Step one: steal underpants …
Step two:
Step three: PROFITS!

No, no, not that step three … although I DO like ‘profits’

Step 3: When you fail, know forgiveness for yourself.

Failure is a requirement in life I think. So long as you’re willing to look at why you failed and learn something from it it can be one of the most positive experiences in the process of attainment of a goal.

So fail fast, fail often. Then pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again….

I’ve failed at making a daily post on my blog here, w00t!!!
Why? well I think that in part it’s because my desire to blog daily wasn’t strong enough to actually do it daily and keep it up. The desire dwindled as I had more things that required my attention added to my plate.

Thing is *I DO* want to blog daily, but not having the time to write about my day scheduled into a daily routine made it really easy to skip out on, and even though I have this overdue item in my GTD tool staring at me constantly (Write daily blog), its not getting me to get it done … So clearly the GTD stuff is also failing for me. Even though I am getting a lot of things done faster and with better accuracy, having overdue ‘stuff’ that doesn’t provide a sense of urgency doesn’t make them get done any faster.

What I need to do now is the following … (this is how you salvage the failure and turn it into a victory)
1. Not dwell on the failure, it happened, accept it.
2. Decide if you want to try again (in my case the answer is YES)
3. Make a change in the way you were doing the failure. (you would be amazed at how many people never do this)
4. Take the first (or next) step and get moving.

So, because I don’t want to fail again at this. I will try setting aside some time every day (about an hour) to get the posts done. I like the idea of blogging about yesterday where I can provide hindsight, and I know from journal writing that only the important events of the day stick after a sleep… So I will aim for the AM to do this (like now). That should also give me that warm fuzzy feeling I get from knowing that I have accomplished something early in the day which usually motivates me to get more done.
See that? potential to take a failure and not only turn it around, but to make it a productive part of my day and help accomplish even more towards my goals.

Have an uber awesome and fantastic day everyone

I figured it was time to get an update in here on the Back on Track Experiment…

Thinks are definitely moving in a forward momentum, not yet at the ‘take on a life of their own’ kinda momentum but thats coming. I can feel it. I have slacked in places, and kept my nose to the grindstone in other places, but I’m not satisfied yet with the amount of effort I have been putting in. This is A LOT of effort to keep on top of things… Some of the things in my life have totally slipped, and I’m trying to keep them afloat but haven’t managed to get them all straightened out yet.

The GTD stuff is helping but I’m not as proficient in it as I need to be, and a few times I have caught myself just changing the due date of an over due item … now thats better then forgetting about it forever, but still not getting it done. So I need to work on that Still … My Guitar playing has severally suffered in the past bit I really need to get a day of the week set up with my buddy Jeff to practice … Monday or Tuesday nights would work best.

I need to get a daily schedule running I think, something that will allow me the time to keep on top of the things I need to get done. My sleeping has been retarded lately and I need to get that under control… I think in part its the time of the year and I just don;t want to wake up… I should really start the polyphasic switch soon .. That will give me the ‘time’ i’m after.

Comments, Thoughts, Feedback … Always welcome.

This week should be a short workweek because of the holiday yesterday … Family Day! … But somehow this week has managed to turn into a longer week then normal, I have a scheduling conflict that requires me to be in Oshawa Today and I usually only work Wed, Thurs, Fri in an office environment (stability, regular pay, etc..) this leaves me Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues to do the freelance stuff on my plate which you would think is more then enough time, but it never is…

The original plan was to work 3 days in an office / part time gig and 3 days on freelance leaving me one day to NOT work. It hasn’t panned out this way yet. But I’m still trying. I know that I’m pretty blessed in the sense that I can get away with working a nine to five grind only three days a week, but I did have to sacrifice a fair bit to accomplish it. (about 50%) of the income I could normally make in a week doing freelance. In the end though the stability is more important then the money because with just freelance you can end up going weeks or months with no work which translates to no pay.

Unfortunately though the flip side of that is the ability for scheduling in appointment in just two of the normal weekdays, I don’t have myself set up yet so that things move fluidly. Which is the criteria that I have marked to call this method of working successful. When I manage to have a few months of continuos work for the freelance and the regular working side and I don;t have to work until 1am or Saturdays, then I will be able to say that this is a good way to work. Until then I’ll hold my judgments.

