10 tips for starting a blog

1. Be focused

Many blogs start out trying to do too many things. Find a niche and focus on it; it's actually easier! With a lot less work you can be the best for that niche.

2. Be different
There are probably a lot of people thinking about, and even working, on the same idea that you are. Good ideas will have competition, so you have to find something about your blog that stands out from the rest. Remember that the specialist at something will do much better than the generalist, so make sure you're the specialist. Get a good, non-generic name, one that's distinctive and easy to remember. Don't follow trends, start your own!

3. Be casual
People are relaxed as they browse the web. It's a very casual thing to do. Fit in with how they feel, and they'll 'hang out' with you. You want to offer them something that fits in - and even helps - their everyday lives. Make sure you do it with a relaxed tone on your blog.

4. Be picky
Make sure you are picky about the content that you have on your blog. You want quality content in order to bring quality results to your efforts. People will come back for more when they know your content is high quality. Be picky with everything you do. Don't aim for mediocrity.

5. Be user friendly
Make sure your blog and the features of your blog are easy to navigate, easy to find, and easy to use. Don't think everyone is as intelligent, or as intuitive as you are. Make things user friendly, so that people enjoy their experience on your blog.

6. Be selfish
Make sure you're doing what you want to do. Provide information that you want to provide. Do it only for yourself, not for anyone else. If you're doing it for someone else, you're not going to be as interested in it. Doing it for yourself creates passion, and passion brings rewards to you. Be selfish. It's for you after all.

7. Be greedy
Not only do you have to do it for yourself, to be selfish, but you also have to get some reward for it. There's no point doing anything if there's nothing in it for you. Find the opportunities for getting something back from your efforts. Income from advertising or affiliate programs are a good start. Be greedy enough to let yourself be rewarded for your work.

8. Be agile
Be prepared to change anything about what you're doing. Anything. Nothing needs to be fixed, and everything needs to be open to evolution. As you get feedback, or learn from your experiences, allow your blog to grow with you. It's ok to change things, to do things differently. As you learn new things, and get new ideas, you're going to want to try them out. Do it. Your experience is valuable. Take advantage of it. Don't think you have to stay as you started. Grow, be agile.

9. Be balanced
Commitment is crucial, but don't let the rest of your life suffer. In fact, spend a lot of time on your life, enjoying its experiences. Not only will you find balance, but you'll also feel happier. And the best bonus is, it'll give you more to write about.

10. Be cautious
Rules are not to be taken literally. Your own heart will have the best advice for you. Learn to listen to it. There are always 'exceptions to the rule'.

Applying the 80/20 rule

You can read an article of it here. In the meantime, here's a teaser.

Why waste so much time, effort and energy trying to serve the 80 percent of your clients that are generating only 20 percent of your business?

It really is a much better idea to spend 80% of your time on those 20% of your clients that are generating 80% of your business. Alternatively, spend 80% of your time on that 20% of work that comprises 80% of the importance in your career.

Read more by following the link.

Make money with garage sales

Any weekend, in any neighbourhood, you're bound to see notices for garage sales. Homeowners are spending their weekends making money, with the average profit being around $500 for a one-weekend sale.

If you have a lot of stuff you don't need any more, you might want to join in and sell it. Organisation is the key.

1. Check with local authorities to find out the local laws and regulations for operating garage sales in your area.
   
   
2. Spend a few weekends going to garage sales to see what's selling, what's being bought, how they're priced, and how sellers advertise. Take notes.
   
   
3. Take stock of what you have and what you can sell. Pick out at least one large special item you can show in front of your house during the sale. Get any antiques, paintings or potentially valuable items appraised. You don't want to sell something for $1 and find out later that it was worth $1000.
   
   
4. The best days for garage sales are, obviously, the weekends, but try for Thursdays and Fridays as well. There are shoppers out there hoping to find things before the weekend shoppers get around to it.
   
   
5. Advertise everywhere you can. The local newspaper, notice boards and the internet. Place signs around the neighbourhood in bright letters, with balloons.
   
