Let me write some more shit. Normally I would keep this kind of shit to myself but this time I am writing it here so I might as well publish it.

Sometimes it looks totally pointless. I am pretty sure I am not alone there.

Now, I have noticed that the hardest part of doing something is beginning to do it. Seriously. The rest is easy. The beginning is… not very much so.

Next is I think too much about the future. Really. I think too much and do too little. Even getting things to my TODO list is not enough for I would often just do not do them. I do not finish the things I do more than ever too.

If you read my blog, you would just probably find me ranting. This is not very fun for some reason. Frankly, I do not know what to write about for that matter. I am not sure I need this blog anymore.

I have written my first copy ever. I quite like it, to be exact. I also can’t wait to test it. But before… I have to  do something else. And I also have to clean up and put the copy in one piece. But… I am still afraid it won’t work. Perhaps not only because of the copy but also because not enough people would read it. Or for some other reason. I will still try.

All things given, I am still making progress. I must be doing something right. But. This progress is so slow and sometimes I get so disillusoned. In any case, I have to do something important now.

I as well wanna use some of my free time to listen up to the popular music I should have listened to. You know, just to get a basic education. So that next time when somebody talks about the Rolling Stones, I would know what they’re about and what kind of music they have played and have listened to a couple of their hits. I am in the process of getting myself acquainted with all the classical music (hint: you actually have to say concert music) already but I still need to know of a lot of the music of the 20th century. Now, I would have to make a list of those most important bands and artist and perhaps get some of their songs. Or perhaps use YouTube. Although I would be better off using some kind of lectures or all-in-one-place type of thing if I could find one. Any ideas? For now, I have this tiny list which I compiled from a page in Yahoo answers, listening the most famous music:

1940s- Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Glenn Miller
1950s- Elvis Presley, Bill Haley and the Comets, Carl Perkins, Guy Mitchell, Merle Haggard
1960s- The Beatles, Beach Boys, The WHO, Vichie Walens
1970s- Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Queen, Alice Cooper, Earth Wind Fire, KISS, The Bee Gees
1980s- Michal Jackson, Bon Jovi, Madonna, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Duran Duran, U2
1990s- Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, New Kids on the Block
2000s- Limp Biskit, Nsync, Robbie Williams

Now, I probably do need quite some additions to the list (any suggestions?). And also I could start worrying where to get all this music from. Oh, a lecture series would be so much better.

So, I lack discipline. I would have like 10 different goals for a day, then I would lounge about the whole day and at the end of the day (I just use the word day 3 times - 4 now - in this sentence). I would have nothing done and sit on a sofa wondering where the hell the whole day has gone. Now I am determined to solve this.

I could use TODO lists for each day but I would just simply skip items in those lists unless the items are really important and have a deadline. Most of my usual kinda stuff doesn’t have a clear deadline. Setting one doesn’t help a lot either. I have to learn to commit to a deadline but now that’s a bit of an issue.

I have noticed that having lists with clearly set time-frame for each activity usually works a bit better. There are problems with that too, though. And it sucks to be planning your day like that. So, gotta do something. Just a quick post to remind myself to pay attention to thisa problem.

P.S. I am sorry to be using this blog almost exclusively for writing about something negative and not putting any creative content. It’s just as I said - I am using this blog to solve problems or note things down and not to write constructive things. Well, for now, at least.

Somehow for the last few days I have been feeling like going to Paris. I kind of have a trip quasi-planned later this year but that’s late. Anyway.

I have quite a few things planned for the summer. Apart from other things which I am not going to discuss here, I have two other goals.

1. Make your way with CPC and then make the move to being a vendor.
2. Catch up with quite some classical literature.

Now, #1 has been discussed already. I am doing so-so, I can see progress and opportunity and I’ll be taking it. Now, this could be just another over-statement. Yet, focus is the key here and now I have it. That. Taking action is the second key. I have some of it too. Fate seems to be showing me that I’m heading in the right direction (nah, I don’t really believe in fate) and I’ll handle this one. Alright.

Books are more interesting. I am likely to still have some free time during the beginning of the summer and I want to read some literature. I have not read that much. Okay, I could put a tick on The Count of Monte Cristo but there is just a lot of literature like that which rocks and that should be read by an average educated person a superior guy which I am (sorry for the partially unpremeditated expression of my superiority-complex). I don’t know, I should make a list. Or at least I should make a list with a few books in advance. Currently I am going to jump on Der schwarze Obelisk by Remarque. I know, it’s not really so much classical but I have gotten a few at least one recommendations. Then I’m thinking of something of Dostojevskij. Or perhaps Tolstoy. In any case, that is just gonna be a warm-up. But let me get the other books I read now dealt with, first.

