It’s time for a reset – I haven’t posted for over 8 months. Partly because I’ve been busy doing other things but mostly because I failed at this attempt and gave up – I was 100 days in with $426 earned.

Today is Tuesday 7 Feb 2023. In 147 days, it will be the 4th of July – my independence day. I’m picking myself up, dusting myself off and ready to go again.

What’s different this time?

Attitude – I refuse to give in to the idea that I can’t do this – I know many (most even) fail to make a meaningful income online. However, plenty do and there’s no reason outside myself that I can’t too.

Motivation – I hate to lose, I hate giving up even more. It sticks in my craw. Plus, I really, really, really want to develop an online aspect of my business. I see this as the ideal way for me to serve and help more people without burning out from working 50-60 hour weeks.

Focus – I will work one program, course, product or process at a time instead of trying several all at once. I will stick with the chosen one until it either begins to show results or it becomes clear to me that I’m flogging a dead horse.

Plan – I will review my options this week and choose where to start. I’d love to think that I could work through 1 program a week but given my past experience, this isn’t reasonable. Instead, I’ll list the programs I’d like to do in order of priority and start there.

Accountability – it’s time to return to Robert Plank’s 4 Daily Tasks and Gerry Robert’s Captain & Crew Daily Writing Challenge – I’ll do both of those today.

Journal day 100, Sunday 22 May 2022

It’s a beautiful sunny late spring day.

I’m now in Week 15 of 21. I had allowed the first seven weeks to get set up, select the activities I would focus on. Then the next seven weeks to start making money, building up my sales to the point where I’d have a reasonable chance of making my $147,000 in 147 days.

Instead, here I am on day 100 out of 147 and I’ve made a grand total of $426 of which $26 is online sales/commissions.

What went wrong? What always goes wrong.

I got distracted. I flitted from thing to thing, jumping at the next ‘golden’ opportunity and leaving a trail of half-finished work behind me.

Looking back at the graveyard of the past 99 days, it’s littered with the corpses of good programs, good initiatives, good products, good ideas – lots of good stuff but all dead or dying for want of being finished.

Now it’s fair to say I have actually finished some things – but none that have made or are likely to make any money in the short term.

Week 15 ends on Friday 27 May and I’m setting a new target to make $43.50 in net sales or commissions before the month end – ideally by Friday but by Tues 31 May at the latest.

I have no idea how I’m going to do that, or how much it will cost me but that’s the bare minimum.

Of course, what I’d really like to do is turn the clock back to Zero and start with Day 1 tomorrow. And I may well do that – but not yet – not until this 147 day period ends on Friday the 8th of July.

My job for today is to take stock and select the ONE thing I’m going to focus on and work on for the next 6 weeks. And stick with that until it’s up and running and making sales. Then, maybe, I’ll look at whatever is #2 on the list.

Journal day 45, Monday 28 March 2022.

Taking another day off – time for some re-creation.

It’s a beautiful sunny spring day.

Journal day 44, Sunday 27 March 2022.

Taking the day off – my head is absolutely fried!

Journal day 43, Saturday 26 March 2022.

4 Daily tasks for Saturday 26 March:

Yesterday did not go according to plan – my head just wasn’t in it. Back to basics again today – breaking it down to tasks that I can fully complete in 30-60 mins because all that’s happening is I’m taking on too much, getting overwhelmed and achieving nothing.

1. Set up the opt-in page, connect to Aweber.
2. Finish the lead magnet and upload to siteYesterday did not go according to plan – my head just wasn’t in it. Back to basics again today – breaking it down to tasks that I can fully complete in 30-60 mins because all that’s happening is I’m taking on too much, getting overwhelmed and achieving nothing.
3. Set up the download page with link to the product and a second link to an affiliate offer
4. Set up up sales page with payment button, and link to the download page.

Journal day 42, Friday 25 March 2022.

4 Daily tasks for Friday 25 March:

1. Set up sales page, ty page etc. for email course
2. Set up up sales page, ty page, download page etc. for email swipes up-sell
3. Set up opt-in page connected to Aweber for email lead magnet PLUS registration pages for buyers of email course and email swipes
4. Cleaning hard-drives [1 hr max]

Had a lie-in this morning. Didn’t get up until 7:30. It’s now just past 11:30 so 4 hours in and what have I done?

Did my morning & start my day routines, meditated. Reviewed my four tasks for the day. Decided on a few others that I need to focus on. Worked out my budget for the next 3-months including living expenses and marketing

I’ve found a 30-day challenge to make 10 grand in 30 days. I’ll start it on Monday next, 28 March or next Friday, the 1st of April. I’ll decide on which depending on how I get on over the weekend.

Today is Day 42 and next Friday I’ll be 1/3rd of the way through my 147 days. My total earnings for the 6 weeks so far are $694 = an average of $16.52 per day. That’s a long, long, long way from $1,000.

Journal day 41, Thursday 24 March 2022.

4 Daily tasks for Thursday 24 March:

1. Set up sales page, ty page etc. for email course
2. Set up up sales page, ty page, download page etc. for email swipes up-sell
3. Set up opt-in page connected to Aweber for email lead magnet PLUS registration pages for buyers of email course and email swipes
4. Cleaning hard-drives [1 hr max]

I had great hopes for today. Yesterday, I was stuck and blocked and felt like I was going nowhere.  However I took a break and when I resumed, got three of the four things on the daily list done. And I set myself what I thought were 3 fairly straightforward simple tasks for today.

