Will an Aspirin Prolong Your Life? It Depends

Heart patients benefit from taking a low-dose aspirin daily, but the same same protection doesn't extend to healthy people hoping to prevent a first heart attack

By Laura Blue | January 11, 2012

Mark Weiss

For a pill that costs just pennies per dose, aspirin can do an awful lot. It prevents heart attack and stroke in people with a history of cardiovascular events. It’s recommended for angina and heart attack patients as soon as they arrive at the hospital. It may lower risk of colon and other types of cancer. And, yes, it’s good for the occasional aches and pains, too.

So it’s no wonder that in recent years, some health experts have been wondering whether everyone, whether or not they have heart troubles or headaches, should be taking low-dose aspirin as a preventive for some chronic illnesses. But the evidence doesn’t seem to support that idea, including a new review of nine clinical trials, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The study shows that aspirin does reduce the risk of heart attack in middle-aged adults without known heart disease, but that those benefits are “modest,” according to the study authors. The review showed that aspirin appeared to confer no protection against stroke or fatal heart attack, and the limited benefits against non-fatal heart attack were offset by relatively rare but dangerous side effects.

Aspirin helps to prevent heart attacks by preventing blood clots from forming, which can impede blood flow to the heart and brain. Recent studies also hint that it works to lower inflammation, which not only inhibits clot formation, but may protect unstable plaques in heart vessels from rupturing. Unfortunately, however, limited blood clotting can be dangerous as well. People who take a regular aspirin appear to be at increased risk of internal bleeding, which in some cases can be life-threatening.

MORE: This Isn’t Your Mother’s Bayer Aspirin

The new study in Archives is the largest of its kind to date. It includes nine clinical trials which together involve more than 100,000 study participants from a number of developed countries. In each of the nine trials, participants were randomly assigned either to take a daily aspirin or to take a placebo. On average, the aspirin-takers took their pills for six years.

The analysis finds that, on average among the trials, one cardiovascular disease event was averted for every 120 people who took a daily aspirin. But there was one “nontrivial bleeding event” for every 73 people on the daily aspirin regimen. And the researchers found no significant difference in mortality between the aspirin groups and the placebo groups.

Because more people were likely to experience a bleeding episode than be protected from a heart-related event, the study authors conclude: “routine use of aspirin for primary prevention is not warranted and treatment decisions need to be considered on a case-by-case basis.” For most people, the benefits of a daily aspirin simply don’t outweigh the risks.

MORE: Aspirin Doesn’t Increase Chances of Pregnancy with IVF

That’s not the case for people who have already suffered heart attack or stroke, however. This new study did not look at those individuals, since that benefit has been well documented in other studies. The bigger debate in recent years has been the effect of aspirin on adults without known cardiovascular problems.

In a separate statement to the public, lead researcher Rao Seshasai said:

The beneficial effect of aspirin on preventing future cardiovascular disease events in people with established heart attacks or strokes is indisputable. We urge people with these conditions not to discontinue their medication unless advised to do so by their physicians for valid reasons.

For everyone else, it’s back to basics if you want to protect yourself from heart disease — eat a low-fat, low-sodium diet, and get enough exercise to get your heart pumping. And no, you can’t get that in a pill.

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Skyscrapers 'linked with impending financial crashes'

"The world's tallest buildings - tend to complete in a recession," Andrew Lawrence, Barclays Capital

There is an "unhealthy correlation" between the building of skyscrapers and subsequent financial crashes, according to Barclays Capital.

Examples include the Empire State building, built as the Great Depression was under way, and the current world's tallest, the Burj Khalifa, built just before Dubai almost went bust.

China is currently the biggest builder of skyscrapers, the bank said.

India also has 14 skyscrapers under construction.

"Often the world's tallest buildings are simply the edifice of a broader skyscraper building boom, reflecting a widespread misallocation of capital and an impending economic correction," Barclays Capital analysts said.

The bank noted that the world's first skyscraper, the Equitable Life building in New York, was completed in 1873 and coincided with a five-year recession. It was demolished in 1912.

