I’m writing this first on lined paper, with a real pen. How old fashioned.
My laptop is turned off, my wifi is left floundering around bouncing from wall to wall, and I’m hunched over my desk, pen in hand, feeling very much like Bob Cratchit.
But my productivity has increased tenfold!
I used to mess about online it seems, doing things I THOUGHT were productive, like checking stats and conducting research and searches. But my writing output has been painfully low.
Only when I was on a trip to Edinburgh without my laptop, and with my iPhone battery dead, did I grab the pad and get scribbling.
My handwriting is apalling, but I only need to read it for about a day until I type it up, and that is super quick [like 4 minutes for 1 article].
If you haven’t already, grab some lined paper, a pen, and your keyword list, and get going!
If the same happens to you, with productivity shooting through the roof, let me know!
– Lewis 
lewis@yournicheblog.com
This is from EarlyToRise:
1) A good understanding of why and how people buy things.
2) The ability to make a big, tempting promise.
3) The skill to show that promise as a picture, to advance it with propositions
and to support those propositions with proof.
4) The ability to distinguish between features and benefits.
What would you add to the list? I’d add 2.5) The ability to follow up on your big, tempting promise…
I think #1 is the most important
Lewis 
I recently bought a book called ‘Todoodlist‘, by Nick Cernis. [Official site: www.todoodlist.com]
In Todoodlist Nick teaches a very simple concept. Ditch complex systems if they’re no more effective than simple systems.
The To Do list is his main example, and one I now use every day.
Old Way: Sure it’s excellent to have a to do list on your iPhone which syncs back to RememberTheMilk on your desktop which syncs to Google Calendar which displays in the side of your gmail inbox and sends you an alert via Instant Messenger or email or SMS when a task is due…
But MAN IS THAT COMPLICATED!
Yes… this was my system until last week…
Certainly for putting off tasks until some point in the future a reminder system is great, but for the day to day, what’s wrong with a little bit of paper?
I was lost in the unproductive world of the over-productive tools.
With a few basics twists on the concept of the to do list / mind map you can make yourself more productive and able to focus better on the task at hand.
This is how it’s worked for me, and I love it so far.
Plus – Nick is a very funny guy. I dream of being that funny, witty, and smart. Literally, I dream.
The book is about 100 pages long, and entertains and teaches with interesting stories and essays.
You need to read it. You will probably like it as much as I do.
- Lewis
Yesterday I mentioned Productivity Tricks. So today and tomorrow I’m posting 2 of my favourites.
“Don’t break the chain!”
This technique is credited to Jerry Seinfeld, and you can read about it at lifehacker.
First, you get a calendar (a physical one is better – you don’t want to use something like Google Calendar for this), and you define your Daily Action.
For example: Do you need to write 1 article every day for your website? Do you need to lose weight and so ride your exercise bike every day?
The concept is simple. Day 1, you do your task, and you put a big fat juicy red cross through the day on the calendar. Day 2, you repeat, and your chain has begun!
You now have to keep up your chain of red crosses as long as you can.
This works well because the idea of breaking your chain will grow more painful than the thought of doing your daily task. Woo!
This is an excellent way to form new (positive) habits.
I use it to get myself to write at least 1 article every day, even if I don’t feel like writing.
Do you use “The Chain”?
- Lewis
In all of my working online I’ve learned a few things.
When you don’t have a boss looking over your shoulder, tutting every time you take a break, it becomes rather hard to stay on task.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of all ages,
Gather round,
Let Me Tell You a Secret…
Motivating yourself every day, when you’re in your house surrounded by lots of books and films and food, is HARD!
Have you found this?
What ways have you discovered of getting around this?
- Lewis
SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE.
There is no better motto…
Just like when you go on vacation as a kid and decide to keep a Vacation Diary (I think girls would do this more than boys…), I haven’t kept up with the Day 1 / Day 2 idea of this blog.
Not to worry though, because blogging has no strict rule book.
I have been thinking a lot lately about my building an empire of articles and lenses and blogs online, to sell mine and other’s products.
I have been hard at work building up my own niche sites, on topics that interest me, and building a bunch of supporting lenses and articles for backlinks too.
It’s hard work, but it’s fun to see the results. I’ve learned lots about article marketing and SEO too.
My next post is about The Most Important Thing In Article Marketing.
…BACKLINKS!
Lewis
I have always been a big fan of writing on my BlackBerry. Some people found it crazy, that I could write any large amount of text on such a small keypad onto such a small screen.
I have now taken to writing articles on my iPhone. Yep – writing articles on a piece of glass!
What I like about it is that I can sit wherever I like and write, like on a park bench, or on a sofa, or on the back of an elephant.
The application I use for writing is called ‘WriteRoom’ and it let’s you customise the font size and colour, and the background colour. I use it because you can pinch and zoom to go full screen, and it doesn’t suck like the defauly Notes app – I hate that font and clutter.
Do you do any Mobile Writing? What tools do you use?
My iPhone has a whole bunch of great SEO and Blogging apps too, which makes it a productivity tool to rival my laptop!
Trouble is it’s also a time wasting tool…
BACK TO WORK!
Today was day 1 of my new writing plan, and it’s going well so far. Even with zero new articles written!
Today was a day of Set Up. I have been laying good foundations.
I am a great fan of systems, and things happening exactly as they should. So today I was setting up a system.
I have outsourced a couple of data entry tasks in the past, and I have been setting things up again today for Social Bookmarking. My outsource helper will be bookmarking my articles/web pages/lenses on various websites, so after I complete an article and hit Publish I will simply email her the link and she will get it bookmarked and linked to from various places. The bookmarking sites I have chosen are all dofollow, so the links to my pages will help rankings in Google.
It’s all about the system. You don’t want to just write your fingers to the bone, and get pennies per article because of low visitor numbers. Simply having some backlinks will help it get indexed and could be all that’s needed to help it rise to the top for your chosen search terms.
Today:
Setting up the outsource of the bookmarking tasks
Creating some new accounts on bookmarking websites
Writing shall commence tomorrow!
Lewis
P.S. what elements of your online business do you outsource?
I’ve been making a living from marketing on the internet for many years now. It’s easier than you probably think!
But… I’m not retired yet am I?! And I’ve not been building a business which could easily run by someone else.
Working for yourself on the internet pays very well, but I’m looking for something different. A lot of what was earning me a living was a set of specific skills I have built up over many years. Finding somebody to replace me, with my skills, would have been very tough indeed.
So I have a new plan.
I have been testing this new plan over the past few weeks and it has worked very well so far. So I am now going for it “full steam ahead!”
I am now a writer. I will write about topics that interest me, topics that are profitable, topics that are under-represented in google search results pages, topics related to my own products for sale, and topics related to some key affiliate programs I wish to promote.
So from here on in, follow my journey as I go from Internet Marketer Website Guy to Retired Internet Writer Guy!
There will be LOTS of learning along the way as I share what I’m doing here.
Lewis