But that’s not how it worked out…

I got up early as usual and was at my desk by 05:30. I got completely sidetracked. I was trying to to make a download button that would both trigger the download and send the person to the next page in the funnel. I couldn’t figure out how to do it and spent about 4 hours on Google and YouTube trying to find an answer,  reading articles and looking at videos. Trying to get my head around HTML and JavaScript. Trying things that didn’t work.

Finally, I just said right, that’s it! Take a break. Leave it alone and do something else.

Spent an hour cleaning my hard drives. This is a very boring job that’s going on and on and on on, but at least it’s moving. I did my other daily things:

• morning & start my day routines
• updated my autoresponder lists
• Final result – none of today’s tasks completed. Tomorrow is a new day!

4 Daily tasks for Friday 25 March:

1. Set up sales page, ty page etc. for email course
2. Set up up sales page, ty page, download page etc. for email swipes up-sell
3. Set up opt-in page connected to Aweber for email lead magnet PLUS registration pages for buyers of email course and email swipes
4. Cleaning hard-drives [1 hr max]

Journal day 40, Wednesday 23 March 2022.

4 Daily tasks for Wednesday 23 March:

1. Learn how to edit html pages
2. Learn how to connect payment button in html page to Stripe
3. Finish cleaning up my hard-drives
4. Learn how to use ftp properly

When I packed it in for the evening last night, I was dispirited and frustrated. This morning did little to brighten me up. So I went back to basics and focused on baby steps. Things I know I can do and just did them.

Then came back to the work for the day and in less than an hour had completed DTs #1, 2 & 4.

#thedarkesthourisbeforethedawn

4 Daily Tasks for Thursday 24/03/22

1. Set up sales page, ty page etc. for email course
2. Set up up sales page, ty page, download page etc. for email swipes up-sell
3. Set up opt-in page connected to Aweber for email lead magnet PLUS registration pages for buyers of email course and email swipes
4. Cleaning hard-drives [1 hr max]

Journal day 39, Tuesday 22 March 2022.

4 Daily tasks for Tuesday 22 March:

4 Daily Tasks for Tuesday 22.03.22

1. Finish new lead magnet product, include links, upload to site
2. Set up sales pages etc. for main product + up-sell, upload products to site
3. Finish email archiving/forwarding set up [15 mins]
4. Continue the never-ending-story of cleaning my files & folders [max 45 mins today]

The depth of my conscious incompetence is horrifying! I feel like I’m trapped in a never ending sequence of stuff I don’t know how to do/deal with/manage.

I’m beginning to understand why the life of an affiliate is so much simpler – just send traffic, minimal creativity required.

My squeeze page -> sales page -> up-sell idea was far too naive. The sales page is html and doesn’t work in WordPress.

What I know about ftp could be written in the hook of the f in ftp.

I finally managed to upload the files to the correct place and get the page to display properly. Next, connect the payment button….AAAArgh!!!

Still haven’t cracked that one because I want to use Stripe instead of PayPal and

• Stripe won’t allow me create a payment link
• because the account is suspended
• because it’s not verified
• because it’s new
• because I haven’t sold anything on that site
• because the payment link doesn’t work.
• And I feel like giving up.

4 Daily tasks for Wednesday 23/03/22

1. Learn how to edit html pages
2. Learn how to connect payment button in html page to Stripe
3. Finish cleaning up my hard-drives
4. Learn how to use ftp properly

Journal day 38, Monday 21 March 2022.

4 Daily tasks for Monday 21 March:

I’m sorely tempted to declare today a ‘day off’ but the end is in sight but who’d have ‘thunk’ a job would take this long:

1. Cleaning hard-drives
2. The lead magnet is done except for the links and final formatting plus finish the opt-in page, download and ty pages.
3. Set up the sales page and up-sell page for the post opt-in offers – still have to crack the html question.
4. Archiving inboxes

The  hard-drive work is progressing – the 2TB is down to 1.5, the 1TB is down to 0.2, the 500Gb backup is clean with just backups, the 500Gb internal is sitting at 370Gb incl. system and apps and is the last one to do. So I’ll keep on keeping on and, fingers crossed, get it finished today – and then forget about it for another 5 years.

I’ve been plugging away at the email work in quiet moments. I have 3 main inboxes. Step 1 – archive everything pre-01/01/22; Step 2 – scan 2022 and delete or archive everything not ‘live’; Step 3 – set up email 2 and 3 to forward to email 1; Step 4 – set up email 1 to be able to reply as email 2 or 3 as appropriate. I thought it shouldn’t take more than 45 mins all in, yet two hours later, I still wasn’t finished.

4 Daily Tasks for Tuesday 22.03.22

1. Finish new lead magnet product, include links, upload to site
2. Set up sales pages etc. for main product + up-sell, upload products to site
3. Finish email archiving/forwarding set up [15 mins]
4. Continue the never-ending-story of cleaning my files & folders [max 45 mins today]