In a lot of ways, I feel like I am starting over – or at least coming full circle. These past few months have brought a lot of professional changes.
- I no longer write for clients. The writing wasn’t very fulfilling and I wasn’t having fun anymore. Whatever writing is to me (profession, hobby, little of both) whatever I write needs to be enjoyable.
- After a few years of embracing social networking, it lost it’s appeal. Overnight I canceled my twitter and facebook accounts. I don’t remember the login info for myspace… And I think I have a plurk and linkedin account somewhere but I haven’t logged in in ages. It’s great and can be helpful but it was also highly distracting. To save my online income I needed to quit – and I did cold turkey (much to the shock of some of those I had gotten to know!)
- I’ve started submitting to print publications again after a several year hiatus. This is the full circle part – I started out this way, took a break to write web content for clients, and then decided to come back to this. In many ways it’s like I’m a newbie again because my clips are so old. But when I approached my writing in this way I was a lot happier professionally.
- I’ve hit the ground running with internet marketing. I did the Thirty Day Challenge (thanks Ed Dale!) but still have not made my first dollar. But that’s okay, I learned so much I’m able to take that and translate it to my blogs and other internet marketing projects. In other words, now that I am not working for clients I can take what I know about SEO and web content writing and apply it selfishly. And let me tell you, the results I’ve been getting with SEO have been outstanding.
So that’s where I’m at. I’ve created a list of tasks. I do one at a time. Then when the list is done, I go to the top and start over. Things that are on my list include (and I’ll share the details of each method in posts to come)…
- Creating an income stream with hubpages
- Bum marketing
- Creating an income stream with Squidoo ala Potpiegirl
- Writing queries and submitting publications
- Creating niche blogs ala The Niche Blogger
- Writing devotionals
- Working on my blogs, niche sites, and other internet marketing projects
If I lacked focus before, I certainly don’t now. I try to work at least 30 hours a week and I let my timer tick on so that I can keep track of how I spend my time. It’s ticking right now. Had a bit of a late start t0day and am working on my second hour.
You’ll notice I took the signup block off. I may start another list someday but that course on writing was a bit obsolete. The marketplace is changing and I’m a bit out of touch. Though I still use sites like Associated Content, Helium, and Textbroker every now and then. But at this point it just distracts me from starting my niche sites.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1e9c6d4a-38e6-48e9-b84e-d059f7bd753f)
What an excellent idea! Running a timer to show yourself how much work you’re doing!
I’m going to steal this and use it myself
Hi Lewis,
I know! That simple thing has really changed my perception of how productive I really am.
Katherine
Google LeechBlock if you are using Firefox – another great productivity tool that stops you from checking out those timewaster sites while you’re supposed to be working!
And I totally know how you feel about the client thing. I’ve done the same thing in a certain genre that I had a reputation in. I was getting the jobs but I just didn’t want to do them anymore. So I quit. Shocked a lot of webmasters.
Hey Danielle,
It’s really hard to sustain doing client work I’ve found. I think that if I had balance in the beginning I wouldn’t have burnt out. However, all my time was spent on client work for a few years and I just couldn’t do it anymore. The work didn’t get harder but was taking me twice as long.
Katherine
i Make money online using the very popular Google Adsense program. i also tried Amazon affiliate program but i dont earn that much from amazon.
i Make Money Online by using Adsense and Adbrite on my blogs and websites. i am earning a decent amount of money online but it also requires a lot of work to build traffic..