Organizing Paper Files with P.E.A.C.E.
May 29, 2008
By Marlo Nikkila
Paper is one of the biggest issues for people. There is too much of it and it is easy to get behind, often causing people to feel like they are literally drowning.
Following the P.E.A.C.E plan you will be able to reclaim your sanity for current and future paper in your life.
How does that sound?
P = Permission to let go.
Get this…80% of the paper you keep you will never refer to again!
So, you officially have permission to let go! How does that feel? A little scary?
That’s okay, because I am going to ask you to begin with the easy stuff.
Begin with the backlog of old bills, receipts, warranties, recipes, articles, and bank statements. Make sure you have your recycle bin and shredder handy. (wink)
As a quick tip, if you are overwhelmed with all the paper around your desk, turn a pile upside down and start at the bottom. More than likely these papers can be tossed.
E = Evaluate the papers you have.
Sometimes it is out of habit that we continue to file papers we no longer need. Just because there is a file for it, doesn’t mean you have to keep it. The key to evaluating paper is asking the right questions. With better questions comes easier decisions and ultimately less paper!
- Can this paper be found somewhere else?
- Is this a duplicate?
- Have I needed this information before?
- Why am I keeping this in the first place?
- Am I required to keep this? If so, how long?
- What next action is needed?
A = Act on it.
Your piles of paper probably exist because something needs to be done with individual pieces–sign, read, pay, call, research, follow-up, errand, etc.
Am I right?
The best solution is if it takes less than 2 minutes, just do it. If it is going to require more time and energy, go ahead and jot down the info onto your calendar or to-do list and recycle the piece of paper. The paper no longer needs to serve as your reminder. (More permission to let go!)
If you find that the paper really is needed, then I suggest a tickler system or an action book.
C = Contain & Categorize your papers.
The best way to find it in less than 3 minutes is to create a specific home for your papers in places (and names) that make sense to you.
Do you have a mail center to capture your incoming mail?
Is your filing cabinet in the area that you pay bills and process your paper?
Are you naming the files appropriately?
The best question to ask yourself when filing or creating a home for your paper is Where will I find it? This is a more powerful and appropriate question than the more common Where should I put it?, because the item will likely land on any open horizontal space.
So, when naming a file, if you would naturally look for your car info under Prius instead of Automobile then by all means label it that way.
It will also help if you think in terms of categories for your paper. Examples would be, financial, health, hobbies, owner-manuals, utilities, etc.
E = Electronic solutions.
There are also several ways you can take advantage of technology to reduce the amount of paper in your life.
- Receive electronic bank statements and utility bills.
- Use auto pay for utilities and other bills.
- Opt out of mailing lists-virtual and paper.
- Keep all you password and log-in information with SplashShopper ID on your PDA or desktop computer.
- Store important documents on a secured remote server.
My hope is for you to experience the freedom that comes with making P.E.A.C.E. with your paper, once and for all.
|
Marlo Nikkila is The Organizing Coach. Claim your free “7 Powerful Ways to Simplify Your Life” Action Plan and receive a subscription to Let’s OrganizeTogether! e-zine. It is packed with refreshing tips and resources to create a simple and meaningful life, plus invitations to teleconferences and other opportunities. Receive your free action plan and subscription by visiting The-Organizing-Coach.com |
Marlo Nikkila
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
How to Earn Money with Your Parked Domains
May 23, 2008
I see it everyday among my fellow DotComPreneurs.
You are deeply immersed in working on your business and a new product or business idea suddenly appears before you.
What happens next is fairly routine.
You come up with a catchy name or multiple moniker that adequately represent your new bright shiny idea.
Next (usually within seconds or a few minutes) you head over to your favorite registrar and check to see if the domain is available.
Most DotComPreneurs have at least a few great ideas on the back burner.
I know I do.
Which means you may have dozens, hundreds or perhaps even thousands of unused domains just sitting there while you’re working on your other high priority projects.
If you’re like most newbies, the domains you purchased but haven’t put to work yet are parked on the domain registrars default parked page. This happens automatically until you either host your domain someplace else or forward it to one of your other web sites.
The domain industry’s dirty little secret…
What you might not know is that your domain registrar earns money every time someone visits your domain and clicks on one of the relevant ads displayed on their default parked page. The links on the page are targeted based on the words contained within your domain.
Some registrars generate more revenue on these ads than they do on domain name sales.
Something else you might not be aware of is that YOU, the owner of the domain can take advantage of any possible type in traffic and earn money per click just like the registrars do simply by utilizing a strategic parking service.
In the domain parking industry, the top rated domain parking service is Domain Sponsor
You may be surprised at the value of click through traffic of your parked domains. This week, on one domain, I earned $ 7.96 in revenue from only 7 visitors. That’s more than the price I paid to register the domain.
The fastest way to find out is to stop giving your traffic to your domain registrar and park them and take a look at what kind of traffic is coming your way.
1. Go to Domain Sponsor and set up your account.
2. Follow the instructions for adding each domain to your Domain Sponsor account.
3. Park the domain on the servers as listed.
Don’t forget to type in your domain into your web browser to ensure that domain directs to the new redirected page.
*WARNING: Do NOT click on links on your page or type any phrases in the search box*
That is considered to be click fraud since you are being paid by the advertiser for any clicks and your account will be shut down. (you can look but don’t touch or click on the page).
Do NOT link to any of your parked domains from any of your other web sites. That is against the rules my friend. If you are caught posting new links anywhere, kiss your entire account goodbye.
If there were existing links directing to your domain, that’s fair and will generate revenue, but do not try to outsmart the system.
There are a variety of factors that will determine how much money you can earn from your domains:
* The Domain Name itself. Is it keyword rich? Does it receive any type in traffic. If your domain is www.2kewl2Btamed123.com, don’t expect much traffic. That doesn’t qualify as keyword rich.
* Past use (if any) If there are old incoming links, you may get considerable traffic.
* If your Domain is similar to a high traffic existing domain. For example, I have several parked domains that are two words: XxxxXxxxx.com but someone else owns the same words separated by a hypen Xxxx-Xxxxx.com Guess who gets an aweful lot of click throughs? Yep.
* Most people when typing a URL of a web site unconsciously type in a .COM after the words. I owned a domain name for several years when imagine my surprise, a TLC television show was created with the same name and keywords. Since I owned the .COM, it generated thousands of visitors and considerable click through income until that party purchased it from me. I did have plans to develop the domain, but when approached by the buyer, whom I admired and respected, I let it go so it could serve millions now instead of later when I got around to it.
Publicly listing any of my domains would lead to traffic surges so while I can’t do that, I can tell you of the results of a few of my parked domains and you can let your imagination run wild.
Last year one of my real estate domains received 1,995 visitors and earned $ 468.54
Another domain received 9,063 visitors and earned $ 269.84
A diet domain received only 255 visitors and earned $ 179.23
I could purchase 130 more domains by reinvesting that $ 916 in revenue…park them… reinvest the revenue from those…and keep growng my portfolio.
Remember I set it and forget it - all I am doing is parking my unused domains on this service until I develop them. There are DotComPreneurs making millions of dollars each year by investing strategically in expired domains specifically for the purpose of earning revenue this way.
Note: It may take a few months for the keywords to aggregate. Each time a visitor clicks on a link or types in a search phrase, the system collects that data and modifies the words on the page accordingly so your success ratio will generally increase over time and so will your monthly checks.
Remember, those domains were previously earning the registrar that revenue. I did nothing except spend 5 minutes once to redirect them and renew the domain each year for $ 7. As you can see from just a few of my examples, it adds up.
More on domains coming soon but in the meantime, after you get set up and redirect your domains, I would love to hear about your results.
Here is the link to Domain Sponsor
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
WordPress: How to Make Your Blog Work for You
May 12, 2008
If your blog is business oriented, you must always consider SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Yes - the ugly three word phrase. But these tips are easy - no coding needed. No scratching your head over php or html. It’s simply about choosing the theme layout that will help your SEO efforts. It’s easy but almost no one knows about it or thinks about it.
Do you know that Search Engines don’t always read every word on your page? That’s right - they don’t. The header tags and the upper left hand corner of the page might be all that is checked. What if your sidebar is in the upper left hand corner? The content in your sidebar doesn’t change frequently so the Search Engines will think there is nothing new and move on. One of the main advantages of a blog is that it is frequently updated so it is Search Engine friendly.
What’s a blogger to do? Simple - choose a two-column theme with the sidebar on the right!
What are ‘header tags’? Header tags are simply the title of the post. Behind the scenes, your theme encloses your title in header tags. That’s what makes the font bigger and makes it look like a title. Why is the title important? Search engines also look at what’s inside your header tags. Since each post creates a new page it’s easy for the search engines to locate the header tags. So - think about the title of every post. Make it keyword rich for the search engines but make it grab your reader too.
With a little thought and planning you can make your blog really work for you.
For more tips and tricks on WordPress and blogging please visit http://www.wpguru.com Here is where you will learn everything you ever wanted to know about WordPress.
|
|
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Stop- Have You Tried These FREE Traffic Tricks?
May 9, 2008
In this article we are going to take a quick look at some free traffic tricks that are incredibly powerful, VERY underground in terms of awareness and application, and so simple that they can be implemented in one short afternoon. (All while generating boatloads of traffic, often on autopilot, for days, weeks and months to come) Read on as we dare go a bit beneath the tired and tepid terrain of the average blogger, and look at some things the leaders of the pack are using to drive HUGE incomes while most of us scrape for scraps!
Amazing Adventures in Aggregation
Here is all you need to do to turn your default Wordpress install into a veritable powerhouse, cash crunching, affiliate marketing monster machine of infinite imagination.
Your Very own planet
Install a free plugin that will aggregate past, present and future posts from a variety of sources in and around your niche, auto updating your site with relevant content that is being called, culled and collected from any number of unique sources that you select.
Convert a Catalog
You then take a catalog, or what is commonly called a data feed, and parses all of the information in the catalog into RSS, and imports it into your simple blog administration area. Now you probably WILL need external software outside of Wordpress to do this effectively, but it is very cheap, and VERY powerful.
What is the net effect? Simply stated, depending on the parameters you set up, you can have an auto updating, auto publishing maniac monster of a blog, pulling outside content on a daily basis to FEED your blog with relevant niche information, as well as an ONGOING supply of perfectly formatted products being posted on your blog, directly from the Catalog items that you converted to RSS. It’s amazing stuff, and with a nice template on your blog, you can have a professional grade affiliate site, selling REAL products and services that updates for YEARS to come on automatic autopilot.
These are things that ONLY the elite level people are playing with, almost entirely “underground”…and are so disarmingly easy to emulate, YOU can do the VERY same thing simply by following the above.
And STOP Looking for the Magical Solution Out “There”.
Focus on the magic within. You have it, I know you do. We ALL do. The one certitude online is this: Content is king. And creativity is coveted. Show you have lots of both in areas that you care most about, and people will beat down your door to revel in it. They do for me, and I guarantee the same for you as well. Life is short, and the journey of 1000 miles begins with one simple step. What are you waiting for?
Want to see how we make money Blogging?
FREE Blog Marketing Strategies revealed so much fun & effortlessly easy, it almost feels like stealing -Ian Hollandar http://karmicconsulting.net/go/blog/
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
