Whew… I’m beat. My very first 10k Writer’s Day is officially over, and while I didn’t make it to the 10k I had hoped for, I did manage an impressive (for me anyways) 2360 words plus whatever this post turns out to be. That’s more than double what I wrote yesterday.

The cool thing about today is that I learned something about myself. I learned that if I put my head down and really focus, I can crank out the pages. They still have to be edited, of course, but I got done the article for tomorrow’s issue of The Acorn Stash, a post here this morning, and two new articles for a PLR pack I’m working on.

And it was nice because I gave myself permission to do nothing but write. I didn’t check my email anymore than about twice all day. I didn’t worry about posting on Facebook or Twitter. I didn’t worry about marketing anything, or fixing blog themes, or any of the other techie chores that take up parts of my day. All I worried about was writing, and how many articles I could check off the list.

I know now that I can easily do a 5 pack of articles every day now. I didn’t think I could even do two pages when Tiffany was having her PLR challenge. I only got one pack done in that whole 30 days because I let myself get distracted by too many other things. Now, I’m not promising to do a 5 pack every single day, especially not on newsletter days. But two pages every day … now that I can easily do. I proved it yesterday and today. :)

I’m so glad I figured out what I’m meant to be doing. It really does make it easier to set everything else aside and be okay with it. And once I start seeing some income from my PLR store, I can see me doing a lot of outsourcing too so that I free up even more time to write.

Have a great night!
Thanks for being here.

(Final total: 2702)

Related posts:

1. I Would Write!
2. Starting My New Year Right

I started my day in a new way this morning, and already I’m feeling the effects even though it’s only been an hour.

Last night I started reading Leo Babauta’s new book on focus last night. Already I’ve learned a few things just from skimming through a few pages.

One of the things I really have issues with in my life right now is that I get up in the morning and rush around doing for others and not starting my day in the peaceful way I would prefer. Even though I love the morning, and early morning (like sunrise early) is my favorite time of day, I am not a morning person. I need that hour or two of peace and quiet before anyone else gets up to really get myself set to face the day. And right now, I just don’t get it.

In the book, Leo says to do something amazing every day and to do it as early in the morning as possible. So this morning I got up when I woke up instead of waiting for the alarm to go off, and I meditated for five minutes. I was hoping that maybe something would come to me that would really jump out and help me to figure out what I really want to do today that would be my “Something Amazing.”

I was amazed at how calm and peaceful I felt, just sitting on the edge of the bed with my eyes closed, focusing on my breathing. All the thoughts in my head just sort of floated by… It was kind of like that feeling you get watching tropical fish in an aquarium. I could see them there, and they looked lovely swimming around, but I couldn’t reach out and touch them, or hold on to them in any way, and it was a very freeing and calming experience. A much different way to start the day than what usually goes on in my mornings.

Even right now as I write this, I am still feeling calm and peaceful. The only noise in the house is the sound of the fan and the sound of my pen moving across the paper. (I actually wrote this out by hand in my journal right after I was done meditating… something else I love to do first thing in the morning, but never seem to have the time for.)

The other thing I’ve learned so far from Leo’s book is that it’s okay to not have rigid goals and lock yourself into a to-do list. I’ve always tried to be that person who plans and follows goals and makes lists and then beats herself up when things don’t go according to plan. Even yesterday (before I started reading) I spent most of the day working on a plan to get all my websites in order and set a schedule of what I would work on each day. When I read what Leo had to say about letting go of goals it was a very freeing lightbulb moment for me because I’ve never felt comfortable being that person. It’s not me, and I always felt like a bit like a little girl playing dress-up by trying to make a formal system work. I’m a much more spur-of-the-moment, go-with-the-flow kinda girl, and have never really allowed myself to fully be that way, especially when it comes to business. To my mind now, it certainly feels like this is a big reason why I have to fight so hard to be productive in a day… Even though I love to write, it’s always felt like I’m trying to move a ton of bricks to even get one article down on paper because I’m always working on what I think I “should” be working on, instead of what I really want to be writing, what’s fighting to get out of my head.

Back to the whole meditation thing for a minute… The one thought that stuck with me even after my meditation ended this morning was “I fill myself with the energy of possibility.”

So today I am going to open myself up to everything that’s possible, toss the to-do list out the window, and let all the “should do’s” go with it. Today is for “could do” and “want to do” and even if my one amazing thing for the day turns out to be this blog post, it’s still a good day. I’ve started this day my way — how could it be anything else?

I hope you’re having a great start to your morning too!

Related posts:

1. Starting My New Year Right

(or… why I’ve been so quiet lately)

You may have noticed that I’ve been a little quiet for the past few weeks. For once, it’s not because I went into hermit mode. In fact, it’s just the opposite… I’ve been getting my virtual face out in front of the internet marketing crowd again.

It’s all Napoleon Hill’s fault too! I haven’t even progressed beyond Chapter Two in Think and Grow Rich yet because I was so fired up to get doing that I just dove right in. I’m really hoping to continue reading this week though… I have a feeling if two chapters can do this to me, it’s gonna be amazing what happens when I get further into the book. :)

So what have I been up to, you ask? Or maybe you don’t, but it’s my blog so I’m gonna tell you anyways. :)

Well, I’ve been jumpstarting the Ritchie Media brand again. To celebrate my birthday I set up a giveaway where for 30 days I’m giving away a PLR package every day. And because I didn’t want to just send out a boring old link every day, I set it all up on a blog where I write tips on using PLR as well. We’re up to day 21 now and lemme just say being disciplined enough to write a blog post every day is hard work! I now see why it’s such a big deal to actually complete a whole month over at NaBloPoMo. (I’ve tried it on my self improvement blog and never made it past the first few days.)

In addition to the giveaway on my own site, I’m playing in the JV giveaways again as well. I joined the PLR Giveaway put on by Leon Klepfish because it fit with what I’m doing on my own site, and so far I’m pretty pleased with the results. There’s a lot of pros and cons to dealing with giveaways and I’ve been pretty leery of them in the past.

I also started a new system for getting things done. It really bugs me that I didn’t meet my goals for the year so far. So from now until the end of this year I am being really focused on the big prize(s) and I am determined to meet at least one, if not all of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year. I know that it’s probably unrealistic of me to think I can accomplish everything I wanted for a whole year in just 4 months, but hey I’m the queen of unrealistic goals. And I’m firmly subscribed to the theory of go big, or go home.

One thing I’ve noticed throughout the last couple of weeks is that when I get really focused on a project, I forget to talk to people. I haven’t tweeted much until this morning, and I haven’t been to facebook in who-knows-how-long. Another thing I haven’t done much lately is visit my friends’ blogs. It’s like being “in the zone” and everything else but the pen and paper ceases to exist. I kinda like it because it means I get things done, but I also know now why I don’t have many physical friends around here.

I need to work on balancing work with the rest of my life. I haven’t even been out taking pictures in about two weeks now. I managed to get a few shots at the driving range last weekend, but that’s it since my long Sunday hike about three weekends ago.

I’ve noticed a few other things too, but I’ll save them for future posts since this one is getting too long as it is. :) But I do promise that it won’t be another three weeks between posts. :)

Have a great day!

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