Month: February 2016

Don’t waste Leap Year Day

Do you find yourself saying, “I need more time”? Do you ever wish you had an extra day?

Well, your wish comes true tomorrow because it’s Leap Day.

20160228_081349_resizedThat’s right — an extra day. Or 24 hours, if you prefer. Even better, 1,440 additional minutes.

Most of us will have to work for eight of those hours, but that still leaves 16 hours.

Some of us are sleep deprived, so it’s the perfect day to catch up on slumber and get a full night’s rest.

With those extra hours, you could declutter the room you’ve been telling yourself you were going to clean out once you found some time.

You could work on your novel. (That’s what I’ll be doing!)

Perhaps you need to recalibrate. By this point in the year, most people have abandoned their New Year’s Resolutions. But nobody said you can’t make a Leap Year resolution or develop a plan and action steps to make the plan a reality.

You could volunteer.

Feb. 29 is a great day to take the extra time to spend with family and friends. Why not go out to dinner? Or stay in and play board games? You have the time.

Instead of thinking of Feb. 29 as just another day, why not embrace it and put those 1,440 minutes to good use?

How will you use your extra time?  Let’s come up with at least 29 ways to use the time. Post your idea in the comments section.

Comments Wanted

I’ve been writing this blog for more than five years. Many of you have told me in person how much you appreciate the blog. I love hearing that. Many of you also tell me you never comment.

You have various reasons. You are a friend and don’t want to look as if you are just posting because of our friendship (readers are scattered all over, and most won’t know). You don’t think it matters. Some say you agree with the points and have nothing to add.

In the past, when people told me they enjoy the blog, but don’t comment, I told them that was fine. I am pleased they are reading it.

I’m changing my tune, though. I’d really like for you to comment. Here’s why –

I’m not an expert. I share my learnings and my personal experiences in hopes that some of it may provide guidance for you. Many of you also have much to contribute. I’d like to see some of you add to the conversation. If a topic resonates with you, would you add a comment sharing your experience — good or bad? If you know of another resource on the topic, would you post a comment, including a link to the resource?

When I read online articles or blogs, I almost always read the comments. I find much of value, including more advice and resources.

With more readers posting comments, we can all learn from each other and have a stronger conversation.

I look forward to your comments.

 

Back to Blog Basics

Earlier this year I told you I was going to write my blog only twice a month. For the past year, I had published at least once a week but I wanted to carve more time to write my books and develop my business. However, I quickly discovered that not only was I not writing, but I wasn’t researching, commenting on other blogs or even tweeting about my blog. I needed to do something different.

I decided to watch a video by Michael Hyatt in which he shared 10 ways to boost blog traffic. I’d read articles or viewed videos on just this topic several times since starting my blog so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

His first tip was to write content that is worth sharing and his second was to adhere to a consistent schedule. I was struggling with both of those tips because with my new schedule I quickly realized that I would not be able to write content that was worth sharing if I only published twice a month. I wasn’t staying focused on the researching and writing with only publishing twice a month.

So, I am going to compromise and post three times each month — around the 10th, 20th and 30th. This will help me to continually seek out ideas and research, and to always be working to write fresh and — I hope — relevant content.

Another tip he shared was to make it easy to subscribe to the blog. Since I started, I’ve had a subscribe button on my page. However, I’d been making some enhancements to the blog and adding pages, and I couldn’t recall seeing the subscription button of late. When I checked it was gone. Yikes! I quickly added it, and for this reason alone it was worth it to watch the video.

Sometimes it’s good to return to the basics.