vizilla

I was made redundant at my previous job but fortunately I am receiving unemployment. I also have decent income from some old white-hat content properties - so while I'm not rolling in dough, I'm not starving either. I'm really going to cut back on expenses and try to save half of my unemployment benefits so I can make them last twice as long.

Even though this is in the newbie forum, I'm not actually a newbie at this. You can see that I originally registered for WF in 2006. I've been in this game for many many years prior. I'm not a fraction as successful as other people because of my sloth and fear of failure. I'm the stereotypical guy at this who just reads and reads and never executes.

I was actually laid off at the end of November but honestly I have done barely anything since then besides have a good time. Hanging out with friends, reading books and newspapers, hitting the clubs and bars three nights a week. I'm not saying it was a total waste but I don't want to look back on this time in 5-10 years and regret the opportunity that was in front of me.

For 30 days, I intend on doing a ton of work. Here are some key points:

1) Get Priorities Straight.

I will work on weekends and cut down on the amount I socialize. Hanging out, clubs, bars, etc. I'm only doing this project for 30 days so I can ball out to my hearts content afterwards. This will also help me save money which will be good because as previously mentioned I'm trying to save half of my unemployment benefits.

2) Information Diet.

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking - Albert Einstein.

Not only am I cutting out forums and blogs, but also magazines, newspapers and books. Seriously I probably spend 2 hours a day at least on this stuff. Plus it fills my brains with all these possible ideas. What

3) Focused Action. I'm naturally a planner. I fucking love coming up with ideas. But my fear of failure prevents me from properly executing and then I'm off fantasizing about the next shiny thing.

I will make one white hat niche site per day. It'll be very basic stuff - write articles, post on a wordpress blog, and gain links from social bookmarking sites, blogs and directories. I'll be outsourcing less than I usually do because I have so much time.

Niche sites aren't the best way to make money but once again I need focus. They don't require advanced knowledge and plus I've already has success with them. They're white hat as well so while the payoff will not be immediate it will be like growing a money making graden.

With SlimTimer I will record the actual amount I work everyday. I'll post that number at the end of everyday here and also what I produce.

Hopefully this will inspire some newbies to get off their ass and actually implement some ideas.

Will keep you updated

turbolapp

So you're going with what you know and scale...

Sounds like you've got a plan...now execute!

Good luck to you.

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Rage9

Sounds like a good start, make sure to let us know how it goes.

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zimok

Since you'll be doing so much, I recommend a few things..

2 big notepads,
1 for random ideas
1 for when you're actually doing a project (writting down kw idea's/what's left to do on x website etc..).. make little check boxes on what you have to do so you feel like you're accomplishing something when you check the boxes (silly, I know.. but it helps me)

rainlendar,
to organize your tasks (it's free)
Rainlendar - Home


fleshlight,
you like going to the bars too much.. taper off those sexual urges and stay focused.

canned foods,
food that you don't waste time making, eat at your PC.

2 small workouts,
Get your blood flowing, very important.

Do that for 30 days and I'll be looking forward to reading your success post

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Rage9

^^ or small white boards or pin / tac boards.

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vizilla

Thanks for the encouragement! Interesting tips Zimok - I always have notepads around the house, you never know when you get a good idea, haha I should seriously consider a fleshlight...

Today (Sat, Feb 21)

1.7 hours worked:
* 1 300 page article written
* 1 blog post written on trophy blog. It is doing well in the blogosphere and has 14 comments already. Not doing well on Digg but in another niche social bookmarking site. Probably will get 2K+ hits all together. They aren't really subscribing to my RSS though...

-----------
Not my best but this is the first Saturday I have worked in awhile. My roommates and I cleaned our house and we went grocery shopping. Plus I have two friends up, one from college that I haven't seen in maybe a year. So it's not that bad...

Note: I accidentally played 45 minutes of Civ4. Then I realized that games are actually media and shouldn't be consumed because of my media diet. Also the new issue of Inc magazine came in. It looks really interesting, almost got a boner

vizilla

Woops I meant that my blog post from yesterday, which I started last week is doing well.

