How I Successfully Submitted My First Guest Post

by on March 6, 2013, 0 comments

On Monday I had my first ever guest post published. A massive thanks goes out to Brendan from The Start of Happiness. You can read the guest post here: Want to Change Your Life? Try Jumping From a Plane!

I’m really happy and really excited about this and, while it doesn’t feel like a particularly mind blowing accomplishment, it’s a very important step on this journey and the lessons I’ve learnt from it will be very important carrying on into the future. Here I’ll detail the steps I followed to get my first guest post published so you can hopefully recreate it yourselves in the future. But first, let’s take a look at why guest posting is super important.

Why is Guest Posting Super Important?

It’s pretty common knowledge within the blogging community that guest posting is the best way to grow your own audience and, as a beginner blogger, growing your audience should be your number one concern. By posting on other popular blogs, you’ll be exposing yourself to their audience and interested readers will be able to track you back to your other writing. You’ll be building links to your blog across the internet and establishing your legitimacy.

Continue reading →

My Chain Calendar

by on February 28, 2013, 0 comments

This is a project in Consistency. I’m a big believer that progress comes from consistent daily action. Doing a small amount of something seven days a week is much more effective than trying to do it all in one large chunk.

So this year, I’ve been working on my consistency. Specifically with my writing.

I’m making my Chain Calendar and my to-do lists public, giving me accountability and the motivation to continue progressing. Every day, I’ll be posting up a simple, five item to-do list for the approaching day under the “daily to-do” category. For the time being, doing 1 hour of article writing will remain a permanent feature on the daily to-do list.

Continue reading →

Desperation Drives Innovation

by on February 27, 2013, 0 comments

Reading the article Using Evolution to Achieve Success earlier reminded of a saying which has always really resonated with me:

Desperation Drives Innovation

It refers to how we handle the strongest of challenges. When we remove our safety nets and put ourselves in challenging and desperate situations we will find a way to rise to the challenge and to make it happen.

It’s the “do or die” situations which really push us and help us come up with the most miraculous solutions. The solutions may not always be elegant nor particularly perfect but they’ll meet the needs. When in a desperate situation all the extra baggage falls off and only the most essential elements remain important. A desperate situation helps us:

Continue reading →

The Strength of Sickness

by on February 25, 2013, 0 comments

For the first time in a few years, I’ve been really sick recently. For the last two weeks I’ve had a chest infection which has really thrown me and taken me completely out of action.

The first week I was barely able to move. By the second week I was feeling generally much better but I was constantly tired and couldn’t concentrate, which was super frustrating. There was a lot I had wanted to do but just wasn’t able to. In the end I had to surrender to the sickness and just accept that I wasn’t going to be getting anything done.

So that leaves me here, getting back on the wagon. It’s roughly the beginning of March and I’ve used the last couple of weeks to re-prioritise my goals for the short-medium term.

Passive Income

I’m going to return my focus to building my passive income as quickly as possible. To date, I don’t have any proper products which I can sell. I’ve got a few websites which generate some income through advertising but it’s always been the plan to use my programming and experience with websites to build a helpful software system which users subscribe to, paying a monthly fee. Then as time goes on, I can continue to improve the system, grow the user base and refine the operations. With just a few hundred users it’d be possible to have a comfortable income.

I’ve been working on a productivity app slowly over the last year or two. It’s relatively simple but has the potential to be incredibly useful and time saving for people who are passionate about productivity. I’ve already used it to great results in my personal life to track my time and output and I know others will benefit from it too.

Getting the first version of this system online will be the first step. Once it’s online I can begin promoting it, getting users and making improvements. The sooner I reach that first step, the sooner I can start growing it successfully and the sooner I’ll start building my passive income.

Medium Term Goals

Based off my priorities, I’ve put together my big goals for the next three months:

  • Finish recording and release CD (6+ tracks)
  • Get the first 10 paying users for the productivity app
  • Have 3 new guest posts published

Each of these goals will have great long term benefits and meeting them will help me set a great foundation to continue building from. Having the CD will give me a product to sell and some excuses to make some more video clips and concerts, having the app with a base level of customers will give me somewhere to continue building from and getting more guest posts will continue to improve my writing and getting-published skills.

