Running a Real Holiday: Journaling 135 Days of Joyful Vacation

TeeBird said:
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If you follow these steps 6 Days a Week:

- You will complete 24 very specific important tasks every week.

- You will complete 12 proactive tasks every week.

- You will be consistently keeping up with your business communications.

- You will be getting all required maintenance done.

- You will be strategic as you have blocked time to think of your business and yourself.

- You will not be wasting time.

- You will be working with a purpose towards your goals and objectives.

- You will be successful.

- You will be proud of yourself.

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Tasks need to be realistic, measurable and achievable.

IMPORTANT TASKS are ones that drive the business forward today.
PROACTIVE TASKS position your business for the future.

For example, when building a brandable website, important tasks could be monetization, content creation, design implementation, outsource management, quality control, ect...

Proactive tasks could be relationship building, design analysis, research, subject development, editorial calendar building, advertising sales, ect...
Click to expand...

This was very helpful for those who don't work day jobs...

...But absolutely disheartening to those (like myself) who only have 6 hours - at most - to grind it out after the day job before passing out.

I'm very jealous of successful members who got their start in their mom's basement. You have no idea what kind of advantage that gives you.

Paying bills, doing the 9-5 grind, etc... adds a whole extra layer of "FUCK" into the mix...

But anyway, great shit regardless.

Staccs, I like the hustle man. Keep it up.
 


November 21st 2014 - Day 37

Today I created accounts on social properties I've found to be effective in the past. These are links that are still pointing to other sites I've worked on, and ones which I have complete control over.

I filled out the profiles for all of them after registering and validating. Biography, avatar, interests, etc... I filled in every field possible for each to make them look like a real user. I will actually have real uses for some, others will be used solely for linking benefits.

I was supposed to get on a call with one of the responses I got from replying to classified ads, but they had to reschedule last minute. I wish people would just explain things over email. It would save everybody time. I received responses for 3/4 ads I replied to.

It looks like 1 guy bailed after I gave him a quote on social media services, then there's a writing position on a topic I am interested in that I'm considering, and then this one, which has some question marks.

I gave some loving to my opt-in widget. It's much better now and blends in perfectly. I'll be able to split test more changes once I get some traffic coming in.

My final task today is to get one of my community accounts going to build some rep before I ask favors of the members. I'm working on that now, but there is a delay in between posts for new accounts, so it's going to take a while.

I started off a little slow this morning because I didn't plan out my day the night before. I was so exhausted from all the shoveling I just crashed. I've already planned out tomorrow to avoid making that mistake again today.

98 days left
 
CCarter provided you some quality insight from Robert Greene's 50th Law... here's a bit more from that same text that I think is equally appropriate:
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Push Beyond Your Limits -- Self Belief

“Your sense of who you are will determine your actions and what you end up getting in life. If you see your reach as limited, that you are mostly helpless in the face of so many difficulties, that it is best to keep your ambitions low, then you will receive the little that you expect.
Knowing this dynamic, you must train yourself for the opposite – ask for more, aim high, and believe that you are destined for something great. Your sense of self-worth comes from you alone – never the opinion of others."
​
 
@intent: I have the 50th law on my wishlist. I've read The 48 Laws of Power and Mastery, both by Robert Greene.

November 22nd 2014 - Day 38

Notes:

Created a spreadsheet of people I'm going to target for user created content on my site. I went through specific communities and looked at the members who have contributed high quality information that other users have found a lot of value in. I also noted their last post date to temper my expectations of getting a response back.

This is a new idea for me. I'm going to take an ego bait angle and frame their experience in my niche in an interview styled report. This is good for 3 reasons:

1. The questions I pose will dictate the quality of the content. They are also re-usable once I settle with a good set of questions.
2. You would pay somebody to write an article, even if they are just the average Joe. However, it's an honor to be requested for an interview.
3. They will likely share it (interview) with all their family and friends. Theoretically, my content will work for me.