   
6. Make sure price stickers are on your items. Have a wide variety of jewellery and clothing in rainbow colours, making sure the jewellery and appliances sparkle. Hang clothing on racks, arranged according to sizes. Copy what the retail stores do. It works.
   
   
7. Start as early as possible, like 7am, and don't close before 6pm, or when your stock runs out! Never shut down for lunch, as you need to be available for those who work on weekends and can only come during their lunch hour.
   
   
8. Start lowering prices after 1pm. On those items you don't think will sell, mark them as free.

Good luck!

5 Blogging tips on what NOT to do

There's lots of things on what you SHOULD do with your blog, but what about what NOT to do? I hope this answers that for you.

1. Do not give up
   Don't expect overnight results. Everything good takes time, and you need to allow for that. There's no such thing as overnight success, but there is such a thing as success within a few months. Just keep doing it.
   
   
2. Do not obsess over one small element
   Common areas of obsesion are playing around with the design of the blog or the formatting. People are going to be more interested in what you write about, rather than the appearance of the site. By all means, play around with it, but don't obsess over it. The more time you waste by not writing, the longer it will take for you to achieve your blogging goals. Writing is the priority on your blog. Everything else comes second.
   
   
3. Do not make huge claims that you don't follow through on
   It's important to be seen as responsible and mature about your blogging. Don't say you'll do something, and then never do it or stop after a short while. Instead, make sure you do what you say you're going to do. If you're not sure about it, then don't make the claims.
   
   
4. Do not use someone else's words without giving credit
   How would you feel if someone used something you wrote, that you were proud of, that you spent a lot of time on, and they pretended that they were the writers of those words? You'd probably feel pretty angry. You might contact them about it and tell them to remove it from their site, or give credit to you. Well, make sure no one contacts you in the same way! Make sure all your work is original, or, if you must use someone else's words in a post of yours, be brief about it, make it obvious that it's a quote, and link back to where you got it from. It'll actually increase the number of visitors to your site, as well as where you got the quote from, and everyone wins.
   
   
5. Do not be like everyone else
   The more you stand out, the more popular you'll be. Make your own blog template. Write your own posts. Be inspired by other people and news, but write about them in your own way. Write about topics that no one else is writing about. Make it yours.

Achieve your dreams

Do you know how to achieve your dreams?

It's really quite simple.

Are you doing what you need to do to achieve them?

That's all you need to ask yourself, and all you need to remember.

Have your dream in mind. Always. Even better, write it down. Refer to it often. If you are not doing something every single day towards your dream, then you are not serious about achieving it.

The secret to achieving your dreams is to do something every day that moves you closer to those dreams. If you're not doing something every day towards that result, then you're wasting your time - and your life.

Why Firefox?

I wrote about Performancing for Firefox here, but I didn't go into any detail. Over here, you can find more details about Firefox and the extensions I use for it to make my browsing experience a more enjoyable one.

Make a camp fire

In your backyard on a beautiful night.

Buy a blanket

If you live in an area that gets real cold, real early, buy yourself a set of flannel sheets. You'll begin to look forward to crawling into bed around 4pm.

Go for a walk

There are probably some great walks nearby that also have some great views. Go find them.

Over 100 Quick and Easy Healthy Foods

You can find them here. Enjoy the healthy eating!

5 Tips to Improve your blog writing

There comes a time for everyone when you just can't think of anything to write about. You have a blog that's focused on your passion, but you just can't stay focused, or you can't get started, or you just can't find the motivation to find material to write about.

You've probably heard of bloggers who do 10 or even 20 posts a day, and you can just barely get out 2 posts a day. It can be pretty discouraging when faced with others who seem more passionate than you. How do you compete for traffic? How do you do what they do, and still maintain your sanity?

It's important to keep some perspective on the situation. You don't need to compete with anyone else. You only need to do it for yourself, and this will help you find the ideas, focus and motivation to keep you going.

1. Have new topics sent to you
   Go to Google Alerts and sign up to receive the latest news on your favourite topics sent to your email. No need to copy them word for word, but they're doing the work for you, by sending you things to write about. Use them for ideas and content to put your own words to.
   
