Monetize Your Life, Using Evernote

Oh how I love Spam! Lessons on accepting what Is in your life

By Michael Fletcher On December 28, 2011 · 21 Comments

3067146121_b594beb913 One of the peculiarities of life is the way in which each of us engage in living, while Robert Bravery’s post, about the scourge that is Spam (go read it it’s full of good tips for thwarting spam), struck a nerve with me and will with most any blogger out there, it also started me thinking. The thought of having to purge my comment moderation queue has become quite too much for me to bear on most days. I mean if only we didn’t have this problem if only there was a solution that would fix it for us for good.

Everything will not run smoothly

Well honestly if we did find that solution. The chemical weapon for the spam that lurks round our blogging community. There’d be some new way the idle and uninventive would find to annoy us into submission. There is one reality, everything will not run smooth. There will always be threats to our blogging way of life. People just naturally want something for nothing and they’ll prey on anyone they can.

Being able to communicate with you is a gift, perhaps spam is a fair price

So while I value Robert’s post and useful advice I also started remembering when I just started out. Feel free to giggle, but when I started out blogging I was kind of happy when the filthy spammers found me. I mean if they could find me I must be doing something right. Knowing a little more about the dark arts of the spammers now I know that’s not exactly true. I mean those spammers could find a open space on bathroom cubicle door at a rock concert if it had a some page rank. (perhaps the spammers should start a search engine). But long before my face turned to a scowl at the site of corny joke, naked celebrities and the answer to all bedroom problems stuffed into a pill, I used to get a bit of a buzz. I dug in and said now I’m a blogger. I’m paying my dues. I still try and remember that, see the thing is even as Monetize Your Life goes from strength to strength and my readers increase along with it my spam, I’m still paying my dues. I’m thankful that I’m able to communicate with my readers and if the price of that is some spam so be it. With helpful posts by Robert and the rest of the blogging community at least I know I’ll be doing everything I can.

When Good Enough is Good Enough! Accept what is

When it comes to these irritations in life I think the answer is to find the enough that is enough. We will never get rid of all the frustration that is spam or anything else that intrudes on our lives. Whether it’s the overbearing boss or nosey neighbour. Should we ignore it, of course not. Our time is our own, our readers are our own, there’s no need to give up but once all available methods have been exhausted we need be able to let go and accept what is. These are realities in life that we cannot change. If we fight these realities, we empower them to affect our happiness, our self worth and our interactions with the world. When we simply accept them and embrace them look at the other side of their existence we allow them to inject value into our lives instead.

Why I love Spam

My blog is fully functional I’ve received some spam!!!
My blog is visible on the web, those pesky spammers found me. Yippee!
Ok I’m not the only one that finds some of those corny jokes funny… ‘fess up
Spam detection as an industry employs people, reduced unemployment is a good thing
How awesome is it to find that one piece of “not spam” amongst the x-rated and pharmaceutical ads it’s kind of like finding a hundred bucks in pants you haven’t worn in ages
Perhaps you really do need those special pills… It could happen… when it does, you’ll be happy all those helpful folks sent you their contact details

Perhaps taking the time to see the value in something you currently view as negative would help to improve the value you see in your life.

Image Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/susang2/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Survival Guru day

By Michael Fletcher On December 28, 2011 · 29 Comments

Here I am back from visiting the Survival Guru and as ususal I was humbled by my travels and have returned to my blog with two little insights I want to discuss. See I often allow myself to forget that before all else this is a blog. Which is something Survival Guru has gotten spot on. Go read her blog lots of interesting questions to keep you out of sleep. She’s also has a book out and is finishing up another so check in and support one of our own.

