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Archive for the ‘Random Babbling’ Category

As you probably know by now my English basically sucks. So when I am writing articles it’s pretty hard for me to write something that look professional. I always have to use basic words. I’m pretty sure there’s thousands of people like me trying to make a living in Internet marketing. And I’m also sure a lot of people would like to write articles but they just cant get the inspiration that is needed to get going.

Yesterday I bought a nice little application called Magic Article Rewriter. You just copy and paste a article in this little application, push a button (actually you have to push 2 buttons, hard work, huh?) and the application will rewrite the article. Press the rewrite button again and you will get another unique article!

And what can you use your new articles for? Everything! Submit it to articles directories, update your website. Unique content is what Google likes.

Check out Magic Article Rewriter if you want unique text-content fast.

Ok, I just found this and I feel very stupid for not finding it way sooner. I guess I just haven’t cared too much about it. But better sooner than later, right?

Anyway, if you want to know what kind of visitors a website get there’s 2 great free services you can use to get the demographic data from.

One of them is Quantcast.

And the other one is a service from Google names Doubleclick Ad Planner.
(You have to select a country under “View data for:” to see the data)

I sometimes (too often) struggle to get started and do any real work. Sometimes I just check my email, then check my stats, then check some forums, some more forums and then repeat.

I read something pretty interesting today. A guy named Steve Pavlina wrote this:

The 15-Minute Method

Here’s a simple yet very powerful productivity method I’d like to share with you. I call it the 15-minute method.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “chunk it down” in reference to breaking large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. Sometimes it’s easy to break projects into bite-sized pieces, but other times it can be more difficult to do so. Especially when you’re doing very creative work, it can be nearly impossible to identify all the steps in advance, and clearly defining those steps may be tricky.

Even after we chunk a project into smaller tasks, some of those tasks can be intimidating when think about doing them. I find this especially true with tasks that can be very tedious. Even if the steps are clear, I’m more likely to procrastinate when I look at a 3-hour block of relatively dull work.

We also know that getting started on a task is usually the hardest part. Once you get past the first 15 minutes or so, it’s easier to keep going. Once you’ve built up some momentum, two hours can flow by like it’s nothing. We just have to find a way to get started without delay, overriding the desire to procrastinate.
The 15-minute method is a way to help overcome inertia and get moving on a task. It’s basically a psychological trick, and it’s very simple.

How It Works

All you do is tell yourself that you’re going to work on a particular task or project for only 15 minutes. You can work longer if you feel like it, but you won’t worry about that until your initial 15 minutes are up. Only after you’ve completed those first 15 minutes will you even think about working longer.

Prepare your environment in advance. Set out all the materials you’ll need to work on your task for 15 minutes. Do what’s necessary to make sure you won’t be interrupted during that time. This is very important.

When you begin your 15 minutes, do nothing but the task at hand. Don’t get up for any reason. If you’re working on your computer, don’t open any applications but the essential ones. If the phone rings, let it go to voicemail. If a text message comes in, let it wait. Don’t even think about checking your email or Facebook. If someone pops in and asks, “Do you have a minute?” tell them to come back when your 15 minutes are up (or later).

For those 15 minutes only, commit to not distracting yourself in any way. Focus single-mindedly on the task at hand.

Work quickly during this time. Focus on speed. Try to make as much progress on your task as humanly possible. If distracting thoughts come up, say to yourself, “Focus! Focus! Focus!” Then ask yourself, “What’s the very next step?”

Put some kind of clock or timer in front of you, so you can see the minutes counting down. It’s important to create a sense of time pressure. Know that you aren’t swimming in time — you only have 15 minutes here. The time will pass quickly. I use a digital kitchen timer that counts down and sounds an alarm when the time is up.

Chaining 15-Minute Chunks

After your 15 minutes are up, now you can decide whether you wish to keep going with the task at hand. At this point your mind is in a different state than it was when you first began. You aren’t in the same mental state you were in 15 minutes earlier. Your neurons are saturated in task-related activity. Your mind will have a strong tendency to want to keep going and to resist stopping.

If you want to stop, give yourself permission to stop. Get up, walk around, take a break, or switch to some other project. When you’re ready to do another 15-minute chunk, then do so. Otherwise, let it be okay to stop after 15 minutes.

Most likely when those first 15 minutes are up, you’ll want to continue. You may even be annoyed that your time is up. Feel free to keep working. If it’s easy to do so, restart your timer immediately, and commit to doing another 15-minute chunk.

Once you get moving, it’s much easier to keep moving. It’s hard to get started when you’re staring at a two-hour task or longer. That may seem like a big commitment, so don’t commit to that much up front. Only commit to 15 minutes.

When you notice that your 15-minute segments are becoming less productive, or you’re getting distracted, stop and take a break. That’s a good time to go for a walk, have a meal, or switch to other tasks. Then when you’re ready to begin again, start with a fresh 15-minute commitment.

With practice you can challenge yourself to chain several 15-minute chunks together. Typically I will chain 7 or 8 of these chunks in a row before taking a break.

NEVER allow yourself to do anything off-task during a 15-minute chunk. If you feel the urge to check email or return a phone call, do it between — never during — 15-minute chunks.

Benefits of This Method

The 15-minute method has many benefits. First, it helps you overcome inertia and gets you moving forward productively. No matter how unpleasant the task may seem, it isn’t that difficult to commit to working on it for only 15 minutes.

Second, it gets you past those “I don’t know what to do” excuses. You can easily figure out what to do for 15 minutes. If you really don’t know how to begin, journal about the task. Make a very short to-do list. Or call someone to ask for advice on how to start. You only have to figure out 15 minute’s worth of the task to get started.

Third, it keeps you focused. You’re compelled to make clear distinctions between real work vs. distractions. You can’t delude yourself into thinking that web surfing or checking email is working. When you use the 15-minute method, you’re getting real work done. A whole day spent using the method can sometimes be more productive than a whole week without it.

Fourth, it helps you work faster. You’ll find that the act of checking in with yourself every 15 minutes helps you maintain a fast tempo. Even if you keep working for hours at a time, those frequent check-ins are valuable, and they only take seconds.

Finally, it helps you build more discipline. You’ll train yourself to stick to the task at hand and put off distractions. And you’ll challenge yourself to work flat out instead of procrastinating.

First Thing in the Morning

If you want to have a really productive day, get started with the 15-minute method first thing in the morning. Don’t allow yourself to have breakfast, check email, or do anything else that could chew up your time until you complete at least one 15-minute chunk on a key task.

I sometimes challenge myself to do 4-8 chunks first thing in the morning before I do anything else. Then I’ll have breakfast, handle my communication, etc.

I used this approach when writing my book. I’d frequently push myself to complete 2-4 hours of writing first thing in the morning before giving myself permission to do anything else.
Variations

Feel free to vary the 15-minute method to suit your situation. You can do 10- or 20-minute chunks if you’d like. Just make sure the chunk sizes aren’t so big that you have a tendency to procrastinate. The point is to make it easy to get started by lowering the perceived commitment.

You can also use the 15-minute method to monitor and control how much time you spend on activities like web surfing or email. Limit yourself to a certain number of 15-minute chunks. For example, I’ll often devote a 30-minute block of time to handling my online communication. Hitting the halfway point after the first 15-minute chunk helps me pace myself and make sure I’m not getting bogged down (like over-engineering an email that only requires a short response).

I recently applied the 15-minute method to the task of creating and posting an updated version of the Conscious Growth Workshop web page. It was a creative task that took about 16 hours to complete, spread over a few days. In one day I completed 33 chunks (8 hours, 15 minutes). Given that all of those chunks were fast tempo and distraction-free, that adds up to a lot of real work completed. I liked the sense of progress that came from checking off chunk after chunk. This made the task seem more manageable. I knew that if I committing to one 15-minute chunk at a time, eventually I’d complete the project.

Give the 15-minute method a try. I think you’ll find it useful on many levels. It only takes 15 minutes.

I’m currently working on producing a ebook that I will be using with Clickbank. This will be my first own product and I’m a bit excited about it.
I’ve always promoted other peoples products but I thought it was time to make a product of my own.

I’ve already made some mistakes that I’m aware of, one of the biggest mistakes is that I did hire a writer that doesn’t have English as native language. (Yeah, I dont write the ebook myself, I try to work smart, not hard).

The problem with this is that you will need to hire a English speaker to correct the spelling and grammar of the ebook once the writer is complete.
Why not add a extra $30 to your budget and choose a native English speaker from the beginning?

One of my other mistakes what that I didn’t really research the niche pretty well before I jumped on it. I tend to start working with things even when I haven’t thought them through but I will still finish the product and we how it will sell, maybe it will work great anyway.

