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Litemind Readers’ Project: Send Your Best Personal Excellence Tip (US$800 in Prizes)

Luciano Passuello — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:16:15 +0000

It has been a year since the last collaborative project, and since such projects are always fun, I figured — why not run a new one? The good news is that this time participation won’t be limited to bloggers: all Litemind readers can participate and have a chance to win.

Read on to learn how you can participate and be in the run to win 5 prizes, totaling more than US$ 800 in software and cash grants.

Theme

To participate, simply tell us your very best personal excellence tip.

What do I mean by ‘personal excellence tip’? It’s that one secret, that one practical advice you can give — the one that you know for sure makes the greatest positive contribution to your life.

It may be a tip for increasing productivity or heightening creativity, or maybe a tactic you use to deal with procrastination or perfectionism. Maybe it’s a rule of thumb or a personal mantra that you live by. Maybe it’s something that makes you think more clearly. A specific technique or idea or something that you feel really makes a positive impact on your life? I don’t know what it is — you’re the one to tell.

Entries will be chosen by the participants themselves, who will vote on the best entries following criteria such as usefulness and originality.

As an example: If I were to participate (I won’t, obviously), I would send a tip such as this one:

Use time boxes. Instead of working on a task until it’s done, commit to work on it for a specific amount of time instead. I use this concept every day, and it works wonders to keep me focused, counter perfectionism and avoid the feeling of being overwhelmed by daunting tasks (details).

(It has the structure ‘Title’, ‘brief description’, ‘why I use it or how I benefit from using it’.)

Easy, uh? Now all you need is to show us what you’ve got by sending your tip.

Prizes

There will be some cool prizes for the best tips, as well as some prizes given randomly, so that anyone who participates has a chance to win something.

First Prize

A MindManager 8 Windows License (US$ 349 value, free trial available), plus
US$ 100. (That is, the winner takes home a US$449 package!)

MindManager 8 is the brand new version of my mind mapping tool of choice — one which I’ve been recommending for years both for personal and business use. (The mind maps I create for this site — such as the book summaries — are made using MindManager.)

If you’re the grand winner, you also get an additional US$100. This way, if you can’t benefit from the license (e.g., you don’t use Windows), you can still benefit from the prize (and maybe give away the software license to someone else if you like).

Second Prize

An iMindMap 3 Ultimate Windows License (US$ 295 value, free trial available), plus
US$ 30

I recently started trialing Tony Buzan’s iMindMap software, and I really like what I see. The maps created with iMindMap are very beautiful and have a very natural and ‘organic’ feel, making them look almost hand-drawn.

There’s also an extra cash prize of US$ 30 for the second prize.

Additional Prizes

Joining the two winners on the podium, 3 other participants picked at random will also take US$ 30 home each.

How to Participate

1. Sign up for the free Litemind Newsletter.
To send your tip and participate, the only requirement is that you must have signed up for the Litemind e-mail newsletter.

This serves as a validation of identity to help the contest run smoothly. It’s also a way to reward loyal readers who signed up already, and as an incentive for more people to sign up and enjoy the newsletter. If you enjoy the contents of this site, it’s a safe bet you’ll also enjoy the newsletter (and even if you don’t, you can unsubscribe after the contest is over, so there is no harm done).

To sign up for the newsletter, click here.

Note: Signing up for the newsletter is not the same thing as subscribing to get the latest articles by e-mail. If you’re not sure whether you’re subscribed or not, just try to sign up again to be sure.
Also note that you’ll only be subscribed after you click on a confirmation link that will be sent to you, so make sure you provide a valid e-mail address and that you click on the confirmation link.

2. Send your tip.
When writing your tip, give it a short, descriptive title (one sentence usually works best). Right after the title, write a short paragraph about it, either describing it a little bit or giving a quick story or personal example to illustrate it. Describe it in a way that makes it applicable to as many people as possible. Avoid tips that are too specific or limited to particular jobs or situations.

Do not use the comments section to send your entry. You’ll receive the instructions on how to send your tip after signing up for the newsletter. If you’re already signed up, you should already have received these instructions (if you didn’t get the e-mail message, please contact me and I’ll be glad to help).

Important: Only one entry will be accepted per subscriber. Entering the contest using multiple e-mail addresses is not allowed and will disqualify the participant.