Ok Back to why we’re here, while wandering around Survival Guru I actually popped in and commented on this post Why we forget the little things (the post was sadly lost when Winnie moved her site). It’s a very short post with a very powerful idea. What I took from it is simply this, why focus on the big bad things lying all over the place. focus on the things which you’re grateful for first. Then take some time to pay them back. What we focus on grows. Spend more time on the positives in your life and you’ll find your perception of your plight will change. Over and above that you’ll use your energy on the positive parts of your life, the parts that energize you. Taking the time start by looking the things you’re grateful for first makes a world of difference in your happiness. It’s the motivational equivalent of paying yourself first. The bad things that happen will get taken care of however if you ignore the good in your life it may never return.

Monetize blog growing pains

By Michael Fletcher On December 21, 2011 · 18 Comments

Monetize your life has remained nothing more than my hobby for the last 11 months, however I’m at a crossroads, my domain is up for renewal and try as I might I’m finding it hard to justify keeping the site up. I haven’t been writing the last 4 months due to serious financial and personal problems. My heart wasn’t in it, and with the price of bandwidth here in South Africa it’s been tough keeping up.

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Procrastination, Connect with your goals

By Michael Fletcher On December 19, 2011 · 12 Comments

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The two rules of procrastination: 1) Do it today. 2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow. ~Author Unknown

I am, have been and will probably continue to be to some extent a procrastinator for the rest of my life. I have improved a lot but I’d be the first to admit that when my will is tested, where procrastination is concerned, my body is often found wanting. What does this mean though in the grand scheme of things? Well for me when I find myself procrastinating that realisation is itself a reminder that my mind is constantly keeping track of the work to be done in it’s own haphazard way. Thankfully, my mind has not give up on me just yet, and still lives in quiet hope that I’ll change my procrastinating ways.

Personal Power: Know What You Don’t Know

By Michael Fletcher On September 26, 2011 · 14 Comments

At the heart of the way you use your available time is the amount of skills at your disposal to convert free time into meaningful output. If all you know how to do is play on that shiny console your free time options are severely limited. So how do we start adding to our skill set? Where to start, where to end?

What is Know What You Don’t Know?

Know what you don’t know is a systematic process of working backward from a desired goal or skill detailing the knowledge you need to get from your current level of knowledge.

Why use Know What You Don’t Know?

The frustration caused by how vast a topic can seems when looking at it as a whole is often the reason used for giving up or worse still not trying. I know the first time I tried to teach myself guitar I fell into this trap. I knew what a guitar should sound like, so I went out and bought one along with a song book. For a week I suffered as I sat, for hours whacking at different bits of the book unsuccessfully. A month later a string broke and I never played that guitar again, eventually selling it when I got a good offer for it. I failed. I know now though that it had nothing to do with how hard the guitar is to learn but had everything to do with me not having any clue what I needed to know and in what order I needed to learn it.

Know What You Don’t Know is for me the simplest way to learn a new skill, it’s simply a matter of at a very high level figuring out what is involved in learning your new skill. This is really important in order to acquire a well rounded study program as well. I often find that I tend to spend more time on the excercises I enjoy rather than the ones that I need to work on. This well rounded approach has tons of knock on benefits as well. As an example the second time I tried to learn to play the guitar I faired a lot better until I got a stuck with a couple of barre chords. Try as I might I did not have the dexterity to hold the chord and produce a clear crisp sound.

At first I kept at it trying over and over and it didn’t help. I think it actually got worse as I started to get frustrated and lose my cool. Having knowledge of all the things I needed to learn I kept on practicing in all the areas I knew I had to learn. A week later I could play the barre chords easily. As it happens I just didn’t have the strength when I started. What was critical here was the fact that I knew that that barre chord was the be all and end all of my guitar career and I was able to focus on other areas of my playing which ultimately built my skill and dexterity to the point where I succeeded. I have no doubt that it would have taken me twice as long or longer to master that had I kept at only that.

Know What You Don’t Know gives you confidence and direction and keeps you working toward your goal.

If this sounds good to you my next post will be a practical example of how to use Know What You Don’t Know to learn anything.

How to use know what you don’t know a practical example.

Useful links:

Are these three words ruining your life an interesting discussion about the psychology of failure/success by Jonathan Mead on the Zen Habits blog