Constant Improvement.
If you're doing the same thing you did to advertise and market your business as you did 25 years ago, you have a problem. Your problem is not that you're still wearing bell-bottomed nylon suits. It's that you probably don't know what's working and what's not working. (See #3 above.) Measurability has a really interesting side effect. Since you can now measure things, you can now improve. I'm not talking about tweaking colors and copy. I'm talking about walking into the CFOs office and showing how you delivered more opportunities to the sales team on a smaller budget.

Mann's problem was especially acute. His income was partially dependent on advertising, and ads are sold on a cost-per-impression basis. That is, the more traffic you have, the more ads you can sell (and also the more chances that someone will click on one of the Google ads or affiliate links on your site). But a site that teaches you how to streamline your tasks and free your time yet constantly shovels new posts, lists, and information at you is oxymoronic—and also kind of moronic.

Mann could have overlooked this contradiction, but he chose instead to live his advice. Declaring an end to "productivity pr0n," Mann has promised fewer, better posts and rolled out a new mission statement: "43 Folders is Merlin Mann's website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work." The further irony here is that Mann's less-is-more strategy may prove to be more profitable.

"We found a 9% improvement in the usability of About Us information on websites over the past 5 years. But companies and organizations still can't explain what they do in one paragraph."