Other examples include Chicago's Willis Tower (which was formerly known as the Sears Tower) in 1974, just as there was an oil shock and the US dollar's peg to gold was abandoned.

And Malaysia's Petronas Towers in 1997, which coincided with the Asian financial crisis.

The 27-storey home of one Indian family in Mumbai

The findings might be a concern for Londoners, who are currently seeing the construction of what will be Western Europe's tallest building, the Shard.

That will be 1,017ft (310m) tall on completion.

China bubble?

Investors should be most concerned about China, which is currently building 53% of all the tall buildings in the world, the bank said.

A lending boom following the global financial crisis in 2008 pushed prices higher in the world's second largest economy.

In a separate report, JPMorgan Chase said that the Chinese property market could drop by as much as 20% in value in the country's major cities within the next 12 to 18 months.

In India, billionaire Mukesh Ambani built his own skyscraper in Mumbai - a 27-storey residence believed to be the world's most expensive home.

Local newspapers said the house required 600 members of staff to maintain it. Reports suggest the residence is worth more than $1bn (£630m).

"Today India has only two of the world's 276 skyscrapers over 240m in height, yet over the next five years it intends to complete 14 new skyscrapers," according to Barclays Capital.

Barclays Capital's Skyscraper Index has been published every year since 1999.

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Obama Fails On Minimum Wage Pledge

Ron Paul Hits Gingrich With Chickenhawk Label At Debate

Samsung's 'future-proof' voice-controlled television

By Leo Kelion Technology reporter, BBC News, Las Vegas

Samsung was one of many companies that unveiled new connected TV facilities at CES

Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

• Samsung gets China plant approval
• Samsung buys out Sony LCD venture

A "smart" internet-connected television that has the ability to have its hardware upgraded every year has been unveiled by Samsung.

The device has a slot which allows new kit to be added to boost processing performance and add new features.

The innovation may help reassure shoppers concerned about their screen becoming outdated.

The move is aimed at helping the South Korean tech giant retain its lead as the world's best-selling TV maker.

Samsung's president of consumer electronics, Boo-keun Yoon, unveiled the firm's flagship LED television at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas noting that his firm currently sells two televisions every two seconds.

In addition to its "smart evolution capability" Samsung has also added gesture, voice and face recognition features to the ES8000 model.

Familiar faces

A built-in camera allows users to browse the internet with a wave of their hand and to change channel by speaking in one of the more than 20 languages that the set can "understand".

A facial recognition facility also allows the set to recognise users, pulling up the relevant selection of their favourite apps.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

It's been the year of connected TV ever since 2008”

James McQuivery Forrester

The device is the latest in a run of so-called Smart TVs launched by the firm since 2008.

Samsung is on course to hit a milestone of 20 million global TV app downloads before the end of January, said its president of consumer electronics America Tim Baxter.

New apps announced at the trade show included Rovio's Angry Birds video game.

Samsung also announced its users would be given free access to a new Angry Birds on-demand animated television channel, marking the latest evolution of the hit title.

Smart TV surge

Connected televisions with built-in processors are tipped as one of the hottest trends at this years CES.

Angry Birds, by Rovio, was announced as one of the new application by Samsung

Event organiser, the US Consumer Electronics Association, has said it expects that about half of all shipped TVs would have internet capabilities in 2012.

By contrast it said the figure was 12% of all units shipped in 2010.

While Samsung pursues its own software solution, its rival LG has announced a television with built-in Google TV facilities for the US market.

The firm's chief technology officer, Scott Ahn, only briefly mentioned the move at his firm's CES press conference saying that the step "will form the basis of a strong future working relationship" with the US search giant.

LG also promised voice-recognition via a new remote control.

Left unconnected

Meanwhile, Sony continues to hedge its bets.

Its new HX850 LED TV shares the same connected features as its predecessor including access to the Sony Entertainment Network and its Video Unlimited and Music Unlimited streaming services.

However, the firm also unveiled two new devices powered by the revised Google TV - a media streamer and a Blu-ray player.

Panasonic and Haier are among several other companies also showing off new connected TV facilities at CES.

Although sales of internet capable TVs are on the rise, analysts said the trend can be explained by the fact that the facility is offered on most of the biggest and highest quality sets.

