Maintaining a balanced life

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unrealalex

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Feb 7, 2010
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www.motivational5.com
I'm just getting into this stuff, and after quickly realizing how much money there is to be made in AM and even in regular SEO by building value providing sites, I've just been working non-stop lately...like the whole 4 day weekend ( I didnt go to class on Tuesday lol...) went by in a blur for me. My eating and sleeping habits have become shit, worrying about social life kind of dissapeared..I dont even have time for porn anymore lol

I think I've been pushing myself too hard yet at the same time I feel like I'm not doing enough and I don't have enough time to do everything that I want...how do you guys that do this full time maintain a balanced life? How do you weigh our the cost/benefit on whether or not something youre doing at the computer is worth it? Like lets say you build a website, and you're unsatisfied with the banner. Do you make a new one, or say fuk it, how do you decide? All these little things add up and next thing I know another day went by of me sitting at the computer.

I know most of you probably had this issue in your mind before so lets hear it.
 


Depends how badly you want it. I dont give a crap how long I work right now, as long as I succeed and years from now I am sitting on a beach with plenty of coin on the bank as my minions make me money.
Starting out, you gotta put the hours in.
 
Another thing you have to understand is the power of focus. So many info flying about AM, if you don't concentrate you'll lose focus. So, take one thing at a time and do those things that matter. I must warn that results don't sometime come immediately, you have to stick to it and and hang on.
 
I'm pretty sure most of us who've been in AM for a while have sacrificed a very large amount of time to this business.

I believe many of us initially fell into a cycle of jumping from method to method, traffic source to traffic source, and spent lot's of time reading/researching on all the different aspects of IM before we decided to settle into something. Not to say that is necessarily a bad thing, as it provides a better understanding of the big picture, with that said, if you want to minimize the amount of time you "waste" working, then my best advice would be to choose ONE aspects of IM that you want to focus on, and stick with it.

That doesn't mean you won't have much work, but it just means your work put in will be more likely to bear fruits sooner than if you were giving every single opportunity you see a shot. As for the questions you asked about when we feel we're satisfied of unsatisfied with something we produced, it all depends on what your goal is and whether your time is better spent somewhere else. But in general I believe most of us who are making any significant money spent hours upon hours perfecting campaigns, that's what separates the winners from the losers, so don't be slackin' on your mackin'.

Anyone can copy/paste and put together some crap, I suggest if you want to do it, do it right, otherwise I guarantee you will waste your time.

The bottom line, like someone above me said, is that we're here to make money, this ain't your average bunch of chumps. We put in work because we want to be filthy rich and don't give a damn about some work-life balanced bullshit, end of story.
 
I'd say for some balance put some dedicated off time into your schedule. Working your ass off is one thing. But it does you no good if 5 years from now you are single, 200lbs overweight, and have zero social skills. I got up this morning and went for a run - trying to improve my times every week for a mile long run. I then came home, showered, shaved and sat down to do a lot of reading today.
 
unrealalex said:
I'm just getting into this stuff, and after quickly realizing how much money there is to be made in AM and even in regular SEO by building value providing sites, I've just been working non-stop lately...like the whole 4 day weekend ( I didnt go to class on Tuesday lol...) went by in a blur for me. My eating and sleeping habits have become shit, worrying about social life kind of dissapeared..I dont even have time for porn anymore lol

I think I've been pushing myself too hard yet at the same time I feel like I'm not doing enough and I don't have enough time to do everything that I want...how do you guys that do this full time maintain a balanced life? How do you weigh our the cost/benefit on whether or not something youre doing at the computer is worth it? Like lets say you build a website, and you're unsatisfied with the banner. Do you make a new one, or say fuk it, how do you decide? All these little things add up and next thing I know another day went by of me sitting at the computer.

I know most of you probably had this issue in your mind before so lets hear it.
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I'd build a plan first from the ground up then implement those plans from the top down.

I'd track my progress along the way then create a schedule from my results.

Say I work 100-hour weeks x 4 weeks and get X results. So, if I can hire 4 people by collectively paying all of them what X results is worth, train them to each do what I did and ask them to work 50-hour weeks each and also ask each one to monitor the performance of the other, then I'd get 2X gross results while doing nothing aside from just reading daily and weekly reports from these guys or girls, which leaves me with X net income.

