The Cost of Being Unorganized
Lately, more and more, you all have been sensing my frustration with my inability to dedicate working hours, or rather, productive hours to the projects I started months ago. Even though I have a notebook in which I write my monthly goals, I am losing this game.
And I can’t afford to lose this game.
In order to counter my own laziness and unorganization, I took a trip to my local Barnes & Noble and bought myself a weekly planner. Yes folks, it’s time that I did just that. (Only if my sister could see this in action, she’d have proud tears in her eyes!)
The Cost
What has been the cost of being unorganized for me? Is it the invaluable feeling of success? Of knowing that I can make a good living incoming?
Let’s put a number figure on this: $50 a month ($600 a year)? $200 a month ($2400 a year)? Or has it been more?
Have I robbed myself the feeling of success months ago and starting new projects?
Since I’m facing my own cost of being unorganized, you may as well face yours: what is your cost of being unorganized?
My 19 Day (Deadline) Project
I am dedicating the next 19 days to building backlinks to one of my mini-sites. Why 19? For a number of reasons. These 19 days include anywhere from 3-5 hour work days most every day with a leeway of 5 days to take completely off. So in essence, it’s two weeks of part-time work to produce a nice number of links (the number will be revealed once I hit that deadline) that should boost my mini-site’s ranking in Google.
I am putting aside those five days since I have a family member visiting. I know how the days can go having fun and tossing all the work aside. On days we go out locally, I will probably work around 2-3 hours. On a really busy day, I’ll try to fit in at least one hour.
For now, my backlinking will be done manually. That means creating new email accounts for social bookmarking accounts, switching up my IP address at random intervals, creating accounts at social bookmarking sites, giving these accounts proper profiles and avatars and finally, practicing natural social bookmarking. This will entail waiting a few days before submitting a backlink or two unrelated to my mini-site. After about 3-4 submissions of unrelated links, I will bookmark the main page of my mini-site.
I will also be tossing in web 2.0 backlinking and keeping up with my blog. With web 2.0 linking, I have to create informative articles and then spin these articles with a software and a manual spin. This process alone can take me 2-4 days (aroud 2-3 hours), depending on my concentration levels. After the first two hours, all the articles seem to be the same, which can be some mind numbing work.
One thing I immediately did was calculate (realistically) how many hours a day I can work and how many hours or days it would take for me to create, say, 75 backlinks (manual, quality ones that should stick around for a while!) I’ve created my schedule until only September 3rd to see how things are going and in case my schedule needs to be altered depending on my progress.
For each day, I’ve also written down the following: (Time: ??) That enables me to write down how long it takes me to do the (account) work for the day. If I notice that it has taken me an hour and a half to create 10 accounts when it took me only 45 minutes the day before, I can easily observe my distractions.
Start Date, End Date, Progress
The challenge began on August 27th and should end September 19th. I have manually created 30 social bookmarking accounts and have modified the profiles as well, which can take a few minutes if done properly (different postal codes, avatars and ‘about me’ sections).
One amazing things I’ve noticed since starting on Friday is that once I write down my start time, I become eerily focused and work for close to an hour straight. I have felt more productive in these three days alone than in the previous 4 weeks combined. It’s not that I wasn’t doing work, it’s that it was unaccounted for and I didn’t have hard numbers to look at and feel good about.
19 days seems like a lot but since I have someone visiting, I’ll be extremely happy creating quality backlinks at the amount I have set. If time allows, I will spin a few more articles and submit them to Unique Article Wizard so I can benefit from additional, automated backlinking (provided it’s doing what it is suppose to).
But Why Not Outsource?
For some of you, the obvious solution might be to outsource. For me, it is not feasible to do so. Since I’m no longer employed, it is beneficial for me to not spend money when I can handle certain tasks myself (not matter how tedious or miserable).
Secondly, it takes time to find a good employee who will treat your project like their own. They will probably require a decent salary (for decent work). If I can learn about my successes and setbacks with this project, I can make my employee(s) aware of these things. But first, I have to make some money from my so-called projects.
Who said generating passive income would be oh-so-easy?
Got questions? Concerns? Want to share your most productive tips? Well let ‘em rip!
Keyword Research Simplified
Finding great niches and keywords is hard enough. Market Samurai makes it all simple with all the data you need to compare and analyze with the click of a button.
Try Market Samurai for free and see what it can do for you.
14 Responses to “The Cost of Being Unorganized”
Comments
Read below or add a comment...
