Planning. Simply the sound of this word is enough to give me a rage fit and a subsequent migraine.

Whether you want to start a business, do well at college or just become good at any kind of activity, one of the most frequent pieces of advice you will get is to plan everything. Even when it comes to relationships, planning is still considered to be essential.

At first, I became really angry and frustrated when I read all those articles because I am terrible at planning– really. The only thing I have managed to plan so far is my shopping list.

I have a bright memory from childhood. It’s when I decided it was time to get all fancy and organized and created a schedule of the entire following day. I was so serious that I even used an A3 sheet of paper for my schedule and I’m not kidding you.

And now, you can try to guess how much I lasted on my schedule.

I managed to do only one thing from the list and that’s to wake up. The rest of my day went haywire, as usual.

After years of struggling with my hectic and disorganized self, I started to question the premise and had anti-planning thoughts.

Can planning really do miracles to your life? I highly doubt that. I believe that, like everything on Earth, it has its downsides. Here are some of them.

Plans make you frustrated

I’m a perfectionist- yeah, that’s weird for someone who hates plans- and it backfires so much when it comes to crossing out items from my to-do or even shopping lists. If I can’t manage to find something or if I postpone a tiny errand to the next day, I will feel dissatisfied with myself. No matter how many tasks I do that same day, that one uncrossed thing will bug me.

What to do instead?

If you’re like me and “1 pound of sour cream” in your shopping list can ruin your day if uncrossed, try creating lists of things you actually DO as you go on with your day. This will help you feel a sense of accomplishment and boost your confidence. At the end of the day, you’ll be looking at a list of things you actually managed to do and not those you didn’t manage.

Plans don’t make THAT big of a difference

A lot of people expect to become time-management gurus the moment they start creating plans. But, guess what?

That doesn’t happen in a snap. It has to be learned much like any other action and habit out there. More than that, though planning helps you become more organized, the main point is that you need to do things. Planning alone won’t get you anywhere, except the fact that you’ll become incredibly good at creating lists.

What to do instead?

Try the immediate action strategy. Planning is preparation, and preparation is usually good. But, let’s be honest. Most of the time, we start making plans to procrastinate and to feel like we are actually doing something good about our lives.

So, instead of indulging into writing another list, choose a tiny action. Let’s say, clean a small section of your working table or finally move all the clothes from the chair to your drawers.

Plans can increase your anxiety

Life goes by its own rules with little regard for our plans. People forget to return a call or even show up, cars break and bad weather strikes unexpectedly. Life is haywire and that’s probably the reason we like plans so much. They help us make a little sense of the mess that’s constantly going on.

When something unexpected and unavoidable intervenes with your perfectly designed plan, it can make you feel like you are out of control and this adds more stress. You have a lot of things to deal with and now you have another issue to solve. In essence, it means less time for more things to accomplish.

What to do instead?

Choose a couple of pivotal actions and make them vital for you. See, there’s a lot going on with our lives, but we don’t forget the basic things anyway. We eat, sleep and drink.

Choose a couple of simple actions and make them an absolute must of your day. Soon, you will be used to them that you won’t need a plan to remind you anymore. You won’t beat yourself up for not sticking strictly to your schedule.

I’m not saying you should totally forget about lists and to-dos completely. They can be useful when you are packing for a trip or having a really hectic time. However, I don’t believe you need a to-do list for every day of your life. To me, they are more of a play-pretend game than of real usefulness.

What do you think about planning and to-do lists? Are they overrated or do they really make a big difference?

Share your insights below and maybe you can help me and other people who are all about anti-planning change our minds.

See Also: Todo List Apps for People Who Don’t Like Todo Lists

The post 3 Good Reasons Why Planning Just Isn’t For You appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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Despite the fact that mobile apps are very useful and indispensable to businesses, over 70 percent of apps fail. In fact, some fail from the beginning.

If you are wondering how to make a successful mobile app, here are the best tips to guide you.

