Category — Productivity

The Net is full to bursting of sites about how to make money online. But what we really need to know about making money is this: Making money is not easy and All we need to make money is common sense and a well-planned approach to work. But those two points are a secret to no one. Nevertheless, it’s very frequent to find websites and blogs bragging about how much money their owners are making. And they are earning a lot with just an Internet connection, a deluxe Apple laptop, and some coconut water in a paradisiac island. You may win up to 250K, monthly! You can be as rich as them! You only have to follow their techniques, and of course, to buy their books and videos to learn how to be a successful “entrepreneur”. Utterly nonsense. Thanks to the Net, to be a “guru” is easier than ever. I’m no “guru”, so bear with me.

I do strongly believe that blogging is about living (in the net, that is), not about bragging. These undoubtedly clever guys nourish from the naivety of some people. For them, it’s a perverted kind of pleasure to read about “how to make tons of money online.” They say: “Look! This guy is making so much money with just a web page!.” Their natural reaction, of course, is “I can do better!.” Some have quit their jobs to pursue the role of “entrepreneur”. To have the motivation to improve is nice and all, but it’s even nicer to have a clear and down-to-earth mindset. We can win money. Yes. We can. We have all the required abilities. But we’d be better off if we take every net’s thing with a bit of salt. Building self-confidence demands taking risks… but illusory, unattainable goals knock-off self-confidence atrociously.

Being an entrepreneur requires a clear vision about the business we want to undertake. Being an entrepreneur needs courage and accepting risk. But above all, being an entrepreneur requires good capacities for planning and self-discipline. Entrepreneurs have the abilities for being their own bosses. And not everyone is prepared for that. And it also requires courage to be able to accept our current limitations. But if you believe in yourself, you can overcome any of these obstacles.

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We are already accustomed to financial media regularly releasing statistical reports and rankings of the people that lead and have accumulated an important allotment of the world’s money. For instance, Forbes magazine published its annual Japanese ranking a few days ago. For most of us, it’d be wonderful, impressive, and even magical, to someday read our names in such lists. A lot of people only dream of being there. But reality often reveals otherwise. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of luck, or inherited fortunes. But we’ll disregard such cases, as uninteresting for analysis. The norm is that becoming rich requires plenty of sacrifices, and above all, extraordinary efforts. It’s not easy. However, it’s not impossible to reach such goal. Powerful souls set exceptional goals.

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Recently, I’ve found plenty of sites explaining strategies for growing our blogs, where growing means to expand our reader-base or to win more money, depending on our goals for blogging. Other important motivation for blogging is to attain or fortify a position in a specific niche market. For example, if you’re a graphic designer, you can start a blog to present your past and current projects, demonstrate your abilities in the area of design, and potentially capture new clients. Moreover, creating a blog is easier than ever thanks to the new web 2.0 technologies, which allow to start posting in a very short time. This means that a lot of people are creating blogs, and therefore competence is high. And if you’re new, blogs may prove to be a very tricky field to conquer, especially when it comes to gaining your initial reader-base. And when you get that reader-base your efforts should focus on keeping those readers through innovation. Remember, a happy reader is a returning reader. But blogging is not a trivial chore in any way.

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Recently, I’ve thinking of replacing my old and faithful Toshiba laptop with a new and more powerful machine. I will surely keep my Toshiba in use, mostly to write articles for Life, Money & Development. However, I work as a manager for a software development company, and frequently have to run several applications that are steadily exceeding my laptop’s computing capacity. Then, it’s time to update. The question raises… what machine I should purchase? Additionally, now that I’ll have to visit the Electronics store, I think it may be a good chance to bring home some gadgets. I’m totally opposed to squandering, and thereby I will focus only on those machines or items that could prove useful for blogging and for my job.

1 The Laptop

Albeit my experience with the Toshiba has been good, I think it’s time to go Apple. The problem with the Toshiba is that one is forcefully restricted to Windows environment; we may also install Linux but it would be too cumbersome for my needs. On the contrary, by using an Apple machine I have access to the powerful Mac OS X operating system, and besides I can compile and test some applications originally targeted at Linux, without doing separated installations. The Mac runs all the software I need. Someone may also add that the Mac is stylish, but that really is not my motivation as I prefer functionality over appearance. For example, it is evident that the relatively new Mac Air is very stylish, but it is also evident that it relinquishes an important quota of computing power. Therefore, I think I will choose the Apple MacBook Pro MB133LL/A, which boosts a display of 15.4″, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB Hard Drive, and DVD SuperDrive. Just all I need. I’m aware about the direct relation between big displays and laptop weight (this MacBook weighs 5.4 pounds), but I prefer to reduce any strain on my eyes.

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Even to cut a flower requires good sense. Good sense, prudence, sound practical judgment. There is nothing in the world which deprives us of enjoying this quality. Good sense allows us to be excellent managers, professionals, friends, husbands/wives, and especially, it opens the doorway to the most precious gift of human beings: self-confidence. Self-confidence is one of those virtues we frequently don’t know how to handle, or that simply we mistreat.

Good sense is the primary and the conditio sine qua non of a better and longer life. Thanks to it we are able to avoid wars, conflicts, hunger, and getting into troubles in general. It is only a matter of just applying it. The converse, i.e. a bad sense of life balance, turns us into fragile souls, easy preys for evil, envy, and lies. A lack of good sense provides a fake sensation of power… power which indeed is only a cheap mask for selfishness. A lack of good sense separates us from our family, our friends and from the entire world. Moreover, that fake power may lead to an hyperactivity which ultimately will burn us.

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Saving refers to the preservation of money for future use. Such future use might include capital and goods purchase (house, transport, vacations, etc.), emergencies, and miscellaneous expenses. Strictly speaking, saving is the difference between our income and our consumption expenditure. Besides, saving is our main tool to cope with mortgages, credit card debt, extraordinary bills, and other loans. Without savings, such debt and expenditures may sharply erode our personal finances. Saving also allows for harnessing sudden investment opportunities and to gain access to quality services. All in all, saving is a fundamental aspect of personal finance.

Money has to be tightly controlled. We must know where money comes from, and where it goes to. We must strive to know the way our money flows, the paths it travels, and the drains taking most of our income. By closely watching our money’s nature, we’ll learn to control it. Control is a keyword of personal finance. Control refers to checking the errors we are incurring with our money’s management, and to take the corrective action to rectify any deviation from our desired goals. Setting goals is other important requirement for saving, and it answers the question what are we saving for ?

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A look behind the scenes of work’s misdirections

What do we achieve by thinking of ourselves as “supermen” or “wonder women”? Too little, indeed. Trying to act (and even feel) like fiction heroes, in a frantic rush to enjoy something that really is too tiresome to be enjoyed. There is little reward in demanding ourselves the compliment of being perfect, effective, productive, attractive and winsome people who have no real problems at work or at home, and who always ignite the life of the party. Needless to say, there is no reward in working frenetically until our minds and bodies cannot handle it anymore: we would weaken and become sick. But we already know that time is unstoppable: other people would carry on our duties, and someday, we would be simply forgotten. In other words, no matter how much effort and blood we devote to our jobs, we are always dispensable for the furious wheel of businesses.

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Nowadays, the net is inhabited by myriad (millions!) blogs. Therefore, to stand out has become more and more challenging. Some people write about excessively specialized or personal topics, which have a narrower audience. On the other hand, topics discussed in plenty of other blogs may appeal to a broader public. Moreover, themes in different blogs touch on similar concepts or ideas, or at least are loosely related. So, blogs have to compete for traffic. Positioning in search engines such as Google and Yahoo is a good example of what I’m speaking about. Thus, the question arises: how to highlight your blog in order to distinguish it from others?

It’s simple. Follow a “samurai” approach.

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