Bruce Hoag
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Hi Robert,
There’s power in examples.
Our best ideas are often stimulated by our awareness of what others do.
And so I recommend that you listen to the descriptions that Chris Guillebeau gives of the 200+ side hustles that people with full-time jobs created.
Here’s the link: Side Hustle School
Bruce
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy2 users thanked author for this post.
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I’m reviewing a book that I reread recently.
The book is entitled If, by Mark Batterson.
Here’s a lengthy quote from it.
It’ll stop you in your tracks.
“If you wake up this morning with more health than illness – you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
“If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation – you are better off than five hundred million people in the world.
“If you can attend a church meeting, or not attend one, without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death – you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.
“If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep – you are richer than 75 percent of this world.
“If you have money in the bank or in your wallet, or spare change in a dish someplace – you rank among the top 8 percent of the world’s wealthy.
“If you can read this book [or any book] – you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all” (p. 198).
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
You’ve heard the age-old question, Les: Cheap, Quick, Easy. Pick two.
If you want fast results, then they won’t be cheap to get. End of story.
Cheap comes from finding a platform that you can dominate in your niche.
For example, Medium is a place where you can publish content for free. It strikes me as being the new EzineArticles, but it’s a much cleaner and elegant platform.
There’s an organizational psychologist there who in about a year has become their number one writer, but even with more articles than anyone else, his niche is probably different from yours.
And that’s just one place where you could go.
As for FB, Google, Pinterest, etc, my own feeling is that these platforms have matured to such an extent that they will serve either a different audience than we do, or will serve them in a different way than they have in the past. And so only those with deep pockets will be able to market on them.
I also think that there’s a real chance that their deep pockets approach will backfire, that their greedy approach to advertising will result in a lot of bad publicity, and that they’ll end up trying to recover the “good ole days.” But once the damage is done, there’ll be no going back.
And, of course, this will open up the market for new platforms.
This forum is a new platform, for example. Right now it has a limited membership, but when it’s fully developed, the benefits to all of us will be amazing.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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Thanks to everyone for all your input on this question.
After a lot of thought and feedback from this forum, I’ve decided that I can serve people better by helping them to understand why they do what they do and how to change their behavior so that they get the results that they want.
I’ve had a virus for most of January, which has brought this transition to a standstill, but you should see some changes in the near future.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I’m with you on the sleep.
I get a better quality of sleep in the eight hours between 9:30 pm and 5:30 am than any other period in the 24.
Is this your experience, too?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
One way to find the posts you want to see is to Favorite them. Then in the Members section (I think that’s where it is) you can look at all the posts that you’ve identified as such.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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It was me, Dana.
I sent it to Sean for one of his clients, and he asked me to post it.
There’s a glitch in that part of the forum which prevented my name from being displayed.
Glad you found the article to be helpful.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy5 users thanked author for this post.
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Hi Robert,
Anything techy is a challenge for me, so my go-to source for how to do anything like this is YouTube.
As with any source, you do have to rummage around a bit to find what you want, but you can be sure that it’s there if you’re willing to look.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Well, Scott, this is much less of a resolution and more of a determination.
I’ve gradually realized over the past few months that I need to create more mental space.
It’s not so much that I’m running from pillar to post and back again as the fact that I couldn’t get on top of my schedule.
You may have read elsewhere that the thing I need to do more than anything else is get to bed by 9:30 pm. (It’s nearly 10:30 right now, and I started in that direction more than an hour ago.)
Soon after the New Year, I got a virus and, while it’s much better, I’m still not over it. This is the third week. So there’s the day job, nights when sleep has been short, and then fatigue during and after the day job.
I know that you’ve been through a lot more than I have lately, but I think that you’ll understand how events can simply overtake your best intentions.
So my immediate goals are to get well, catch up on some outstanding work, update some other things, and then open the marketing floodgates. A number of people are waiting to do things for me, and I’ve told them to hold back until I’m ready.
Thanks for listening.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy1 user thanked author for this post.
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It’s amazing how little we need to live, both in income and possessions.
I had to learn this the hard way. I went from living in a 2800 sq ft Italian palace to a small hotel room (6 months) to a 8′ x 35′ trailer (> 4 years). Any day, I could be moving into a small and old one bedroom duplex. It seems surreal that I’m actually going to live in a real house after all this time.
I wouldn’t wish my experience onto anyone, but to face that degree of simplicity every day cause you to appreciate things in a way that I don’t think you could otherwise.
