However, I understand where they’re coming from. Whenever I watch shows, read stuff, interact with people or simply observe the world, at least one idea pops up in my head like a light bulb that you see in the cartoons. In short, ideas keep on coming.

Because of that, I needed an outlet. And writing seems to be the perfect choice. I carry a notebook and a pen. I scurry to them as soon as ideas come, wanting to express them in writing. Not wanting to forget a thing.

I still forget, though. So I needed a tool that works fast. The next thing I knew, this blog was born.

However, the ideas that I want to write and finish are too much for my tools. I wanted to finish all of them at the same time, but that is impossible. Sometimes I catch myself switching from one post to another. Not to mention the distractions that surround me.

As a result, I don’t finish anything. I took a quick glance at my blog’s control panel and here’s what I saw: 10 drafts – posts that I had started but remained unfinished. Some of the posts are finished and only need polishing. Some I still intend to complete and publish in due time. I actually have more drafts but let’s keep it simple. 10 drafts.

At first I thought I was just uninspired. But I immediately nixed the thought because if that was true, how come in my mind, those posts are already done? I knew what to write, I have them completed in my mind. But I couldn’t channel them through my fingers because they couldn’t keep up.

Suddenly, I realized, it isn’t my fingers. It’s my lack of focus. Focus is what separates unrealized ideas from successful posts. Do I want this post to end up as the 11th draft in my control panel?

I do not. So I finished this entry – not because I was pressured – but because I liked to and I wanted to; It is my joy to share and express my thoughts. Therefore, I have to will myself to success.

I personally like small support groups for a number of reasons:

- I grow with them and its members
- I know the leaders and can communicate with them
- I can participate, be heard and be noticed
- I like the personal approach

Like any other relationships, memberships in support groups are two-way streets: they support you and vice versa.

Actively participating in your support groups make these groups bigger, more active and more influential. In turn, these changes make you proud, make you part of a community, give you more experience and more exposure. Consequently, you grow more as a person you intend to be.

I have plenty of support groups in my whole life: my family, my girlfriend, and a couple of organizations during my education. I will not, however, mention how I support them as it will sound like I am tooting my own horn.

Since we are in the blogging world, I have listed below a select few of my “online” support groups. (If you are a non-blogger reader of mine, don’t worry, the technical terms are minimal). Some of these you might be able to relate to. After reading, if you are interested in learning more about them, I encourage you to click on their links:

SUPPORT GROUP#1 – Readers, Lurkers, and Visitors

Let us differentiate the three first. Visitors are people coming from various sites. They can be from search engines like google looking for something and somehow ended up here. These people probably will visit once then leave. 7% of this site’s traffic are coming from search engines.

Lurkers, on the other hand, are people who visited and decided to come back. However, they prefer to just read and comment only once or twice (sometimes they don’t). There is nothing wrong with that. Some of these people, I know personally.

Readers are people who are regulars of the site. They read, go through the archives, and sometimes comment when appropriate. Most of the readers are fellow bloggers who know the ethics of blogging.

How do I support them?

One of the reasons this site continues to exist is because of them. So I will continue to write useful information to feed their hungry minds. I read my readers’ blogs and comment when I have something genuine to say. I make sure I link to the post I think others will find interesting.

The top commentators are rewarded by displaying their links on the right sidebar. On a similar note, last month, I had moved the “latest comments” high on the sidebar to easily keep track of any responses.

The following 5 readers commented regularly here: Vic the CaribooPonderer, Jeni of Down River Drivel, Marcus Langford, Frank C of OpTempo – Internet Review Magazine, and Cris.

SUPPORT GROUP#2 – BloggingZoom

If you are a blogger who wants your articles and posts get promoted, BloggingZoom.com is the place for you. In other similar social sites, self-promotion is considered a mortal sin. But the creators of BloggingZoom (Vic Franqui of Make Money Online and Court Tuttle of Internet Marketing) made it known that publishing your own posts is what the site wants you to do, and members will “zoom” your submission as a vote of approval if they found your articles worthy.

