It's almost Halloween and pretty much everyone is talking or writing about it.

So I thought some newsjacking wouldn't be such a bad idea. (If you don't know what newsjacking is, take a look at this extensive piece.)

I also know that you love facts and infographics so I think you'll like today's post.

Now, Halloween is a scary time not just because of zombies but because we realise that the year is almost over. That's particularly worrying for marketers and agency people who are looking at both closing the year successfully with clients but also setting a thoughtful plan for the next year. 

Creating such a plan, though, requires research and informed decisions. 

The way we make informed decisions is by analysing the data, looking for trends and figuring out what the future of marketing might hold. 

That also includes not being scared to try new things and retire things that don't work. 

It's been a little over a year since I started writing about Inbound PR and introduced the concept. 

Now that the idea has spread and seems to be gaining popularity, it's time to put a framework around it. 

Today, I want to introduce you to the Inbound PR Methodology that visualises how Inbound PR relates to inbound marketing and how it differs from it. It captures how Inbound PR is all about targeted and relevant content being measured throughout the way to make smart and purposeful decisions. 

Before we dig into the specifics of the new framework, I'd like to go over a few things around modern PR. 

The best thing about my job is the team that I work with. I'm surrounded by super intelligent and knowledgeable people who come from various backgrounds and inspire me to be better and learn every day. 

So when I started writing more about the agency business I thought I should be using this fantastic resource that I see every day - the experiences, tips and advice of my colleagues from HubSpot's EMEA Agency Consultants team. 

Every year HubSpot runs a pretty serious research into the state of inbound marketing. This year is no exception but we also added sales not just marketing as a research topic. 

The major finding in our 8th annual survey is not just that things are changing, they always do (and they better), but that things are changing at an insanely rapid pace. And most importantly we think that they are changing in the right direction. 

In five years only, marketing and the way we do business are going to be completely different. Why? Because the world is adopting inbound. It's becoming more authentic and less interruptive. 

As Brian Halligan says, 

Inbound means transforming how we do business to be more helpful, more human, more empathetic. It ... is about matching the way you market and sell with the way people actually want to shop and buy.

So it's not just about marketing, it's about everything we do as a business that needs to be is 100% customer-focused rather than marketer or seller-focused. 

By far the best book I read this summer was The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan.

Obviously, this book is about focus. It's about asking a powerful question: What's the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

You see, I don't have an issue focusing. When I need to finalise a task, I'm pretty good at hammering it.

But I do have an issue with doing too many things and wanting to be part of very many things. It's hard for me to say no when others come to invite me to be a part of their projects which often have very little to do with what my priorities are at the moment. As the authors explain, when you say yes to something you are inevitably saying no to something else (often what matters most to you) in order to find time for the former. 

So this book got me thinking a lot about focusing only on the right things at a given time and prioritising my energy for those. It also made me realise that I need to be more vigorous about how and when I should be utilising this energy best. That includes my own time management and planning as well as my surroundings because according to research we lose 28 percent of an average workday to multitasking ineffectiveness and on top of that, we get interrupted every 11 minutes and then spend almost a third of our day recovering from these distractions.