3. Submissions close on Thursday, November 27 2008, at midnight (GMT-12 — which means that if it’s still November 27 2008 wherever you are in the world, you’re good to go).

4. On December 1, I’ll publish a post with the final list of entries. A pre-selection of entries may be necessary (see additional rules below), so check if your entry made it to the final list.

5. The participants who made it to the final list will have until Monday, December 8 2008 (midnight, GMT-12) to cast votes on their favorite entries, using the comments section on that post. They must pick at least 5 favorite entries, and as many as they like.

6. On December 10 2008, the winners will be announced. Every time an entry gets mentioned as a favorite, it gets one point. The two entries with the most points get first and second prizes, respectively. If there’s a draw, the entry that was submitted first gets ranked higher. I’ll also announce the random winners (see below for randomness criteria).

Additional Rules and Guidelines (aka ‘The Fine Print’)

Here are some additional points (in no particular order) to make sure this contest runs as smoothly as possible:

As you probably noticed, the entry requirements are pretty relaxed. Although I’m leaving the judgment of their quality to the participants themselves, I reserve the right to remove or edit entries that I find to be offensive, irrelevant, too long, poorly written or inappropriate for the contest or the site.
I have no idea how many participants will take part in the project — there may be just a few, but there may also be a lot. For this reason, to keep things manageable for me and for the participants, I chose to limit the final list of entries to 100. That means that, if necessary, I’ll do a pre-selection to keep the number of entries to 100 at most.
One entry per participant only will be accepted. If there’s suspicion of any kind of fraud — either in the submission or in the voting — I reserve the right to disqualify any candidate at any time. I don’t believe it will ever get to this, but it doesn’t hurt to be clear about this.
If more than one participant sends the same tip, in very similar forms, I will keep only the one that was sent first.
To be eligible for the prizes, in addition to be in the final list, you need to cast your votes by the deadline. Also, you can’t vote on your own entry.
The cash prizes will be paid via Paypal or as Amazon Gift Cards, winner’s choice.
This contest is not open to immediate associates of Litemind, its sponsors or any of the organizations or subsidiaries associated with this contest.
Criteria for Random Draw. To make sure the random draw is fair, I will use the following procedure, which makes the drawing authenticity verifiable by anyone:
1. I will enter the list with the names in Random.Org, which is a known, trustworthy third-party, assigning numbers starting from 1, in the order the entries are listed in the post.
2. I will use random.org random sequence generator, using as the seed for randomness Amazon’s stock last trading price for December 9 2008. (I happen to like Amazon.com).
3. The first three numbers in the results will be the winners. If any of these is already one of the winners, I’ll pick the next number and so on.
If you’re a blogger or have an online resource to share about the tip, you’ll have the chance to provide a URL to go along with the tip — but bear in mind that the tip must stand on its own, i.e., one should not need to access the link to be able to understand the tip.
To increase your chance of winning, please keep the entries as short as possible. Bear in mind that many people only skim (especially if there are too many entries), so make sure to make a good impression quickly. (Use 60 words or so total as a guideline.)
My decisions are final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Whew! Hopefully I covered everything. Oh, one last thing: don’t forget to have fun. Seriously! These projects can be very enjoyable and you always learn a thing or two…

Good luck!

Sign up for the Litemind Newsletter to join now.

Update: Submissions are now closed — check out the entries!

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Lists Group Writing Project Winners

Luciano Passuello — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:06:42 +0000

I just finished counting all votes for the Lists Group Writing Project, and now it’s time to announce the top picks among the 67 entries. And the winners are…

First Prize

7 Tricks You Need to Fight Procrastination by Samir Bharadwaj

Samir’s article does a terrific job in presenting strategies to fight the procrastination beast. With 14 votes, Samir takes home the US$100 and gets to choose first among three creativity boosters (Ball of Whacks, Creative Whack Pack or Innovative Whack Pack). Congratulations!

Second Prize

7 Powerful Tips to Overcome Failure by Donald Latumahina

Donald’s article is a great one to keep handy during difficult times. Donald got 13 votes and gets to choose second for a creativity booster so he can have even more great ideas for new posts.

Third Prize

18 Tips to Become a Productive Blogger by Monika Mundell and
100 Resources To Improve Your Career, Relationships And Money by Lawrence Cheok

Monika has many great tips that are useful not only to bloggers, but to any knowledge worker. With 12 votes, she gets the third place and the third creativity booster.