What I also like about BZ is that making friends is a lot easier and they comment on your submissions. It means one thing: you get a readership that generates quality traffic and might subscribe to your blog.

A BZ power user, Jason Clark of Inner88 – Review of Internet wrote a very good explanation of BloggingZoom. You’ll find it extremely useful if you intend to be a member of BZ.

How do I support BloggingZoom?

I like the community in BZ; the leaders are approachable even though few sensitive people might find Vic a little bit harsh. My way of supporting them is following the rules especially in post submission. Vic and Court don’t like members copy-pasting their posts for one good reason: duplicate contents. Google penalizes sites that copy others’ information. Vic also explained the benefit is mutual. I do not see any harm writing 4 sentences (approximately 350 characters) to describe your submission.

Also, they encourage you to zoom others’ submissions and visit their blogs so they get traffic as well; I have been doing that already since my first day as a member.

SUPPORT GROUP#3 – BlogHology

A blogging friend of mine – Mert Erkal of searchforblogging.com – has a vision, a vision where selected bloggers are grouped together and their best posts are promoted. I am part of that group. He calls it BlogHology. Below is a blurb of what it is:

… Similar to an anthology, a bloghology is a collection of bloggers, their profiles, photos, and links to their best posts. It is a PDF e-book which can be easily circulated throughout the blogosphere for personal branding and marketing of selected good quality bloggers…

How do I support BlogHology?

Mert is a hard-working person who is dedicated in achieving his goals, and at the same time in helping others. As a result, he inspires others using the “lead by example” technique. Seeing these characteristics in him, it is easy to follow suit. He only wants one thing from the participants: to promote BlogHology to their own readers by putting up a download link on their blogs.

I encourage you to download (by clicking on the BlogHology image above) the BlogHology E-Book, where I was also featured. Find out which of my posts were included in the first edition.

SUMMARY

I believe in the old adage “No man is an island.“. No one should be. Whether we like it or not, we need others to be successful.

In choosing the right support groups for me, I see to it they have the following characteristics:

-They should have a vision-mission
-The leaders support their members
-The members voluntarily reach out to others

How about you? Do you have support groups that you would like to share?

If you have not, I’m inviting you to read ahead, I’ll explain it using simple examples. Otherwise, stay with me, you might be able to share here or learn new perspectives.

Imagine you have a bag of tomatoes, and you noticed one of them is rotten. What do you do to keep the others fresh? You take out the rotten one to avoid contamination.

Same thing with a team. A team General Manager should always look to improve the pack by trading away or cutting the weakest link. That’s one form of addition (or improvement) by subtraction.

The same technique can be applied to everyday life. If you want to be successful, limit your diversions and concentrate on things helpful in achieving success.

Mert of searchforblogging.com, a hard-working blogging-friend of mine, applied similar technique in his blog to improve its traffic. One example he used was cutting his TV hours to 1 so he can focus on more important things.

Now, I will explain to you how I am going to improve this blog using Addition by Subtraction.

If you are new here in this planet, you will not even notice that the BlogRush widget already got the boot. Personally, I think it had potential, as it sent me few readers that stick around. But after its Phase 2, I believed BlogRush went downhill. While the widget is now gone, I haven’t deleted my account yet, just so I can check what kind of action Mr. John Reese is going to take against this blog. (I just checked — there’s now a notice in my control panel that says my account is temporarily inactive until I put the widget back within 45 days).

That’s improvement #1. BlogRush does not deliver. Removing the widget frees up a big space in my sidebar and at the same time, I used that space by installing a new widget called “Entrecard” (the box on the right side with picture/logo, and underneath says “Drop Yours” or “Get One”). I’ll spare you the details of its innerworkings**, but let me put it in simple term: it brings traffic more than BlogRush does. By traffic, I meant more people are clicking on this blog, and it is good, whether they are interested to stay or not.

Next, I decided to remove the ads on this site, more popularly known as AdSense. They are fetched from Google, and if a reader clicks on them, I earn money. When I started this site over four months ago, it was also my intention to monetize using AdSense. However, the earning was not good (less than $10/month) because the click per ad is worth less than .25c. I got smart-priced* which simply means that Google pays me very little per Ad click.

That’s improvement #2. Adsense only works well in niche blogs, not in general-interest blogs. I have learned this from reading useful blogs on SEO, internet marketing, and money making***. If your Adsense account is currently used in a general interest blog, remove it, wait for a few weeks and then use it in a niche blog. Doing so allows your account to no longer be smart priced.

My Amazon widget (see sidebar) is not performing good as far as monetization is concerned. It also takes time to load, therefore, any first time visitor hits the back button or browse away as soon as they enter. Consequently, I will try another variation and see what happens.

That’s improvement #3. Amazon does not perform as expected plus it causes slow page loading. I’ll see if the change I am going to do will have positive effects but if none, I’ll say goodbye to this widget as well.

Via improvement #2 and #3, I am allowing myself to focus on paid/tipped reviews, which will become the main source of income of this blog. However, I’m going to be honest that it’s a big risk doing this after reading this post about PageRank Slap by the Big G (Google). It talks about blogs losing their Google-calculated ranks. I can take that, mainly because I still have a dayjob to support me, and I am experimenting on different niche blogs for monetization. PlanetSaedel is aimed for readers, not money-making.

IN CLOSING

I also did other improvements using the “less is more” principle but I won’t go into details, since they are only minor. The key here is not to be complacent. Always explore your own site and check if there are tweakings to be done.

Planning your own addition by subtraction not only in blogging but also in life, is simply a common sense; but actually doing it and being satisfied with the results is called improvement.

—–

Resources:
*** SEO, internet marketing, and money making
** Frank of OpTempo.com analyzes Entrecard traffic.
* Court of Courtneytuttle.com explains Smart-Pricing.

Did I achieve what I had planned for the year? Did I make an effort to improve myself in a moral, professional, social, or personal aspect? Am I the same person that I was same time last year?

In just a few minutes, a new beginning will be dawning. Two kind of goals will be listed: the new ones (fresh, unattempted goals) and the old (the undone goals). Between the two, which list of yours do you think will be longer?

As I stretch my reflection 2 years back, the list of old goals gets longer. 3 years back, 4 years, it goes on and on.

I remember 5-6 years ago, when I was still 25-26 years old, I had envisioned myself having my own business by the age of 30. I shared this dream with my friends back in the Philippines.

Obviously, it didn’t happen. I moved here to New Jersey and everything changed. 5 years later, certain priorities had moved up the list and my standard for success became different.

Now at 31, I still plan to be my own boss 6 years from now. And while working for it to materialize, this is how I am going to play the waiting game.

Currently, my bestfriend is an on-the-rise manager; another friend of mine has started his own business; and my college mates have their own success stories. Viewing my life from the outside, some people might consider me a failure compared to them.

I’m not. I learned that comparing yourself to others will only make you unhappy, and you end up trying hard to do things that are not applicable to you, or worse, beyond your capabilities. And that will only lead to frustrations.

Golden opportunities have also been given to me and i grabbed most of them. One of which enabled me to be more socially aware, both online and in the physical world.

In the last third of the year, I learned to blog properly via planetsaedel (my previous blogs that started way back in 2003, were more of personal diaries that nobody read and were left to flounder), and this site has helped me expressed my thoughts, opinion, observations, and insights with others.

I have learned to share things about me comfortably.

Below are some of the simple goals I want to accomplish in the next 12 months. Some of these, I will explain in details as the days pass by; and some of the bigger goals, I will share in due time:

• monetize via Paid Reviews to support this blog and experiment on various niche blogs.
• learn how to dance
• smile confidently.

All things considered, I can honestly say I’m a better person, but at the same time, I don’t want to be complacent with my personal achievements. I still want to improve. How about you?