Find a need

The biggest cause of app failure is when the app is not as useful as the developer thinks. So, before you develop any app, you need to look for a need gap and then develop an app that will bridge that gap. Apart from figuring out the demand, you should also confirm if there are no mobile apps that are already fulfilling that specific need.

Improve on a category

You can also select a category and see all the apps that are performing well in that section. Improve on them.

For instance, you can check out all the keyboard apps that are developed for fast typing. After your search, you can now figure out how you can make an app that is more useful than the ones already in the market.

Do a proper feasibility study

Whether you are fulfilling a new need or creating a better app for an old category, you need to back it up with a proper feasibility study. You need to find out how much people need your app.

If you determine that people do not really need your app, it is better to stop and come up with another app idea. This is better than to waste time, money and effort in creating an app that won’t really be successful.

It is only when the figures on the ground indicate that the app will sell that you can go ahead.

Avoid counter-productive delays

Once you determine that people will accept your proposed app, it is better to start immediately. If, for some reasons, you can’t develop the app within three months after the feasibility study, then discard the feasibility report and conduct another one when you are ready.

Every feasibility report becomes invalid after three months. You need to bear in mind that technology advances at an astonishing speed. One of the biggest reasons for this is that a very close substitute may have been developed and that will reduce the acceptability of your app.

Plan your marketing strategy

A lot of app developers only focus on developing and launching their apps. They don’t realize that marketing the app is as important as developing it. With this, you should not develop any app until you know exactly what marketing strategies you are going to use.

Marketing strategies also involve optimization. Since there are millions of mobile apps available right now, proper optimization will help you stand out from the crowd. There are too many apps available and more apps are still being launched every day. Without an effective optimization effort, your new mobile app will be lost in the crowd.

Ease of use

It is one thing to get users to download your app; it is another to make them use it continuously. One of the qualities that can make users continue using your app is ease of use.

Your app should be very simple to understand and use. No one will waste too much time learning how to use an app when there are several other alternatives. You should ensure that your app is very intuitive and simple enough for a 10-year-old kid to understand.

A good way is to limit the number of features included in your app. Another method is to make use of universally accepted icons for different functions. Take, for example, the most common icon for search function which is a magnifying glass. Using another icon for that will make your app more difficult to understand.

Although every app should be unique, there should still be a limit to the uniqueness.

Make it free

Free apps are downloaded more than any other mobile app. So, it is highly advisable to make yours free. You can back it up with other monetization strategies, like utilizing ads.

Seek collaboration if necessary

Nobody knows it all. You can’t possibly be astonishing in every aspect of your app development. It is better to synergize with someone else and share the proceeds.

People that are great with coding are not usually half that good with designing. If you are one of those people, why not seek the service of a very good designer? It can be disastrous to ruin hours of coding efforts with a terrible design. Thereafter, do not forget to give credit to whoever it is due when it is due.

Great monetization strategy

Some apps are great but they have poor monetization strategies. They only get to make a fraction of their financial potentials.

Take a game app, for instance. A game has to be very challenging, engaging and immersive to make players buy resources with their hard-earned money. If not, they will only make do with the free resources given by the game. You should adopt an excellent monetization strategy for your app.

Avoid too many ads

Some developers prefer to make money from ads. If you are thinking of doing the same thing, consider how many ads you’ll allow.

When there are too many ads appearing on an app, it gets frustrating and annoying. It won’t be long before users will begin to delete the app and that will mark the start of its downfall.

Consumption of little memory space

An ideal app should consume very little storage and memory space. Users do not like apps that consume a lot of memory. If they happen to download such apps, they will delete them not too long after. In your own interest, you should ensure that your app consumes as little space as possible.

It has to work offline

Nobody really likes to waste or spend too much on data just to use a mobile app. People can only use their data to download an app but they can’t use their MB for that. So, they prefer offline mobile apps. As much as possible, your app should work offline.