"It's been the year of connected TV ever since 2008," said James McQuivery, television industry analyst at Forrester.

"Every year you see these at CES. However, the manufacturers have struggled with the fact that around half of all people who buy connected TVs never put them on the internet.

"So the challenge going forward is getting people to use the new functionality."

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The Greek parents 'too poor' to care for their children

By Chloe Hadjimatheou BBC World Service, Athens

Unemployed and homeless, Natasha's mother said she could no longer cope

Greece's financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all - their children.

One morning a few weeks before Christmas a kindergarten teacher in Athens found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils.

"I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her," it read. "Please take good care of her. Sorry. Her mother."

In the last two months Father Antonios, a young Orthodox priest who runs a youth centre for the city's poor, has found four children on his door step - including a baby just days old.

Another charity was approached by a couple whose twin babies were in hospital being treated for malnutrition, because the mother herself was malnourished and unable to breastfeed.

Cases like this are shocking a country where family ties are strong, and failure to look after children is socially unacceptable - they feel to Greeks like stories from the Third World, rather than their own capital city.

One of the children cared for by Father Antonios is Natasha, a bright two-year-old brought to his centre by her mother a few weeks ago.

The woman said she was unemployed and homeless and needed help - but before staff could offer her support she had vanished, leaving her daughter behind.

"Over the last year we have hundreds of cases of parents who want to leave their children with us - they know us and trust us," Father Antonios says.

"They say they do not have any money or shelter or food for their kids, so they hope we might be able to provide them with what they need."

Requests of this kind were not unknown before the crisis - but Father Antonios has never until now come across children being simply abandoned.

Handouts

One woman driven by poverty to give up her child was Maria, a single mother who lost her job and was unemployed for more than a year.

Continue reading the main story

Emotional scars

Stefanos Alevizos - Greek psychologist

Parents who are not able to provide for their child will feel despair, loneliness and anger. They will carry an enormous weight of cultural sigma and shame.

Children absorb the emotions of their parents, so the child will internalise all the feelings of their parent - particularly guilt. Often they feel they are to blame.

Children taken into care may avoid forming a bond with their carers because they are afraid it would be a betrayal of their parent, and might mean their mother or father will not return for them.

When they get older, they are likely to have problems with trust and that will manifest itself in difficulties with relationships.

"Every night I cry alone at home, but what can I do? It hurt my heart, but I didn't have a choice, she says.

She spent her days looking for work, sometimes well into the evening and that often meant leaving eight-year-old Anastasia alone for hours at a time. The two of them lived on food handouts from the church. Maria lost 25 kilos.

In the end she decided to Anastasia into foster care with a charity called SOS Children's Villages.

"I can suffer through it but why should she have to?" she asks.

She now has a job in a cafe, but makes just 20 euros (£16) a day. She sees Anastasia about once a month, and hopes to take her back when her economic situation improves - but when that might be she has no idea.

SOS Children's Villages' director of social work, Stergios Sifnyos, says the charity is not accustomed to taking children from families for economic reasons and does not want to.

"The relationship between Maria and Anastasia is very close. You can say you cannot see any problem, [any reason] why this child has to be far away from her mother," he says.

"But it's very difficult for her to feel comfortable to take back the child when she is not sure she will [still] have a job the next days."

'Act of violence'

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

The truth is that the biggest need any child has is to feel the love of its parents”

Father Antonios Head of Kivotos youth centre

In the past when SOS Children's Villages took children into its care, the cause was mostly drug and alcohol addiction in the family. Now the main factor is poverty.

Another charity, Smile of a Child, also focused in the past on cases involving child abuse and neglect. It too is now catering for the destitute of Athens.

Its chief psychologist Stefanos Alevizos, says that when a parent puts a child into care, the child feels its entire foundations have been shaken.

"They experience the separation as an act of violence because they cannot understand the reasons for it," he says.

But Smile of a Child's Sofia Kouhi says the biggest tragedy, in her eyes, is that those parents who ask for their kids to be taken into care may be the ones who love their children the most.