I’m so excited! some of my favorite things happen in the spring, you fell alive and full of life, the birds return, the snow melts away, little buds appear on the trees, the rain comes and makes that awesome smell of damp earth that you only get in the spring and which is only comparable to the awesome smell you get of the decaying leaves in the fall. Before you know it the weather has turned warm enough to get out on your bike, and then your in the woods coasting down a single track of hard packed earth, the sound of the june bugs buzzing in the distance, the smell of the fresh blooms filling your nose.

I love the way the world looks from a bike. I like to go for a nice long ride, slip off the trail part way through, balance a rock and contemplate the awesomeness that is the earth. I’m SOOOOO excited! … Thanks to Craig (who I WILL get out on the trails this season) I have these great Vibram Flo’s (Five Fingers) that I can’t wait to take for a bike ride again … I only got in one ride before the end of last season with them and I’m starting to go a little mental waiting to get out again. This year (about half way through the season) I would love to get last years Stump Jumper… (Last years model is always cheeper). That would be sweet…

I’m not getting anywhere with Adsense, but I haven’t actually tried, I just tossed some loose advertisements up to see what the effect would be… Note to anyone out there thinking that will work… it won’t … in a month and a bit I have generated the whopping amount of $3.56 (three dollars and fifty six cents) from Adsense … I’ll try not to spend that all in one place

But seeing as I’m the type that likes to take responsibility, I can’t possibly say that its Googles fault like some of the lame flaming Interwebians do … (That is a word btw… I just made it up) . … I digress, where was I? … Oh.

I haven’t done my homework, and I haven’t tried to customize the advertisements on the site yet. So I started doing some research and reading, because lets face it … If I can actually generate some noticeable income off of my site I would be reenforcing my goals for the year and we all know that I really want to succeed. I also figured that if I document the process then I will be making the steps that work reproducible and thats going to benefit not only me but you … the reader (providing that your interested in monetizing a site with Adsense). Make sense? … It does to me, so I’ll go with it

I will make sure to post updates to this topic as I see different results, (w00t!!! more content to write) please bare with me while I make modifications to the locations, sizes, and types of ads that I post … I’m sure that some will have a negative impact, and I want to know… .So, as always, feel free to comment, flame, or provide general feedback to this little experiment. It’s ok to fail, as long as I do it forward

As a side note … I also think that I should be sorting out some ‘pages’ of content based on theme and me unique perspective on the universe … So watch for those to show up in the left hand column … (providing the left hand column doesn’t get moved to the right) and If you think you have an interesting idea for me to write about… click on comment below

Worked late (4:30-ish AM) finishing up that lagging project (finally!!!) … Overslept, had a meeting with Mr. Bradfield (Jeff) at noon, but I didn’t even drag my but out of bed until 12:30… (but look its 8 full hours of sleep!!!!) Sent him a text to let him know we were still ‘on’ and that I was just behind, and drove down to Scarborough. I was going to nab Mr. Lodin (Kal) along the way, but he was already downtown so it was just Jeff and I.

We had a good time, did some work on his site (http://www.jeffbradfield.ca) and discussed a project we are collaboratively working on that moving really slow on account of us not getting together and keeping on top of things… I’m going to try again for the monday morning meetings (mastermind group). Jeff and I reviewed some layouts for the site we want for the new project and I’ll spend a few cycles this week (during my morning commute) seeing what I can get hammered out in terms of a loose ‘spec’.

We want to keep really agile on this and because it’s a collaborative thing between some great colleagues that I’m proud to call friends… its pretty relaxed.

Hopefully this will be one of those projects that turns into a revenue stream for us and will send us cheques in the mail … I really like those projects … the ones you do once but keep getting paid on. (You can thank Timothy Ferriss for my new found love of the 4 hour work week ideals).

I set Jeff up with some GTD love too … I’m sure that if has a peek he will get hooked.

Oh, and YES! .. I did get it done, and I feel great because of it