This strategy is another reason why I wanted to make sure the site looked (at least) 'good' before moving onto other things. Nobody wants to be interviewed on a default Wordpress install.

The target list 1.0 has been created and I've come up with a series of quality questions to ask. I think I will try and connect with target #1 on Monday.

I also reloaded Buffer with more social media posts. I'll continue to do this every 3 days. I'll need to try some outreach this next week to get some followers.

I had a piece of linkbait I had in my head that I was going to plan out today. After doing some more research it seems it's been done a couple times. I'm not sure if I can do it better at this point in time. The pieces already out there are pretty articulate. I'll put it in my back pocket until I think of a way I can outshine the competition. Saved my notes.

I was in contact with a Craigslist poster about a writing position. I'm going to try it out and see how I like it with 2 trial articles. I'm conflicted because it's on a topic I enjoy (sports), but I'm not sure how I feel about having to write about it. Regardless, it's money, and another glimpse at the time of grinding I'll be limited to if I don't put in work into building a brand that could potentially snowball on its own after enough rolling.

I think I did okay today. Not great. Working on Saturday's is tough for me. I'm going to plan out my tasks for Monday now.

97 days left
 
Staccs said:
November 23rd 2014 - Day 39

Sunday. Planning the week.

96 days left
Click to expand...

Curious, why don't you work on Saturdays and Sundays?

Edit: To clarify, if I was broke - I would grind everyday until I wasn't broken, especially weekends.
 
November 24th 2014 - Day 40

I didn't get up on time today so I had to work later to get all of my tasks completed. Overall it didn't affect productivity, just made the day less fun.

My most important task of the day was to optimize the social properties I created last week. I went through the first 30 pages of the SERPs for each of the higher quality properties to look for powerful pages to get my link onto. I ended up cutting a couple which weren't as desirable as I had thought.

After that I started to mess around with email stuff a little bit. I created the "thank you subscribing to this list" welcome email which links to my favorite 3 posts on the site, and asks a question, which I guarantee the reader will be read and answered by myself.

Spend some time buffing up a community account. I still have a 5 minute delay between each post, even after verifying my account. Hopefully that restriction will go away soon as my account ages. This account looking respectable is my only step left to start reaching out to relevant people because...

I completed the template for reach out messages re: interview-esque content I mentioned last week. It's very similar to requesting a link on somebody's site. I'm fairly certain the success rate will be high on this.

I also created a static (hand created) sitemap for users. I read this tip on some blog a couple months back and love it. Wordpress themes continue to get more and more advanced which pays off visually, but being unique often means a learning curve for the readers who aren't nearly as techsavvy as we are. The sitemap is essentially a page that lists all of the posts/pages worth reading on your site. I categorized each by topic.

A couple of the Craigslist jobs have bailed. I am on a try out for the sports writing position and will probably write that article tomorrow. The pay is respectable, and I will get a new quote after completing the trial, but it will all hinge on how much I enjoy doing it. I know I'm good enough to get the position. I've also send off emails to another person in need of Wordpress help. I think there are a bunch of odd short-term jobs on here that have value to anyone willing to put the effort into getting them.

95 days left
 
November 25th 2014 - Day 41

Started the day by assembling an RSS feed with a bunch of relevant blogs in the same or similar niches. Then I went through and left detailed comments (some a couple paragraphs) on ~15 posts. I've already received a long response from one of the bloggers, and am collecting upvotes on a couple of the sites using Disqus comments.

I also left a couple comments on other sites and saved it to a text file. At the end of the week I'll go back and add the approved feeds to my RSS.

I started to create my first email series. I initially intended on it being a 7 day guide, but the first email ended up requiring more info that I had planned, so it may be reduced down to a more dense 5 parter. I may bang off the other four tomorrow as my most important task. Not sure yet.

I reloaded Buffer with social media posts for the next 3-4 days. I should probably invest some money into Facebook Ads to get some readers on the fan page.

I researched my next post. It's going to be decent linkbait. I needed to see what was already out there as it's kind of a compilation post.

