Every time I have a creative block, or I hit a wall in my research, or I want to pretend as if I’m not procrastinating, I escape to my box. It makes me feel busy. I check emails when I’m not working too.

I realize now that this is hurting me. And it’s hurting the people I love. It has happened more than once that while I was talking to a friend on the phone I was also writing an email. Not to mention when I talk to my mom. One time I even checked my emails during sacred Wednesday-date-night with my husband. And one particularly low-point time, on the way to the shower after sex.

They say it takes 21 days to break a habit. I was not able to find any scientific proof of that.

In the next 21 days, I will check my emails only twice a day: noon-time and end-of-the-work-day-time. I will feed my RSS needs once a day in the evening and satisfy my Social Networking addiction not more than once a day.

It’s been 1 day since my last repeat email checking.

For example, you may be working on building your new blog newsletter and on the top right corner the Chimp would say:

and then the link, if you’re tempted to click it, would play this weird video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

or you could be looking at your campaign analytics and find a note that says: “Your campaign got a 100% click rate. Your best ever! Ka-ching! Yeah baby yeah”.

You may say it’s silly, and I’ll add that the monkey’s sense of humor is sometimes on the lame/dorky side, but, it made me smile and you know what, I think a 100% click rate does call for a “Yeah baby, Yeah!”. It gave me a much needed commic releif between html tags AND it let me know there are people on the other side of this service. People that bring themselves to work. People with personality. People that appreciate a comic relief from time to time too. People that understand that professional work doesn’t mean being dead serious all the time.  And  it doesn’t mean you have to communicating with your customers in a dry, official and law-suit-like way (as Microsoft often does).

Dare to be conversational. It’s more fun for everyone involved. As for professional, if you’re not, no amount of “we appreciate your business” kind of talk will change that.

And, if you’re a more ‘tight-chimp’ type at work, you can always set your account to :

How can Google Insight for Search be useful?

1. SEM - Search trends can help you find hidden treasures in terms of territories which show high demand for what you offer. In many cases you’ll find countries that are still low cost in CPC campaigns. Tapping into the potential of these high demand low cost countries can really help you stretch your SEM budget,
2. SEO -In SEO projects, if you’re considering several options as leading keywords, this tool will let you know which keyword will drive more search traffic.
3. Strategy – When looking into different product development options, for example developing desktop app vs. browser based one, you can use this tool to know which is more in demand and where the trend is going.
4. Buzz - Effectiveness of word of mouth campaigns can be measured and compaired. Here’s the amazingly viral campaign of Blendtech “Will it blend?”.
5. Feed your curiosity of what people search for and get ideas for areas of potential and demand.