Continue reading the main story

Damaged safety net

• Greece's crisis has caused more poverty than its welfare system is equipped to deal with, so charities fill the gap
• However, donations are down and charities now have to pay taxes they were once exempt from
• "Charity associations like ours are doing 50% of the work that the Greek state should be doing and instead of thanking us they are penalising us," says director of SOS Children's Villages, George Protopapas
• Most cases of families giving up children occur in Athens, where traditional family and neighbourhood ties are diluted

"It is very sad to see the pain in their heart that they will leave their children, but they know it is for the best, at least for this period," she says.

Father Antonios disagrees.

He believes that no matter how poor parents may be, the child is always better off with its family.

"These families will be judged for abandoning their children," he says.

"We can provide a child with food and shelter, but the truth is that the biggest need any child has is to feel the love of its parents."

The names of children in this report have been changed to protect their identities.

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Leopard in deadly attack in Indian city of Guwahati

By Amitabha Bhattasali BBC News, Calcutta

One of the victims, Kripesh Dey, was badly injured in the attack

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One person has been killed and several others injured in an attack by a leopard in the Indian state of Assam.

The man died after the leopard attacked several people in a densely populated area of the city of Guwahati.

The leopard strayed into the Shilpukhuri area of the city on Saturday and attacked residents, one of whom died the next day of his injuries.

The animal has now been released into the Manas Wildlife Sanctuary, forest officials said.

For the people of Guwahati, bomb blasts and other terror attacks were not uncommon till recently, because of repeated attacks by the secessionist United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa), but a leopard straying into a town is rare, particularly during the day.

Chased out

The leopard was first sighted on Saturday morning near a crematorium in the town.

As the funeral of a Congress Party leader's son was going on, the place was full of dignitaries, ministers and other VIPs.

Police sent them to a safer place and chased the leopard out, but it turned towards the Shilpukhuri residential area.

"First, it jumped across several multi-storey buildings, including a bank, then jumped on to the ground," said Manas Paran, photojournalist for the Sunday Indian magazine and an eyewitness.

Local people armed with sticks and iron rods tried to chase the leopard away. The enraged animal then started attacking locals, Mr Paran told BBC.

Mr Paran kept following the big cat at extremely close quarters to get good pictures for his magazine.

Deb Kumar Das, aged around 50, was one of the first people whom the leopard clawed at. He suffered severe wounds to the head, ear and neck.

He was treated in hospital but later returned home, where he was found dead on Sunday.

Several others suffered the ire of the big cat. One of them, Kripesh Dey, had part of his scalp removed in the attack.

Later, when the leopard entered a shop, locals locked it up. Forest officials and vets reached the scene after some time with tranquilisers and were able to capture it.

"After it was tranquilised and treated in Guwahati Zoo, we released it in the Manas Wildlife Sancturary today", said Utpal Borah, head of the zoo.

This incident has once again brought to fore the conflict between humans and animals in India.

Assam's forest officials say humans are encroaching onto leopard habitats. Residential areas built right in leopard habitats have become vulnerable to such attacks.

This is the second death from leopard attacks in five years.

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Why is the US marriage rate falling sharply?

By Brian Wheeler BBC News, Washington

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For the first time in memory, unmarried Americans will soon outnumber those who are married, according to the latest research. So is this a watershed moment?

At first glance it would appear that, in common with many Western countries, marriage is in terminal decline in the United States.

In 1960, 72% of all American adults were married; in 2010 just 51% were, according to the Pew Centre. The number dropped sharply by 5% in the most recent year, 2009-10.

"I think we are on the cusp of seeing marriage becoming less central to our life course and in framing the lives of our nation's children. So I think it is a major moment in that regard," says Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project and a sociology professor at the University of Virginia.

Americans are certainly waiting longer before they tie the knot - the average age for a first marriage is at an all-time high of 26.5 years for women and 28.7 for men - or else opting to cohabit, live alone or not re-marry when they get divorced.

In the UK, women are, on average, waiting until the age of 30 before getting married, while the average age of a UK bridegroom is 32. In both countries the number of weddings is at an all-time low.

Continue reading the main story

Happily married...