The trophy blog I started writing for about a week ago. No advertising on it because I'm trying to build an audience.

feardafronfz3

300 page article? what?

denwfco68

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

ldsmedia

Well if you know the drill get off your ass. What you need to create are niche authority sites, this requires a great deal of content. Spend your time researching topics and keywords, then create pages and write. Learn ppc to get profits sooner and then scale your campaigns. 90% will be losers, but hey many of these guys do it and make the big bucks.

If you can create sites or create blog themes, you can make some money there.
Either you believe in yourself or you don't. If you would rather be lazy and poor, then what can I say. Good Luck to you. Aff marketing is not for lazy people, that's a scam many people propagate to separate you from your money.

metalhead

in for support.

Unemployed crew here.

glew77

Getting rid of all the distractions can really get your ass back on track! I haven't been on a forum in weeks and my productivity has gone thru the roof, just keep at it.

toastjelly

unemployed crew here as well.

im a newb, trying to keep my head above the bubbles.

good luck, ill be checkin in and writing down any tips and advice.

Fiver

I was canned in November too. Realized I don't want to be a cubicle monkey my entire life so I decided to start doing PPC and niche marketing which I know a little about.

After spending 2 months reading garbage on DP, I found this place and realized there is a wealth of info on this site.

BTW, I wholeheartedly agree about having a to-do list. I make mine in OneNote the night before. I give myself 2 big things to accomplish the next day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Checkboxes next to them do work great. For some reason, it helps to check something off when you're done with it.

Good luck to you.

kyleirwin

1.7 hours? really? you're not going to get anywhere w/ 1.7 hours. plus you spent it writing... wtf?

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sean3

any updates???

wumpus

You guys are doing the right thing. I have a neighbor who has been unemployed for almost a year and he knows more about coding than I do yet just lived off his equity earnings and played (and failed) the stock market. If I had that sort of free time I hope I could have built an affiliate empire after a year, or at least a minor league team.

bb_wolfe

Kyle, maybe he wants to be a dollar menuaire?

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schockergd

Ok, not to be mean but.....

If you're unemployed , why did you spend only 1.7 hours?

I work a full time job, and when I got into AM , the first week I spent from 6PM when I got home from work till 8AM the following day to go to work reading about it.

What are you doing in the other 16.5 hours of the day?

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613_Jesus

Fear of failure

I've been reading The Success Principles by Jack Canfield. It has some good words about fear of failure.

Fear of failure is the result of years of negative conditioning by society. When you perform well, no one notices your achievements. But the moment you step off a little to the side, you have 2 to 3 people criticizing your efforts.

There is a TED discussion with Ken Robinson called School Kills Creativity. He explains our education system punishes creativity, and then this mindset follows to the job world as well. As we were growing up, we were conditioned by our parents and teachers to fear making mistakes.

You see, creativity requires making mistakes. Thomas Edison failed 1000 times before he made a light bulb that worked. Imagine if after the first time, someone said "Quit wasting your life, get serious, and get a real job." We wouldn't have a light bulb today, as well as many other technologies.

Successful people are driven by failure. They understand that failure is an important step in the creative process. It is your mistakes that will be your greatest teacher. If you don't take action because you're afraid of messing up, you are keeping yourself from a valuable learning experience. Failure is just a stepping stone on the path to success.


Two processes for fear of failure

There are two thinking processes I can offer you to turn around this destructive pattern.

1. Keep track of your success in a victory log.

Whenever you have a small success, write it down in your victory log. You can use a notebook, or just save a new text file to your desktop. It can be something as small as getting out of bed at the scheduled time, or writing one more article for your blog, or buying another domain for your new website.

At the end of the day, you will look at this log, and you will realize -- all these smalls things really add up, I really accomplished a lot more than usual today. And you use this awareness to build momentum.

Most people, you ask them to make a list of 10 ways they messed up last week, and they'll give you a list, no problem. But you ask them for a list of 10 ways they were successful last week, and most people will have trouble naming three. We have been conditioned to hate ourselves, and this spills over to how we behave. You just have to show yourself some love.

2. Detach yourself from the results.

Adopt a "it doesn't matter" attitude. You build a website, and it doesn't make any money? So what. You build a website, and you lose money? So what. You build a website, and you are making $500 a day? So what. Let go of any attachment to the results. The results are just imaginary numbers.

