Resources - Page 36
A collection of posts on Resources
How would you like to be able to recall the name of a client or associate you just met? How would you like to go to the bank and not fumble for your account number every stinking time? Everyday scenarios like these are classic examples of our need for memorization. The function of memory has so many more applications, too—public speaking, schoolwork, studying, research, the list goes on and on. Memorizing is a key function in so many areas. Imagine if we could be better at it. Would you belie
One of the things that surprises me time and time again is how we think our brains work and how they actually do. On many occasions I find myself convinced that there is a certain way to do things, only to find out that actually that’s the complete wrong way to think about it. For example, I always found it fairly understandable that we can multitask. Well, according to the latest research studies, it’s literally impossible for our brains to handle 2 tasks at the same time. Recently I came acr
After announcing the addition of being able to post and schedule to Google+ pages a few weeks back, we’re super excited to bring you another one of the most popular feature requests to Buffer this week: Buffer for LinkedIn Company pages. Next to Twitter, Facebook profiles, Facebook pages, Facebook Groups, LinkedIn profiles, Google+ Pages and App.net
One of the thing that people often ask us is how we are running the Buffer blog here. A few of the key questions that people ask us are the ones below: * How do we come up with ideas? * How do we manage our content pipeline? * What do we use to write? * What are our goals with the Buffer blog? * How do we measure results? As we work hard on growing and improving the Buffer blog, we thought it would be fun to answer these questions and share what happens behind the scenes to keep fresh con
If you take a look at my bio here on the Buffer blog, my Twitter account or my website, you’ll see that my name is Belle Beth Cooper. That’s been my name for about eight months. Prior to that it was Corina Mackay. Corina Mary Mackay, in fact, since about ten days after I was born. Changing your name so dramatically isn’t something many of us do, so I thought it would be fun to tell the story of why I changed it, what the process was like and what I learned from it. Why I changed my name Changi
One of the great things about our focus on transparency at Buffer is that we get to help other people learn from our experiences. We love learning from others as well, and since we got so much out of our round-up of counterintuitive advice, we wanted to find out even more about what other people have learned from experience. This time, we wanted to learn about the darkest moments of successful and famous entrepreneurs and what their lesson has been. Without any further ado and in their own wor
Stress is something I’ve been intimately acquainted with since I was a teenager. I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to perform to a high standard, and often end up losing sleep due to stress. Since I’m working on decreasing stress in my life, I thought it would be interesting to look into how it actually affects our bodies and our brains. Here’s what I found out. Stress is normal, and sometimes even good for us Stress affects pretty much all of us at some point in our lives. The f
Update: We looked at 4.8 million tweets sent through Buffer to find the best time to tweet for clicks, retweets, favorites, and more. See the results for your specific time zone! This post was originally published in August 2013. We’ve updated it here with new research and visuals. We’re pretty keen on optimal timing for social media here at Buffer, and I figured it was high time I collected all the information we have about online communication into one place. I’ve collected research and stat
An unbelievable 3,613 people voted on a particular item in our feedback forum for which feature we should build next. It has been holding the #1 spot as most requested feature from our users for almost 2 years. We couldn’t be any more excited to finally unveil it to everyone. Buffer is now available for Google+ Pages. Anyone can now easily hook up their Google+ page and start posting and scheduling great content through Buffer to keep your Google+
Recently, I’ve been following a simple rule that is helping me crush procrastination and making it easier for me to stick to good habits at the same time. I want to share it with you today so that you can try it out and see how it works in your life. The best part? It’s a simple strategy that couldn’t be easier to use. Here’s what you need to know to stop procrastinating once and for all… How to Stop Procrastinating With the “2–Minute Rule” I call this little strategy the “2–Minute Rule” a
One thing that I noticed immediately when joining Buffer was our emphasis on cultivating positivity. If you take a quick look at our culture deck , you can see the high priority we place on this. Since I joined the team, positive thinking is something I’ve focused on a lot, and it’s been fun to see how spending time with positive thinkers rubs off on me. At the moment, some of us are experimenting with sharing one great moment we had at the
One of the big things over the next couple years will be getting the computer on enough desktops that we’ll actually communicate using what’s called electronic mail – Bill Gates It turns out that Bill Gates was more on target with this statement than he would have probably ever imagined. Today, we send so much email that we’re almost constantly looking for new ways to organize our inboxes and keep them under control. Email has grown into such a large area of our lives and our workdays that I w