P.S. Now I have even found a round-trip flight to Paris for €220. That’s still quite much. Oh, I guess some things have to wait. A bit. Then I’ll be able to reward myself with stuff, etc. (I hate to be so ambiguous and post-pone things but I am afraid that’s how it is supposed to be now).

I just have to make this quick. If you don’t know how to start writing, just start, they say. I was away (abroad) for a few days in a few consecutive weeks and I did just well without the Internet. I got back just to check stuff but it took me like an hour or so. If I can just check my e-mail and so on in an hour every week, why the hell do I keep doing that for an hour every day

?On PPC: I still can’t do it. I am gettin’ no success so far and it’s startin’ to get depressing. It’s like I have two kinds of campaigns so far a) ones that simply lose money b) ones that get no views and no clicks. Seriously. Also it really takes ahelluvalot of time to start a campaign. Worst of all, I am forced to use the Internet connection in my university which is totally screwed up and prohibits like half the sites I am using and doesn’t even allow me to use FTP to upload files. Progress is non-existent. Screw that. On the positive side, still, I am positive pretty soon I’ll be doing this for a living, haha. If you act, you can’t fail.

I still lack self-discipline a lot.I also noticed I already have some of my previous needs met but then I get new needs to replace them and the overall depressed-about-not-knowing-what-the-hell-i-want circle kicks i again. 

All states are temporary.

There are two kinds of NLP. One you use on other people (I am not sure about the use of it) and one you use on yourself (I don’t know much about it either but there seem to be a few good ideas). I’ll be talking about the latter in this post. I’m no expert in NLP and I amn’t trying to become one as of now. So, just out of interest.

Pattern interruption. Think about it. You’re depressed and you’re going in a car. Suddenly, another car pops out of the other street and you must hit the breaks to avoid accident. Does your brain still remember it had been feeling depressed a few moments ago? No way, a rush of adrenaline has kicked in by now. Depression is gone.

That was an extreme example. Another one. You are on a high building and have a fear of heights. Suddenly, you notice a plain flying by with your name written on it. You immediately get interested. Ooops, where is your fear of heights? It’s gone for the moment, isn’t it?

Now, these are all pattern interruptions. They could help you get rid of small fears, laziness, anger and some other kinds of negative emotions. I could really see the use here. Now, the big question: can they be induced artificially? I am hoping the answer is yes.

I googleed a bit. Found a good site, read a bit and it seems it boils down to this NLP scheme for pattern interruption: IRC (just like internet relay chat).

1. Identify. Find the emotion and then the idea that’s causing the emotion. For example, if you’re afraid of spiders, the idea would be something like: “Spiders are dangerous for me”.
2. Ridicule. Imagine the idea said in a funny manner. Let mickey mouse say it. Or just use a funny voice in your mind. Use bad grammar or something. Anything that would make you think: “How silly…”.
3. Confuse. Confusion is the main concept in NLP. Now, what creates confusion? One answer seems to be: distraction. So, distract your thought! How do you do that? The way they suggest (and it sounds easy) is to use your surroundings as a source. Count the shades of black around you. Count the leaves of a branch of the tree in front of you. See how many faces you see around. Try to give names and remember to each person you see in front of you (if you are among strangers - this would also help train your memory). Anything to distract you from your original thought.

I like the idea. Seems easy. I have also tried it. It’s no magic pill but you don’t expect it to work magically especially the first time you try it, do you? It seems like it could become a really cool and useful psychological tool. You’re welcome. :>

Major spoiler warning.

Perhaps it doesn’t fully explain everything, but this theory really digs deep down into the essence of the series. Also it seems like a plausible explanation for most of the events there.

Check out this LOST theory on time travel.

Disclaimer: At this point I am focusing on something else and I am not into bum marketing. I am also going to be mentioning a bit technical details so it’s just a post full of stats.

In any case, I have a blog that I started on a specific topic on a niche with 25 posts in total. The site would receive about 20 uniques a day of organic traffic. Now, I logged in my affiliate stats and I saw a sale coming from that site. Pretty neat. I logged into my site panel and I noticed the following stats for today alone: 134 page views and 72 visits. I checked out the click-through rate and it seems 12 (which makes it about 16% visitor click-through and 9% CTR) clicked on my affiliate link on the page. Well, I also checked the stats on the page to see where the traffic is coming from and I noticed that a lot has come from an article I had posted on EzineArticles (I just have one article on this topic there). To my surprise, the article has 1,324 views… and, it’s click-count to my site is… 547! That’s a CTR of over 43 percent!

I also checked where I got those 1,324 visitors from. And… it seems my EzineArticles page is ranked #2 on Google for the search term I was targeting! I am hoping that’s it’s there to stay.

At this rate, if the traffic does not drop off, hopefully I should be getting one sale every ten days. That accounts to 3 sales a month which is about $50 a month. Wow, the ROI is so low… Anyway, I added one more affiliate link on my site so that it gets thrown in the visitor’s eyes as he/she visits the page. If all goes well, it should help me get my CTR above 9%.

But it at least shows that with persistence and luck it is possible to make sales. Too bad I (hopefully) won’t be doing bum marketing for a while now… On a different note, I find two problems with what I am currently starting to do. Here they are, if you are interested.

1. I am reluctant (I was gonna use the word afraid but reluctant will do) to do stuff as it might result in me losing money and somewhere in the subconsciousness (and not only) I do not like that.
2. I keep searching for information elsewhere = mostly wasting time. Searching for podcasts (couldn’t find many), e-books, and, oh no, reading forums.

These problems are related to each other. Maybe they are essential part in the process of doing something but I find it hard to be getting past them anyway. You see, lastly I have gotten a very good belief (and I think I do actually believe it) that everything boils down to practice. Hard work is what actually gets results and reading is a waste of time. Well, not exactly - reading is fun and it can help you set the direction where you wanna go. But practice is the most important thing here and while you can get far with work & tracking alone without theory, you won’t get anywhere with just theory and no work. But… I still find it hard to walk my talk and to actually do it anyway. I can’t help it.

But oh well, I am pretty optimistic and I do believe that I will get results and I will get through these problems and even though at this moment there are many things that suck I am positive that I will be able to solve them. I’ll be reading this post later and just laughing at these good old times (which won’t be very old compared to the time I will be reading it anyway).

I was going to post a post on focus and perhaps I will but now onto something else. So, today, on this blog, I am going to discuss one more of the psychological problems of mine.

I have made a small short-term goal recently. Become an affiliate. Soon enough, I am going to spend some PPC budget to figure out how affiliate stuff works. That means, for the time I won’t be focusing on anything but affiliate advertising, focusing on search traffic mainly. Then, as I’ll have a clear idea that it is possible to be a successful affiliate, my idea is to take it to the next level - become a publisher. Affiliate knowledge should provide me with sufficient ground for understanding how selling works. And once you know selling, you don’t have to work anymore. That’s theory.

Something like this was not an easy choice to make because I had this belief that “I have to do everything from scratch or else it doesn’t count”. So, it doesn’t  count if I spend money to earn money. I would have to earn those first money and only spend those, without investing.  You could call it “no cheating” or “no head-start allowed”. This belief I used to maintain in a lot of areas and I still do in some. Perhaps it has some logic in it because, indeed, by doing everything over and over again I may learn a bit more or still I lessen the risks. But, I lose time. And time is the thing. Also, I realized that by choosing to do everything without prior investing, I’m kinda doing it the hard way. In conclusion, I need to get over that crap idea and move on. This seems to be the right way. 

Not mine. Here is the story…

I have a site about MacBooks I had quickly thrown up (it’s a .com domain). I used to be getting a few visitors every day from one long tail keyword from MSN but those few visitors were not converting. I thought, to hell with it, and decided to pull a little stunt.

I redirected the domain to an eBay page of search for “macbook” with my affiliate id embedded.  Surpsire, MSN didn’t stop sending traffic. Not many but a few visitors every day. And only today, I checked the stats. Watch:

(hint: I intentionally narrowed down the spaces using GIMP to make the screenshot fit better.)

Now, my affiliate network wouldn’t tell me what exactly I sold so it could be something else the user bought after having visited that page, but it is very likely that it was a MacBook. It took me about 107 visitors to make a sale so that’s a convertion rate of roughly 1%.

The traffic trend seems to be declining now. Still, a funny story.