Lawrence’s impressive list of useful resources also got 12 votes. According to the rules, Monika would win the prize alone (she submitted her entry first), but, hey, a little generosity doesn’t hurt: Lawrence also gets a deserved creativity booster.

Congratulations to the 4 winners! They deserve much more than the prizes and recognition, so please pay them a visit, check out their other great articles and drop a comment or two with feedback.

You may also be curious about how well all the other entries did, as well as finding out who voted on which entries. For the full scoop, download the final results spreadsheet [.xls, 121 kb]).

Thanks to Everybody

Thanks to everybody who participated for turning this project in a big success! I was really astounded by the diversity of topics and I really appreciate the amount of effort poured into the articles — thank you!

I’ve met some great new people and added quite a few new blogs in my regular reading list. Kicking off this project was really rewarding for me in many ways, and I truly hope it was also a good experience to all readers and participants.

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Lists Group Writing Project Entries

Luciano Passuello — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:10:09 +0000

This is the final list of participants in the Lists Group Writing Project. Thanks to all the 67 participants who submitted their lists!

I encourage all Litemind readers to take a look at the articles. If you have the chance, also browse around the participants’ websites you like best and check their other posts — I’m sure you will find interesting stuff in there!

For those participating in the project, the time has come for you to vote for your favorite entries so we can hand the prizes.

Make sure to cast your votes until Monday, 3 December (end of day, UTC). Don’t miss the deadline so that the votes cast by other participants for your article count. Vote by posting a list with your favorite entries in your own blog. You should pick at least 3 favorite entries, and as many as you like (please no voting for your own entry).

Feel free to also post the whole list or runner-ups if you want to share the link love.

Good luck to everyone!

5 Surefire Ways To Increase Comments On Your Blog by Vijay
35 Guaranteed Ways To Increase Your RSS Subscribers by Fred
5 Ways To Win A Blog Contest by Erz
5 Reasons Why I Bought a Domain by WishBoNe
5 Ways to Become the Perfect Idiot by Lori
12 WordPress Editors you can choose by Karthik
100 Ways To Promote A Startup by Jason Drohn
17 POWER Tips For StumbleUpon Beginners by Dr. Mani
18 Tips to Become a Productive Blogger by Monika Mundell
15 Tips to Prevent Repetitive Strain Injury and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome by CSS
100 Motivators for Informal Learning by Marcel Ackermann
10 Ways to Survive the Writers’ Strike by Cynthia Boris
100List – 100 Things I can do to make more money. by Dj Wright
21 Punching Tips On Social Media Marketing and Social Media Optimization by Etienne Teo
8 Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople by Daniel Sitter
Your Top 10 Inspirational Quotes by Sparky
My Top-10 Personal Development Blogs by Marco
The Quitter’s Checklist by Em Dy
Thirteen Reasons Why WordPress is Superior To Blogger by JHS
Get out of debt Quick: 7 Tips by Tejvan
Six Simple Steps to Remembering and Living the Abundant Life You are Meant to Live by Anita Pathik Law
To Do To Make Tomorrow Better by Bob
10 Ways To Work Through Your Workout by Gal Josefsberg
7 Powerful Tips to Overcome Failure by Donald Latumahina
Top 7 Paid Review Writing Mistakes You Can Avoid by Prince John
9 Ways To Achieve Success in Life by Adebola Oni
ten things i didn’t know until last week by Blaiq
40 ways to make your mind your playground by Fier
5 Crash Course Tips in Viral Marketing by John Murch
100 Sites I Seek Inspiration From by Iain Hamp
5 Things That I Believe To Be Lies by Krizza
List of Classes by Priscilla Palmer
Top 23 Motivation Tips, Tricks and Tactics from the Blogosphere by Mike Ambrose
Twelve Days of Classic Country Christmas by Scott
5 ways to crack or reset a forgotten Windows XP administrator password by Aseem Kishore
10 Things To Consider Before Acting As Your Own Contractor by Shawn Van Dyke
A Tester’s Dream – 5 steps to revive a Rejected Bug! by Debasis Pradhan
My Five Wish-list Classes I Would Enroll In by Al
100 Resources To Improve Your Career, Relationships And Money by Lawrence Cheok
10 Ways To Improve Your Personality by Z Hereford
The Top Ten Internet Business Ideas by John
3 Ways to Bring Back the Joy to the Holidays by Karen Lynch
Best 101 Lists by Pearl
13 encouraging questions by Isabella Mori
100 Things To Write A List Of 100 About by Kotsengkuba
Lovecraft & Cthulhu Christmas List by Cullen Bunn
No Cost Business Tools: 37 Free Applications That Make Your Life Easier, Free of Charge by Levi
List Of Why Blogs Are A Female Gender by Domtan
100 Things to do Before I Die by Joseph Gibbs
5 Blogging Ups, 5 Blogging Downs, and 10 Blogging Tips by Albert Foong
10 Life Lessons Learned While Camping by Ad Tracker
7 Tricks You Need to Fight Procrastination by Samir Bharadwaj
150 Funniest Resume Mistakes, Bloopers and Blunders Ever by Jacob Share
10 Productive Ways for Moms to “Relax” by Neena
10 Tips on How to Watch a Horror Movie When You are a Scaredy Cat by Migraine Chick
Escape the Rut by Catherine Kunst
100 Ways to Personally Conquer Chaos at Work by Judy Martin
50 Ways to Start a Conversation by Dee
Six Savvy Reasons Why You Should Travel Light by Sheila Beal
How to prepare for Christmas by Ajay
26 ways to change the world by Chris
3 Things I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now by Stephen Hopson
5 reasons (not) to drink coffee by Lodewijkvdb
7 Seven tips for students to success by Xoel Cardigan
6 Steps to Take Writing Ideas From WordPress Themes by Karen Zara
What you think is what you see: 4 Ways to stop negativity by Holli Jo
Form a running habit with seven easy steps by Shane Magee