In that same time period, I’ll be moving to Madrid, learning Spanish, acting in my first play and hopefully juggling a few more freelance projects. All together it’s going to be a fun and challenging time period. To help follow through with it all, I’m going to start being more detailed with my short term goal tracking:

Short Term Goal Tracking

To track my progress with this, I’m going to make a couple of little changes here over the next few days. I’ve used the Chain Calendar with 5 item to-do lists in the past which really helped boost my productivity and output. I’m going to start publishing my daily to-do lists in a separate section and embed my Chain Calendar on the side bar so anyone can track me and watch my progress. For each day that I complete my to-do list, I’ll give myself a cross on the calendar. I was able to do it for all of January, only breaking my chain after getting sick so hopefully I can return to that level of consistency.

“Je ferai ça demain”

by on February 8, 2013, 0 comments

I have a little sticker just above my keyboard which says Je ferai ça demain, meaning I’ll do that tomorrow. It serves as a little reminder for me: nothing ever gets done tomorrow.

If I don’t keep an eye on myself, I can be an absolutely chronic procrastinator. I’ll repeatedly let myself leave that important thing until tomorrow and somehow, tomorrow always seems to be another day away.

By putting it off until tomorrow, I’ve bought myself the breathing space to procrastinate on it again then. If I didn’t have the motivation or discipline to follow through on it today, then why should I assume I’ll magically have it tomorrow? I can’t waste my days waiting for my discipline to arrive or for the perfect mood to strike me.

If I want to get something done, it has to be done today, it has to be done now.

I’ve been learning that motivation and discipline doesn’t just come to you, it doesn’t just arrive someday, blessing you with the ability to get things done. No no, you have to go out and get it.

You build your motivation through being disciplined and you improve your discipline by practising it. I get the motivation to write by being disciplined enough to write when I don’t have the motivation. By forcing myself to sit down and write everyday, now I feel like I have to sit down and write every day.

That’s why I’m such a big proponent of making a tangible and trackable daily action goal. I can’t do my daily action for today tomorrow, it has to be done now.

Alors non, je le fais maintenant.

January Writing Recap

by on February 4, 2013, 0 comments

I’ve done an hour of article writing every single day for the past month to build up my consistency and improve my writing skills.

My favourite articles for the month were:

Here are my personal observations from this month of writing and some points for me to take away in the future:

On Doing the Actual Work:

Getting started is half the battle - Once I get over the initial wall of resistance, it becomes so much easier to continue. 30 minutes isn’t at all a big chunk of time and once I’m into it, it’s much easier to see it through.

Turn off distractions – if I don’t close my inbox and Facebook before starting to write, I’ll wind up continually checking them. If they’re already closed then I can usually catch myself before opening them up.

Working to a music playlist is brilliant - I set up a 30 minute playlist for every single writing session and work on through until it’s finished. If a distraction crops up, I’ll quickly pause the music and then resume it when I return to writing. This way, I don’t have to watch the clock and I’ve got a nice backing track. I’ve also started feeling an association between music and being productive now.

My most productive days start with a morning ritual - If I jump on the computer straight after waking, I’ll wind up not completing the writing until much later in the day.

Some days it’s a real struggle - Sometimes I’ll spend the whole time watching the clock wanting it to be over.   Having my chain of crosses showing how many days in a row I’ve been on task has really helped me push through with consistency. Othertimes the work flows, I feel “in the zone” and the time flies by. I’d like to have a better idea into why.

Continuous, consistent work really adds up – By doing just one hour every day, each week I’ve done almost the equivalent of a full day’s writing. In January, I have spent over 30 hours writing, which has resulted in almost 5,000 published words and another 10,000 still in revision. That’s far more than I ever would have expected and it’s amazing to be able to look back and see that output now. I don’t remember the struggles to get through it but I do have the lasting work created.