Alisa Kraut Happily married

"We had been together for a while by then, already, and just wanted to celebrate it.

"We just felt really strongly about being together forever and working at it, with all the difficulties that that might include.

"We are a very modern couple, we have very progressive views on a lot of things.

"I am not really sure that human beings are destined to be with the same person for the rest of their lives.

"My commitment to Chris is to try and to work as hard as we can to make it work because we both gain something out of that."

Chicago Tribune syndicated advice columnist Amy Dickinson believes the increase in no-fault divorces and tougher child support laws are two reasons behind the falling popularity of married life in America.

"It is no longer necessary to be married to someone in order to pursue financial support and I believe this has had a huge impact on couples who have children together and, let's say, 20 years ago would get married in order to establish legitimacy and then, hence, get financial support."

In some communities single parenthood is now the norm, she argues, and Americans have become more comfortable with "non-traditional" households.

America also has the world's highest divorce rate - and that has undoubtedly shaken the confidence of many young people in the institution of marriage.

Rhyan Romaine and her partner Seth have been together for six years but have resisted pressure from friends and family to rush into marriage.

"Seth comes from a family of divorce and has seen how it's affected his life and his family.

"He says he couldn't imagine even thinking about marriage until we had been together for 10 years and I said as long as we are happy together we will stay together," says Miss Romaine.

"I think it's a fear that I have too, even though my parents are married. It's scary, having seen personal friends who have got married right out of college and who now are in their early thirties and dating again."

But Miss Romaine, a regional grant director for the American Loan Association, believes there is still a "lot of pressure" on young women to get married in America, where the idealised, fairytale wedding remains a staple of Hollywood romantic comedies and reality TV shows.

"I call it the 'marriage crazy'," she says. "All of a sudden this fever comes over women at a certain age. They get to about 24 or 25 and they have to hurry up and get married."

For many young people, marriage is simply the next item on their personal "checklist" after high school, college and career, she argues.

'Latin model'

The Pew Centre research, which suggests marriage is falling out of favour far less quickly among college graduates than less educated groups, would appear to bear this argument out.

Happily unmarried...

Jessica Bennett

"Women don't necessarily need a husband to make ends meet or to raise children. They can do a lot of these things on their own.

"Our definition of what you want in a husband has changed. At one time it was a nice enough dude who is also going to support you.

"In this day and age we really have this glorified notion of the soulmate. This needs to be a life partner, a best friend, a lover, everything in one.

"We are cynical but we have this really idealised notion of what a marriage should be still, and it's almost impossible to achieve that. Nothing is that perfect."

• Read a Newsweek article about marriage co-authored by Jessica

Nearly two-thirds of American adults with college degrees (64%) are married, compared with just 47% among those with a high school education. That is in sharp contrast to 1960, when the most educated and the least educated were about equally likely to be married.

"There has been a realisation among college-educated Americans that marriage is actually a pretty good idea, even if they don't like to talk about it in public," argues Bradford Wilcox.

"On things like abortion, on hot-button global social issues, Americans who are college educated are more liberal.

"But when it comes to thinking about how they are going to govern their own lives, their own family lives, our sense from the data is that they are more marriage-minded, they are more conventional about family life."

Mr Wilcox, whose Virginia University team researched the impact of the recent recession on American marriages, is concerned that marriage is "withering" among middle and lower income groups, with potentially disastrous effects on American society and the economy.

"I think we are moving more towards a classically Latin model, where the powerful and the privileged have strong, stable families and access to decent income and decent assets. And everyone who is not in that upper third is worse and worse off."

The traditional nuclear family is still held up as an ideal in American politics and society, certainly more so than in many other Western democracies such as the UK.

Mr Wilcox argues that it has been the key to America's prosperity over the years.

He believes the decline in marriage is largely down to a sharp fall in the earning power and job prospects of non-college educated American men, many of whom now lack the means to get married, leaving their offspring "doubly disadvantaged" - lacking both assets and a stable home.

But perhaps it is a little premature to write the obituary for the American marriage just yet.

