These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Sluggish weekend after the madness, have to zone out and do nothing for a while, wait for the energy and motivation to kick back in. It’s tough, feeling like you’re working as hard as you can and it’s still not enough. Hard work is only part of the equation though.
2
One of those down days. You hear a podcast that should be motivating but start comparing your results to theirs and get all depressed about it. Check the stats and they look worse than expected, no good reason. Spend the rest of the day waiting for some good news, any good news, but there is none.
3
One thing I like about myself is that I don’t dwell on things too long. Was bummed out yesterday but today the attitude is, “Well, fuck it. Sitting around feeling all sad isn’t going to make shit better. Let me get back to work building this castle.” Of course, a little Modafinil helps, too.
4
Spoke too soon. It’s worse than I thought. Organic traffic fell off a cliff, now down about 90% this year. For no obvious reason. And there was me thinking I was doing better work and providing more value than ever. Unfortunately, an algorithm sees things differently, and nobody can tell me why.
5
Okay, starting to make a bit more sense. There are no straight answers when it comes to Google, but the Authority Hacker community has been helpful, showing me what’s broken on my site, what can be improved – and it’s a lot. Ultimately I’ll be better off for this beating. But the recovery is going to take a while.
6
And now my traffic is back up again. WTF, Google? Looks like it might have been a temporary blip rather than the big kick in the nuts I’d assumed. Treating it as a wake-up call nonetheless, will crack on with the improvements I’ve been planning the past couple of days, make this bitch bulletproof.
7
Watched The Color Purple today. Classic movie, great reviews, nominated for eleven Academy Awards… and I have no idea why. Seems highly overrated, lots of plot holes, pointless scenes, some really odd production choices. The world makes less sense when a movie like that is so renowned.
8
A website is a bit like a house. Ideally, you start with a clear blueprint. You build with materials strong or flimsy. You create different rooms that serve different purposes. And once built, it requires constant maintenance and the occasional upgrade. My house is undergoing a mighty upgrade this month.
9
Part of that upgrade is cleaning out old content. I’ve been blogging for nine years about all kinds of topics. With my focus now on the online business niche, that old content ain’t helping. Already unpublished all my Momentos and working my way through everything else, trying to decide what best to do with each piece.
10
Happens all the time here in Ubud. You go into the same restaurant two days in a row, you order the exact same meal, but you don’t get the exact same thing. It’s always cooked a little different. Maybe it’s better that way, more authentic. But part of me prefers the predictability of restaurants back home.
11
It’s been a grind getting these case studies done. The next will be the last of its kind. I love the format, but it’s far too time-intensive creating them. Pretty sure we can make something 80% as good with 20% of the effort. Going to simplify the format and crank them out much faster.
12
Speaking of intense, today was ten solid hours working on migration stuff. You’d think moving my site from ndoherty.com to ebizfacts.com wouldn’t be a big deal, but there’s a lot to it, especially when you’re trying to maintain the Google juice. Started at 4 this morning. Now it’s almost 11 at night. Wrecked.
13
Still planning to review a bunch more affiliate marketing courses by the end of the year. One course on my list costs $997. The creator offered me a free review copy today, but I turned him down. I figure I’m less likely to produce an unbiased review if I’m gifted free entry.
14
Changed my mind. Readers don’t care whether I pay for a course or get it for free, so long as I go through it thoroughly, write an honest review, and help them make a smart decision. No sense digging myself a thousand dollar hole needlessly. I can put that money to better use.
15
Robert Redford was once asked what was the happiest time of his career. His response:
“Before. Before it got easy. The struggle.”
Not to glorify the grind or anything, but there’s truth in that. I often feel like I’m struggling, and I often feel that these are the happiest days of my life.
16
I wonder, is it a rare thing to live a hundred years in this world and never experience war? Or at least feel the effects of one? Myself, my parents and grandparents have never had to go through it. How lucky we are. Imagine how it would be, there just minding your own business, living your life, and war comes along and rips everything to shreds.
17
Watched Ben’s documentary about human trafficking, how he went off in search of two Vietnamese girls who had been smuggled across the border and sold as brides in China. I appreciate the nuance. You’d think it’d be a simple case of good vs. evil, but that’s not how the world works.
18
And now we’re sitting down with Ben for dinner at a nice open-air restaurant on the outskirts of Ubud. Imagine that: you watch a powerful documentary one night, and dine with the filmmaker the next. The conversation flows from big topic to big topic. Much to discuss.
19
Home stretch now with the website upgrade stuff, will be getting back to content creation next week. Aiming to become a content machine for the rest of the year. The challenge for me will be to not go overboard on quality, which I’m prone to do. Quantity is more important right now methinks.
20
I think about survivorship bias every now and then. Successful people tell you that hard work and persistence will eventually get you where you want to go, but there are plenty of “unsuccessful” people who work just as hard and persist just as much. The volume gets turned down on their stories.
21
Visiting waterfalls. Several right beside each other here, a short hike to get to them. One is apparently Bali’s only triple waterfall. Step back a bit from it and you see gorgeous rice fields above, mountains beyond, jungle all around.
22
Met an old Italian man with wild hair out by the rice fields, walking his dog. We talked for a while. He’s been in this country 25 years, retired to Bali, lives on a pension, probably alone. His life seems simple, and he seems content. All at once, I’m anxious and reassured.
23
A solid seven hours today going through another affiliate marketing course, racked up 120 pages of notes and screenshots. Will have to condense that down to a 4000-word review, aiming to get it published by the end of the week. Cranking that machine up to speed.
24
“The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line.” – Greta Thunberg
Not sure there’s anyone doing more important work in the world right now than that young lady.
25
I’ll keep doing the finance reports, but there’s definitely a downside to them. Showing my earnings publicly every month makes me prone to shorter-term thinking. I find myself trying to maximize income one month, at the expense of the next.
26
Been going through Google’s guidelines for search quality evaluators, a 167-page document outlining what distinguishes good webpages from bad. My site covers what they call a “Your Money or Your Life” topic. As per the doc:
We have very high Page Quality rating standards for YMYL pages because low quality YMYL pages could potentially negatively impact a person’s happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.
27
Seth Godin says good marketing is just telling a good story, compelling and authentic. My no-fly trip was a good story. Might be time to tell another. The new one could also be about a journey. Not to circumnavigate the globe, but to earn $1K per day from my site.
28
Exploring the outskirts of Ubud, come across a circle of men. Seen this kind of thing once before from a distance and had suspicions. Now they’re confirmed as I watch them tie blades to the feet of roosters and start taking bets.
29
Exploring another waterfall. Bali’s gone a bit nuts with the “selfie spot” concept. They’re everywhere now, several here. They’ve got a bird cage, a bird’s nest, angel wings, heart shapes. As a result, every visitor ends up with the same few photos.
30
Training up a chap from Croatia to add content to WordPress. Took me several hours to add the content for my Wealthy Affiliate review. Can’t be spending so much time on that kind of thing going forward. Got a big hairy audacious goal to strive for.