The following are the best business and productivity web articles I’ve come across in the past week.

I try to find only the stories that won’t waste your time and have the potential to positively impact your business.

1. A Company’s Founding Principles Matter

Important for uniqueness of your brand and a variety of other reasons.

2. Google Penalizing Overoptimized Websites

Google’s onto people trying to game the system.

3. Boost your Brain with Caffeine

Cool LifeHacker article that talks about the optimum amount of caffeine you want to injest per hour for maximum mental sharpness.

4. Why Google+ is an Inevitable Part of your Content Marketing Strategy

Talks about why and how every content marketer should build their Google+ network. Side note: From a learning standpoint I recommend checking out G+ periodically because there are a lot of interesting entrepreneurs who post regularly.

5. Entrepreneurs Need to Focus on their Business Model

List of things to do to prove that your business model is a sound one.

6. What Multitasking Does to Our Brains

Discusses exactly what multitasking does to our brains and steps we can take to become more efficient by single-tasking more.

7. How Most Failure is the Result of Poor Planning

Tips on how to plan better

8. The 13 Best Marketing Industry Blogs

Countdown of the best and most informative marketing blogs out there.

9. Ten Tips for Being More Independent with Your Small Business

Some great tips for any small business presented in a succinct list.

10. Check your Business vs Family Balance

Some good tips on maintaining work-life balance.