Meetings get a bad rap. But if you think your company would be better off without them, you may want to reconsider.

ETR has a company-wide team meeting every Wednesday. It takes 30 minutes, and it’s a chance for all employees to share the projects they’re doing and the results they’re seeing.

“This is a great opportunity to spark ideas in your teammates,” MaryEllen Tribby says. “Maybe the Google AdWords project Alexis is working on could dovetail nicely with Edwin’s project. Or maybe Cecily’s media buying experiences can help Nicole save money on her own marketing expenses.”

Team meetings are not only good for the company as a whole, they’re good for individual employees.

“As the company grows,” MaryEllen says, “sometimes the only chance you’ll have to get some face-time with your boss is during those meetings. If you express interest in the projects you’re working on, and discuss the results you’re seeing, you could be showing your boss just how valuable you are.”

So don’t roll your eyes the next time you look at your calendar and see you have a company meeting scheduled. Instead, think about what you’re working on. How it can benefit the team. How it can showcase your hard work.

As MaryEllen says, “This is your chance to shine.”

[Ed. Note: What do you think of team meetings? Are they valuable or not? Let us know right here.]

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“It’s funny,” I commented to Peggy. “We have a security system for the Maine summer cabin, but nothing here in Florida where we LIVE.”

“Yeah, you’re right. We should really do something about that.”

“Yeah, we really should.”

That was three months ago.

Now flash-forward to a few weeks ago. I was checking into a Baltimore hotel for an important business conference when my cellphone lit up. It was Peggy. Odd, I thought. She knows I’m busy right now.

“Charlie…” My wife was in tears. “Charlie, we’ve been robbed.”

“I’ll be on the next flight home,” I said.

Since then, we’ve both wasted days and days recovering from the theft. Police reports. Insurance reports. Searching for old receipts. House and car locks and keys changed. Alerts on bank and credit accounts. Buying replacement electronics.

Insurance will cover the physical losses, but the emotional and productivity losses can never be reclaimed.

Some things seem important enough to act on only after it’s too late to do so.

“I really should do that some time soon” turns into “I really wish I’d taken care of that when I had the chance.”

I don’t want you to make the same mistake I made and end up with BIG regrets for failing to take SIMPLE actions. I want you and every Early to Riser to take a few steps that could make a major positive difference in your future. And I want you to do it today.

For Your Personal Life

• Do you have a lawyer? A will? A living will? What would happen if you got hit by a truck at lunch today?

Maybe you consider yourself too young to be worried about such things. Maybe you don’t have much money (certainly not anything that you’d consider an “estate”). Doesn’t matter. Just because you’re not a millionaire is no reason to think you don’t need to have a serious sit-down with a capable attorney. Find a good lawyer and set up a meeting to discuss these important issues.

Sure, you can draw up the basic documents online for 50 bucks. But I think it’s worth spending a couple of hundred dollars – maybe even a thousand – to get good advice and professionally prepared documents at least one time in your life. Your spouse, children, or next-of-kin may thank you for it one day. And the peace of mind you’ll have knowing that your “papers are in order” is something that’s hard to overestimate.

• Have your life insurance and disability insurance kept up with your lifestyle?

One of the keys to building wealth is to NOT increase spending while you ARE increasing your income.

But that doesn’t stop many people from acquiring more expensive homes, cars, and other toys as they start earning more money. If that’s what you’ve been doing, think about it: If you were seriously injured (or worse) tomorrow, would you be leaving your family with a financial nightmare to clean up? You really have two options. Start downsizing to the level where you really belong… or make sure you’re adequately covered in the event of disaster. Do one, do the other, just don’t do nothing.

• When did you last back up your computer files?

So many of us now have a huge part of our “lives” stored on a fragile magnetic strip spinning around at 7,200 RPM. Important documents. Financial records. Treasured photos. Key contact information. Future travel plans and receipts. And it all can be gone in an instant and with no warning.

If your computer fatally crashed a minute from now, how many hours/days/weeks would it take you to recover? Some information could be gone forever. The alternative is to spend a few minutes now – and on a regularly scheduled basis going forward – copying your information to a DVD and storing it in a separate safe place.

• Do you have key papers (or copies) in a safe-deposit box?

Should you ever have a serious house fire, you’re going to be faced with a world of problems. (It happened years ago to Peggy, and it still haunts her). Finding your insurance papers, your mortgage, and your birth certificate – so you can start rebuilding your identity and your life – shouldn’t be among those problems. Renting a safe-deposit box could be the best $35 a year you’ll ever spend.