The sharp 5% decline in the number of new marriages in the US between 2009 and 2010, revealed by the Pew research, may simply be down to short-term economic factors.

With the cost of the average wedding running at about $20,000 (£12,946) many couples are opting for a longer engagement to give them more time to save up, according to Kyle Brown, of the American Bridal Association, which represents America's multi-billion dollar wedding industry.

But, he adds, his members have noticed "an increase in the beginning process of wedding planning, on items such as gowns, in the past three months".

"I would expect to see an uptick in the number of weddings in 2012 and 2013," he says. "It is purely down to economics."

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Build a Killer Website: 19 Dos and Don'ts

If you do it right, your website can be the best marketing tool you have. Ilya Pozin, founder of the Web design firm Ciplex, on how not to screw it up.

By Ilya Pozin | @ilyaNeverSleeps | Nov 21, 2011

iStock

At bottom your website is a marketing tool. For many businesses, it’s the only source of business. If done right, it can be a major part of yours.

I’m continually surprised by how many people call my design company with very firm ideas about what they want on their business website and yet, they haven’t thought through some of the most basic questions first. For this reason, our first question is always “Why do you need a site?,” not “What do you want on it?”

At bottom your website is a marketing tool. For many businesses, it’s the only source of business. If done right, it can be a major part of yours.

Here’s my quick-hit list of the top dos and don’ts before you get started:

Do:

1. Set smart goals. And make sure they’re measurable. Here are a few great ones a Web designer wants to hear: increase conversion rates, increase sales, generate more leads, reduce overhead, and improve brand awareness.
2. Plan on becoming an SEO wizard. Sure, you’re going to want help from the pros and eventually you might even need your own in-house SEO expert, but search engine optimization is something you need to know about too. It has one of the highest ROIs in marketing. Plus, do it right and SEO can literally put your marketing on autopilot, allowing you to focus on improving the quality of your business, instead of figuring out how to bring in customers to your site. Start reading SEOmoz and stay up to date with SEO changes by reading sites like search engine land.
3. Use open source tools. You could go with a proprietary content management system (CMS) but that means you’re typically stuck with one company and paying hefty license fees to boot. Do yourself a favor and go with an open-source system—I like WordPress and Magento—that any developer can access.
4. Think about your mobile strategy simultaneously. Research the percentage of your visitors that are likely to use mobile devices to access your site. If it’s high, you may want to consider building a separate mobile version of your site, or even an app. If it’s relatively low, just make sure your website works on smart phones, but don’t invest into a mobile version.
5. Steal from your competitors. Before you build your site, check out your competitors and write down the things they do well. If you like the look and feel of another site, there’s no reason not to start with something you like and then make it your own.
6. Develop your content. The biggest slow-down in the Web design process is content. If you’re going to sell products on your site, get product photos and product descriptions ready. If you sell services, you’ll need a description of each service. Get as much of your content together before you start building your site—it will save you weeks. And while you’re at it…
7. Write with calls to action in mind. Good calls to action allow visitors to quickly decide what they want to do next. Having a big sale? Don’t just write a banner that says “50% off all products.” Write one that says “50% off all products, CLICK HERE to view them.”
8. Always answer the question “why?” Have you ever walked up to someone you’ve never met, handed them a business card, and walked away without saying a word? Likely not. If you want people to do something on your website, such as sign up for your newsletter, don’t just put up a box that says “enter email” or even “sign up for newsletter”—you’ll get a very weak conversion rate. Tell them why they should do it: “Sign up for our newsletter to receive weekly specials.” Same thing goes for Twitter and Facebook logos. Just putting them up isn’t smart. Tell people why they should follow you on Twitter or friend you on Facebook. What will they get out of it?
9. Trust your Web designer. I tend to see the worst end results with customers who come in with a “I know what I want, just do what I tell you” attitude. You hired an expert because they know more than you, right? Let them do what they do best and they’re more likely to meet and often exceed your goals.

Don’t:

1. Do it yourself. I know—I run a Web design firm, so of course I’m going to say this. But seriously, your website is often where your customers’ first experience your brand. If it looks homemade, they’re going to make assumptions about your business that you want to avoid.
2. Make people think. When visitors come to your website, they typically already know what they want out of it. Do a three-second test: If within three seconds a visitor can’t figure out what to do next, go back to the drawing board.
3. Expect visitors. Lose the “if you build it, they will come” mentality. Simply putting up your site will not result in any visitors.
4. Spend all your money. Don’t max out your entire budget on the website. You can get a well-designed site for under $1,000 from a freelancer, or a few thousand dollars from a professional agency. And you can always make improvements as your business grows. It’s far more important initially to have some money left over for a marketing budget so you can actually make a return on your investment.
5. Add a blog. Are you really going to write posts? Be honest. If you won’t, then forget about a blog. A website with an outdated blog can create the perception that your company is small or even out of business.
6. Add Twitter and Facebook buttons. If a potential client clicks through to your social pages and sees hardly any followers, they may lose trust in you. First build up your social presence, then commit to posting and engaging your fans on a regular basis, and only then promote them on your website. Also keep in mind that some businesses simply don’t belong on Twitter or Facebook.
7. Try to please everyone. Your website will be a mess if you try to accommodate every type of visitor who might come along. Figure out who is likely to be your most frequent users and focus on creating the best experience for them.
8. Add testimonials. Building credibility is important, but too often testimonials sound fake. “’They are great!’ says John Smith” simply isn’t believable. If you’re going to have testimonials make sure they are specific, and something people can relate to.
9. Use Flash. Some sites still need it, but if you can, avoid it. Adobe just announced that it will no longer support Flash on mobile devices and set-top-boxes. The last thing you want is for a potential customer to be unable to open your site.
10. Expect a killer website overnight. Good websites take time to build. If you want the best results out of your site, be prepared for several months of work.

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7 Things Highly Productive People Do

You have more important things to focus on than, um, focusing. Get back on track with these tips.

By Ilya Pozin | @ilyaNeverSleeps | Dec 13, 2011

Flickr/ryantron

You probably don’t want to admit it but you love distractions. In fact, just like monkeys, you get a shot of dopamine every time something pulls you in another direction. Why do you think you check your email so much?

Want to be more productive and get your focus back? There are no secret tricks here… do one thing at a time. Stop multitasking—it’s just another form of distraction.

Easier said than done, I know.

Recently I sat down with Tony Wong, a project management blackbelt whose client list includes Toyota, Honda, and Disney, to name a few. He’s an expert in keeping people on task, so I thought he’d be a good person to ask.

Here are his tips for staying productive:

1. Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks. Writing “launch company website” at the top of your to-do list is a sure way to make sure you never get it done. Break down the work into smaller and smaller chunks until you have specific tasks that can be accomplished in a few hours or less: Sketch a wireframe, outline an introduction for the homepage video, etc. That’s how you set goals and actually succeed in crossing them off your list.
2. Stop multi-tasking. No, seriously—stop. Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day makes you dumber than being stoned. When you’re stoned, your IQ drops by five points. When you multitask, it drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, five for women (yes, men are three times as bad at multitasking than women).
3. Be militant about eliminating distractions. Lock your door, put a sign up, turn off your phone, texts, email, and instant messaging. In fact, if you know you may sneak a peek at your email, set it to offline mode, or even turn off your Internet connection. Go to a quiet area and focus on completing one task.
4. Schedule your email. Pick two or three times during the day when you’re going to use your email. Checking your email constantly throughout the day creates a ton of noise and kills your productivity.
5. Use the phone. Email isn’t meant for conversations. Don’t reply more than twice to an email. Pick up the phone instead.
6. Work on your own agenda. Don’t let something else set your day. Most people go right to their emails and start freaking out. You will end up at inbox-zero, but accomplish nothing. After you wake up, drink water so you rehydrate, eat a good breakfast to replenish your glucose, then set prioritized goals for the rest of your day.
7. Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals. Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity. Typically you will have spent most of it after 60-90 minutes. (That’s why you feel so burned out after super long meetings.) So take a break: Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge. And yes, that means you need an extra hour for breaks, not including lunch, so if you’re required to get eight hours of work done each day, plan to be there for 9.5-10 hours.

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