Minimalism needs to be practical. You don’t want to live in space that is clinical. On the other hand, there’s much to be said for reducing the amount of stuff that you have. When we “lay up treasures . . . where moth and dust corrupts and thieves break in and steal,” it increases our worries. We’re disappointed when we find holes in our favorite clothes. We feel compelled to get extra insurance or rent safety deposit boxes to hold our treasured belongings.
Even in my comparatively austere surroundings, I’ve learned not only to be content with what I have, but also to seek for mental space as well.
Physical space that comes from reducing the clutter helps you to relax. Mental space enables you to think.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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Although I’ve never used FB ads, I’d like to suggest that they are a waste of money.
If you haven’t heard, FB has changed its policies. Fewer ads will be shown and more friends’ feeds will appear instead.
So whatever exposure you got before has just fallen for the same price. In other words, you’re spending more in order to get less.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I don’t use ads anywhere, but I’ll pass along some advice I heard elsewhere.
Don’t buy any ads until you’re making a living.
In other words, don’t buy advertising until your business is profitable to the extent that it supports you.
When it is, then you can invest in a marketing budget.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I’m pretty much with Scott on this.
There have been many times when I’ve planned a week. Usually, by Tuesday, something has happened to change that.
Now I have a pretty good idea of what I want to accomplish in my head, and all I can do is see how the day goes.
That may sound incredibly lackadaisical, but it beats being frustrated all the time because things aren’t going the way I’d like them to.
There’s a book that I’d like to recommend. It’s called The One Thing, by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan.
Your “one thing” is the thing you must do in order for everything else to go according to plan.
Do you know what my one thing is? It’s going to bed before 9:30 pm.
Do you know how hard that is to do? Much more difficult than you’d ever imagine.
On those nights when I can go to bed at that time and sleep until 5:15-5:30 am, I stand the best chance of accomplishing what’s on my list. Those are the best days.
But not being sleepy, getting back later than planned, coughing during the night, etc can change the best laid plans of mice and men.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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Hi Scott,
I think that the Likes and page views you’re experiencing are what organic growth is all about. You may never figure out where it came from or why it occurred when it did.
Sean may have some other ideas on this.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy1 user thanked author for this post.
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Delighted to hear that you’ve done so well, despite the challenges, Scott.
I wish my colds lasted only five days. 😉
I’ve had a virus for 12 days. It seems half the country has it. The nurse told me today that, generally, it takes five weeks to clear. Now that I’ve got the right inhaler and some drops for conjunctivitis, I think I’ll be back to normal quite soon. But, I haven’t been able to sleep properly for a week.
I’m thankful to God that I did get sick. It didn’t keep me off work for more than a day and a bit, but that’s because I’m left on my own in a quiet, warm office. There’s no way that I could’ve done anything other than sit, and even that was too much for a few days. I missed the services on Sunday and two Wednesday evenings, too.
Nevertheless, getting sick forced me to slow down, to think and to reflect, and for that, I’m thankful.
When I’m well enough, I’ll start exercising again. Right now that’s not possible.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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Here’s one I came across in a post by Benjamin P Hardy, the author with the most articles on Medium. He’s quoting Viktor Frankl.
Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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Came across this article a few moments ago: 11 Ways to Make Money Online.
And here are a few more places to look listed by source:
Entrepreneur
Forbes
LifeHack
The Balance
Scott Alan TurnerAnd one more. This is the Side Hustle School with Chris Guillebeau. Each episode is less than 10 minutes long, and there are hundreds to listen to. In every case, these people were working full-time jobs and in their spare time created a side hustle.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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I see the freebie as an introduction to what people can expect from me.
If they like it, then they’ll stay on the list. If they don’t, then they’ll leave; but they shouldn’t be surprised by the emails if they’ve read the free PDF. And I hope that it will make them hungry for more.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I don’t know what to tell you, Les.
No entrepreneurial venture, online or off, is a guaranteed success at all, never mind in 12 months.
And when it comes to any kind of investment, you should never risk money that you can’t afford to lose.
Amateur gamblers risk their future in the hope of getting the big one in the present. That’s why the casinos are rich, and the punters are poor.
The “opportunity” you describe doesn’t sound like an opportunity for anything except to lose your money. I say that because of the risks involved with just one refund request and the fact that you’re a middleman.
Middlemen have no future. When companies restructure, for example, positions are often combined. When a market is disrupted, middlemen disappear and entire industries are affected.
And a single refund could cause you to lose your money? That’s not much of a margin.
I’d steer clear of this if I were you.
That said, how could you do it so that you weren’t the middleman? How could you steal the march altogether? How could you remove them from the equation? That’s how entrepreneurs think.
