Ch ch ch changes!
As of today you’ll find a number of changes happening here at Mathew Packer dot com.
The first thing you’ll notice is that I’m working on a new theme, and call me insane but I’m going to be working on it live! No one in their right mind would work on their website live while it was still getting hits, and normally I wouldn’t as I wouldn’t want to negatively effect the advertising click potential of the site, however I’m willing to work on it this was as I don’t care about the advertising clicks on here as I’m ditching the advertising!
So as you just read the second big change is getting rid of the advertising on this website. As of about 2 weeks ago my subscriber count has risen from 20 people per day up to 75 per day, this is a pretty huge increase but my click rate on the advertisements has not risen at all. This has lead me to the conclusion that people actually enjoy what I write enough to actually subscribe to the RSS so I figure I would do everyone a favour and serve the site sans advertising.
Over the Christmas period last year I was all about ‘making money online’. Pretty well every post was about some form of revenue generation and blah blah blah, it’s all a bunch of ‘me too’ content that was being said by every second blogger out there. Looking back now I can clearly see that I was just jumping aboard the copycat express with everyone other sucker out there.
A month or so ago I started supplementing my MMO articles with real life articles, the couple of recipes I’ve posted bring in more traffic than any other ‘insert big affiliate marketing website name here’ article that I was writing as has the Lite n Easy Diet progress articles that I’ve written. This is the direction I now want to take my blog in.
From here on out I’ll be writing various posts on things that are happening in my life, around home, around work, etc. I’ve got plenty going on with all the happenings at I’m With The Band, launching the new targeted pain relief device Pain Gone, getting my ‘how to start a business’ website together at A Business Is Born, the medical news website that I’m helping work out with Medical News, Stat! , and I’ve even had a few emails from people in the last week asking me if I could develop blog themes for their websites as they saw me advertising myself as Freelance Matt.
All these changes are effective immediately! As soon as I hit the ‘Publish’ button I’ll get started on the theme changes, it’s going to look a little different around here sometime in the next minute or so..
Oh and for those of you who are still interested in Making Money Online, and Making Money Blogging, I’ll still publish the odd article about how I’m doing this as I’m concentrating my advertising and what not on the other websites I own, I may even still publish income reports……
Cheers, Matt
Tomorrow is EOM!
Here in Australia tomorrow is the end of the month, I’m sure it’s also the end of the month elsewhere in the world it’s just that ours comes a little sooner than say Americas.
Anyway, being the end of the month it’s Income Report time.. cue the marching band!
Today I’ll be starting to compile all the information so that all I need to do is drop in the final figures tomorrow evening to finish up the report. Chances are no one will click on any of my advertising between now and then so I could probably publish my current information,
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Working from home - Motivation and Accountability?
While I’ve been on long service leave from my 9-5 job I’ve been putting more and more effort into this blog and trying to grow a steady income from it. So far the success has been small, revenue wise, however there has been a noticeable increase over the past 3 weeks.
I’m not going to bore you with all the details on how I’ve done this, but what I would like to focus on is how I’ve gotten into the frame of mind to do this, because it’s not easy to get up and be motivated to write every day, particularly because I am on holidays.
So here’s a few tips on what I’ve done, hopefully there might be something here that you can use.
Develop A Routine!
Yes I’m on holidays and dont have to strictly follow any set daily format, however to stay on top of what I was trying to achieve I’ve made sure I get up in the morning at the same time I would’ve been if I was going to the office. I made sure I’m eating a good breakfast, showering and dressing as if I was going to work even if I’m only putting on shorts and a t-shirt.
During the day I try to take my normal coffee breaks as I would’ve in the office, and I’ll break the day up into different parts so that I have different tasks to complete for the different projects that I’m doing.
Write To-Do Lists!
Over breakfast, coffee, while stopped at traffic lights, etc. I have little brainstorming sessions to try and come up with new blog articles, photo shoot setups, presentations, marketing ideas, etc. so I carry a notebook on me most of the day now so that I can write these things down. Another thing I use this notebook for is writing To-Do lists of things I need to get done that day, week, or month.
Using this notebook and the To-Do lists means that I dont forget ideas when once I’ve had them, also it means that things that need to get done actually get done!
Set Deadlines!
Ok so you’re carrying around a cool looking moleskin notebook and you’re scribbling in it all the time, but all it amounts to is a notepad full of writing. Chances are you haven’t given yourself a deadline to work toward.
I set deadlines for the littlest things I do, be it as menial as doing the washing up to things like working on a marketing plan or revising a business direction. It’s also important to set realistic deadlines as well, there’s no point in saying that you’ll have a website completely overhauled in 2 days when most likely it will take you that amount of time to work on just the logo.
Make Sure You’re Accountable!
What’s the point in setting the deadline if there’s no one to make sure you’re making them? Not much at all, so what you need to do is find a way of becoming accountable for achieving or not achieving a set deadline. I’ve found in the past that I’d set a deadline, wouldn’t make it so I would either let it slide or just not complete the task at all.
Now days what I’ll do is tell my partner Cath what I’m going to do, or tell the people on my blog what I’m going to do, or even tell my friends on Twitter / Facebook / Myspace what I’m gonig to do. Usually someone will chase me up for not doing it, and often they’ll give you a bit of a stir which in turn motivates me to get the task done.
Reward Yourself!
At the end of the day you’ve wiped your To-Do list clean, everything is done and you’re feeling pretty good for completing it all, well you should reward yourself so that when tomorrow comes you’re going to be motivated again.
I like to reward myself with a trip down to the driving range to hit some golf balls, it’s also stress relieving if you’ve had to work extra hard. If it’s too wet for golf I’ll go grab a movie I’ve been wanting to see, or I’ll watch something I’ve recorded from tv, or if all else fails I’ll go surf through some of my favourite bookmarks in firefox.
Whatever your thing is that you like to do, if you’ve achieved all your goals today then take some ‘relax’ time.
Hopefully there is something in here that will help you work better from home, whether it be your daily chores you have to do through to actually walking away from your 9-5 office job and taking the plunge into running your own business from home.
I’d like to hear from you now, what do you do to get motivate and stay motivated? What drives you and your ambition?
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