This past weekend I had a wild camping romp in the rain at Martinsville, VA. It was a great break from responsibility to reset my head a drive into the final section of the semester and job hunt. I came back exhausted yet mentally refreshed. I hit the ground running on Monday by applying for about 25 jobs online and writing a few emails to prospects that might land me a job.
Today I applied for several more jobs, but not with the fury of yesterday. I still consider it a success, because I cleared out several job types on Monster. Tomorrow I will look for additional jobs that are relevant on Monster before heading off to Careerbuilder, HotJobs, and Dice. I hope to hit all of the highly relevant job postings this week so that next week I can focus on niche job sites and direct company inquiries.
I had some time to kill today between classes and made great use of it. I've been carrying around a green speckled notebook in by backpack whenever I leave home in case business ideas strike me suddenly. However, I also use it just to put some things on paper that I don't want to hold in my head any longer. I suppose I got the idea from the movie 16 Blocks, where the one character wants to make cakes and keeps all his recipes in a similar notebook.
Anyways, I went through and properly analyzed revenue potential for my network of content sites that I've been brewing about. It certainly seems profitable, at least to a limit. Who wouldn't want an extra $10k per year? However, it will be interesting to see where that boundary is. I laid out a plan, with several options based on my employment situation following school, on how to create this network of sites using my own abilities and some freelance writers after some progress has been made.
My overly hopeful view has me making enough to not need a job after about two years with enough money left over to fund an ecommerce project or two. I didn't write a realistic view, because I think its necessary to set the bar high.
Dale was right in his comment about my last post; I need to keep a more positive outlook about my situation and accomplishments.
Oh yeah, I would have forgotten to mention it except I had already written it as my post title. I plan to Bike to Uganda tomorrow. Its a fund raising event I saw on campus today. They have about ten bikes on trainers counting miles. I think I'll head over there tomorrow and help them out for a half hour or so. I heard we're only barely behind UVA, so I'll do anything I can to beat those suckers!
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Productivity Analysis III
I did little on the entrepreneurial front over the last several days, but with good cause. I had a giant project due today for my wireless networking class. Of course, being the king of procrastination, I didn't start on it over the weekend like I wanted to. But being alone with college basketball playoffs can do that to you.
However, my partner and I pretty much finished the project in time. We were up most of the night and each skipped a class this morning to finish. However, this makes it hard to call myself unproductive over the last couple days. I need to somehow push an element of this kind of motivation into my internet projects.
I did a small amount more research for the clone sites I plan to launch in terms of categories, site architecture, and the like. I still haven't selected concrete categories or written any content. I will have to mull over everything first before I spend any serious time. Also, the veggiehub is still a higher priority.
Hypothetically the official launch date is April 1, but now I'm pretty well behind schedule. After some brainstorming I decided that the reason that I am not making progress is because I don't enjoy writing these initial articles. There is some level of basics that the site should cover that need to be up for the launch, but I find these article types to be rather boring.
Once the site is launched, there will be less articles of this basic nature and more about current events, analysis, and other more fun stuff. I suppose I just need to charge in and get the writing over with for the launch. What stinks about being behind schedule is that the launch won't be at all dramatic because I haven't done any marketing so I just have a few daily remnant visitors from the veggiehub sites of the past.
I have an "important" test on Thursday and then I'm heading to Martinsville this weekend for the Nascar race so I'll be lacking on accomplishments until next Tuesday or Wednesday probably. So, I plan to post again at the end of next week.
However, my partner and I pretty much finished the project in time. We were up most of the night and each skipped a class this morning to finish. However, this makes it hard to call myself unproductive over the last couple days. I need to somehow push an element of this kind of motivation into my internet projects.
I did a small amount more research for the clone sites I plan to launch in terms of categories, site architecture, and the like. I still haven't selected concrete categories or written any content. I will have to mull over everything first before I spend any serious time. Also, the veggiehub is still a higher priority.
Hypothetically the official launch date is April 1, but now I'm pretty well behind schedule. After some brainstorming I decided that the reason that I am not making progress is because I don't enjoy writing these initial articles. There is some level of basics that the site should cover that need to be up for the launch, but I find these article types to be rather boring.
Once the site is launched, there will be less articles of this basic nature and more about current events, analysis, and other more fun stuff. I suppose I just need to charge in and get the writing over with for the launch. What stinks about being behind schedule is that the launch won't be at all dramatic because I haven't done any marketing so I just have a few daily remnant visitors from the veggiehub sites of the past.
I have an "important" test on Thursday and then I'm heading to Martinsville this weekend for the Nascar race so I'll be lacking on accomplishments until next Tuesday or Wednesday probably. So, I plan to post again at the end of next week.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Solving the Motivation and Time Wasting Problem
I said I would post Friday night to analyze my progress and how well I did with accomplishing tasks. Technically I guess its Saturday morning now, but that fact that I followed through with this post means that I've moved forward.
I created the action item list on my marker board complete with the day and time each item should be accomplished. Sadly this was pretty much no help at all. I basically did the things I absolutely had to and just slacked off the rest of the time.
I logged every minute of my time for 24 hours. This was interesting to look at, but only helped me moderately in being more productive. I didn't want to write down that I played Madden for three hours, but I played anyway. It helped a little in the beginning just because I was conscious of what I was doing, but after a couple hours I quit caring.
The interesting thing is that the experiment should have been doomed to success from the beginning. This is because most of the action items just related to studying for a Biology test I had on Thursday. I normally can handle things like that because they default to a higher priority in my mind automatically (the same thing happens when people pay me to do things).
I didn't study as much as I wanted to/should have for the test, but once the test was over my stress level was reduced enough to do some other things. I did some minimal work for the veggiehub, but didn't finish or write an article like I planned. Another one of the action items was to create a power inverter clone site my Thursday night, but not yet purchasing the domain.
I was able to attempt this, but didn't actually create any content. I just put in a couple hours of research into topics I should create the sites about. It was time well spent because I think I'm going to try a more umbrella style domain and just have a bunch of micro sites that are clones of the PI site.
Although I wasn't supposed to be reading the internet/blogs I actually found several articles that were really helpful. I'm a regular follower of Adam McFarland's Blog and went back to review his posts about ROWE (Results Only Work Environment). Also I ran into the Corporatepreneur Blog and enjoyed reading the author's 'baby steps' philosophies and attempted to apply it to my immediate situation.
Although it will show you the extent of my slacking, I found this sweet image on deviant art that I absolutely fell in love with. A print of this might be my first purchase when I get my first post-graduate paycheck. I love the art style and the body language of the guy standing. I decided that he is exemplifying the ultimate feeling I want to have in life.
My closest attempt to define it is...supreme victory and ownership with a big dose of relaxation and a realization that he is in that exact moment.
I have some stuff to do this weekend, so I will review my productivity again during the beginning of next week. For the sake of holding myself to a deadline, I will do it Tuesday night.
I created the action item list on my marker board complete with the day and time each item should be accomplished. Sadly this was pretty much no help at all. I basically did the things I absolutely had to and just slacked off the rest of the time.
I logged every minute of my time for 24 hours. This was interesting to look at, but only helped me moderately in being more productive. I didn't want to write down that I played Madden for three hours, but I played anyway. It helped a little in the beginning just because I was conscious of what I was doing, but after a couple hours I quit caring.
The interesting thing is that the experiment should have been doomed to success from the beginning. This is because most of the action items just related to studying for a Biology test I had on Thursday. I normally can handle things like that because they default to a higher priority in my mind automatically (the same thing happens when people pay me to do things).
I didn't study as much as I wanted to/should have for the test, but once the test was over my stress level was reduced enough to do some other things. I did some minimal work for the veggiehub, but didn't finish or write an article like I planned. Another one of the action items was to create a power inverter clone site my Thursday night, but not yet purchasing the domain.
I was able to attempt this, but didn't actually create any content. I just put in a couple hours of research into topics I should create the sites about. It was time well spent because I think I'm going to try a more umbrella style domain and just have a bunch of micro sites that are clones of the PI site.
Although I wasn't supposed to be reading the internet/blogs I actually found several articles that were really helpful. I'm a regular follower of Adam McFarland's Blog and went back to review his posts about ROWE (Results Only Work Environment). Also I ran into the Corporatepreneur Blog and enjoyed reading the author's 'baby steps' philosophies and attempted to apply it to my immediate situation.
Although it will show you the extent of my slacking, I found this sweet image on deviant art that I absolutely fell in love with. A print of this might be my first purchase when I get my first post-graduate paycheck. I love the art style and the body language of the guy standing. I decided that he is exemplifying the ultimate feeling I want to have in life.
My closest attempt to define it is...supreme victory and ownership with a big dose of relaxation and a realization that he is in that exact moment.
I have some stuff to do this weekend, so I will review my productivity again during the beginning of next week. For the sake of holding myself to a deadline, I will do it Tuesday night.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
A Dense Fog
It seems that I haven't accomplished very much in the last several weeks. I don't really have answers as to why, so I'm writing this post to think through what the problems could be and how to resolve them. If I ramble and repeat myself...at least now you know why.
So you can see that its been just more than a month since my last post. I realized that I've been very unproductive, so that makes sense to me. Not only did I not have motivation to write a new post, but I wouldn't have had anything to write about. I was very excited while writing my last post about the future of VeggieHub and the prospects for LogoAnalysis. This time I don't have anything exciting to write about...except that I'm doing so little that I let veggiehub.com expire before I paid to renew it *eyeroll*.
I created deadlines for the relaunch of VeggieHub. This was supposed to motivate me because I'm deadline driven (or at least, I think I am). Luckily I disguised an extra week into the timeline so I'm not that far off of where I need to be to finish all of the important things by April 1. However, something has completely stopped me from making progress.
Some sort of block has created itself firmly in the way of any progress I could make. I even have half of a very well written article for the VeggieHub. It may only need two more paragraphs, and yet it has sat incomplete for more than a week.
I guess my mind has been elsewhere; it is probably more focused on obtaining a job following graduation. I feel like I'm at wits end regarding getting a job, like all my potential sources are drying up. However, I haven't done much regarding getting new sources in the last several weeks either. Its like I'm frozen.
Spring break was last week. Although I had big plans for 8 hour days, I did little. I had a job interview on Thursday and Friday and probably just couldn't refocus my brain away from that because I really want the position badly.
The other thing that bothers me about my lack of accomplishments is that I have less to do right now than I have ever before and probably ever will again, at least until I retire. I'm only taking four classes--two of which are biology classes that require no work 90% of the time. The other two should require work, but somehow I manage not to really do anything. SO WHAT AM I DOING ALL THE TIME???
Starting right now I'm going to keep a paper log of what I am doing with every waking minute. Maybe then I can analyze what I'm throwing my time away on. I think basically I just read Reddit and watch movies all day. I don't even have cable right now.
As soon as I'm done writing this I'm going to go clear off the marker board (which currently has the VeggieHub deadlines, which I'll transfer to paper) and create a list of action items with deadlines attached. I have to somehow make my entrepreneurial activites more important than surfing the web and other nonsense. Its really stupid that I have to consider this because I WANT to pursue my internet ideas...I shouldn't have to trick myself into doing it.
Okay, here I go...I'll post back on here by Friday night to verify my progress, mainly with myself since I don't think anyone reads this. By Friday night I should have a solid collection of completed action items and have more things to write about.
So you can see that its been just more than a month since my last post. I realized that I've been very unproductive, so that makes sense to me. Not only did I not have motivation to write a new post, but I wouldn't have had anything to write about. I was very excited while writing my last post about the future of VeggieHub and the prospects for LogoAnalysis. This time I don't have anything exciting to write about...except that I'm doing so little that I let veggiehub.com expire before I paid to renew it *eyeroll*.
I created deadlines for the relaunch of VeggieHub. This was supposed to motivate me because I'm deadline driven (or at least, I think I am). Luckily I disguised an extra week into the timeline so I'm not that far off of where I need to be to finish all of the important things by April 1. However, something has completely stopped me from making progress.
Some sort of block has created itself firmly in the way of any progress I could make. I even have half of a very well written article for the VeggieHub. It may only need two more paragraphs, and yet it has sat incomplete for more than a week.
I guess my mind has been elsewhere; it is probably more focused on obtaining a job following graduation. I feel like I'm at wits end regarding getting a job, like all my potential sources are drying up. However, I haven't done much regarding getting new sources in the last several weeks either. Its like I'm frozen.
Spring break was last week. Although I had big plans for 8 hour days, I did little. I had a job interview on Thursday and Friday and probably just couldn't refocus my brain away from that because I really want the position badly.
The other thing that bothers me about my lack of accomplishments is that I have less to do right now than I have ever before and probably ever will again, at least until I retire. I'm only taking four classes--two of which are biology classes that require no work 90% of the time. The other two should require work, but somehow I manage not to really do anything. SO WHAT AM I DOING ALL THE TIME???
Starting right now I'm going to keep a paper log of what I am doing with every waking minute. Maybe then I can analyze what I'm throwing my time away on. I think basically I just read Reddit and watch movies all day. I don't even have cable right now.
As soon as I'm done writing this I'm going to go clear off the marker board (which currently has the VeggieHub deadlines, which I'll transfer to paper) and create a list of action items with deadlines attached. I have to somehow make my entrepreneurial activites more important than surfing the web and other nonsense. Its really stupid that I have to consider this because I WANT to pursue my internet ideas...I shouldn't have to trick myself into doing it.
Okay, here I go...I'll post back on here by Friday night to verify my progress, mainly with myself since I don't think anyone reads this. By Friday night I should have a solid collection of completed action items and have more things to write about.
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