Trackbacks
-
[...] Read the original post: The Cost of Being Unorganized | Experiments in Passive Income [...]
-
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by moon hussain, Karen Ruby. Karen Ruby said: RT @moon_hussain The Cost of Being Unorganized http://bit.ly/bibRc8 [...]
-
[...] deadline of September 19th to build a nice set of quality backlinks to one of my niche sites? (Read The Cost of Being Unorganized to catch up). Soon you will get an update on how that deadline worked out but this post isn’t [...]
-
[...] If you’re not familiar with what I’m discussing here, you will find details of the 19 day backlinking project [...]
Leave A Comment...
-
Get Moon’s Free Ebook!
About Me
Hi! My name is Moon Hussain and my goal is to earn enough passive income to travel the world without worries. I'll be discussing all the strategies that I'm using to make money online. To keep up-to-date, please subscribe.
Moon Recommends:
Let’s Connect
Hi! My name is Moon Hussain and I'm here to share all the strategies that I'll be experimenting with to earn passive income.
Subscribe via RSS
Contact Us!
Follow on Twitter
Facebook
WOW! Awesome plan Moon! I think it takes dedication and a list of items to do to keep you on target. The hardest thing is maintaining discipline. The first week is easy, but after that it gets a little more difficult.
I haven’t even registered with that many social bookmarking sites. I guess it would make sense – I use ping.fm, so I could hook them up to that, and have my articles submitted really easily. I know you’re looking at manual bookmarking, but have you looked at Alex Whalley’s recommendation of IMAutomator?
I hope things work out for you. You’ll have a wealth of experience to draw upon. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of people asking how it goes via Twitter/here. Good luck
Mark Bell´s last blog ..Before you start – plan- plan- plan some more
Mark, it really does take dedication. I find that with my weekly planner and timing myself, I can focus directly on account creations. I’ve been able to track how many I’ve created and I’m proud of the number but watch this number double in just a few days.
Can’t wait to start bookmarking…… I’m looking forward to keeping track of the effect it has on the ranking….
So far, I’ve been less frustrated with the process (if at all) and don’t feel like I’m sitting here, twirling my thumbs like I was with, *ahem* another software 
I always find I get more done if I set myself a schedule, but at the moment I only tend to stick with it for short bursts. I think once I go full time I will find it essential to do what you are doing, there are far too many distractions otherwise.
Best of luck with it!
Des @ Affiliate Progress´s last blog ..Blog Commenting Tactics
An hour seems just about right for something as boring as account creation, then I have to take a break for a few minutes. After that, I do some blog work and then go back to account creation if I need to catch up. Thanks!
Hey randomly stumbled onto your blog. I’m also starting out with my own passive income experiments.
I’ve actually tried outsourcing article writing for an experiment I was trying in infobarrel. You’re right…it is extremely difficult to find someone good enough or someone who cares enough to produce the same high quality material that you can do.
While alot of gurus out there seem to promote outsourcing…it seems like i’m actually just throwing my money away at this point.
Paul, I’d hire someone if I couldn’t find any time to do the work myself. It’s another matter if I was so successful that I needed someone else’s help to expand, y’know? Welcome to the site!
p.s. fun domain name
I wish you the best of luck on your project Moon – be sure to let us know how it works out in the end.
You really have to get into the mindset of “is this going to benefit my project?” – perfect example is this; blog commenting. Of course it helps out because we’re communicating but the time I’m taking to write this could go toward writing articles – likewise, if you answer this comment you’re going to be spending time here instead of link building.
Challenge! Do not reply to this comment; cause then I’ll know you’re getting distracted
Do your best and keep at it Moon, you’ll see the success in it eventually either through the good habits you build form it or the monetary gain you’ll receive from promoting your site.
Murlu´s last blog ..The Single Biggest Reason Why You’re Not Making Money With Your Blog
Murlu, it’s an unwritten policy of mine to communicate with my commenters, so I don’t mind failing this challenge. That’s exactly what my mindset is shifting into: what actions benefit me directly and which ones benefit me indirectly and which ones not at all.. then I make a decision.
Thanks for the support!
A deadline is a good idea. I started setting myself deadlines for important projects – and created a sense of urgency. The result was tasks stopped drifting by and maintained my focus.
Anthony Feint´s last blog ..TWDs- URL Shortener PSD and more
Yeah, I’ve got mine setup right now
It’s nice to keep a reminder so I don’t lapse. I see you’re developing a lot right now. Hope it’s going well for you, Anthony.