Elephant

(or where I tell you to just fucking remember the milk)

I like Tim Ferris. I know you like Tim Ferris as well. I mean what’s not to like about the self-styled Jason Bourne of aspiring well travelled, well educated, wish they were retired already cubical rats? Who here hasn’t been seduced by his promise of a 4 hour work week? Who doesn’t crave a mini-retirement? Who wouldn’t like their own PA to remind them of their wife’s birthday, and even buy her a gift? Who wouldn’t want to win a full contact kickboxing tourney in China? Yes, well, maybe not that last one eh?….Tim Ferris does have some cool ideas. Sometimes his work feels a lot like a rebranded Charles Handy to me; employment based on multiple skill sets, outsourcing, just-in-time employees, general use of technology for convenience and automation of routine tasks. Yeah well, whose to say he isn’t influenced by the great Handy himself? Anyway, I think Tim writes well and his concept of a lifestyle experiment blog is a good unique selling point.

So, I was perusing Tim Ferris’ blog and found my way onto this post on how never to forget anything again (is that a split infinitive?  I never got the hang of them). Cool! I’ve read some of his learn a language in an hour ideas and thought we were going to get some cool quick forget-me-not aides for the old brain.  Maybe some updated Tony Buzan tricks and tips or something. Boy, what a let down, just a glorified list of a bunch of software you can use to help make your brain even more lazy. Admittedly it is a guest post, but still, if Tim publishes it on his blog, he is condoning it to some extent. The guest poster btw is none other than the author of Zen Habits whose idea for I blog I really like, but whose blog I read very sporadically, mainly because it just doesn’t grab me much.  Zen Habits is kind of like the allure and promise of becky cam to me.  I’ve got huge respect for Leo Babauta especially since he has taken the very bold uncopyright step. Very Zen I thought.

Before you lambast me and tell me I don’t have a perfect memory and how would I know how good my memory is anyway because I would never remember the things I’ve forgotten, I’m a great believer in having an organiser/diary. I’m a bit old fashioned though, walking cane and tophat style, I favour using a simple filofax and actually writing down my appointments and long term todo notes with a pen.

But sometimes, you should really just remember shit. I mean with the method presented on Tim’s blog, say you get an email from your wife to pick up some milk on the way home, you would probably slam it into 3 or 4 different applications hopefully remembering to set some sort of alert for just before you leave work so you get reminded to remember…..lets roll with this…..we submit to technology completely, become completely connected and have a GPS app track our car and bring up a reminder on our dashboard when we approach a shop en-route. Heck the nifty little bit of code could even scan ahead, do a quick price comparison and parking availability find for us, plotting the most efficient/cost effective milk purchasing experience for us based on an algorithm that takes into account some variables we fill in (like maybe if we are prepared to spend a few extra pence for convenience or if we are after the cheapest possible commodity).

We are well and truly fucked though, if the wife phones while we are buying milk and asks us to pick up some bread at the same time….now we have to run back to our car, coax the old laptop out of hibernation (why haven’t I upgraded this fucker yet?), log into 4 different applications, enter the note and then…..Erm never mind.  A facile maybe, but it serves to underline my point; just fucking remember. Creating all these technological crutches between you and your memory seems to create a lot of complexity to my mind, which goes against a lot of what I perceive in Tim and Leo’s work, which is simplifying your life. Maybe I’m misinterpreting. But is this really a zen habit? In the moment? Beginners mind? Hmmm.

I’m know there are studies out there about the brain being a muscle.  The more it is used, the stronger it becomes. Don’t use it and pretty soon it will atrophy. Do we really want to place our reliance on technology to the extent that we sacrifice our potential? I don’t! Practice remembering things. It’s good for you.  Train your brain – it’s one of your most valuable assets.  Balance in all things – body, mind, spirit. Don’t let continuous partial attention and availability of technology make you lazy. Technology should be a tool not a crutch!

Anyway, enough of that – I’ve just remembered why I started writing this post…to remind myself to go and read Charles Handy again!

Switch off

(or where I tell you why you should disconnect once in a while)

When was the last time you actually disconnected from your online life?  For many bloggers and online marketers, this is not something that happens very often.  The availability of wireless networks and online services from our mobile phones basically mean that we can travel anywhere and still check our email, post our blogs, read our blogs and generally pass our time on the internet.

For most of us, being online is so connected to our lives that we have a hard time without technology helping us along.  Part of being human is to change our surroundings, mould our world for our convenience – for better or worse.  The better part is that we can make use of all the fantastic services available on the internet.  On holiday?  Don’t know where a good restuarant is?  Hit a search engine, or a blog.  Need directions?  SatNav or  googlemaps.  Forgot your flight times?  Check your email – it’s there for sure!

The problem is, using computers and the internet tends to foster continuous partial attention.  Which basically means, you don’t fully focus on one thing at a time.  When was the last time you wrote a blog post without checking your email in the middle or quickly reading another blog?    There is a time and place for this, but there is also a time and place to block out all the noise and just experience where you are, who you are, what you are doing or who you are with.  Yeah yeah, I’m a big old hippie…..but really, full attention in the moment is a concept as old as the hills and has been absorbed into many traditions.  You can really feel yourself slowing down, sleeping better and relaxing more and more.

I was away for a week, and for that week, I didn’t even see a computer.  That’s pretty unusual, but bizarrely refreshing.  My own no-information diet.

Allowing yourself time and space gives your brain time to really sift and sort important and unimportant.  Internet marketers and make money online folk spend too much of our time lusting after more traffic, more comments, more blogs, more money.  And it will kill us.  We will become soulless workaholics.

Let’s be honest if you are trying to make money online with blogging or internet marketing, is reading yet another blog post on “content is king” going to help you?  Most of the time, we read it anyway, don’t we?….we chase one idea with another so we can make more money, build a better blog, scope a better domain name, write a better e-book, affiliate another product. check our stats, check our stats, check our stats.  Keep up to date or you will miss the golden opportunity.

Bullshit.  There is no mythical one golden opportunity.  Take some time off!  Feeling tired but still compelled to bang out one more blog post or twit?  Fuck that.  Go to bed.  Listen to you body.  Eat when hungry, sleep when tired, and create a harmonious balance in your life.  Work, rest, play.

Now, turn off the computer, switch off the TV and freesat and go play with your kids, or have dinner with your family, or just grab a cup of tea and watch the trees waving outside your window for an hour.  You will feel great afterwards!

Disconnected

(or where I tell why I haven’t written for days and days and days)

I’ve been away.  One week.  No web, no cell phone, no ipod, no radio, no tv.  I’ll tell you more another day – I’m just home and hungry, and it is the weekend!

The worst way to make money online

(or where I tell you how not to Get Paid To….)

The lure of free cash is strong on the internet.  And indeed there are tons of sites where you can fill in surveys, take opinion polls or just look at adverts and get paid for your time.  These sites are often called GPT or Get Paid To sites.  A guy I work with swears by these sites.  He surfs them every day.  I just don’t think the sites are worth his time.

Let me rehprase that…..there are times when I think these sites can pay you a little pocket money.  Some cash for beer maybe.  Mostly though, they are an utter waste of a budding internet entrepreneur’s time.

Second best use of GPt sites

Say you work in a bit of a dull job, and you aren’t interested in becomming the next super affiliate or adsense guru, you just want to kill some time because you’re bored.  You finish your work for the day in the morning and have the afternoon to surf the web.  Well now here is a perfect candidate for making some pocket money from a GPT site.  Take ten minutes out of your hectic youtube surfing habit and hit up something like SWATCash.  Spend a few minutes online there, fill in a few offers and kaching!  Ok, so this won’t make you rich.  But you can, if you spend a few minutes every day, earn a little drinking money.  And anyway, you are on work time and missing that all new video from whichever youtuber you happen to be infatuated with currently would probably be better for you anyway.

The best use of GPT sites

I’ll tell you when these sites really pay off.  When you were going to take advantage of something anyway – like for example – I wanted some business cards.  So I order some from vistaprint through my SWATCash account and I get 4 bucks back from SWATCash.  That pays for the shipping of my business cards!  Bonus!

Now let’s look at the bad news……

If you are on your own time, don’t do it!

Why?  Because the amount of money earned is very little.  Think about it – what are you worth an hour?  Now work out what you can get paid from something like SWATCash in that hour…..keep in mind for GTP sites to work for you, you really shouldn’t get gready and just fill in rubish.  Like anything else, you will get tracked and if you consistently put crap down on the surveys et al, you will get banned.  So you’ve worked it out?  Not really worth it is it?  I mean pick up a dollar here and a dollar there.  I rekon you’re below minimum wage if you actually do the sums.  Okay – I haven’t actually done the sums.  Why not?  Because I’m on my own time – and I think I can put it to better use.  How?  Maybe by writing this blog post.  Okay so maybe that isn’t really better use, but hey…..I’ve earned my beer money today.  Heck, even if you are unemployed, you can probably make more money than this with a little keyword research and some bum marketing.

The absolute worst use of GPT sites

The least worthwhile offers are usually the Pay to Click offers.  Oh they sound great – just click a link, browse an advert and get paid.  But really it’s worthless…… the money to be made is usually a measly 1cent…..and the effort required is that you have to click the link and then wait 30 seconds and then fill in a captcha code.  You can fill in 10 of these a day on the above mentioned SWATCash – 10 cents.  I figure the time it takes to click on the link and type in the code is 20 seconds.  I’m not going to count in the 30 second required browse time because that’s just silly – you aren’t going to stick on that page are you?  You’re a savvy surfer – multiple browsers open – in 30 seconds you read some lolcats, go back to the Pay to Click and fil in the code…..now lets work that out – 1c for 20 seconds that’s 3cents per minute.  $1.80 per hour.  Is my math right there?  I think so.  Don’t get fooled guys – this is just a plain waste of your time……besides you can only get up to 10cents a day….for FUUUCK’S sake, just skip one double skinny latte from Starbucks one day per month and you’ve saved yourself the amount you would make on the Pay to Click.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you…..