Am I Working Hard Enough?
Posted by Dan on November 11, 2009 in The Voyage
Working on this Internet marketing stuff to fund my travels happens for me in surges. I’m always working on it but sometimes I’m being a lot more productive than others. I’m often asking myself if I am doing enough. I use RescueTime to track how much time I spend productively working on the projects that will make me money (real work like writing posts, articles and site building), I aim for one hour a day, I probably only achieve that goal 50% of the time but over the course of a week I am on average doing more than an hour daily, unfortunately RescueTime won’t let me set these goals on a weekly basis. Is the 10 hours a week I’m currently averaging enough?
I wonder if compared to others out there doing the things I’m doing with similar goals in mind, are they working much harder than me, in fact I’m often questioning my work ethic on a whole. It’s not getting my confidence down luckily, because the past two months have seen a solid upward trend in my earnings and I feel like I am on track to reach my goals. Could I be doing more? I guess the answer will almost always be, yes. This is the usual self doubt we all battle with coming through, I have less than a year to reach my goal within my target deadline, what if I don’t make it? What if my methods just aren’t good enough?
I am getting better at increasing my productivity and making better use of that 10 hours a week, more and more of my time is spent on creating content and getting that content to show up in the search engines. This is the bread and butter of creating sites that will make money.
I’m trying to be harder on myself, more disciplined and more productive. I want to have 10 sites built and work on creating some solid content on them and backing it up with an link building campaign.
I’m not a writer, I don’t want to be, I know I can only sustain one blog and this is it. Regardless of whether I’m writing for this blog or one of my other sites it probably takes me longer than many others to complete an article. I wonder if the quality of my writing is good enough, I can’t give an objective opinion on that.
Good? Probably not so crash hot.
Good enough? Well I have readers so I guess so.
When it comes to blogging I guess there is more than just the quality of the writing that comes into play, its if your story is interesting enough for others to follow. For some mine is, I’m thankful for that, the moral support does a lot to motivate me.
This is my dilemma, I know I can do this, the question is am I working at it hard enough? Is it just some self doubt creeping in, am I spreading myself over to many things? There are so many what if’s but there is only one I care about. What if I don’t get there? That’s not an option.
Tiny URL for this post: http://tinyurl.com/26w7mlx
I am with you on this one. I feel I am working pretty hard, but perhaps my efforts are not as effective as they should be.
I guess the question boils down to whether or not you are making enough money. If you are satisfied with the rewards of your efforts, than you are working hard enough. If you want more, roll up your sleeves and get back to work.
I’m with you man. Sometimes I question whether or not I’m working hard enough. I’m working pretty hard right now, but I’m also creating systems to eliminate a lot of that work. Maybe you should look into outsourcing some writing for your websites? Just an idea.
@John I guess you are right, income is the best measure, while I’m still at this early stage though it is possibly the least telling and reliable. Time will tell though.
@Nate I’ve sort of fallen into outsourcing to a great article writer which helps, I definitely keep doing it and expand it as well.
Hey Dan, same for me. Not a great writer, and not looking forward becoming one as well. But I’m also working to build passive income until Sept ’10 and live from it in Japan.
Would you be interested in forming some sort of accountability club? This way we can start helping each other on our goals. In the future, we might even help each other out on our projects.
Let me know if you are interested. We could gather some other people with similar goals as well (slov _ br [at] hotmail).
Best,
Diogo
Thanks Diogo,
I am interested, I’ve sent you an email so we can work something out.
Hi Dan,
I’m so interested in what your doing with internet marketing and I’ve been trying to set some things up through affiliate marketing with minimal results.
I am a writer.
I would be happy to trade you some writing for sharing some of your internet marketing skills.
Let me know if you’re interested!
Take Care,
Jill
i work my ass off in my affiliate market recently, Also i try to build some site for My long term offers. Might you need try this way as me did, Find a partner on certain website who is located in another country. so we can make 24 hours working on one website.
Thanks for your honesty. Sounds like you’re working very hard. As others say, I guess income to efffort is ultimately the only yardstick. We use a writer for much of our work which makes for greater ease but obviously costs. I think it’s all about assessing things on a regular basis, especially as your business is growing.
I also find myself working about 1-2 hours a day (5-10/week) on money-making activities. I could certainly work more if I chose to. And if I did, I’d probably make more money, too. But I’m already making enough to support my lifestyle, and “work” on things that are more fulfilling to me than making money. That’s how I measure it.
People who have 9-5 jobs sometimes look at me in disgust, thinking it’s unfair that I can work as little as I do, and they’re stuck at a job they hate. But I don’t think it’s morally wrong to work 10 hours a week. Work is valuable and healthy whether we need the money or not, but true work entails a lot more than just making money.