Ask yourself: Am I better person now? My answer is: You’ll never be, unless you start spending some time to reflect on your personal life and find your greatest strength.

—–

All relevant links in this post are my original articles. I encourage you to click and read them if you’ve missed them before. Happy New Year to all!

Below is a plan I have developed to accomplish my goal for the remaining days of the year:

1. Spend Quality Time With Family – Christmas, like what Jeni has commented in my previous post, is a time for togetherness. It is meant for family traditions. While my family is back in the Philippines celebrating a normal Filipino Christmas, my father and I plan to attend the midnight mass on Christmas Eve and then watch NBA games on the 25th here in our apartment in Jersey City.

2. Open Gifts Right Away – It may sound unreal, but I discovered that some of the presents I received from last year remained unopened for 365 days. It’s funny, but at the same time, I felt upset for being too lazy sorting them out. Some of the items could have been useful to me the past year. The gifts include: candies and chocolates, neckties, shirt, and other things. Therefore, my advice for you is to not procrastinate: open the boxes and bags on Christmas Day and sort them out right away. Don’t let the chocolates grow some hair!

3. Learn New Things – I am a directionally-challenged person: it would take me several trips to a destination before I can master the roads. That is why I appreciated receiving a Global Positioning System (GPS) device. It is a gadget that guides drivers in directions via satellite. This is the first time I’m using one so I’m more than willing to spend time learning and testing it by driving around the community using my old Honda.

4. Rest and Relax – Are you going out with some friends to watch AVP (Alien Vs Predator)? Do you prefer to sleep or read a book? Perhaps listen to iPod and download music from iTunes? Whatever it is that you plan to do for relaxing, then just do it. The essence of vacation is to rest, recharge, and then….

5. Prepare for the Days Ahead – Chance favors a prepared mind. My preparation before school reopens on January 2nd, includes: tidying up my room, doing the laundry, and doing some work that I brought home. I want to come back looking fresh without any vacation hangover. I want to stand tall so others will see me ready to work, ready for the new year.

I hope you find these tips useful. If you have other tips and recommendations, feel free to leave a comment below.

In this post, I will discuss what viral linking is, why it is tempting, and how it taught me to be patient.

What is Viral Linking?

Viral linking is a tempting activity among bloggers because it is so easy to accomplish. All you have to do is answer some questions from the originator and list the sites/blogs in your post and “tag” other people to do the same. As a result, the list grows (or spreads) like a virus.

Viral Linking comes in various names. Meme (rhymes with “cream”), Chain Blog Links, Tagging Game are some of the names associated with it. Basically, viral linking is similar to chain linking.

Why Do Bloggers Do It?

Exchanging of links (or backlinking) is hard to come by. As much as possible, we want our site linked to others in an ethical fashion. And it’s a tough mission if your site is still new or unpopular. You might get ignored.

But since viral linking is well accepted in the blogging world, it quenches our thirst for backlinks. Below you’ll read some of the common benefits of viral linking:

• Receive Inbound Links
An inbound link means a website or another blog is linking to you. For a blog, particularly the new and low-traffic ones, receiving an inbound link is like a manna in the desert. The feeling is good when you found out that someone out there knows your site exists. So just imagine if you’re a part of a successful viral linking: the inbound links will be tremendous.

• Increase in Technorati Ranking
Technorati is a service that ranks blogs according to “reactions” or links it received. The ranking is called Authority. If your blog has been mentioned in a post of another blog, it is counted as a reaction. In the past 3 months, my blog has received 50 reactions, which is equivalent to almost 17 a month. Close to a half of those coming from viral linking.

• Receive Untargeted Traffic
Untargeted Traffic means hits from sites outside your niche or interest. If you’re a part of a tagging game, bloggers who participate might click on your site to learn more about you. How do I know? Because that’s what I sometimes do.

• Increase of Potential Readership
Readership means the number of people who read your site on a regular basis. It is manifested in the comments you receive. If those who are part of viral linking enjoy your post, there’s a strong likelihood that they come back and might subscribe in a reader or by email.

