I wanted to sit down for a few minutes and reflect on how I can be more productive and focus in on what will take my projects to the next level.

Remove distractions
When it’s time to work it’s time to work and distractions are a procrastinator’s best friend. Close your messaging platforms like AIM and MSN and only open them if you need a work related question answered. Have 2 web browsers open… one with only work related tabs up and the other with your procrastination tabs like your e-mail, forums, or whatever else floats your boat for fun. If you want to get work accomplished… remove everything that would prevent you from doing so.

Check your e-mail, messaging and forums in the morning once and then before you go to bed. During the day, only make those visits when you have worked for a set amount of time or accomplished a certain task. So for example I would sit down and tell myself, “I’m going to make 25 posts on my forum and then I’ll take a 10 minute break.” This could also make you work faster if you really want that break!

Change Your Mindset
One of the best blog posts I’ve ever read is the Do It Fucking Now! post on the SEOBlackHat.com blog. It may not be fun, it may be tedious and you may rather be doing something else. But there is no substitute for getting shit done. Your work doesn’t masterbate… it’s not going to do itself! And nothing beats the feeling of seeing the fruits of your labor. If you need to, post that line “Do It Fucking Now” or another slogan you find motivating. How about “Success Is The Best Revenge”? Or maybe there is something you really want… post a picture of it by your desk and whenever you feel like taking a break, look at that quote/picture and get back to being productive.

Make Lists
All of us have dozens of ideas and priorities running throughout our head in a given day that are directly related to our business. Things are bound to fall through the cracks if you don’t write them down. I keep a Microsoft Word Document open with the 4 or 5 main tasks I want to work on for that day listed at the top. As I think of other things that need to get done or ideas for new projects, I jot them down below this main priority list. Instead of taking a fun break, spend some of your down time checking out these other ideas… I always find that to be fun anyways. As you complete tasks, delete them from your list. Take ideas of larger proportions and put them into a different file at the end of the day… a running list of new ideas and/or new projects. Leave the small tasks on that list and make them one of the “top priorities” at the top of your list when the time is right. Your main list should be open ALL THE TIME and you should read through your filed lists at least once a week so you don’t let something important fall through.

Visit Your Own Sites Most Frequently
Make your OWN sites your favorite sites. If you’re not spending more time visiting/building your own sites than you spend visiting other websites than something is seriously wrong. For me… something was seriously wrong.

The site I probably visit more than any other site is the webmaster forum WickedFire. The owner, Jon, is making membership a paid subscription model and it has created a divide in the current membership. Pay $35 a month for access to the forum, to talk to the same exact people you already have been talking to but who may be a little more willing to share inside info. Thanks but no thanks… I’ll wait and see what others say. In fact, this paid membership could have an inversely positive affect on me. Jon insists that the $35 will be incredibly well worth it because it will help you make bank. Instead, I think it would mean I spend much more time on the forums and less time on my sites. Without the membership I think WF will become incredibly ineffective and I probably won’t be visiting too much. What will I do instead?

Instead I will spend time on my two favorite forums: ChefClub.net and PoliticalFury.com. I’ve made nearly 1,500 posts on WickedFire and spend more time there than I do COMBINED on my other forums. I think the main reason is because it is so active. Then why the hell wouldn’t I work extra hard to make my own forums incredibly active? They aren’t just going to liven up themselves! If the owner doesn’t even spend a ton of time there than why should they? I like my chances with this WF transition because I’m going to do what I should have been all along… making MY forums and MY community based sites the ones I visit and contribute to the most. If you’re not doing this now… you’re just helping someone else build their empire. Do yourself a favor.

My Action Plan
Right now I want to visit and post daily on my two forums… which isn’t a lofty goal but it’s a necessary one. Posting on these websites will be my “break time”. After all, they can have “Shooting the Shit” type areas too! Beyond this I have two other focuses: my local area directory and building my SEO Empire with the tools and databases in the Squirt Vault.

These two forums are ongoing projects and thus will never fall off the list. The local area directory will, at some point, will have more of a maintenance role at which point a new “Main Project” will take it’s place. And the SEO Empire will consist of making quick sites that might be ugly but will get a lot of pages indexed… so it’s quantity and not quality here.

In addition, I want to have PHP down to the point where I can do some useful things with it by the time 2008 comes around. I want next year to be a helluva lot bigger than this year. Next year is going to be a pivotal year for me.

My Blog
Over the past couple weeks I’ve been making sure to post daily on my blog – partly so I don’t have to pay the $20 for the contest I created! But here’s the thing… it’s been sooo much easier as of late. Why? Because I’ve been getting a TON of work done.

When I do a lot of work I run into problems, find resources, think of ideas, try techniques, have opinions on concepts/opportunities/tasks and find genuinely interesting information that I want to share. At the moment I decide I want to write about that, I hit up my blog and make a post with only the title and one sentence describing the post. I save it as a draft. When I log in to my admin cp I now have a list of blog posts waiting to be written… all of which I think are well worth their while.

Sometimes, these saved drafts are about things that I haven’t yet researched and it reminds me to research it, formulate an opinion and post the results. My blog is now a “to do list” in and of itself and I think this blogging model absolutely kicks butt for me. I’m going to be able to keep this daily blogging thing going for a long time.

Monetizing This Blog
I have never tried to monetize this blog at all but I may start. It will be subtle… I won’t completely whore it out like John Chow and Shoemoney. Those two boxes at the top will likely host some monetization features although to start I’ll simply have a “Popular Posts” area and monetize the other box.

We’ll see how that goes… it’s something that will come slowly and won’t be too invasive to the functionality or look of the blog.

Bed Time
It’s flippin 2:30 AM and I’m getting up at 8, heading to my parent’s house and working on my local area directory all morning. I’ll then have my laptop while I’m watching the Baltimore Ravens beat up on the Cleveland Browns, squeeze some more work in, and then it’s my sister’s birthday party. Did I mention I really want to get this directory done? It’s taking a lot of time but when it’s all finished it should really kick ass!

Goodnight!