What is more important is that you enjoy yourself in the process: learning about affiliate marketing, selecting a niche market that interests you, putting a website together, interacting with elite-marketers on this forum. Let your only motivation be the passion for the experience.

When you are doing something that thrills you, there is no need for strict schedules, you naturally want to do it. And when you're doing something that you love, the money will show up without any resistance. Focus on spending more time doing what you like, and spend less time doing what doesn't please you.

Now go play.



"Beyond the fear lies everything you ever wanted."

trigatch4

Fuck you.

I'm fucked over here with TAXES and you're collecting unemployment so you can "have a good time" and "hit the clubs and bars three times a week"? Do me a favor and binge drink on your own money.

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riezioVL

thanks for the keypoints

vizilla

Hey everyone! This thread is already full of great tips. I hope this thread provides inspiration to many.

613_Jesus, your post is gold. I already am trying to implement the results detachment by launching multiple sites (but still putting in a sold amount of effort into each). In the past I would daydream about an idea, maybe register a domain but never actually implement anything before coming up with my next great idea. So I never failed but all my successes were in my head I'm going to start making a success journal. Some of this stuff is mundane and boring and I need the momentum.

"the first week I spent from 6PM when I got home from work till 8AM the following day to go to work reading about it."

When I time my work I'm doing real, essential work. I don't track IMing, forum/blog/ebook reading or even viewing and comparing statistics. When my timer is running I'm doing something that I'm forcing myself to do. I'm not tracking my time as I write this forum post. The typical cubicle slave works 4-6 hours according to statistics and honestly that could be cut down on. I worked 1.5-2 hours of real work at my old job.

1.7 hours was on a weekend day. And I'm a bit embarassed to say but that was a good weekend day.

Just to give an update on the last two weeks:
* Did 13 hours of work last week and around 10 hours so far this week. I know this sucks and honestly its embarassing. But do remember that this is real solid work, not me dicking around in Google Analytics or WF. Most people would be exhausted if they put in 6 hours in a day of what I am categorizing as "work". I'm outsourcing the more tedious tasks.
* In my defense - me and my friend went out clubbing on valentine's day and met this chick (a 6.5 but I'm a strict grader) who was moving out to San Francisco at the end of the month. I tapped it that night and saw her several times til she left. This of course hurt the amount of work I did. Honestly I don't get laid that much and was going through a dry spell so I feel I am justified by pursuing this.
* My trophy blog is not doing well. It's not building RSS subscribers and traffic is dying down as a writer I've hired is taking over for me. The niche is a lot more competitive than I originally anticipated. I'll probably continue it til the end of March and reevaluate.
* Media diet has been very hard to keep up. Goddamnit I love reading! I'd find a real food diet more easy than not reading. I've been a lot better about it - keeping mostly to my subscription to the Financial Times but everyday it is a constant struggle. This has helped though as I've come up with some good niche ideas just through my mind wandering.
* A niche site that I've built from the ground up and doing grunt SEO work just to test stuff received 12 organic visitors from Google yesterday. Not bad, now I just gotta take this model and scale.
* Greatly improved the landing page of my software site by adding testimonials. I'm hoping this will yield another $100/mo in profit.

metalhead

Taxes don't pay unemployment. The previous employer does.

Taxes pay welfare, which is different.

Jimmysan00

aha as I was reading this I was laughing, some people post and don't do their research. funny, I've really enjoyed reading all your post and the journey, but I will say the journal would be better on a Twitter so we could all follow and you could update it throughout the day to keep us all posted. Just a thought, not saying I know anything because I don't.

emp

Hmm, is this different in the US?

Over here, I pay a portion of my wages to unemployment. This works like an insurance.
When I get unemployed, that insurance kicks in to pay me unemployment benefits.

Of course, when all goes down in a shitstorm, that will not be enough and other taxes will have to be brought in as well.

But yeah, I will never feel bad about collecting unemployment, cause I am fucking paying for it.

I still wonder about the OP. 1.7 hours of work? However "serious" that work is, you are dickin aound, dude.

::emp::

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riezioVL

thanks for your keypoiints

RDion12

yes agree with you it is really "SERIOUS"

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rileypool

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PhillipMarlow

employment is overrated.

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deejne

nice post, thanks!

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