The universal challenge of every startup founder is to get everything done that needs to get done, and still have a life.

Even outside of business, everyone wants to accomplish more, while working less. I’ve been a student of these techniques for some time, but recently I saw a great summary that seems to pull all the key principles together.

Steve Robbins, known on the Internet as the Get-It-Done Guy, just published his book “9 Steps to Work Less and Do More,” which outlines his strategies. These are not aimed specifically at entrepreneurs, but certainly can be applied there as follows:

Email is a major time-suck for people in most workplaces, whether they realize it or not.

Mark Suster recently declared that email is toxic. And it's not hard to see why: our inboxes have become a suffocating reservoir of debris and to-do’s, when they’re really meant to be a tool for communication and better productivity.

“Email is killing companies,” Cameron Herold, CEO coach and founder of BackPocket COO, says adamantly.

Video: Should a Start-up Focus on Going Global Right Away?
Randy Komisar, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers - 3 min. 19 sec.
According to Komisar, globalization needs to be part of the tool set for every entrepreneur doing a start-up today. This doesn't mean immediately going global, but understanding the global market and having a plan for the future, he adds.

Video: Globalization: Acting Local to be Global
Janice Roberts, Mayfield Fund - 3 min. 42 sec.
Mayfield Fund, a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, expands its operations in China and India to locally participate in the companies it funds. Roberts notes that this enables Mayfield Fund to understand the unique opportunities offered by different geographic locations.

Video: Challenges of a Global Company
Scott Kriens, Juniper Networks - 3 min. 13 sec.
One of Juniper Networks's biggest challenges is efficiently operating a global company. CEO Scott Kriens challenges the audience to obtain the skill set necessary to work in a global team environment.

Video: Entering a Global Market
Gil Penchina, Wikia - 4 min. 36 sec.
Wikia CEO Gil Penchina discusses the steps that entrepreneurs should take when entering a new and unfamiliar global market.

Bloomberg Businessweek recently featured a fascinating interview with Nell Merlino, the founder of Make Mine a Million. The program, which Merlino founded in 2005, had a goal of helping 1 million women-owned businesses reach 1 million in sales by 2010.

Merlino didn’t achieve that goal, but she’s looking at the positive side: “We’ve raised $10 million and helped women generate $100 million in revenue and create 6,000 jobs.”

Bears emerge from months of hibernation with their muscles largely intact. Not so for people, who, if bedridden that long, would lose so much muscle they would have trouble standing.

Why muscles wither with age is captivating a growing number of scientists, drug and food companies, let alone aging baby boomers who, despite having spent years sweating in the gym, are confronting the body’s natural loss of muscle tone over time.

Comparisons between age groups underline the muscle disparity: An 80-year-old might have 30 percent less muscle mass than a 20-year-old. And strength declines even more than mass. Weight-lifting records for 60-year-old men are 30 percent lower than for 30-year-olds; for women the drop-off is 50 percent.

Harvard Business Review had a great post last week entitled “5 Warning Signs That Your Innovation Efforts are Going Off the Rails.”

I had to chuckle as I read the post – focused on how to make innovation efforts a partnership with the core business focus, instead of a competition. I didn’t chuckle because it was amusing. I chuckled because I’ve seen all five ‘warning signs’ touted as the foundations of the innovation effort, not as unwanted by-products. We’re often proud to be operating in a way that produces just these signs. How wrong is that?

Based on a number of status quo approaches, we set up innovation as a competitor to our current model. It’s time we changed those status quos!

At the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, MD, researchers have developed one of the most powerful methods yet for redesigning life. By editing genomes on the computer, synthesizing them in the lab, and transplanting the genomes into cells, Venter Institute researchers can speed up the process of genetic engineering. Ultimately, they want to design and create microbes that efficiently produce clean fuels, vaccines, and other products.

When Sir Gordon Wu, chairman of Hopewell Highway Infrastructure, was a student at Princeton in the 1950s, he dreamt of Chinese superhighways, when China was a poor, closed economy. A few decades later, Wu won the contract to build China’s first superhighway between Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

While he had no financial support, Wu was offered an incentive by the Chinese government — the faster he could complete the highway, the higher his profits would be. Cutting through the bureaucrac

y, bringing in the best of global technology and finance, Wu deputed 30,000 labourers who took only 26 months to finish a 72-mile superhighway that today zips across the fastest growing region in the world.

By doing so, China set in motion a positive precedence of regional economic development of the scale and size, the world had never seen before. Indeed, incentivised growth, supported by proactive tax regimes, can do wonders for a country and its people.

According to cognitive psychologist Robert J. Sternberg, creativity can be broadly defined as "...the process of producing something that is both original and worthwhile" (2003). Creativity is all about finding new ways of solving problems and approaching situations. This isn't a skill restricted to artists, musicians or writers; it is a useful skill for people from all walks of life. If you've ever wanted to boost your creativity, these tips can help.

This post was originally published in a shorter (more sensible) format in the Wall Street Journal online.  If you’re short on time click on the WSJ link and read  the 990 word version there.  Otherwise, grab a cup ‘o coffee …

One year ago I predicted that in 2010/11 the economy, far from being on the path of permanent recovery was on a temporary resurgence and there was a strong possibility of a “double dip” recession.  My advice to entrepreneurs was and is “when the hors d’oeuvres tray is being passed take two” (e.g. raise money now to weather any storms).

The world is on the brink of a nuclear power renaissance, and developing countries may also benefit, according to researchers.