On Writing:

Writing for an audience is a very different experience - I’m still feeling very new to writing. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried creating anything for public consumption and it’s a different experience in organising my thoughts in an interesting, engaging and useful manner. It’s good to see that I can often translate these thoughts into something tangible but there’s lots of room for improvement in the coming time.

I don’t have a method - I don’t have a method for writing an article just yet. Each one seems to have formed a little differently but mostly it starts with some scattered bullet points which slowly get expanded and then shuffled all around.

I’ve been kept in a “producing” mind frame - Since I’m now producing something every single day and now, I’ve got the act of producing constantly on my mind. I’m becoming more aware of producing something that others will be interested in, instead of just seeing what I’d be interested in.

For Future Improvement:

Finishing is important - You can see I’ve got 10,000 unpublished words from this month. Some of this is due to some guest posts I’m writing but a lot of it is coming from unfinished articles. Some are nearly completed and need a proper edit and others are still just at the very beginning.

Focus on things close to home – Writing on personal experiences and things I have extensive experience with has come much easier and has made the writing process much more pleasurable. For example, I found it really easy to write the article on learning two languages but much more difficult for the short one on the mastery curve. I’ll keep that in mind for future topics.

So far, I’ve found this to be an all round excellent experience. I’m still just getting started with this all and I have a long way to go but I can feel this is really worthwhile. I’ll see how I go through February.

Simple Productivity Hacks #5

by on January 30, 2013, 0 comments
(This was originally going to be one post. Instead I’ve split them up so each can be explored further)

Create Micro-deadlines

Having a deadline to work towards greatly improves output. When we can see the end in sight, we put our heads down and prioritise the things that really need to get done. We’ve definitely all experienced this first hand at uni or college.

Micro-deadlines break things down further, focusing on very small time frames such as a day or a couple of hours. A bigger task gets translated into a smaller chunk of work and given a short term deadline. When that chunk is completed, create a new micro deadline to work towards. This way we the bigger task becomes a series of quick deadlines and it gets completely much more efficiently.

Be aggressive with the deadlines. The tighter a deadline is, the more you’ll prioritise the essentials and the less time you’ll waste. The amount of time it takes to finish something usually expands to fill the amount of time available. So tight deadlines will make us work more efficiently.

When creating a micro-deadline, I’ll usually work out how long I think something will take and then make myself a deadline for 70% of that time. When time is up, I’ve either just scraped through it all or I’ve narrowed it down to the core priorities and finished those.

The Other Productivity Hacks:

Give Yourself Permission to Suck

by on January 23, 2013, 0 comments

I’ve always been a perfectionist. I see the brilliant work of those around me and then expect the same of myself. Of course, I know I can’t measure up to their work, I only have a fraction of their experience, but somehow I still expect it from myself.

It can be absolutely crippling. How can I try something new and give it my fullest if I know that I’m going to be disappointed in my results? And then how can I continue doing it if I know that I’m going to continue to be disappointed in my results?

As Ira Glass brilliant explained, the process of becoming brilliant, of actually measuring up to your own standards takes years and years of practice. This means years and years of producing work which you’re not quite happy with.

This was a demon I remember facing first hand a few years ago, when preparing for my first on stage performance, playing the guitar and singing at a local Open Mic Night.

For years I’d wanted to perform music. I was a competent enough guitar player and, although I hadn’t done much singing, I knew I could carry a tune but I was no revolutionary and I’d sure as hell never performed in front of anyone else before. I knew that I wanted to get on stage and give it a go but the thought itself was paralysing. I knew I’d be no good… and I’d have to do it in front of a bunch of people.

The solution? I had to give myself permission to suck. I had to give myself permission to absolutely bomb.

Permission to Suck

By giving my self permission to suck, I was able to quell my inner perfectionist and take the pressure off myself. My aim became simple: to get up on stage and conquer my stage fright, with no pressure to put on a good show.