As for the forum itself, it’s worth remembering 80/20; and this is true of almost any volunteer organization: 20% of the people will do 80% of the work. And you’ve said it yourself: 70%, which for all intents and purposes is near enough to 80%, haven’t come to the forum at all.
So I don’t think that we need to be too concerned about the numbers of people who do nothing. If anything we ought to expect it.
When more people join, there will be more interaction, but it will still only be about 20% on a consistent basis.
My concern is that those who were active seem to have lost their steam. The success of the forum depends on the people who are in it. If we stop participating, then it will die.
When the forum was first launched, I asked what people were expecting to get from it. The vast majority of respondents said that they wanted to help people.
That rather begs the question then, doesn’t it?
Does the lack of participation mean that they have changed their minds?
Seems to me that there’s scope for the people who were once active to develop relationships with those of kindred spirit in the forum. It’s what you’d expect to happen in other forums.
This forum is going to be what we make it.
We just have to decide what that will be.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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Here’s a link to the story: Snow falls in the Sahara desert for third time in 40 years
One way to deal with all the ads is to install a couple of extensions. This tip is for Chrome.
One is called AdBlocker and the other is AdBlocker Plus.
You will get sites that generate a pop-up window to tell you to turn them off. Usually, you can just close the pop-up and carry on as before.
You’ll get the occasional site where this isn’t possible. Forbes is one, I think, and Business Insider. For them, just open an incognito window and paste in the URL. You’ll see the ads, but only for that site. It won’t change anything in your normal browser window.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Hi Yvonne.
It’s a bit difficult to see the link if you don’t know where to look, but it’s called Post Anything, and it’s the second link down from the top on the left side of the Pal Core Access page.
Here’s the link: http://preneurpal.com/forums/forum/post-anything/
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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I don’t have much visitor engagement probably because there aren’t many visitors; but in a way that’s not the reason I have a blog.
It’s there because it gives me a platform that I control where I can demonstrate my expertise.
The NYT blogger who decided to shut his down has other, more influential, platforms. And so, for him, his blog is redundant. But that doesn’t mean that all blogs are.
The author of the article which you referred to mentions that places like Twitter and Facebook have vastly more visitors, and it’s true: They do. But a) not all of those visitors read your content, and b) those places are as noisy as the Internet as a whole.
On top of that, you don’t control those platforms. Facebook, for example, is constantly changing how and where content appears. Just as you “optimize” for one format, they change it, making all your work irrelevant.
You need to have one central platform on the Internet that you control; and that needs to be the place where all other avenues lead. Social media will never give that to you.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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It looks like a great plan except for one thing. There’s no flexibility.
With dogged determination you’ll push through for awhile, but you need to be prepared for the time when you flame out, or life gets in the way.
That’s the problem with schedules. We all overestimate what we can do in the short-term.
I’m not telling you this to discourage you. I hope that you can do all this for as long as it takes to get the proficiency that you want. I just know from my own experience that you can be fully committed right up to the day when you realize that you can’t keep up the pace.
So build in some R & R. Plan to have energy in reserve at the end of each day.
Take a complete rest from what you’re doing for a whole day each week.
Make sure that you get some vigorous exercise often, good sleep every night, and eat what you need to be at the top of your game.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
See you next year. 😉
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
The best is yet to come!
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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Can you elaborate on this, Scott, and provide a link?
It seems that a lot of people in different countries use this term for their businesses, and they all refer to different things.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
After you get the “job,” ask them:
1. Why do you have a website? What is it’s purpose?
They will probably tell you that they want people to read what’s on it.
2. Then you can ask them how they’ll know when people have visited the site.
Google Analytics will tell them the number of people who visit, but what you really want them to do is take action as a result.
Then you can explain to them about building a list. They could offer a 2-4-1 coupon, for example, or 50% off their first meal, or something like that to get people to sign up.
And then they can email their list and tell them about how they carefully prepare their food, why they have a restaurant, specials that only their list qualify for, etc.
This might be a way for you to not just fix their site, but also take over their marketing.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Don’t worry.
If you don’t have anything to sell, then you won’t be hearing from Oprah. 😉
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Anytime I want to know something Les, I Google it.
I read perhaps a dozen results. Maybe more. It depends on how disparate the opinions are.
When you start seeing everyone say what everyone else has said, then you know that you’ve probably read everything.
The next step would be to watch some YouTube clips about what FB pages ought to look like. These need to be recent; less than a year, and preferably less than six months. Changes happen fast online.
Then with what you’ve learned, think about how to make it work for you.
And you may even disagree with everything you’ve learned. If so, then create a page that looks the way you want it to. You can always change later, and you probably will.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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There’s a lot of nasty bugs going around, Robert.
I’m into my fourth week with a virus. At least I’m sleeping all night now, but for three weeks, I didn’t get much done.
And now, I have to get caught up.
It’s as you say, you get all psyched-up, and then you’re sent back to the locker room.
Hang in there.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Hi Steve,
Audience is always tricky, no matter what your niche.
I firmly believe that your audience – your clients – determine your niche; not the other way around.
Terry Dean told me a long time ago – I interviewed him – that hardly anyone ends up in the same business that they first started, and I think that this is why.
Initially, you sell one or two products; but as you work with people, they tell you what they need, and they tell you because they’re confident that you can help them whatever their problem is. But quite often the original problem that you set out to solve is not the one that they think you can help them with, or the have a problem that you haven’t addressed specifically. They can see the connection between what you do and what they need, but you’ve missed it.
So figuring out who your audience is isn’t obvious. In fact, you may not even be able to narrow it down all that much. Not at the beginning.
I suspect, though I don’t know this for a fact, that when you have enough people on your list that you start getting a regular conversation with them that as a result, you gain an understanding of what they need or want. And from that you start to craft emails that lead them towards a purchase. And as you get better at that, you also learn what email subjects tend to get people to open them.
I hope that Sean will let us have the benefit of his experience here. He’s a master at emails. 😉
Bruce
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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Hi Les,
In all fairness to Sean, he doesn’t have the time to stay up on everything. Nor do I, come to that.
The thing is that in my day job, I’ve had to create a marketing plan for a bricks-and-mortar company that’s quite set in it’s ways and has never had a marketing budget.
So most days, I’m thinking about what content to create and especially how to promote it for free.
That’s quite a challenge because so many free tools, when they get some traction, will start charging for what they offer.
The company doesn’t use Medium. It’s simply not practical for it. It’s in the B2B horticultural industry, and Medium is for B2C.
Not only that, but I’m not an engineer, and there’s only so much you can say about steel and glass. (The company builds commercial greenhouses.)
That means that to the extent possible I have to stay on top of what Google is doing, and YouTube, and SlideShare, and the SEO industry, and all the rest of it. That’s how I found Medium. I read about it somewhere. 🙂
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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How could you turn your interest in WWII into a business, Les?
The answer won’t be obvious, but there’s a lot of interest in it, so I would’ve thought that a side hustle could be created from it.
To get some ideas about how people have turned their hobbies into business, listen to their stories here: Side Hustle School.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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You don’t have to advertise to get Likes.
Anyone can search FB for topics and have the relevant posts, etc, listed for them.
I imagine that’s what people do, and then when they see your page, they Like it.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
What you say, Robert, is absolutely true, not that it wouldn’t be. LOL
It’s only when you spend time in other countries, especially in their homes, that you realize how much less everyone else has.
And this is another place where the 80/20 Principle applies.
You’ll use 20% of your stuff 80% of the time. In this case, figuring out which 20% will be pretty easy. Once you’ve identified that, it’s pretty easy to work out what you don’t need.
There may be emotional attachments to what you own, which may make it a little harder, but as you say: If you have to get a storage unit for it, then unless it’s really important, you probably don’t need it at all.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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Share it with someone who’s wants to know.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
When I move, and that should be soon, I’m expecting to get a high speed connection; and that’s when I’ll reinstall the app and go for the showcase.
Right now, on a good day, I get a download speed of 5-6 MBps. Upload is less than 1 MB.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Hi Steve,
It’s easy to forget that not everyone can touch-type. I could do it before it was popular. In fact, I bought my first computer because the keys on the electric typewriter kept jamming. They couldn’t keep up with me. LOL And I tend to think and write and the same time.
Perhaps I should explain why it appears that I’m on PreneurPal all the time. I simply leave the window open along with several others. I do check it throughout the day, but perhaps not as often as it appears. But I also have a method and can sweep through the posts, questions, and PMs in minutes.
You’re right about Sean putting a lot of work into this forum. The thing is that if we don’t participate, then it won’t work. We each have to do what we can.
Bruce
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Steve, is that Bill Tracy or Brian Tracy?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I’ve flipped-flopped quite a bit this year, Les, but I’m convinced that I’m both a writer and a psychologist. I understand why people think and act the way they do in the world work, both online and offline. (Sean will back me up on this.)
And you’re right: I don’t have a ready-made system for you; but I can probably help you to find one.
The bit about SEO concerns me. If you’re working for an agency, then it’s probably still relevant; but don’t expect it to be much longer.