The end of my day was mostly strategizing what I'm going to do for linkbuilding. The social properties I worked on yesterday are turning out great so far, but I need to let them sit for a while until people forget about them. Probably a week or two.

My linkbuilding strategy for my past projects has basically centered around these properties + random BSTs with bullshit endorsements. I'm still not exactly sure what my plan is here. Down the road a press release makes sense (as does an infographic) and I'll be able to start doing some guest posting once I have some traction. Until then I'll be doing daily blog commenting. I'll need to do some linkbait brainstorming I think.

94 days left

Dragonfly said:
Curious, why don't you work on Saturdays and Sundays?
Edit: To clarify, if I was broke - I would grind everyday until I wasn't broken, especially weekends.
Click to expand...

I don't put time into work projects on Sundays because it allows me to perform better the rest of the week. It's a luxury I'm thankful to be able to take.

golan said:
How is this better than Simple Sitemap? That you can design the output and put only whichever pages you want?
Click to expand...

I don't think it is better or worse. That plugin looks great for larger sites where inputting it manually would be silly. For now I don't think my shared hosting would appreciate another plugin install.
 
Staccs said:
For now I don't think my shared hosting would appreciate another plugin install.
Click to expand...

If adding one simple plugin will mess with your hosting you should either upgrade or switch hosting.

I do like manually building a sitemap. It allows you to list your most valuable pages and steer people in the right direction. Just make sure you still have an automated sitemap for bots.
 
November 26th 2014 - Day 42

Wasn't around much today, don't really have anything to report for this project.

I completed a one-off freelance job prettying up a Wordpress site for somebody with the time I was around a computer. I just replied to another similar 'job' requesting help with a website transfer.

I've spent the last hour studying some real authority sites. Listening to interviews/reading blog posts from guys who are really good at building them. This site isn't there yet, but it's definitely reachable.

I haven't reported any traffic numbers yet because there hasn't been any - just started working on promotion now. When I logged into analytics today I saw 35 visitors had come to the site. Turns out a Twitter account with xx,xxx followers shared a piece of my content, which snowballed into a couple Pinterest pins as well. I followed the page and asked how exactly he found my content, but no response. The onsite metrics were very good for social traffic from a Twitter page that essentially curates content; 14% bounce and an average of 5 minutes 30 seconds on site. Very happy with that.

Full day tomorrow.

93 days left
 
November 27th 2014 - Day 43

Published a new post from scratch today. I like it a lot. Took some time to get the research done but it was worth it. This type of post would have easily taken me 2 days at the beginning of this thread.

After that was done I wrote another email in the series I'm working on. I think it'a going to be a 5 day series, but we'll see how it plays out. They are fairly long emails, but not overwhelming. It's my first time collecting a list so I'm looking forward to see how they turn out.

I created a bunch of 'stuff' that would make some of the social profiles I created look more legit. A PDF/MP3/etc were all made, then I found some sites I could upload them to in exchange for a link. I feel the social sites are much higher quality than these 'upload for link' type sites, but they won't hurt. I also found 3 more quality social sites I'll revisit sometime soon.

To close out I opened up my RSS reader and left comments where I could add value. Did the same on the forum I'm trying to establish a reputation. After that I logged into Twitter and followed ~50 people who are following the account that tweeted out my content yesterday.

92 days left
 
November 28th 2014 - Day 44

Started off getting all the research done for the next post. It's nothing complex, but it's a list, and I want it to be exhaustive. Make it so readers don't need to return to Google to look for more answers, because this post will have them all.

Wrote another email for the series I've been working on.

Went to a funeral.

Came home and built out the new social profiles I found a couple days ago.

Refilled Buffer with social posts for the weekend.

Opened up my RSS reader and left relevant comments where I could add value, did the same on the community account I need more rep on. That will pay off next week hopefully.

91 days left
 
November 29th 2014 - Day 45

Took my 'day off' today instead of the usual Sunday.

Back tomorrow.