• Build a Community
One thing I noticed about Viral Linking is that bloggers involved seem to know each other. If you want to establish a community, a simple tagging game can be a good start.

Viral Linking Taught Me Patience

Knowing its benefits, it’s so easy to fall into its trap. Viral Linking is a double-edged sword. It is good if done properly, otherwise, overdoing it might cost you some readers. Just ask yourself: would like to read a blog with half of its content are viral links? As a blogger, I want to share insightful experiences and useful information. As a reader, I want to learn more about the author.

I have seen how viral links works, because I’ve been a beneficiary. But I purposely didn’t maximize its full potential. Being included in numerous linking before, I was tempted to spread the love, too. However, I had to wait for a viral linking that fits my blog, and I was glad Jeni tagged me for a simple tagging game (see below). Patience is truly a virtue.

Why Don’t Some Bloggers Do It?

Some bloggers are not really fond of viral linking, and here are my theories:

• Out of niche – Some bloggers are too protective of their niche, and they feel they will lose some readers if they participate in viral linking especially if the questions are not within their subjects.

• PageRank Concerns and Paid Links – Some bloggers have what Frank best describes as “Googlenoia“, or being paranoid of Google’s evil acts. Big name bloggers seldom (or never) do viral links because they prefer paid links. They will not link to you unless you are willing to pay for a tiny space in their sites. There’s nothing wrong with what they are doing since their priority is monetization.

• Laziness – Formatting links and post can sometimes be pain in the neck and time-consuming, especially if the blogging editor is not really user-friendly.

How Do You Play The Tag Game?

As I said above, the originator of the tag game will set some rules and you simply follow them. Most of the time, it contains questions to be answered.

In order to make the viral linking successful, you have to copy the links from the previous tag. It’s really that simple.

I was tagged by Jeni and I’m going to use that viral linking as an example:

Below are the links included in the tag, feel free to click on the sites that look interesting to you:

Limadang.com
RamblingMoo.com
blogginginmypyjamas
StylewithPassion
Chinneeq

Dora-zooropazoo
Babyshern
HiPnCooLMoMMa
Rachel’s Soulful Thoughts
When Silence Speaks

Dancing in Midlife Tune
Underneath it All
I am Dzoi
Hobbies and Such
moms…..check nyo

Choc Mint Girl
Amel’s Realm
My Thoughts
Rusin Roundup – Mel
MondayMorningPower
Comedy Plus
Mother’s Home!

Down River Drivel -> last tagger

PlanetSaedel -> my site

1st Rule: If you are tagged, copy the links above and insert your site at the bottom of the list (right under the last tagger) to make sure you’re included in the succeeding tags (see example above).

2nd Rule: Tag 5 bloggers from your list. (My tags below)

My Tags

• Vic Grace at CaribooPonderer
• Cris at KillTimeDoBlog
• Marcus at MarcusLangford
• Frank at OpTempo
• Mert at Search For Blogging

Tagging game, by its technical definition, should have a question. So for optional 3rd rule, here’s a simple question for you to answer: Briefly, what’s the story behind your site name?

Because I am the originator of the question, I’ll answer it first:

PlanetSaedel means “my world” or “my planet”. Here, I share personal experiences, tips, insights, and advices for others to use.

Since the question was a modification of the original rule, you may or may not choose to answer the question. It’s really up to you.

CONCLUSION

Viral Linking is one of the smartest methods of natural link exchange among us bloggers that will increase our inbound links. However, overdoing it might lose you some readers or turn off first time visitors. Learn to be patient, wait for the right “tag” tailored for your blog. If you’ve been tagged, it’s your choice if you want to continue the viral linking or not. And if I have tagged you, I hope you do spread the links.

Happy Tagging!

What a nerve! They’re in 5th-6th grade. Age: 11-12ish. They’re midgets.

I can’t say I’m tall. But I’m not short either. So you can’t blame me if I always give them the defensive look and say: “Dream on!”

But when I’m alone and I think about it, they’re probably right. I might have appeared shorter than I actually am. I also noticed that, for some reasons, I tend to slouch which makes me look shorter. I realize now that the reasons are not really “physical” related:

I am shorter when I feel tired.
I am shorter when I’m frustrated.
I am shorter when I lose confidence.
I am shorter when I feel shy.

This isn’t the way I want others to see me. I want people to look at me as a man oozing with confidence, not a weakling who needs to be asked if he’s okay every single hour. That’s why I sometimes dislike it when someone asks me: “Are you okay? You look a little tired today.”

When that happens, I immediately stand tall casting away negative emotions and thoughts. I try and make it a habit to stand in full attention because the next time people ask me: “How tall are you?” I want to see them ask with impressed looks on their faces.

In case you’re wondering, I’m nowhere near 6 feet, honestly. But that’s how tall I feel right now.

How about you? How tall are you?

I hate doing this. As much as possible, I want everyone to pass. I want the kids to enjoy their childhood: play, watch TV, be with their friends, or even chase butterflies in the fields. The thought of them being grounded by their parents because of a failing mark upsets me.

That’s why I implemented preventive measures: I told them our schedules beforehand so they can plan ahead; all tests and class works have extra credits; although we have homeworks and seat works almost daily, I gave them contests to make Math more fun and not horrible (I have no problems with my Computer Classes).

The students were responsive, and yet, I didn’t see the results I expected to see. One student was having a high-and-low scores trend, and based on this stat, I expected him to pass. But his Final exam was extremely low that I couldn’t pull his grade up.

I was thinking, did this kid even realize how important the Final exam was? I repeatedly told them to study, to the point of postponing the test for one day so they can review their lessons even longer.

Was this my fault? Why am I feeling guilty?

Then I realized, I religiously did my part as a teacher. I gave them good chances and several opportunities, yet, they chose to walk away from it. I should stop feeling guilty about it and pull the trigger. I have no control of what they do outside school.

A co-teacher warned me about parents that will complain. I told her, everything is documented so I have nothing to worry about. So I penned an “F” in the report cards of those flunking students. Otherwise, they will think they are doing the right thing and be forever lost in mediocrity. They need a reminder that they have to try harder.

Sometimes you have to pull this kind of trigger. Otherwise, there will always be senseless guilt, and you’ll end up trying to adjust to others when it’s supposed to be the other way around.

I can not define in a single post what the man has accomplished in his life. So for the sake of discussion, let us talk about him on a topic that we are all familiar of: GOLF.

If you don’t know it yet, Tiger Woods has been extremely successful in golf. Do you know that he started swinging the golf club before he can barely even walk? People were already amazed by him. In fact, he was already doing guest appearances on TV when he was 3. But none of these would have happened without his parents. Tiger got the support he needed to be able to embrace his capacity at a very young age.

I want to share with you a clip* of one of my favorite Nike commercials featuring a very young Tiger Woods. I’m not a commercial critic or an expert in deciphering its meaning, but the message I got is that it is open for interpretation. So after watching it, I’m inviting you to stay and read the rest of this post for my own take.

While the focus of the video is Tiger’s supreme talent, in the background, you’ll notice his mother happily taking pictures and his father cheering. Both are extremely happy. Both joyous by their son’s success. Their relationship with Tiger can be felt.

I consider them the wind beneath his wings.

And Tiger? He is a willing student. His parents believed in him and supported him, and Tiger accepted it.

We can learn an important lesson from this twist: to be successful, we have to learn to accept a helping hand.

Some people don’t do this because of these primary reasons: 1.) They are too shy 2.) They are egoistic, thinking they are independent enough, and 3.) Both.

Sometimes, I fall into “both” category. Just last month, when I was struggling to find balance in my work, I confessed to a co-worker that I was finding it hard to update the school website. She offered help. Honestly, I was happy that someone was concerned, so I acknowledged her action.

But I politely declined. Because I was too shy. At the same time, I was driven to prove I can manage to finish the backlog on my own.

I did, but only after a month. I felt unproductive the weeks in between. Imagine if I accepted her offer, it could have saved me more days or weeks, thus giving me a peace of mind.

If you want a faster yet solid path to success, learn to utilize your support group, whether they are your parents, other half, co-workers, or your friends; because for them, your success is their success also.

So if you’ve enjoyed this post and want to offer me help build more traffic to this site, feel free to stumble, digg, zoom, or reddit this entry. It is my pleasure telling you that I’ve learned my lesson: I won’t be shy to accept a helping hand.

By the way, you may have a different interpretation of the clip, so please feel free to post a comment. I’d love to hear/read what’s on your mind.

—–

*The clip is a “spliced” video, meaning the events really happened in different times and places, but was edited to make it look like it took place in one event. If you want to comment directly to the video, please follow this link. Otherwise leave a message below.

Resources: Tiger Woods Interview (CBS), YouTube Clip, Photo

I produced results. And by that, I meant awesome results that made my co-workers and I truly proud. It was a good scenario for me because it made me happy.

I have a weakness, though. When I develop new interests, they sometimes affect my priorities. These interests become diversions.

When I discovered blogging, it became my number one diversion and it interfered with my work.

I used to hone my technical skills.
Now I enjoy lurking in various websites.

I used to read books.
Now I prioritize blog-hopping and commenting in other blogs hoping to increase my site’s traffic.

I used to enjoy updating my school’s website.
Now it took a backseat because I prefer looking for themes and plugins to improve my blog.

Suddenly, I’m the man who can’t produce results. Because at the back of my head, I keep thinking my job can wait. I know I can always do it later.

Problem is, “later” never ever arrives because:

• I look for and think of something to blog about instead of focusing on the real work at hand.
• I check my site’s stats whenever I get the chance.
• I leave my email open and check it every time I go near my laptop.
• I visit social sites to learn more about blogging tips because I’m afraid to be left behind.

Other people love to malinger during work: extended coffee break, smoking, playing games online, shopping online, and many more. I know, because that’s what I’ve observed from others. Although I consider mine a lesser evil, it is still evil nonetheless, as far as my real work is concerned. Those activities I listed above are just a few examples of little things I insert during work. Little things that when combined, become a bad habit that holds back productivity.

And it has to stop now because that’s not the way I work. I am no fan of mediocrity.

There are reasons why I didn’t quit the 9-5 job (or 8-4 for me) for blogging. It’s because my day job is one of the biggest sources of my income and I enjoy it. Simply ignoring it means taking the risk of gradually losing it. And I can’t afford that. Without my job, this site will cease to exist.

This realization has led me to think that some things will simply have to be bumped down my to-do list. Since I enjoy blogging (or writing) and it makes me happy, I will continue to post and do the “blogging etiquette”, if they are within the boundaries of my priorities; or as long as I can do it while still producing results for my day job.

So how do I intend to do it?

Simple. Stop doing unnecessary things at work. It’s easier said than done, but that’s the responsibility that we all have to take. I’ll summarize it in two quick steps:

Step 1: Eliminate non-related activities during work hours – gradually, then completely. In this case, blogging has to be dropped from my 8-4 schedule.

Step 2: Every night, spend 1.5 to 2 hours at the most (not necessarily consecutive) for diversions. Since blogging is on the top of the list, I will have to settle doing it at night or when I get home. It includes “blog-rolling”, stats checking, commenting, social networking, and the like. I feel I have already built a connection with other bloggers and I don’t want to lose that. My presence will definitely still be felt. Doing Step 2, I will not have to worry about blogging during work hours.

In simple words, I just have to be more disciplined to live more happily.

How about you, do your diversions interfere with your work? If so, what do you plan to do to remain productive?

——

Inspired by:
Haiku Blogging @ ProBlogger.com