Update: Voting season is over. Check out the winners!

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Announcing the Lists Group Writing Project

Luciano Passuello — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 13:50:49 +0000

Inspired by the positive feedback I got for the article ‘Tackle Any Issue With a List of 100‘, I decided to kick off a Group Writing Project. Read on to check how you can participate, have some fun and be in the run to win a cash prize of US$100 along with some amazing creativity boosters.

To participate in the project, write a post on any topic, just make sure you write it in “list format”.

You could write “10 Ways to Be a Better Writer”, “5 Things I Hate about Litemind”, “100 Things I’m Grateful For” or anything else you see fit. Be creative and just try to pick topics that are not too niche-specific (e.g. it’s preferable to have a post “10 Ways to Sleep Better” than “20 Tips for Space Travel”). But remember that the goal is to have fun, so, again, I won’t be imposing limits (just make sure to keep it clean!).

Entries will be voted based on both originality and usefulness. To make it fair, the participants themselves will decide which entries are the best ones by voting for them. They also get to post their entries in their own blogs. That way, everybody gets to know new blogs and we can all expand our horizons. Back in September, I participated in two group writing projects and made many friends — and that made it a great experience regardless of winning or not the prizes.

(What? You don’t have a blog? Don’t let that stop you. Wouldn’t that be the perfect excuse to start one? Seriously, it’s easier than you think: just register at any free service such as Blogger, WordPress and you can have an online presence up in a matter of minutes. If you’re having trouble, let me know and I will do my best to help you.)

Prizes

The most voted entry gets US$ 100 (via PayPal or as an Amazon Gift Certificate).

Also, to help get an extra boost in creativity, the three most voted entries also get to choose (in order of rank) among 3 great creativity products from Roger von Oech. Roger is a great guy who is really passionate about creativity. You probably know him from the great book A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative. Check out the products:

How to Participate

Write a ‘List’ Post, as described above. Only one entry per participant! It should be recent and original (up to 60 days old is OK). You’re strongly encouraged (though not required) to link back to this blog to acknowledge your participation. Feel free to use the logo above or the one in the sidebar if you like.
Contact me no later than Monday, November 26 (UTC), including your name and the URL of your list. Important: Entries really, really close midnight on Monday, November 26 Coordinated Universal Time, so be early.
On November 27, I’ll post a list with all valid entries.
You have until Monday, December 3 (UTC) to read the participants’ entries and post a list with your favorite entries in your own blog. You should pick at least 3 favorite entries, and as many as you like (all, if you are so inclined).
On December 4 the winners will be announced. Every time an entry gets mentioned as a favorite it gets one point, regardless of position. The three entries with the most votes get the prize (if there’s a draw, the entry that was submitted first gets ranked higher).

Update: Submissions are now closed — check out the entries!

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