the sales playbook I used back in 1996 worked like a charm. In fact, I largely built my entire career off getting good at it.  

Ok, so what’s the problem, Brian?

Well, that playbook doesn’t work anymore. Why? Good question. I think there are three major shifts that are changing everything for the sales professional of 2016 …

1) Prospecting has changed.

Back in 1996, everyone had phones on their desks … but none of those phones had caller ID. Back then, I spent every Tuesday cold calling. I had a good connect rate, and I filled my funnel that way.  

In 2016, far fewer people have phones on their desks. At HubSpot, I sit with the marketing department. Out of the 40 people that sit in my wing of the office, only four of them have phones on their desks — including executives. And for the four that have phones, every one of them has caller ID. If they don’t recognize the number, I’d suspect they don’t answer.

Call me crazy, but I think 1996-style prospecting is dead.

2) Account control has changed.

Back in 1996, I had everything I needed to help my prospects make a decision: pricing sheets, product specs, connections with other customers, connections with the executives in my company, and so on. Every time I gave them a piece of information, I leveraged it to gain more control in the account.  

In 2016, the prospect has ALL of that information — from my website, from LinkedIn, from Quora … the list goes on. 

Call me crazy, but I think 1996-style account control is dead.

3) Buyer beware has changed.

Back in 1996, we lived in a “buyer beware” world. I used to sell a license to a software system that included a large upfront fee. At that time, it was up to the buyer to do their due diligence before making the decision. If they made the wrong call, well, that was too bad. (The legal term for this in the contract is called caveat emptor.) 

In 2016, we live in a “seller beware” world. These days, software is primarily sold as a subscription. If the buyer isn’t satisfied after a period of time, they just stop paying. 

As many businesses and industries move to a subscription model, we’re beginning to see a shift in the burden of success — from the buyer to the seller. And if the buyer has been misled, or the product is not good, there are an unlimited number of channels the buyer can use to express their dissatisfaction — G2Crowd, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Call me crazy, but I think 1996-style caveat emptor is dead. (Long live caveat venditor!)

The New Sales Playbook

So now what? I’ve talked to a lot of companies, and my sense is that many of them still use a playbook that is awfully similar to the one I used back in 1996.

I think it’s high time for a change. It’s time for a 2016 playbook. It’s time to perfectly match the sales playbook with the way humans actually evaluate and decide on what to buy in 2016.  

Today, we are rolling out two new things to solve for this. The first is a new 2016 sales playbook — a new methodology. In addition, we’ve created a free sales training certification for anyone who wants to make the shift.

Call me crazy, but I think inbound sales is the right move. Wouldn’t you agree?