Starting from Zip

Insight into how to fight procrastination:

http://paidtoexist.com/get-things-done/

I’ll start tomorrow on this by creating my calendar and starting the task. (Starting the task is the most difficult part!)

I just came across a short article about how the idea of money will stop you cold when writing a book. Check it out!

http://www.tonyjalicea.com/2012/10/how-i-ruined-my-writing/

I haven’t been on here for almost a year. My last post was posted on June 27th. Since then, not much has changed in terms of making money online.

In the real world, I got a promotion at work and a few months before my last post I met my girlfriend. Work has brought me a lot of stress, but my girlfriend has kept me in the ring

I wanted to get back to this website when I produced some sort of results. Like Bam!  here are the results. I made my first 20 dollars! Etc. But still, nothing yet.

I investigated many different ways how to make money. I read a lot.

I signed up for a pre-licensing class for real estate a little less than a month ago and I have been studying that.

Since New Years Day I have been working at my job roughly forty hours a week, every week. My pay has increased slightly, but it is still not high enough so I can support myself.

I still want to make money online – that hasn’t changed. But what do I need to do?

I need to give you value. I need to bring value to the world. And I need to do it over and over again.

But how do you do this? What is value? And how do you bring it to the world?

Steve Pavlina provided us this answer in his article How to Create Real Value. In the second paragraph he says, “you know you’re creating value when you can see tangible positive changes in the world as a result of your creative output.” Steve also describes how there are two types of value: strong value and weak value. Please read it – very important.

If I have taken anything away from where I work, it is that I need to finish every project I start. That is where I have fallen off the beam. I start projects and I don’t complete them. I’ll start a project and half way through I stop and do something else. I don’t finish it and see the result.

So here I am – in the same place I was last year.

I really need to finish what I started and bring you some value.

I am going to try a Ramit Sethi Product. He is giving me 60 days to try it out, so I will.

I really don’t go for things this expensive – ever. In fact, spending over 100 dollars for anything makes me sick. I only made 12k last year!

But today, I’m going to give this product a try. It costs 200 dollars. I can pay 57/month for four months but that will cost more than ten percent so I’ll just pay in full.

The program teaches two things that I want to learn about: developing systems and how to balance producing and consuming content.

Now here is the deal: If I produce one dollar online using this system, I will keep it. If I don’t make anything (while using this system), I’ll return it.

I may lose readers because I’m giving in to a product – but I feel that Ramit’s work is worth it. I believe that if I use this system, I will get my money back ten-fold.

I recently bought another book. Yes another one – called The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (affiliate link). So far it is pretty interesting. Maybe I can use the lessons in it to my advantage…

I already read the Habit Factor, but maybe this one will give me greater depth into that topic so I can create success habits that are automatic.

All in my journey to learn how to make my earnings online… Hopefully I can turn this into value for you.

There are so many things that you may want to do – but the question remains, how you get all of them done?

This is where I am at today. I like doing anything but what I’m ‘supposed’ to do. I work an 8-5 (or 7-4) job. I do some yard work around the house and I go shopping to get my meals for the week. I’ll tell you right now, I’d like to do anything else but those things.

I have ideas, and all I do is write them down then pass them off as a fleeting interest. Something I’d like to work on someday.

But what is true success? My idea of success is doing what I want and enjoy for a living. I couldn’t be further from success at this point in my life. I’m scattered, and I tend to be lazy. I don’t go out of my way to work toward my goals. I read ‘how to make money online’ books and blogs.

When I think of an interesting idea to work on/investigate/write about, I write it down on a piece of paper and stick it in my pocket. At the end of the week I take all of the accumulated papers out of my pocket and stick them on the top of my dresser where they sit for another week or two.

In the end I never do anything with the ideas on the slips of paper. So that is what happens to all of my great plans and ideas.

Also, whenever the going gets tough, I move on to something else. I never stayed with any particular project long enough to make money with it. I’ve never seen things through.

I need to make some changes to make some progress. To start, I will use GTD or Getting Things Done (Affiliate Link). I’ll go through all of my things and process them by instructions in the book.

After I read the book, I’ll find an ‘make money online’ technique to work on and I’ll stick through it until I make progress.

I have learned a lot from my last set of goals. Since the time I failed at following up with those goals more than a month ago, I haven’t been working toward any goals. It is safe to say that I am in the same position now as I was in last month. I do, on the other hand, have more time since I quit my restaurant job. I can spend this on whatever goal I am working toward.

Last month I found that I lost my willpower to work toward my goals. Why? I believe it is because my goals were too extreme. I am a complete newbie at setting goals and following them – allocating my time, and spending it.

For most of my life I would fly by the seat of my pants on a daily basis. I would sit on my computer and just meander the internet. I am going to start working on changing that this month. I will work on spending my time wisely.

First off, I wrote a new Personal Constitution - like I had one already? I wrote a Personal Constitution last year (November 28th, 2011) so I could change my lifestyle and gain some sort of success. This Personal Constitution had guidelines that I had to fulfill every day, with some exceptions. These two guidelines were:

1. No TV/computer after 8pm.
2. Up every day at 5:30am. Exception: One day a week, either Saturday or Sunday.

I followed this Personal Constitution for a while but eventually started making exceptions for the first rule. I should have followed my repeal rules, but I decided to completely abandon the Constitution in full. As a result, I started feeling bad every day and I didn’t really accomplish anything other than showing up to work every day.

When I tried to accomplish my first two goals on this website, I did not follow them more than a day. It was too much. So since May 1st, I decided that the best thing to do is follow a Personal Constitution (again), but use these two rules:

1. Out of bed at or before 5:30am everyday. Exception: One day/week, either Saturday or Sunday.
2. Use daily time log.

So far I have been pretty good with both of these goals. They both seem reasonable and I have been able to keep up with them. Now I need to figure out a writing schedule. How often should I post an article on InfoBarrel? Once a day? Three times a week?

I have some problems writing and I should sort these out before adding them to my daily routine. One of them is that I have trouble determining a topic. The second is that I tend to write lengthy articles. So each article takes several hours to figure out a topic, brainstorm, map, and write the topic. So with some work I can get the ball rolling and get some momentum.

Also, I just read this one book called the $100 Dollar Startup by Chris Guillebeau. This book really started to get some ideas flowing. I need to do two things. The first is continue to write articles on InfoBarrel. The second is to start a project on this website. The most important thing I must do is make my first dollar. As fast as possible. All while bringing as much value as I can to you.

When I come up with a writing schedule, I’ll post it on here.

Also, I wrote a few more articles that you may be interested in:

How to Get a Promotion at Work: Get Permission from Your Customers

How to Get a Promotion at Work: Good Decision Making

Seven Day Work Week? Think Again!

How to Improve Willpower: Step 1. Personal Constitution

So what do you think about what I’m doing?

Over the past 25 days, I posted three articles on InfoBarrel. This is pretty sad, but hey, its a start! Writing for me is incredibly difficult and time consuming. I hope that with some practice (writing more frequently), my writing skills will improve. Anyway, here are my three first articles.

Willpower Definition – posted 24 April 12

Attributes of a Good Manager – posted 12 April 12

A Simple Way to Trim a Large Ornamental Grass – posted 31 March 12

Let me know what you think! I would greatly appreciate any comments, whether bad or good. If you think they need improvement… well… what can I do to fix them? Thanks!

At this point, Period 1 is well over. Goals 1 and 2 need to be re-worded and re-planned.

There were some issues that I feel caused me to simply abandon these two goals.

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