Unemployed Man's 30 Day Journal

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vizilla

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Jul 11, 2006
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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
 


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

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

Good luck to you.
 
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 :)
 
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...

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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 :(
 
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.
 
vizilla said:
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 :(
Click to expand...

300 page article? what?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
1.7 hours? really? you're not going to get anywhere w/ 1.7 hours. plus you spent it writing... wtf?
 
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.
 
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?
 
vizilla said:
But my fear of failure prevents me from properly executing and then I'm off fantasizing about the next shiny thing.
Click to expand...

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.

Jack Canfield in The Success Principles said:
The sad truth is that we all have many more victories than failures -- it's just that we set the bar too high for what we call a success.

A participant in the GOALS Program (Gaining Opportunities and Life Skills) I developed to help get people off welfare in California actually asserted that he didn't have any successes. When I inquired about his accent, he told us that he had left Iran when the shah was toppled in 1979. He had moved his whole family to Germany, where had had learned German and become a car mechanic. More recently he had immigrated his whole family to the United States, had learned English, and was now in a program learning to be a welder -- but he didn't think he had any successes!

When the group asked him what he thought a success was, he replied that it was owning a home in Beverly Hills and driving a Cadillac. In his mind, anything less than that was not an achievement.
Click to expand...

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.

:music06:

"Beyond the fear lies everything you ever wanted."
 
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