I'd obviously give these guys or girls schedules built from goal, job and task completion = not just task implementation. This way, they'd know what to do, when to start doing it, when to finish it up and when to move on to the next task.

Making money is fun, but having more time spending more of it is better as far as I'm concerned.
 
Hint of advice, never let it eat your beauty sleep. The market will still be there tomorrow and there will still be possibilities. If you sleep well, then you will handle stress better and you will work more efficiently.
 
It's a lifestyle. For better or for worse.


But to echo knukk, sleep is important. I hear people brag about how they sleep only however many hours, but I doubt it. Without sleep my performance sawx, and so it's wasted time sitting at a computer.
 
The situation that OP described is common to lots of AM, and that's the reason of so many fails.
AM could be very stressful sometimes, not only at beginning and maintain an healthy lifestyle is vital.
Optimize your work flow, manage everything at the right time, set up fixed intervals and work all the time you work.

As Guy Kawasaki said: "It's not how great you start, it's how great you end up".
 
knukk said:
Hint of advice, never let it eat your beauty sleep. The market will still be there tomorrow and there will still be possibilities. If you sleep well, then you will handle stress better and you will work more efficiently.
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I agree with the above statement and you also have to realize that you do need to take some time out to enjoy the things that we gain or are able to do in life.

Whether it's going out for the night to the gym so you can unwind or hitting up the bar for a stiff drink to try and get a grasp on the stress. Leisure will pay off, don't let yourself underestimate what it can do for you in terms of productivity.
 
Commiting 3 hours a day, every single day is better then working 72 hours straight once a month.
 
As someone who previously suffered from a major case of burnout, which almost turned into a nervous breakdown, i can tell you this: Don't skip regular meals, regular and decent nights of sleep and ensure you still look after friendships. I fucked myself so hard i was pretty much unable to work for about 18 months or so, at least not constructively.

The long term affect of what i did was being no better off mentally or financially after finally getting back to working. In many ways i was worse off and the reality is, that if you work every hour you can, at some point it catches you and you have to fuck it off. When you do, the extra money you earned by working joke-hard, gets spent getting better. In hind sight it's clear that if i'd done 3 years at a relaxed pace, i'd be immeasuably better off in every way.

For the record i would often go several days and nights without sleep back then.

My advice would be, follow what i do now. I have set strict hours of work that I HAVE to stick to.

I am not allowed to start before 9am and i am not allowed to work past 6pm. I am not allowed to get up before 8am on weekends. I am only allowed to do a maximum of 6 hours work at the weekends, and this must be between 12pm and 5pm on either day.

My Blackberry is set to turn off at 11pm everyday of the week and comes on at 8am. I have no email on my Blackberry and i have set times on a schedule for email reading and replying. I also must remove myself from whatever i'm doing for at least 15 minutes every 1.5 hours. I also use a timer on my desk to constantly count down everything.

I think all of these things actually make me more productive than i've ever been. I also have a "deal with it immediately or delete it" attitude with all communication. Also, remember to say no, and remember that you'll never make anything you're doing perfect.
 
Could be worse, you could be pissing away hours play XBOX or farming on Facebook.. atleast you're doing something productive.

All comes down to discipline. If you feel like you're neglecting your friends, its probably time to put down the keyboard and go out with them for a bit.

As for your banners example.. if it looks crap now it'll still look crap tomorrow. It can wait.
 
Nigga, live a balanced life. Putting in 80 hours a week is for the working stiffs and rookie affiliate marketers.
 
-God- said:
For the record i would often go several days and nights without sleep back then.
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^^^ Crazy shit ^^^

I didn't push it that hard, but at one point I was working 14 hour days from my own living room. It started to affect how I slept because I was inside too much so I had to cut down the work hours and go outside and enjoy life.

Now I work maybe 10 hours/day and I make sure I get out of the house every night, either to go to the gym or kick it at the local bar.

You can't just go pedal to the medal every day or you'll burn out.
 
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