90 days left
 
Your motivational issue is pretty clear - you're living with your parents. Before you ever wrote about not wanting to be a drain on your parents, it was obvious you lived with your parents.

I wrote a pretty long post about it, but it had a link and I have like 10 posts so it didn't get approved. Bottom line is that you need to just move out. You'll be forced to develop an adult work ethic and grow as an entrepreneur... or you'll become a career wal-mart greeter. Either way you'll find your true calling.

On the tactical side what are you doing to promote your content? You seem to be doing some writing and tinkering with random elements on your site and leaving comments here and there, but there's doesn't seem to be a cohesive plan to bring in readers.
 
November 29th 2014 - Day 46

Today I was suppose to map out the month of December for this project. I've been setting my tasks the night before, which is fine, but I want a bigger picture focus to work towards.

I have the content ideas ready, some have been researched already. A couple new types of content planned which I've mentioned a dozen times, it's something I'm excited about. I'm going to finish the email series which will be a major asset to new visitors.

If you haven't noticed, this is all on-site stuff to improve the actual product. What I am lacking is marketing. Right now I have a really great website nobody will ever find. This is something I've been thinking about this past week and I appreciate JCmcclain bringing it up.

Aside from reaching out to people potentially interested in the niche and leaving good comments on relevant blogs, I'm really not sure what I am doing to promote the site. I'm scared to post links to a blog post on relevant communities because it could burn a bridge. I am doing some link building aside from blog comments (building out social properties), but I'm not confident those links alone will get me any traction once I'm able to add them up.

The result of my last project (penalized) has me terrified of getting links which I don't have control over. In the past I'd get those initial rankings through buying random BST packages. I wanted to make a serious attempt at going down a whiter path with this project, but the majority of whitehat linkbuilding techniques seem to be 'if you build it they will come' - or - build something really great and reach out to other sites in your niche.

A have a few problems with the latter:

1. If the website I reach out to doesn't like my content I could burn the bridge. This is probably irrational because my content is good, and if they don't like it then I have successfully filtered them out of people I need to contact. I have no ads/aff links at all on the site right now, so it's a clean as it's ever going to be.

2. There are less than 10 sites dedicated to the same topic as mine. There are thousands of larger sites that cover the entire industry rather than the specific niche that could also be considered relevant, though. I've never asked another webmaster to share a piece of my content for free.... I'm not sure how to make that happen within a desirable value proposition.

3. My site is in an industry where a lot of bloggers have credentials that qualify them as reputable. I'm unable express my own opinion with equal credibility. I don't think this is a problem because I cite my resources and do a good job at curating available resources into a better, easier to digest, comprehensive, single resource. I don't even want to express my own opinions in this niche. I think I could actually use this to my advantage my appealing to their egos (asking for content contributions on some form from them), which they would likely share with their audience.

I answered my own questions a couple times in there. I'll leave it in the post in case it can help someone with similar concerns.

I still feel I am without a cohesive strategy to promote my content. The angles I am trying to push are developing relationships with relevant bloggers through commenting and acting as a curator of information (which means links + name drop if they choose to contribute).

Is this enough to gain traction, or at least get the ball rolling? Should I be considering something else?

89 days left
 
December 1st 2014 - Day 47

I just lost this post via cookie expiration again. The one time I don't CTRL + A/CTRL + C before hitting submit...

The I already wrote this once version:

Half day, out of my control. Worked on round 2 of social properties, Yahoo answers, social media posts, blog comments + replies. Wednesday is when I am going to start reaching out to users for content. I keep delaying it waiting for the perfect scenario, but there is no such thing.

88 days left
 
December 2nd 2014 - Day 48

I've spent all day trying to migrate hosts. I picked up a new yearly sub on Black Friday and decided I would move all my sites over today.

I don't even have that many, but everything that can go wrong, is going wrong. Dealing with support still... hopefully won't take too much longer. I've done this dozens of times.

Getting some comments in on various sites in between uploading times/ticket responses/new developments.

87 days left
 
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