As much as I logically knew that we don’t start at the top and that we do have to climb our way up there, it wasn’t until I explicitly gave myself permission to suck that I was able to relax over it and see the performance as a brick in the wall of experience and not a measuring stick for my future.

Getting up on Stage

So I totted on down to the local Open Mic Night, guitar in hand and a freshly laid loaf in trousers. This was to be my first time singing in front of anyone and I was going to do it into a microphone, on stage, to an expectant crowd.

So what was the result? I was rewarded for my bravery, for overcoming my fears, for giving myself the permission to suck and giving it a go, right? I nailed it, right? I snuck in quietly from the side, shuffled discreetly on stage, took my place and then blew everyone away with a unexpectedly awesome performance,  right?

Oh if only.

It was terrible. I’d prepared three songs and I sang each out of key. My hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t even play guitar properly. I managed to jumble up the lyrics that I had printed out in front of me. The only saving grace was that I wasn’t really close enough to the microphone, making me really difficult to hear.

All round, it could be taken as a pretty horrific experience.

But… I already knew that I was going to suck. I wasn’t wrapped up in images of grandeur. I wasn’t up there to give Bob Dylan a run for his money. I just wanted to get my first on stage experience over with so I could continue on my path. It wasn’t a crushing defeat to get up there and bomb. It was expected. I’d given myself permission to suck and I’d risen gloriously to the challenge and survived.

When trying something new, we’ve got to give it our best shot and be proud of our efforts but also appreciate that we’re not going to live up to our standards, especially us perfectionists. Giving ourselves permission to suck helps us follow through on what we really want to be doing.

Simple Productivity Hacks #6

by on January 22, 2013, 0 comments

(This was originally going to be one post. Instead I’ve split them up so each can be explored a little deeper)

Disable Push Notifications

In hack #8 we looked at working offline whenever possible. This minimise distractions and helps us from getting sidetracked in the wonderful world of the internet. However, working offline just isn’t always an option for many of us.

I do a lot of web programming and I need the internet constantly at my fingertips to remain optimally productive. I regularly have to look up documentation and research bugs. This also means that I’m constantly working out of the web browser, the very same place where my biggest distractions live. Facebook, my emails and my rss subscriptions are always just a click away.

If I’m focussed in on my work there’s no temptation to drift. But today, most services push their notifications to you. The Facebook tab will flicker in the background when someone messages and the gmail inbox will show me that I’ve got a fresh email waiting the second it arrives. And it gets even more “in your face” with mobile push notifications.

It’s really hard to ignore these things when they are shouting for attention. We know they can wait… but we’re wired to take them seriously, while it’s flickering away there in the corner.

The solution here is simple: while working, disable all automatic updaters. Remove any updating plugins, close any background Facebook and Gmail tabs and put the iPhone out of sight. Leave them all for the end of the work chunk.

The Other Productivity Hacks:

Simple Productivity Hacks #7 and #8

by on January 18, 2013, 0 comments

(This was originally going to be one post. Instead I’ve split them up so each can be explored a little deeper)

Work Offline (when possible)

If a piece of work can be done offline, do it offline.

There are endless distractions online, constantly vying for our attention. Make it easy on your will power. Disconnect the internet for that chunk of work and don’t reactivate it until it’s finished. This minimises our exposure to distractions, keeping us focused on the task at hand.

If you find yourself needing to reference something or look something up, make a note of it and follow it up after you’re finished.

Work in a New Environment

As we get more comfortable in a work environment, getting tied up in distractions becomes more common. We relax and our mind wanders off. The more comfortable we get and the more used to wasting time in an environment we get, the more the pattern continues.

This point is especially pertinent for those who work from home. When our leisure and work environments cross paths it’s easy to get distracted and for productivity to drop.

Mix it up. A new environment breaks up any unproductive patterns we may have built and makes us more conscious of our output. This is as simple as heading down to a café or even just a different room in the office or house for the day.

The Other Productivity Hacks: