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Calling It Quits

26 January 2012 By Leave a Comment

I’ve posted every day til today, 26th January. That’s 25 posts in 25 days.

But I’ve decided to call it quits.

Unfortunately, the writing is causing my business to suffer. Not just that, but I’m really struggling to find things to write about that don’t take all day.

It usually takes me an hour or so to do a post, from coming up with the idea to hitting publish. Another 15 minutes to promote it across the web.

The thing is, it weighs on me all day til I’ve done it, it takes away from time I’d normally spend doing work for clients and takes creative juice away from things that actually bring in the $. Particularly given my wife is having a baby in 5 weeks time!

All excuses aside: I’ve had enough, so I’m pulling up stumps. Sorry for letting you all down 🙁

It’s been tough the whole time, but I’ve written a lot of things I’m proud of. Most of the posts were about 700 words long. Yesterday’s post I wasn’t proud of and it was only 300 words (with a video). It was ok, but it wasn’t my best work. That’s not something I want to do. If I’m unable to do my best work, I’d prefer to shut down the project, despite the credibility loss here.

Of course it doesn’t help that it’s been 40 degrees Celsius here every day this week and for a few more. High 20s over night. We don’t have airconditioning, so sleep is a pipe dream. It’s like I’m trying to do the sleep challenge and the writing challenge at the same time 🙂

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Writing Challenge Day 1: Check

1 January 2012 By Leave a Comment

The hardest part of any challenge is the first day. Particularly when that first day is New Years Day and the challenge is business related.

The earliest I could get to writing the article was at 7pm. Took me an hour and a half to write and refine, but you can read the first article from the challenge called SEO in 2012 if you so desire. It’s not my best writing, but that’s why I’m doing this challenge – to get better at it 🙂

The subject was a no brainer, but I’m sure coming up with a subject will be tougher over the next few days.

Happy New Year everyone!

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New Challenge: 90 Posts in 90 Days

31 December 2011 By 2 Comments

After the resounding success of my last 90 day test (the sleep challenge), it’s time to tackle another area of my life. What better way to kick off the new year than by starting a new 90 day challenge?

For some time I’ve been trying to do more writing, but have lacked, shall we say, the proper motivation. I want to improve my craft as well as share some of the things I’ve figured out and learned over the last decade. I’ve updated my sites occasionally, but need to be more consistent, get into a routine, all that good stuff. Hey, I might even start to become a half decent writer. Now wouldn’t that be something?!

So here’s the rules of the new challenge:

  • For the next 90 days, I’ll publish one post every day to SEO Perth or another site that will come online early in the new year, but I’m not yet ready to reveal*.
  • That’s a total of 90 posts.
  • Weekends, public holidays and the birth of my first child (due 1 March 2012) are not excuses for failing to publish.
  • I can write posts in advance or publish multiple posts on a single day, but every day there must be at least one post published to at least one site.
  • This challenge commences on 1 January 2012 and concludes on 30 March 2012 (inclusive).
  • Posts must be a minimum of 400 words.

* The new site will be along similar lines to SEO Perth, but the site will be more focused on teaching online marketing than SEO Perth and so a better fit for a lot of these posts.

I know focus is best for an endeavour  like this, which is why I haven’t included the Mike Haydon site into this challenge as I originally planned. SEO Perth and the new site are on the same topic and the articles would be interchangeable.

As with the Sleep Challenge, I won’t be updating this site to tell you mundane things, but rather to record things I’ve learned about myself, the writing process, etc. For clarity, any posts on this 90daytest.com site do not count towards posts within the challenge. I won’t be updating this site every day – just whenever I think I’ve learned something worth recounting.

This site and challenge is for my own enjoyment and learning. I’ll be talking a lot about myself and my thoughts. If you don’t like that, totally cool with me – you’re welcome to spend your time elsewhere 🙂 But if you’re interested in keeping up to date with this challenge, please enter your email address in the box to the right and hit subscribe.

Filed Under: Writing Challenge