Your app should conserve battery

Ensure that your app conserves battery power. Once a user finds out that it is your app that drains most of the battery power, your user will delete it almost immediately and look for an alternative app.

See Also: 7 Smart Reasons Why Small Businesses Should Develop Their Own Mobile Apps This 2017

The post How To Make A Successful Mobile App For Your Business appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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Surprisingly, many aspiring people in business treat naming as insignificant and a non-essential business step. If only they knew how wrong they are!

The title of a brand greatly affects customers’ behavior which means it can affect their overall success!

So, how can you hit the bull’s eye with your brand name? Coming up with a striking name for a product or organization requires a lot of time and effort. You should take into account the distinctive features of your brand as well as the possible psychological impact to your target audience.

What Are The Criteria To Meet When Coming Up With A Brand/Product Name?

Unique

The name must be unique. Otherwise, you’ll get lost among hundreds and thousands of other companies. Uniqueness is about associations. Once you manage to create at least one strong association with your brand, you’re half way there!

To test your brand name for uniqueness, you can try Googling it. If the top results are brands you can compete with, go for it. But if there are already giants using up this name, you’ll have to consider other options.

Short and Sonorous

People are more likely to remember a short and catchy name than a long and stringy phrase. If you do need a long name, reduce it to an abbreviation and avoid complex alphabetic and sound combinations.

Positive

Try to come up with a name associated with positive emotions. Your future customers shouldn’t feel unpleasant associations and emotions. Make sure the title doesn’t include prohibited terms, expressions or associations to government organizations unless that is the case.

Universal

If you are going to enter the international market, make sure your brand’s name is universal and can be easily pronounced in other languages. An unfavorable meaning in another culture can nullify all your efforts.

Relevant

Of course, the name should reflect the essence of what you are trying to promote. Firstly, it should tell potential clients about the specifics of your organization or product. Secondly, people should get a connection between what you offer and your name.

For example, if you are going to create a domain name, you can apply SEO rules to it using your target keywords.

See Also: Is No One Paying Attention to Your Brand?

Three Steps On How To Name A Product

1. Goal setting. At this stage, you need to analyze your target audience to determine their demands, requests, and needs. (information, physiological, aesthetic, combined, etc.).
2. The development of the name. This stage involves the creation of several options. Once they are ready, you need to conduct their phonetic and semantic analysis to take into account all the subtleties and exclude all unsuitable options. To easily conquer this stage, use brainstorming or any other collective thinking techniques.
3. Evaluation and approval. Here, an objective assessment comes into play. It should be made according to several criteria, including the perception of the name by the consumer and the conformity of the name with the status of the brand/product.

A well-thought-out name combined with a logo, motto and advertising activity will allow you to stand out and be remembered by people. And, if you sell something, it should guarantee a stable income.

Finally, let’s consider a few naming techniques and examples:

• The name of the creator: Procter & Gamble, Heinz.
• Legal terms: Abbreviations, like Incorporated (Inc.), Corporation (Corp.), Limited (Ltd.), etc.
• Geographical features: Australian Partnership, Air Asia, Bangkok Bank.
• Company’s activities: Apple Computers.
• A combination of words: For example, an encrypted name of the founder of the company: Adidas (Adolf Dassler).
• Rhyme and rhythm: Coca-Cola, Chupa-Chups.
• Associations: Jaguar, Red Bull.
• Secret meaning: Nivea, Daewoo.

See Also: 5 Smart Ways to Boost Brand Awareness

Use your imagination and creativity to come up with exciting and intriguing brand names. Take the process seriously, but don’t ignore the fact that the best names are just on the surface most of the time.

For example, Adobe was named after the river that’s behind John Warnock’s house. Apple was a favorite fruit of Steve Jobs while Hitachi means dawning. Subaru, meanwhile, is the constellation depicted on the company’s logo.

Look around and perhaps the name you need is already near you and just waiting to be discovered.

Good luck in your entrepreneurial endeavors!

The post How To Come Up With The Name Of Your Brand Or Product appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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