Today, Gentle Readers, is an Auspicious Day indeed!
Primarily it is Day 1 of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge ~ hereafter referred to as 31DBBB because seriously, that is a Very long title to type over and over again!
My favorite WordPress goddess Kimberly Castleberry and several of my Facebook friends and tribe mates are running alongside me on this one, and we even have a Roadmap in the form of an ebook by blogging master Darren Rowse of Problogger fame.
However, today is also Day 7 of my personal 90 Day Challenge to become unemployed (by someone other than myself, that is).
Watch the video – there are feathers involved.
Anyway, at this reckoning, I have 83 days to to the following:-
- get my opt-in offer completed (and to those 39 dahlings who signed up without any bribery on my part, thank you ~ I adore you all!);
- get my promotional get-to-know-me vehicles in place ~ this means finally conquering the dual-headed monster known as Twitter and Hootsuite. Thankfully, there’s copious amounts of training on the Profit Being You site and with it comes Kimberly filling the role of Knight in Shining Armor so I don’t get eaten alive!;
- create a comprehensive marketing strategy that has focus, relevance and long term sustainability (ie no flash-in-the-pan fluff that no-one will remember a week from now).For this, my secret weapon is the team at Home and Small Business World ~ although it’s not going to be a secret for long so if you want in, you need to let me know Quick.
- And last but by no means least, I need to decide what the hell I’m doing here and write an ebook about it! In blogging terms, this is known as niche and product development – and it’s all covered in both PBY and H&SBW, but dahlings, it really just means getting off your arse and focusing on how best to SERVE the Dear Ones who bother to read your stuff.
But wait, there’s more!
Today is also Day 1 of The Great Freedom Project, which will be covered in depth at a later date, but basically entails the following :-
- Decluttering and staging the house – ie. keeping everything loved or deemed essential and selling/donating the rest;
- Selling said house;
- Finding equivalent rental home at a rate vastly less than current mortgage;
- Moving to said new house;
- Traveling extensively with funds saved by aforementioned steps.
This is no small endeavor, I might point out, because this goddess prefers to surround herself with sumptuous decadence (think Oscar Wilde meets Marie Antoinette) and therefore a great deal of work is going to have to be done to transform my theatrical set into the blandness of a model home.
Not to mention the fact that all this has to occur while simultaneously feeding the family, running the house, and whiling away 20 hours a week at Starbucks.
“Nothing more for me, thanks … my plate is full.”
Now that I’ve completely overwhelmed myself by listing the aforementioned objectives, perhaps it’s time to work out some kind of Strategy ~ a workable program that will make throwing myself under the nearest bus a little less enticing….
And with the added benefit of hopefully helping any of you Dear Ones who are also juggling waaaaay too many balls at the moment.
Here you go ~ A Strategy for Coping with Multitudinous Challenges:-
- List every area that needs to be covered daily and the objectives therein. (An example is what I’ve done above)
- Use Google Calendar – my new toy – or just a regular paper planner to mark out the time already allocated to things like work, carpooling, meal times, etc. In other words, time you Can’t spend on the challenges.
- In the time remaining, set a timer for 15 minutes and focus on ONE area of ONE challenge. When the timer goes off, do 15 minutes on Another challenge. (The power of this system is explained in just under 3 minutes right here.)
- Alternate or cycle through them until you run out of time or drop dead from exhaustion, whichever comes first.