Got no motivation? I know the feeling. I get it too often. Sometimes I get the loss of motivation to work for days and I do nothing! Nothing at all. I just surf around on forums and check my stats. No real work.
When I get this I got a method that nearly always work, it’s very simple. Get your MP3-player, put on some shoes and take a walk in the sun. And when you walk, try to think of your work in a good way. For example: How the site you’re building will look like once it complete and you get some traffic there and how active it will be and of course how much money it will make you.
It’s a really simple method that works most of the time. It’s the best method I’ve found so far.

(This is a picture….. Yes, it’s true. Is it related to this blogpost? No….. Just looks like a nice place. LoL)

Another method I use is to listen on audiobooks on some subjects related to my job as a webmaster. Like SEO, Adsense, Clickbank… There’s audiobooks about pretty much everything.

The third method is: If you really cant work, dont do it. Do something else, something you think is fun and enjoy. In a couple of hours you may have the motivation to work.

The fourth method is: Sleep.

Remember my old post about how to find freelance programmers? I just wanted to add something. Something really important. I know how to program in VB.net really good and also a bit of PHP. And when hiring a freelance programmer to make a application and you discover that you could have made the application better and faster yourself, it’s a very frustrating thing.

How do we know if the programmer is good before assigning a project to them? First, there’s the rating at the freelance-sites. Always look at the rating and read the comments from people that already hired them.
Second, In most cases you can send messeges to the programmers before you hire them. Ask them how long they’ve programmed for and what kind of project they have completed.

You might think you’ll save money when you hire someone with a bid $20 lower than anyone else but when the programmer can’t finish the project and the application isn’t working like it should, was it really worth it?

Finally! Yesterday I made over $200 with Clickbank alone. It took a little bit longer than I expected, and I’ve been very close several times.
Next milestone is $300 in one day with Clickbank.

Edit: John from Linkconnector contacted me and it looks like I got the wrong info. You only need to make $1000/month to get the wire. Thanks John for the help!

Old post:
I must say that Linkconnector is a great affiliate network, no doubt about that. But one thing that I dont like is that they no longer send affiliates money using wire-transfer unless they make over 10k every week! That’s right, I asked them about this and they did answer with “It has become too expensive for us to wire commissions to affiliates who don’t earn at least $10K a week. We are happy to re-instate wire transfers when your account reaches that level.”.
I wonder how many affiliates that make over $10k every week. Cant be that many…

I hate to cash checks since we don’t use them much in my country. Cashing 3 checks do take about 40 minutes at my local bank. But since I want to continue to use Linkconnector I guess I don’t have much of a choice.

You can check out Linkconnector here, they got many good datafeeds!

When you’re looking for new servers, always try to get a better deal than it says on the webhosts-website. For example, most hosts will throw in more bandwidth, IPs, RAM or bigger harddrives for free. There’s so much competition in the webhosting industry so most webhost bend over backwards just to get new clients.

This doesn’t just go for dedicated server, the same apply to virtual webhosting as well.

I’m currently looking for a new server. My online-biz is growing steadily and this will be my third server. I work a lot with SEO (Search engine optimization. I’m trying to get good rankings in Google, Yahoo…) So one of the questions I email to the webhosts is if I can get more IPs with the server. (It’s good to spread out your sites on multiple IP-addresses, it will help your sites to rank better if you interlink them all. But this isn’t anything you have to worry that much about if you’re just starting out!)

Anyway, the reason I write this post is to tell you about this little idea. When sending out these email to “Webhost A” I also tell them that I for example get 10 more IPs at some other host for the same price as “Webhost A”. Then “Webhost A” will most likely include more IPs for free.

This post is about merchants that doesn’t provide a properly formated datafeed.

Don’t they care about this own business? They don’t seem to care about losing sales… As a affiliate working with many affiliate-networks and a lot of datafeeds, if I find a datafeed that is not in a proper format, I just delete that datafeed and forget about that merchant. I would lose too much time trying to repair it. It’s the merchants job to make sure they provide the affiliate-network with a proper datafeed. Every affiliate should not have to repair the datafeed.

Why should it have to be repaired 1000 times by affiliates instead of 1 time by the merchants? The affiliate-network should have some responsibility also, they’re the ones making the datafeed available to affiliates. How hard can it be to make a tool for checking the datafeed before they publish it on their network?

Ok, back to work…