In a study published in Science this month (12 August) British researchers outlined a vision for flexible and more user-friendly nuclear technologies, as worries over the climate change, energy supply security, and depletion of fossil fuels, are overturning decades of hesitancy over the safety of nuclear power plants.

Robin Grimes, materials

researchers at Imperial College London and William Nuttall, senior lecturer in technology policy at the University of Cambridge, believe nuclear power will become viable for energy production in developing countries post-2030. "Outside currently established nuclear countries, flexible nuclear technologies will be especially attractive, reducing the need for grid infrastructure," Grimes told SciDev.Net.

Add Us In Initiative: Department of Labor Office program to develop and evaluate replicable models, strategies and policies to ensure that youth and adults with disabilities from diverse communities have access to a broader range of employment and mentoring opportunities. The program is designed to increase the ability of businesses owned, operated and controlled by African Americans; Asian Americans; Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender individuals, and women to employ adults and youth with disabilities. Consortia applying for the cooperative agreement must have representation from a number of organization types. Deadline: September 1, 2010.

Disability Employment Initiative: The Department of Labor announced a solicitation for grant applications for approximately $22 million to fund programs that will improve educational, training and employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. Funds will be awarded to state workforce agencies, which will collaborate with workforce investment boards and local areas. Grant awards will range from $1.5 to $6 million each to be spent over a three-year period. Closing date: September 8, 2010.

With a growing number of people seeking entrepreneurship as an alternative path in this rough economy, there is increasing competition for the key resources that can make or break the startup venture.

New entrepreneurs are competing for essential resources, such as the funding, the customers and the staff they need to build a successful business. Attracting these resources often relies on how well the entrepreneur can deliver "the pitch" for his new business.

An effective pitch starts with a hook -- something that grabs the attention of the person one is talking to about a business. The most effective hook lays the groundwork to show the underlying need in the market for what the new business aims to offer.

There really is no choosing to become an entrepreneur; there are some who are simply born to bring new ideas, products and solutions to the marketplace and others who do not have an entrepreneurial bone in their body. But even those who have the skills and ambition to become an entrepreneur must be prepared to face the harsh realities of the business world and to gain the knowledge required to bring their brilliant ideas to fruition.

Before you quit your day job to devote your time to becoming a successful small business owner, there are 10 important laws you need to become intimately familiar with as you begin your journey down the road to become an entrepreneur. Ignore them at your peril because each comes with a sting in its tail for those who, intentionally or due to ignorance, abuse them..

Venture-capital firm Institutional Venture Partners said it raised a new $750 million fund, as the overall venture-fundraising environment begins to show some signs of improvement.

The Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, Calif., venture firm, which primarily invests in later financing rounds of start-ups as opposed to the earliest stages of a start-up, said its newest fund is larger than its 2007 fund that closed at $600 million. The new fund–dubbed IVP XIII–was also originally targeted to be $600 million but was oversubscribed, said IVP General Partner Todd Chaffee.

Mr. Chaffee said investor interest in the new fund was particularly driven by IVP’s results over the past few years, with the firm having taken stakes in hot start-ups such as micro-blogging service Twitter and online games company Zynga. Since IVP largely invests in start-ups when they are more mature, Mr. Chaffee said some of the risk is also dminished for an investor.

Looking over The Forbes annual Midas List there was something strange and awry, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I finally figured it out. Where are the women venture capitalists?!

The Midas List, which started in 2001, did not rank one single woman. This should certainly strike as a surprise given the space and time women have entered the workforce. Over the past 30 years, the position of women in U.S. society has changed dramatically.

Four women from Forbes’s 2009 list were named the most powerful VCs and five more from Forbe’s 2007 list. Venture capital is not just a boys club anymore and hopefully there are more to come this year. Including female investors has proved to benefit companies. For example, being familiar with women-run businesses can result in funding with at least one woman partner as opposed to those who only have male partners. Though there are social barriers to overcome for female venture capitalists, there has been some significant change within the last three decades. Women have risen to the top recently and succeeded in the male dominated world of finance and business. As part of the ever changing world we live in, I predict that more women will go into venture in these coming years.

No patent?  No problem.

The results of a recent study challenge the standard notion that most businesses started by academics are based on patents (“Start-up model patently flawed” in Nature magazine, July 2010).

The study found that the majority of companies started by US academics are started without patents.  This is contrary to the generally accepted wisdom about how entrepreneurship occurs in a university, which usually goes something like this:  academics disclose their invention to universities, get it patented and then spin-out their company from the university.   This is actually only part of the entrepreneurial picture in universities — and a smaller part of the picture at that.

Let's face it: Working for someone else is a great way to get started in the business world, but it is not where an entrepreneur with lofty goals will want to remain.

If you're tired of being just another cog, and you crave a sense of personal fulfillment and long-term passion, then it might be time to take the plunge. Here are seven signs you should quit your job and start your own business.

1. You're Extremely Confident

To be a truly successful entrepreneur, there can never be any doubt in your mind that you will accomplish your goals, even if you must occasionally alter your plans or refine your targets. Your success is as much a matter of your belief in yourself as it is of the skills you will develop on your journey.

An ambitious new ad campaign by Crispin Porter + Bogusky tries to convince kids that baby carrots are like Doritos. (But what about the cheese dust?!)

Can the carrot industry sex up its image by branding baby carrots as a munchworthy junk food a la Cheetos or Lay's Potato Chips? Crispin Porter + Bogusky seems to think so.

The high-profile ad agency is launching an ambitious $25 million campaign to help the carrot industry compete with the junk food industry. The campaign is being launched with the help of almost 50 carrot growers, including carrot behemoth Bolthouse Farms.