   
2. Add quick thoughts, ideas and opinions
   Not every post has to an article, and they don't need to be long and informative. Some of the most valuable posts might just be a sentence or paragraph or two. They're quick and easy to read, offer simple solutions or insights, or get people thinking or debating.
   
   
3. Cause debates
   Your opinion is important - that's why you're blogging, right? But not everyone is going to agree with what you say, and that's ok! You don't want everyone agreeing with you, as that would just be boring. In fact, the more people that disagree with you, the better! It inspires debate. Obviously, don't be an idiot with what you're saying, as that would just lose you respect, and people aren't going to value your opinion. You want to be different, but logical and respectful. You don't have to be right, but you have to be expressive. Be open to being wrong, and humble about it. It'll gain you more respect, and you'll learn so much more as well.
   
   
4. Write reviews
   Write a review about the latest book you read, the latest movie you saw, the latest product you used that you loved or hated. Write about your thoughts and feelings, expectations and actions. Help others understand your opinion about it. They might find great value in reading your opinion, and it could help them decide to something of benefit to them, or prevent them from wasting their time or money. They'll appreciate you for it.
   
   
5. Make exciting and relevent headlines
   The first glimpse of your writing they'll get is your subject heading, or headline. If you want them to be excited by what you write, think about how you can create an exciting headline that'll grab their attention and make them want to read the whole post. Play on emotions, riddles, rhymes, shock appeal, etc. Use it in moderation though, only where it might be relevent. If you have too much of it, it becomes normal, boring, and expected.

Hopefully these tips will help you find inspiration, and help you find more to write about. Now get writing, and enjoy!

A good place to study

How hard is it for you to find your own comfortable place to study? This article titled A Good Place To Study provides some good information on how to make a study place your own.

Here’s a suggestion for the start of the semester: Find a good place to study and make it your own. The more time you spend in that place, the more it will become associated with the work of learning.

Best life hacks of 2005

You can find them over here, at a review for the best life hacks of 2005.

Gmail tips

If you want to learn all about hints and tips on using Gmail better, then visit this site:

Gmail Tips: The Complete Collection

Lots of useful tips with effective archiving, searching and management. Happy Gmailing!

Take a vacation

Take a vacation - without going anywhere! Be a tourist in your own town or city. By the end of your vacation you should be able to say, "Now I remember why I live here."

Relax on Sundays

Even if you're not religious, try treating the Sabbath as a true day of rest. Turn on your answering machine, go for a walk or bike ride, play non-electronic games with your family, sing, make music, or read the entire newspaper. Take it easy! You deserve it.

Record your dreams

Keep a pad and pencil near your bed. You might wake up in the middle of the night with a dream still on your mind. Write it down. It might have a subconscious message for you about problems in your life, or even be an inspiration for you to do something. At the very least, it could be an interesting read.

Favourite music

There's nothing like curling up in your comfortable chair and doing nothing but listening to your favourite music.

Gardening. Keep it dirty

Even before you can put your hands into the ground to dig a garden you might feel that you need to purchase a bunch of specialty items.

Don't.

Achieve satisfaction

Spend most of your time on those activities that give you the greatest pleasure or satisfaction. Avoid the rest like the plague.

Avoid a hectic supermarket

by doing your grocery shopping at a local store.

Enjoy life

There's no bonus points in life for suffering through what others say you should ENJOY. You can enjoy it too, whatever it is. Let yourself enjoy.

Take the time to think

There are things we do that aren't particularly pleasurable, but provide satisfaction. Take the time to think about what you enjoy doing, and what gives you the most satisfaction.

Create pleasurable experiences for yourself

Run a bath and put wonderful oils in it. Light a dozen candles, turn on some soft music, and settle in for an 'our.

How much time are you wasting?

How much time do you spend picking out clothing, putting on makeup, making breakfast, packing lunches or looking for your keys?

How much of it can you stop doing?

How much time can you optimise by doing things differently?

Choices

You always have the ability to make choices. Make the right ones.