Ever since my dad tried to convince me to meditate when I was about 12, I’ve been fairly skeptical of this practice. It always seemed to be so vague and hard to understand that I just decided it wasn’t for me. More recently, I’ve actually found how simple (not easy, but simple) meditation can be and what huge benefit it can have for my day to day happiness. As an adult, I first started my meditation practice with just two minute per day. Two minutes! I got that idea from Leo Babauta’s Zen Habit
Over a century ago, a lion tamer named Clyde Beatty learned a lesson that is so important that it impacts nearly every area your life today. What was that lesson? Keep reading to find out what a lion tamer can teach you about how to focus, concentrate better, and live a healthier life. The Lion Tamer Who Survived Clyde Beatty was born in Bainbridge, Ohio in 1903. When he was a teenager, he left home to join the circus and landed a job as a cage cleaner. In the years that followed, Beatty quic
Since social media is changing so often. It can be really hard to keep up with stats and trends that affect how you use it. I quite often forget the facts that I’ve read, or I use Twitter based on stats that are outdated now. In fact, when I recently looked at some of the latest social media statistics, it hit me that the fastest growing demographic on Twitter is is the 55–64 year age bracket. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s changed. In case you’re in the same boat wi
A while back I did a big post that lays out what you need to know about the science behind sleep and sleeping better. But if you read it, you’ll probably ask the same question I do: Hey, does this really work? I don’t post this research so we’re all better prepared for Jeopardy. If it’s stuff that only works in a lab, well, I don’t live in a lab. So I’ve been testing a few things. Like any mad scientist, on myself. Here’s what I learned: Seeing Trends Can Tell You A Lot By using a cool li
For a long time I had a certain idea about what makes an introvert or an extrovert. I had always thought that it works something like this: * Extroversion relates to how outgoing someone is * Introversion is the same as being shy. That was kind of my general perception. Doing just a little bit of reading made it clear very quickly – my thinking was way off! Recently I dug into some of the full-on research about introverts vs extroverts and I think I’m much closer to understanding what the t
I have a link to Facebook in my bookmarks bar, so I can visit it with just the click of button, but the link doesn’t go to facebook.com. It’s actually a link to one of my closest friends’ profiles. So my Facebook landing page is actually her profile page. It’s been this way for about a year now. Here’s why: I stopped spending a lot of time on my Facebook News Feed, because I found that the posts I was seeing weren’t too interesting, and I thought I didn’t have any control over that. But it tur
“A large state does not behave at all like a gigantic municipality” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb What does this statement make you think? Disagree at all? When I first read that line, I thought “Oh really? Here are some reasons why a large state could in fact behave like a gigantic municipality...” I was inclined to find fault with the statement even if there is some merit. But it’s not the author’s fault: persuasion is hard. Here are some of the most fascinating studies, that if we just glance at
Understanding the psychology behind the way we tick might help us to tick even better. Many studies and much research has been invested into the how and why behind our everyday actions and interactions. The results are revealing. If you are looking for a way to supercharge your personal development, understanding the psychology behind our actions is an essential first step. Fortunately, knowing is half the battle. When you realize all the many ways in which our minds create perceptions, weigh
Have you ever walked away from talking with someone that you’ve just met and thought to yourself “Wow, this was one of the best conversations I’ve ever had!”? I’ve recently had one of those and at first I quite selfishly concluded “Wow, I’m a great communicator”. But then I realized, hang on a second, I think this other person was the reason I felt so good about this talk, how did he do that? I started to think about a few of the things this person did, that made me feel so comfortable and open
Running a blog is so much more rewarding when you know people are reading, enjoying and sharing your work. If you’re managing a blog as part of your business, you probably want people to find and buy your products through your blog, as well. So increasing subscribers is an important task for bloggers. These are some fairly simple hacks that you can implement without too much fuss, which should boost your subscriber numbers. 1. Lower your bounce rate – here is how Cameron Chapman explained in
Happiness is so interesting, because we all have different ideas about what it is and how to get it. It’s also no surprise that it’s the Nr.1 value for Buffer’s culture, if you see our slidedeck about it. So naturally we are obsessed with it. I would love to be happier, as I’m sure most people would, so I thought it would be interesting to find some ways to become a happier person that are actually backed up by sci
Our biggest aim at Buffer is to help you share content on social media in better ways. I wanted to look at ways we can help you with this entire process, from finding the content to sharing it, to analyzing your social media posts. So I’ve uncovered some cool ways to do these things that you might not already know. Why find and share great content? Maybe you’re wondering why we focus so much on discovering and sharing awesome content here at Buffer. There are a few reasons that apply to prett