• When was the last time you got your car checked out? What about your furnace and plumbing?

Waiting until stuff falls apart or breaks down is for losers. Take your car in for service on a regular basis. Get the tires rotated, belts checked, fluids refilled. Join AAA. (With all the electronics and computers under the hood of a car these days, you’re not going to be able to fix anything yourself on the side of the road.) Have your oil burner serviced well before winter, and your A/C serviced well before summer. You get the idea. But get these things scheduled on your calendar now.

For Your Social Life

• Write a personal card or letter to an old friend to say something that you’ve been thinking about for years.

Maybe you made a mistake that’s been haunting you. Or you never got around to that “thank you.” So you have a choice. A lifetime of nagging regret (if it’s lasted this long, it ain’t going away) – or taking a moment now to deal with it.

Quick story. When I was 16, my neighborhood pal Chris woke up to discover his father had died. It was on a Friday morning. Over the weekend, I watched through my window as their family gathered and mourned. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. My parents and I had planned to go to the wake on Sunday afternoon, but didn’t (for reasons I can’t recall). As the weeks passed, I started running into Chris again, but still said nothing. Years passed and we went our separate ways. But it always bothered me.

Last year, I reconnected with Chris over the Internet. We chatted for a few months. Finally, I wrote to tell him how sorry I was that I’d never said anything about his father’s death. “Don’t feel bad,” he said. “I was the one who went into hiding. I was the one who never talked about it. I don’t remember anything about you not ‘being there’ for me.”

So I’d suffered years of guilt for no reason, when a few kind words at the right time, or a quick note even a month or a year later, could have avoided it.

For Your Health

• Make appointments for complete examinations with your doctor and dentist. That includes getting a full blood workup.

Sure, a preventative trip to the doctor or dentist can seem like something of a time (and money) waster. But what you don’t know CAN hurt you. Putting off making these appointments is just plain dumb, and an invitation to something much worse than “a little discomfort” down the road.

• Throw out all your junk food right now.

Go into your kitchen and dump out the candy, the carbs, the tempting junk you know you should NOT be eating. Put it all in the trash. Enjoy the “bad” stuff a few times a year (pumpkin pie, eggnog) – but otherwise, out of sight, out of mind.

• If you’re not already working out, start a fitness regimen today. As Craig Ballantyne has pointed out in these pages, even doing ONE small thing more than you do right now can help you become healthier. Search the ETR archives and you’ll find plenty of additional great advice on starting an exercise program.

• Better yet, ETR’s “sister” publication, Total Health Breakthroughs, gives out some of the most powerful, useful, and actionable health-improvement ideas available anywhere. The newsletter is published twice a week, and it’s free. If you don’t already get it, sign up here – it takes about 30 seconds.

For Your Wealth

• With the stock market in the tank, IRAs and 401(k)s in trouble, employers laying off hundreds of thousands, and the government going broke, who can you rely on these days?

Yourself. That’s right – you and only you.

But there is good news. It’s NEVER made more sense to (at the very least) LOOK INTO starting your own online business. In fact, it’s almost insane NOT to do it. Getting started online is ultra cheap. You don’t need to rent a store, hire staff, manufacture products, or deal with 99 percent of the reasons you probably think you can’t do it (because it’s too complicated/expensive/time-consuming/etc.).

I spent Sunday through Wednesday of this week with about 200 Early to Risers who now know that “starting a business is impossible” is no longer the case. At our Bootcamp, they told me they are taking personal control of their lives because they know that being passive at this time in history is pretty much like saying “Okay, so the country is going broke and my future is up in the air. But I’m just going to sit here and hope for the best.”

Get going now. Check the ETR archives for tons of idea on starting an Internet business. Better yet, get the best and latest ideas hand-delivered to your living room with our Bootcamp DVD set, on sale for the next 2 days only.

Listen, I don’t want to brag or boast. But when I walked out of Bootcamp on Wednesday afternoon, I had a tough time leaving the hotel because so many of the attendees were stopping me to thank me, over and over. More than one mentioned specific sessions that they said “will change my life.” Check out the Bootcamp DVD set and I think you will have the same experience.

• And finally, to help manage and grow your existing portfolio, check into another one of our “sister” publications, Investor’s Daily Edge. You’ll find some of the best advice on making it through these rough times from the nation’s leading investment advisors. IDE is worth a fortune, but you can get it at no charge right here.

So there you have it. A baker’s dozen of actions you can take right now to avoid a future of regrets.

One final thing…

Don’t close this page and save it for “later.”

Print it out right now. Start checking off each item right now. Set a deadline for yourself – a week… a few days… better yet, today – by which time you’ll have taken at least a first step on each one.

And keep in mind the words of author Og Mandino…

“I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, every day, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. I will act now. I will repeat these words again and again and again. I will walk where failures fear to walk. I will work when failures seek rest. I will act now for now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person.”

And oh yes, one more thing I almost forgot.

Get a home security system! And do it now!

[Ed. Note: Take a positive step toward building your wealth today. Sign up for ETR's 2008 Info-Marketing Bootcamp DVD Library, and you'll get over $1 million worth of concrete, actionable advice that can help you get an online business up and running. Don't delay - the price goes up $200 after tomorrow.]

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About eight years ago, I started noticing that other people seemed to be having more fun than I was. And I realized that if I wanted more fun in my life, it was up to me to do something about it.

One thing I did to introduce more fun into my life was to take up golf. I felt it was a natural fit for me. I love the outdoors, I enjoy watching golf on TV, and I consider myself a natural athlete.

If you know me at all, you know I don’t believe in half measures. I applied the same vigor to this new hobby as I apply to my business goals. My action plan included scheduling and taking golf lessons, keeping a journal of swing tips, and buying almost every training aid as soon as I saw it promoted on The Golf Channel.

In the end… after more than 100 golf lessons and with 400+ pages of golf notes and a closet full of training aids… my scores have definitely improved. I don’t think they’ll ever be as good as I would like – still, embarking on my “learn to play golf” goal has yielded many benefits: a mountain of fun memories, new friends, and great experiences. Golf remains an enjoyable challenge.

I’m not telling you this to try to convince you to take up golf. But I do want to encourage you to take action on whatever goals you have set for yourself. Acquiring any kind of knowledge is worthwhile. Yet, that knowledge is absolutely worthless unless you use it to develop a plan, take action, and channel that action into success.

A good approach is to use the following formula:

1. Dedicate 25 percent of your allotted time to studying.
2. Dedicate 25 percent of your allotted time to observing.
3. Dedicate 50 percent of your allotted time to DOING!

And I think you’ll find that the DOING part of the formula is integral to the studying and observing.

In my case, it was easy to assign 50 percent of my time to DOING by taking golf lessons, practicing my swing on the driving range, and practicing chips and putts around the greens. But if I hadn’t dedicated the other half of my time to making notes, thinking and visualizing my game, and observing proper course management, I wouldn’t have gotten much better.

All three elements linked together. I needed all three to be successful. It will be the same for you and the goals you set for yourself.

When you are dedicating yourself to achieving a specific goal, you must promise yourself to use the time you’ve blocked off for it ONLY for working toward that goal. Avoid mental and physical distractions. If, for example, you start thinking about your job, family, friends, or the party you’re hosting next weekend during the block of time you’ve scheduled for learning golf, you’re stealing time from your goal.

It’s easy to let your mind wander away from what you should be focused on doing. In fact, studies have shown that the mind wanders every chance it gets. This has probably happened to you many times. For instance, you could be reading an important financial report and suddenly find yourself thinking about an unpleasant encounter you had earlier in the day.

What to do? Take charge of your brain. After all, it is YOUR brain!

Here are five techniques I have used to get my mind back on track whenever I find it wandering away from the task at hand:

• Check your emotions.

If I’m stewing about something unrelated to what I’m supposed to be working on, I remind myself that “emotions have no cash value.” And I refocus.

• Let it go.

If I’ve done my part and the ball is now in someone else’s court, I remind myself that there’s nothing I can do about it at the moment. And I refocus.

• Take a breather.

To refresh my mind, I take a quick break. Even stopping to get a glass of juice helps me refocus my attention where it should be.

• Keep a notepad handy.

If the distracting thought that pops into my head could be useful – maybe an idea for a solution to a client’s problem – I write myself a note and refocus. That way, I know I won’t forget that idea. I’ll get back to it later, AFTER I’ve finished what I’m doing.

• Reschedule.

When I’m tired my mind tends to wander even more. In that case, unless I am on a tight deadline, I reschedule what I’m working on.

It is far more productive to stay focused on the work you are doing WHILE you are doing it. Although studies suggest that 30 to 40 percent of the time most people don’t really think about what they’re doing, YOU can be different. It takes practice and willingness to discipline yourself to be “in the here and now.” But it is worth it.

[Ed. Note: The only way to achieve success - no matter what you're trying to accomplish - is to take action. Learn 3 powerful but surprisingly simple success strategies from success expert and mentor to billionaires Bob Cox right here.

Bob can also give you the "insider secrets" that helped four Average Joes become billionaires. Best of all, you can master these billionaire success techniques in just 30 days. Learn more here.]

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It may seem a self-centered pastime, but keeping a journal is actually an excellent goal-setting tool. It can help you figure out a direction for your life, and then guide you where you want to go.

A journal you use for that purpose – recording, revising, and recommitting yourself to your goals – becomes a log of your successes, observations, achievements, problem-solving skills, and best ideas that you can refer back to again and again. But you can also include less serious subjects.

In my earlier years, I kept journals sporadically, usually when traveling or involved in some interesting project. I kept a journal for two years when I lived in Africa teaching English and philosophy at the University of Chad. I kept a journal twice during summer vacations – once in the French countryside and another time in Rome.

But when I started writing ETR, about 10 years ago, I began keeping a journal every day. I have done so pretty much nonstop since then.

Before my thumbs became arthritic, I wrote my journals in a book with a fountain pen. Now I do it on my computer. I liked the feel of writing out my words. And I drew illustrations, indulging my artistic fantasies. I can’t do that anymore, but I can import illustrations from the Internet.

I use my journal to get my day started. As a writer, I face the same blank page/screen every writer faces each morning. Rather than wait for the proverbial flash of inspiration, I begin by opening up yesterday’s journal entry, reading it, and using it as a springboard for the writing I will do that day.

My first effort is a sort of obsessive-compulsive account of the hours that have passed since yesterday’s journal entry: what I’ve eaten, what exercise I’ve done, what work I’ve done, etc. This is not meant for anyone else to read. (I’d be embarrassed if anyone did read it.) It serves to rev up my idling mind and limber up my fingers. I spend five minutes doing this, which is usually enough.

Next, I edit something that I wrote the day before. Often, it’s a poem or short story. But sometimes it’s an essay for ETR. This requires a bit more mental acuity. After a half-hour of that, I can feel the creative engine kicking into third gear.

Then I start my real writing. Fiction or non-fiction, this is the most important part of my writing day.

My journal is also the place where I track my health information – my weight, my blood-sugar levels, my doctors’ appointments and results – as well as the progress I’ve made on other goals in business and my personal life.

I used to keep my goals, objectives, and daily task list separately on a notepad. This past year, I’ve begun to include them in my journal, and that has worked out very well.  

My sister A, who is an art director for theater and film, e-mails her family copies of her daily journal when she is on set. These are filled with photos and comments about her unusual life. I’ve never used my journal as a communication tool, but I can see from her example how it could be done.

To me, a journal should be like your house. It should be filled with interesting things that reflect the person you are. I hate houses that are designed by professional decorators. You walk through them and they all look the same. You know the people who own them, but you can find no evidence of their personalities where they live.

Keeping a journal can help you change your life. As I said, it can help you do better work, achieve your goals, communicate with friends and family, and get your working day moving. And it’s a terrific way to leave behind a record of who you were and what you were doing during your voyage through life.

If you are keeping a journal or thinking about starting one, here are three ways to make that journal work for you.

3 Powerful Ways to Benefit From Your Journal

1. Keep track of your goals.

Every month, I consult my list of yearly goals and create a list of monthly objectives. I keep both my yearly goals and monthly objectives on notepaper – a throwback to my handwritten days. But then, based on my monthly objectives, I put together my weekly and daily task lists – and those are input directly into my journal.

I highlight my priorities on my daily task list in yellow, and try to accomplish them all early in the day. And as I complete each task, I change its color from red to black on screen (the equivalent of scratching it out). This is a technique I’d recommend to you. The point is to give yourself a little psychological reward for completing your work.

At the end of each day, I note which tasks I’ve completed and which I’ve failed to complete. I also note how long it took me to complete each task. This helps me get better at estimating time commitments in the future.

The goal-setting aspect of my journal has become the most productive part. It may not always be the most fun, but it’s critical to the success of my long-term plans.

2. Stay creative and keep your writing fresh.

Writing in your journal every morning gets and keeps your creative juices flowing. You can record ideas for new products or services… draft memos to your team or letters to colleagues… jot down outlines for books you want to write… even practice your copywriting.

Copywriter John Forde recommends writing three pages of sales copy a day. He says it will keep your imagination in top form. I believe he’s right.

3. Remember things you’ve learned, books you’ve read, and observations you’ve made.

We all have great thoughts now and then. And what do we do with those thoughts? Scribble them on scraps of paper and then lose them, right? Nowadays, whenever I get a good idea, I make note of it by entering it in my journal and putting NTS (note to self) in front of it, highlighted in yellow. It is easy to spot these highlighted entries, so I can be sure they will be put on my goal list and not forgotten about (like so many of my good ideas were before I kept a journal).

I also record interesting facts and figures from my reading. (I make it a point to locate at least one useful fact or idea in every newspaper or magazine or business book that I read.) And I use my journal to list recommendations that I read or hear about: a new wine to try, a new book, a new CD from a favorite singer, a new restaurant, an exotic destination that I want to travel to.

It’s amazing how much good stuff you can accumulate once you get into the habit of putting things that interest you into your journal and highlighting them for future use.

So those are three important benefits of keeping a journal – but there are many more. A journal can also be a place to:

• record snippets of conversations that you can use later when writing your next (or first) novel or screenplay

• list reasons why you deserve a big salary increase (or reasons why you shouldn’t be let go during your company’s upcoming layoffs)

• identify all your assets and their locations, so your spouse or children can get to them in an emergency

• index your favorite recipes, quotations, images, etc.

• record the good deeds you’ve done and the blessings you’ve received

Keeping a journal takes about 5 to 30 minutes a day – well worth it when you consider the payoff: It will help you make better plans and accomplish more with your time.

And when you get much older, a journal can give you an unexpected bonus: hours and hours of fun, reminiscing about your rich, rewarding, productive life.

[Ed. Note: Sometimes the most powerful success tools are surprisingly simple. Case in point: keeping a journal, as Michael Masterson recommends. You can find three other super-simple but massively powerful goal-setting tools right here.]

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Michael Masterson has been telling you for years to give up the boob tube. And now it seems that there’s a direct link between the number of hours of TV you watch… and how much money you make.

The average American watches almost 32 hours of TV each week. (That’s according to a Nielsen Company report from July 2008.) But the super-rich in the U.S. – those men and women who make $250,000 or more per year – watch only 17.8 hours. (That’s according to the 2008 Affluent Survey by Ipsos Mendelsohn.)

Now watching less TV may not directly make you richer… But if you cut back on just one hour of TV a day… and spend that hour brainstorming product ideas… or fine-tuning your pay-per-click ads… or learning how to optimize your website… or searching for a better job… or coming up with ideas to help improve your company’s bottom line…

You could be on your way to a quarter-million-dollar income, too.

(Source: MMRSurveys.com, Nielsen.com)

[Ed. Note: Break your TV habit for good... and jumpstart your six-figure income... this November. At ETR's 2008 Info Marketing Bootcamp, our panel of expert money-makers will show you how to go from zero to $1.2 million in no time flat.]

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At a press conference early in his presidency, Dwight Eisenhower was asked for the name of his favorite author. “Harry Sinclair Drago,” said Eisenhower.

The reporters looked puzzled. They obviously hadn’t heard of Drago, even though he’d written several classics of western fiction, including Suzanna: A Romance of Early California and Whispering Sage. 

So they asked Eisenhower for his second favorite. “Bliss Lomax,” replied Eisenhower. If nothing else, this proved that Eisenhower was consistent, because that was a pen name used by, you guessed it, Harry Sinclair Drago. 

Drago used at least eight additional pen names. He needed all those names because he wrote a lot. Over the course of his career, he wrote short stories, screenplays, articles, and more than a hundred novels. More than three full-length novels a year for 30 years. 

When Syracuse University announced that it would be the custodian of Drago’s papers, the thing that seemed to fascinate reporters the most was the amount he wrote. One of them asked him: “How did you write over a hundred books?”

“Four pages a day,” replied Drago

One Bite at a Time

Harry Sinclair Drago knew that, often, the secret of accomplishing big things is to break the big task into lots of small tasks. There’s an old joke that illustrates the point.

Question: “How do you eat an elephant?”

Answer: “One bite at a time.” 

You can make it a big bite or a small one. I bet Drago didn’t start out writing four pages a day. It might have been as little as one hundred words.

By breaking your big projects into little action steps and doing at least one step a day, you can accomplish great things. Just don’t keep all your action steps in your head.

Get Out of Your Head

I’ve met people who get the “baby steps” concept, but they still don’t get anywhere because they never get to the action part. They come up with action steps like “Think about the plot for the novel” or “Analyze marketing options.” 

Those sound like action steps, but they’re not. They don’t result in real action. Real action is something out in the physical world that others can witness.

Instead of “Think about the plot for the novel,” try “Draft plot outline.” Instead of “Analyze marketing options,” try creating several specific action steps. They might include: “List three sources of information,” “Contact source A,” and “Prepare report on costs and benefits.”

Make a call. Make a list. Send an e-mail. Write a report. Do something. If you make it visible, you won’t fool yourself about whether you’re making progress. And to keep things moving, define action steps that are small enough that you’re sure to succeed.

Make It Small Enough to Get You Going

You’re more likely to succeed at small, easy action steps. So when you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the things, or the big thing, you have to do, make your action steps smaller and easier. One clue that you need to break your goal into smaller chunks is when you find yourself procrastinating.

Say that you know you need to get the house painted, but you’re not doing anything about it. So make it smaller.

What’s the first thing you need to do?

It could be: “Get some estimates.” 

If getting estimates is still blocking you, make your next action step even smaller. Try: “Call three painting companies.”

If you’re still procrastinating, choose a smaller step. How about: “Make a list of five painting companies to call?” 

At some point, you’ll be down to an action step that moves you forward but isn’t so big it stops you in your tracks. That gets you moving and gives you momentum.

Savor the Small Wins

The principle of using small wins to build psychological momentum was presented in a Ph.D. dissertation at Stanford University in 1977. The theory: It works because it’s a truly brain-friendly concept. 

When someone praises you, you feel good because your brain produces a chemical called dopamine. When you praise yourself by checking off a completed action step, you get the same physiological result. As you achieve one small win after another, you find it easier and easier to take the action steps that generate the wins.

One way to keep things moving is to keep score. 

At the end of every day, Ben Franklin would ask himself: “What good have I done this day?” You can ask the question: “What have I done today to move my life and career forward?” 

Think about the action steps you took today. Think about how they helped you achieve your goals. Savor your victories.

Remember that success usually isn’t a result of achieving great big things all at once. Eat the elephant of a big achievement one bite at a time.

Identify the next small step. Make it visible. Reward yourself for achievement. Then identify the next small action step.

[Ed. Note: Master the "elephant eating" technique, and you can make any goal easier to achieve. For 189 success strategies that are just as easy to implement, check out ETR's "Flip the Success Switch" collection.

Matthew White is the author of The Confidence Bible: the Little Blue Book of Fearless Confidence. He believes being confident is a skill that can be learned, just like playing golf or learning to drive. Find out his simple method for building rock-solid confidence here.]

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Hand me your text-message-enabled cellphone, and I can find you an Indian restaurant in Paris, a public pool in Columbus, or a movie theater in Quebec in about four seconds.

How? With Google’s latest innovation, Google SMS. You don’t even have to pay for a call to use it. (It does require a text message, so check your cellphone plan to find out if you’ll be charged a separate fee for that.)

I use this service all the time to find restaurant addresses when I’ve forgotten to bring them with me or I’m in a place that’s not familiar.

Google SMS also does translations, weather forecasts, sports scores, flight information, word definitions, currency conversions, and all kinds of other useful things.

Just send a text message with the right word combination to 466453 (GOOGLE) and a response will be texted back to you before you can put your phone back in your pocket.

Be careful, though, because you have to get the Google SMS commands right to get the answer you’re looking for. You can find out what they are, practice them (without actually sending text messages), and watch a demo at Google.com/mobile/default/sms.

[Ed. Note: High gas prices and checked-bag fees may be troublesome for some, but not for people who have a "Get Paid to Travel" plan. To find out how to defray some of your travel costs, sign up to receive The Right Way to Travel free e-letter.

When you reach a certain income level, small price increases just don't matter. Learn how you can make between $100,000 and $1.2 million in 2009 right here.] .]

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One of the best ways to accomplish a big project is to get advice from people you respect. But it’s not always easy to go up to a boss or mentor and ask for their ideas. So I’ve developed a technique that can help. I call it the OSREAR Success Technique.

Make it easy for your boss or mentor to help you by breaking down your problem into four parts:

O - the Overview. Start off by writing out “the big picture,” the general problem you are trying to solve. Keep it to one or two sentences.

S - the Snapshot. Outline what’s been done to date to solve the problem. Again, keep it to a few sentences.

RE - the Result Expected. What are you trying to achieve?

AR - the Actual Result. What happened? Where are you now?

When you have finished, you will have defined the problem and your attempts at solving it in a clear, easy-to-understand manner. You can then present this list to others when asking for their assistance.

You’ve made your problem so clear that it should be very easy for them to offer you advice. Once you’ve collected a few suggestions from people you trust, you can develop a plan of action and tackle your problem head-on.

[Ed. Note: Using the techniques that have helped others achieve wealth and success is the easiest way to accomplish your own goals. Discover 189 proven methods for turning your dreams into reality right here.]

Specifics can be truly powerful. They can help you:

• become a better writer by making your writing come to life with detail

• get prospective customers to read your sales copy by making your headlines more intriguing

• target your ideal customer by making your sales copy more believable

• charm employees and colleagues by showing them how closely you’re paying attention to their strengths

• make travel writing so vivid that your readers can feel, see, and taste the scenes you’re describing  

• give presentations your audience will love by sticking to facts, figures, and stories that illustrate your point

• break down your goals into easy-to-achieve pieces

• and much more.

But specifics can also keep you on track in everyday situations. Here’s how…

My would-be novelist cousin recently sent me a short story she’d written. She asked me to read and edit it.

“When do you want it back?” I asked.

“Oh, as soon as possible,” she said.

Taking that comment at face value, I put it on my to-do list. But because the “deadline” was flexible, I didn’t make it a top priority.

When a week passed, my aunt called me up, worried. My cousin was in tears. She was afraid the story was awful, and because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, I was saying nothing.

In fact, I hadn’t even looked at it!

To my cousin, “as soon as possible” meant “right away.” To me, it meant “as soon as I can get to it.” Which I hadn’t yet been able to do.

The truth is, your top priorities are rarely going to be the same as other people’s. And if you are depending on them to get something done for you, you need to get them to move it up on their priority list.

The best way to do this is with specifics. Say, “I’d love to have it back by noon on Wednesday.” or “I need it no later than October 15.”

Only if the task is truly NOT time-dependent should you say “as soon as possible.”

[Ed. Note: If you are looking to add $100,000 or even $1 million to your bottom line, you need to attend ETR's 2008 Info Marketing Bootcamp. You'll get 12 specific strategies that can help you make $1.2 million - or more! - in 2009. Sign up today.]

We’ve written in ETR many times about the dangers of relying on websites when doing research. As a sports reporter from the UK tabloid The Daily Mirror recently found out, Wikipedia is one you really have to watch out for. 

The reporter wrote that fans of the Cypriot football (that’s soccer for you Yanks) team AC Omonia were known as “the Zany Ones.” And he referred to their habit of wearing “hats made from shoes.” But turns out this “background research” was drawn directly from the team’s Wikipedia entry… which had been updated by an Internet prankster.

At least the reporter didn’t totally embarrass himself. Here are a few of the Wikipedia “facts” he left out of his article: The fans’ theme song is about a little potato, and they “keep their season tickets in the oven for safekeeping.” 

The Web is a great tool for research. But don’t take any one website as gospel. Make sure you get confirmation from other sources.

[Ed. Note: The Internet makes it easy to find what you're looking for. But it's also easier than ever to make mistakes. The best way to make sure you're working with information that's both useful and truthful? Base it on personal experience. At ETR's 2008 Info Marketing Bootcamp, our expert panel will be revealing the most profitable, most effective methods they've used to create a combined $1 billion in revenues. All of their recommendations are based on what's worked for them. Reserve your seat now.]

You know the airport-security drill. Take off your shoes. Empty your pockets. Off with your belt and metal jewelry. But now there’s one less hassle at American checkpoints. As of this past August 16, you can leave your laptop in its bag. If, that is, the bag is “checkpoint-friendly” and TSA-approved.

If you already own a laptop bag, it probably won’t make the cut. But more than 60 manufacturers are coming up with new TSA-approved designs, many of which are available already.

Here’s what to look for when shopping for a new laptop bag:

• There are three approved styles: (1) The “butterfly,” which zips in half and lies flat, with your laptop on one side and the rest of your stuff on the other. (2) The “trifold,” which has a laptop section that folds out. (3) The “sleeve,” a simple laptop case without any bells and whistles.

• Make sure there are no pockets, snaps, zippers, or buckles on the outside of the laptop compartment of the bag. (And keep in mind that the only thing you can put in that compartment is your laptop.)

• Don’t get a bag with thick dividers or emblems/seals on the outside. They give the TSA screener a foggy image.

For more details – and to see some diagrams of acceptable bag designs – check out TSA’s site at TSA.gov.

[Ed. Note: Truth is, high gas prices and checked-bag fees may be troublesome for some, but not for people who have a "Get Paid to Travel" plan. To find out more about how to defray some of your travel costs, sign up to receive The Right Way to Travel free e-letter.

When you reach a certain income level, small price increases just don't matter. Learn how you can make between $100,000 and $1.2 million in 2009 right here.]

Many financial advisers recommend sticking to a budget. By categorizing expenses and limiting spending, they argue, you can have enough left over every month to save money and grow rich.

But budgeting is like dieting: It’s enormously sensible but almost never works.

The problem is that when you budget, you pay everyone else first – the landlord, the credit card companies, the phone company, and so on. So at the end of the month, you have nothing left to put in the bank. You promise yourself you’ll do better next month, but you never do. There are always unexpected bills to pay, unanticipated sales to take advantage of, and that impossible-to-figure-out $200 or $300 that seems to fall through the cracks.

Budgeting doesn’t work. But there is something that does: putting some predetermined percentage of your income into a savings account each month before you pay any of your bills.

Think of yourself as a personal corporation and the money you save as your personal income. All the other money you spend on house and car payments and so forth are the expenses of your personal corporation. Only the portion that goes into a savings account is really yours.

Of course, it’s not enough to simply think of your income this way. You must actually do something to effect a change. You might, for example, have a portion of your paycheck automatically deposited in your savings account each month – as soon as the check is deposited.

In a sense – because withholding taxes have already been taken out of your salary by the government before it’s deposited into your checking account – this is paying yourself second. But you can put yourself ahead of the government by setting up a pre-tax retirement account – an IRA, SEP, 401(k), or 403(b).

I pay myself first by putting as much money as I’m allowed into a tax-deferred savings vehicle. I do this for me, my spouse, and my children. I pay the government next by creating a separate holding account into which I deposit a percentage of every fee that’s paid to me – the money that I’m going to owe in taxes. Then I pay my bills.

I recommend that you do the same.

[Ed. Note: The above article was excerpted from Michael Masterson's book Automatic Wealth.You can meet Michael in person this November. He'll be revealing exactly how you can add six figures to your income in 2009. And he's not the only one... 11 other money-making experts have responded to ETR's Internet Ultimatum. Find out how it can make you millions.]

It’s no secret that airline tickets are pretty steep these days. But they still fluctuate. If you’re interested in getting the cheapest tickets possible, several travel sites have come up with “fare trackers.”

Kayak.com, for instance, will send you a weekly e-mail alert that shows you a flight’s current price and how much it’s changed since you signed up. You simply type in the details of the flight you want to track. You’ll see a little link at the top left of the results page that says “Track fares by e-mail.” Click it, create an account, and you’re all set.

Sites that offer similar services are FareCompare.com and Yapta.com.

[Ed. Note: Why not use one of these services to get the best price on your airfare to ETR's 2008 Info-Marketing Bootcamp? Of course, you don't have to worry about paying a few extra bucks for tickets... after all, you'll be attending an unprecedented conference where each speaker will give you a specific idea that can make you at least $100,000 in 2009. Sign up for this millionaire-making event today.]

Charlie Byrne, ETR’s Associate Publisher, walked past my desk shaking his head.

“Did you see the latest letter sent to Michael Masterson?” he asked. “It’s another reader asking how they can ‘protect’ their business idea from being ripped off.”

I hadn’t read that particular letter, but I was familiar with the subject. Readers, as well as customers who attend our conferences, ask Michael and other ETR experts this type of thing all the time: How can they patent their invention (which is “going to change the world as we know it”), copyright their e-book, password-protect their website, trademark their business name, and so on.

The problem is that most of these people haven’t yet created any products, are still building their website, have no idea who their target market is, haven’t written any marketing copy… well, you get the idea. They are worried about protecting a business that doesn’t exist.

As Michael, MaryEllen Tribby, and Charlie have pointed out time and again, they should be focusing on building their business Ready, Fire, Aim style. They should develop a product and a marketing plan, and then test it in the marketplace to find out if they can sell it. If they try to shield themselves with passwords and copyrights first – well, odds are their business will fail before the first customer even finds them.

[Ed. Note: If you're spending time worrying about copyright infringement and patents and trademarks, you're worrying about the wrong things. Finding out if you can get a foothold in the market is much more important. Learn how you can get your business up and running in 5 days - with help from our team of experienced business-builders - right here.]