I saw an article the other day from HubSpot. They described how they lost 25% of their unique visitors in one month because of the changes Google had made in the way they displayed search results, and how the second month they lost even more.
And get this: They still had the number one spot in the results. It’s just that by the time Google showed its adverts and a thing called the “Featured” box, their number one result was in the middle of the page.
Google’s algorithms are changing every day as well. Keyword phrases don’t matter. That’s because Google now determines what a piece of content is about based on what it says; not the frequency or placement of certain long-tail phrases or LSIs.
All that said, here’s something you need to think about. Unless you’re already an expert in those things, why would you want to devote so much time, effort, and money in order to learn it? Why not commit the same resources to building the business that you want online?
Forgive me for saying so, but this opportunity feels like another BSO?
Is it?
You don’t need to tell me, but it would be worth pondering what the fundamental differences are between this and any other similarly priced BSO you’ve bought in the past.
Here endeth the first lesson. 😉
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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Jing used to be entirely free. By that I mean that all you had to do was download it.
Now you have to provide credit card details to download what is ostensibly a free program. To me, “that does not compute.”
As a result, I don’t use it anymore.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I think it was Geothe who said something to the effect that if you treat people as you want them to be that they’ll rise to the challenge.
You’re right, Jan. If people aren’t accustomed to getting deep content, then they might shy away from you; but if that’s what they’ve been getting from the beginning and they’re still on your list, then I see no reason to lower the bar just to please them.
Instead, by keeping it high, you simply attract a different group.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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Articles/posts that are deep, thought-provoking, and express an opinion are always better than the run-of-the-mill-regurgitation of information that’s ubiquitous. The former shows that you’ve thought about your topic. The latter proves that you’re just like everyone else.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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When you’re writing something on the scale of 99K words, you have to come up with a system that will enable you to remember things when you need them. I knew that when I got to each chapter folder, I’d have a much clearer idea of how relevant the material was and where to put it.
Some things got put into later folders; others were discarded.
If I’d tried to solve all of the problems simultaneously, the project would never have been completed.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
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The Bible is of earthly benefit. In fact it gives “everything we need for life and Godliness.” But that doesn’t mean that we’re free to apply what it says in any way that we want. We are to “rightly divide the Word of truth.”
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Several years ago, I wrote a book, which if you’re interested in the topic and flushed with cash, you can get on Amazon. LOL
It was a huge project. Biggest thing I’ve ever undertaken. Something like 500 references.
I created a folder for each chapter, and whenever I came across something that seemed interesting, instead of getting dragged into it, I made enough of a note so that I could find it again, and put it in the chapter folder. Even though I didn’t have answers at the time, I knew that by the time I got to that chapter, I know what to do with it.
That approach work well for me. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Having said that, that particular method makes a lot more sense to me than making a list of 50 things that need to be done.
The other problem is that making that list, at least at the beginning, makes the less important stuff seem more important than it is. And that makes you less productive; not more.
So for me, the thing to do is to record somewhere that the activity needs to be accomplished, but to put it someplace where it won’t distract me from what does need to be done now.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy2 users thanked author for this post.
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From the context, it’s clear that to “make our calling and election sure” refers to our salvation, not our vocation.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Ironically, it doesn’t sound simple. Instead, it seems unnecessarily complicated and distracting.
Why would I want to spend the best hours of my day writing down everything that I can think of that I need to do? All that will do is make me feel overwhelmed.
I like the Chrome extension, Momentum. I can create one or more to-do lists with it, and refer to it whenever I want to.
The night before, I make a note of what I want to do the following day. At most, I only want one main thing on that list; not 10 or 20.
Even if you have a lot to do, it seems to me that it’s a distraction to spend a lot of time writing it all down.
For me, when I think of something, unless it’s urgent, I’ll make a note and put it someplace where I can find it when I need it, but not be reminded of it all the time.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Love the graphic Mark.
The problem of motivation comes from the length of time that elapses between the effort that’s required to make it work, and the feedback we get which tells us that it is.
Our society has programmed us to believe that things happen instantaneously. We even read about people who were an “overnight” success.
And so when we work harder than we ever have before and don’t see the results we’ve been promised, then we’re tempted to quit.
Many people do.
For some of us, however, there’s something inside that won’t let that happen. We keep coming back to that niggling problem because it won’t away simply because we ignore it. If anything, it becomes stronger through neglect.
That said, sometimes we get so embedded in what we’re doing that it feels like we’re in the rainforest: No light. And that’s when you have to back away, take a break, and get some perspective.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I got a subscriber yesterday by doing this.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy
