If you have ever taken an Economics class you probably know that incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. These days ‘modern life’ includes blogging and making money online. So, to keep up your blogging motivation you are going to need incentives. This is not exactly the same as setting goals (sometimes goals and incentives can intertwine). We all understand setting goals - you have something you want to accomplish and you work towards reaching it. Incentives are more like prizes. You’ve worked hard and met your goals - now what do you get out of it? Basically, incentives are the things that motivate you to reach your blogging goals. So, when you are working towards your goals, or especially if you are procrastinating, keep your incentives in mind - it will help motivate you.

Having incentives makes completing those little daunting tasks a little easier. Growing a blog, or making money online, is time consuming and even with all the organization and goal setting techniques out there the best motivation is realizing what you will be getting out of all your hard work. Whether it be making enough money to quit your day job, or making a little extra cash to add to your income - maybe you just want the recognition that the big bloggers get or a chance to network with a great group of people and grow a community around your blog. These are all incentives - they are things that make you work hard to met your goals and become successful.

So, if you are feeling sluggish, or lazy, remember what you want to get out of blogging and use that as motivation to work towards your goals. Use it to get you excited again - pumped up - it helps, I do it.

Michael Hargis

Popularity: 69% [?]

Aren’t the holiday times great. You get to see family and friends, eat a lot of good food, and maybe receive a gift or two. All great things, right? Of course, but the holiday times are also extremely busy, and stressful, for most people. There’s the cooking, the cleaning, entertaining, Christmas shopping, and more.
With all this going on when do you find time to work on you personal projects? You can’t just push them all to the side and forget about them for a couple weeks or months. You still need to find some time for yourself and keep growing you sites, blogs, or whatever you are working on.
So, how do you create more time for your projects? It’s all about time management. You have to be efficient with the time you have and motivated to use it well.

A few tips to help manage your time when doing Holiday tasks:

Shopping

• Have a game plan - If you are going on a shopping trip, whether it’s to the mall or a string of stores and shops, having a plan can save you a ton of time. Start off with a list of gifts you need to purchase. Listing out what you need to get can speed things up drastically. Plus, if you don’t have a list you risk forgetting something - then you’ll have to go back to the mall again. Another part of planning your shopping excursion is knowing what stores you need to visit. This saves you from going into a store you don’t need to be in. Which saves you time and keeps you from browsing too much.
• Shopping online - (my personal favorite) Going to mall you have to deal the crowds, the stupid people (you know it’s true), standing in line to checkout, and not to mention what you want might not be in stock. Shopping online can save you time and you don’t have to deal with afore mentioned problems. Of course, you have to stay focused and not off browsing tons of sites. You also have to keep in mind that your purchases will have to be shipped to you - so plan ahead for that.

Cooking
I don’t know much about cooking but some simple motivational and organizational techniques can be applied to keep things moving…

• Get all ingredients together ahead of time
• Have recipes ready and organized
• Know how long each item takes to cook or prepare
• Think about you cooking space and how much you be able to cook at once

Family Time

• I say splurge on this. enjoy every min you can with your friends and family at gatherings.
  maybe try to meet with people in groups and not as much individually.

Holiday times and family are important, but so are your goals. Don’t forget about your projects, blogs, sites, etc. this holiday season. Keeping yourself motivated and managing your time will greatly improve your potential for successfully growing your blog even through the holiday season.

Popularity: 39% [?]

Ever played beer pong? Some background. You play beer pong in teams of 2 - one team of 2 versus another team of 2. Each team stands at opposite ends of a table (or designated throwing line). The goal - throw a ping-pong ball into a cup filled with liquid across the table. There are 2 ping-pong balls - each team member gets one shot. If you make the ping-pong ball in one of the cups that cup is removed and the other team is required to drink (either the liquid in the cup or from their drink cup/can). Usually the liquid in the cup is beer gasp! Though, some people play with water and have a separate beer drinking cup or can - this is for cleanliness reasons. Of course, there are many different rules to go along with the game - like same-cupping and rearranging - but those aren’t of importance at this time.

So, you now some background on the game of beer pong, but how is this related to motivation or focusing. Let’s relate it to blogging (or any project really).

In beer pong, if you win you stay at the table. The more games you play the less sober you are going to get. The less sober you get the harder it is to focus. You need to be able to focus on the cup in order to put the ping-pong ball in the cup. You start the game with a clear head ready to take on the task at hand. You have focus, you want to make cups and win the game. The more you play the more the beer disrupts your focus. It becomes harder to concentrate on the cups - if you want to make a cup you need to be able to focus on that cup. Blurry vision and loss of balance can come into play.

When starting a new blog, like when you start a game of beer pong, you have a fresh / sober outlook. You are excited to start and easily motivated by the thought of success and other things. You have, hopefully, set your goals and have a clear vision of what you want to get out of this new project. Updating your blog is easy in the beginning. You have fresh ideas that you can’t wait to share with everyone. Your blog has that new toy feel. As time goes on it gets harder to keep up the high level of excitement. Your vision, or goal can become blurry. It gets harder to focus on posting and promoting your site. Motivation starts to lack and things can come to a stand still.

This happens all the time. A new blog hits the Internet and a few months later it’s sitting there - dead. The motivation and focus ran out. If you don’t want your site to end up like this, if you want your blog to be successful, you have to keep focused. You are in control of your blogs’ future. Stay motivated and keep it alive. It takes time to really grow a blog - longer than a few months - so you have to be willing to stick it out and stay focused.

Popularity: 45% [?]

I hate traffic. It usually takes me about 50 minutes to get to work every morning but not today. Today was the first regular workday (Monday - Friday) with snow on the ground, and I guess everyone was scared. The thing is it was just flurries. There was barely any snow actually on the ground and roads were fine. I’m on Interstate highways pretty much the whole way to work. People just suck at driving - haha. But seriously there are way to many bad drivers out there.

Traffic was slow the whole way to work. I guess I can’t be mad a people for being ’safe’, but like I said the roads were not bad at all. So, I wouldn’t have cared if it was just a 5 to 10 mph decrease in speed the whole way - but someone caused a wreak. I was nowhere near it, but it brought traffic down to a crawl - I’m talking 6 minutes to go 1 mile crawl (I timed it). So, creeping along it got me thinking, and I’m sure you are wondering what does your 1 hour 50 minute drive to work have to do with the price of tea in China.

Motivation
A goal of mine is to at some point to quit my ‘day job.’ I would like to earn enough income from Internet ventures and freelancing to work at home. A lot of people are making good money online - through blogging, affiliate marketing, freelancing, etc. I’m not looking to become rich - I just want the added freedom that comes from working from home. I don’t want to have to spend my days in an office, or cubicle. I don’t want to be required to be at a job from 9 to 5. I don’t want to have to deal with traffic. Freedom from the 9 to 5 - the normal workday schedule - that’s what I want.

So, all this time I spend in traffic jams is motivation to me. If I can motivate myself and set goals, I can cut-out all the wasted and stressful time I spend in traffic. It’s a negative thing in my life that I need to spin to work in a positive way. It’s something I extremely dislike. So, I need a way to avoid it. With going to work I am pretty much guaranteed to be in traffic either on the way there or the way back home. Working from home, making money online, can help me avoid this nuisance - it’s motivation to work harder on producing an online income.

Motivation Challenge
So, here is a challenge for you. Take something that is a negative in your life and flip to be motivation towards a positive outcome or goal. A lot of times motivation is fueled by something we dislike. We want to find a way to make this dislike better. Overweight? Don’t like the way you look? Use that as motivation to change your self-image - exercise and eat healthy. Don’t like your career choice? Use that as motivation to save up money and go back to school to study something that you will enjoy and bring you a better job. Be motivated.

Michael Hargis

Popularity: 34% [?]

A Blogging Tip: Are you trying too hard to come up with good post ideas?

Don’t force it - you just have to relax and the ideas will come. You might think you can just go find a nice quiet place or your favorite reading spot, but that is not always going to work. You’ll get there and all you’ll be thinking about is how you really need to come up with a great idea for a post. Sure this place might work most of the time, but there are some days when you just need to switch it up a bit. Try something different. Forget about the peace and quiet and go to the hustle and bustle. Go to a restaurant, a store, or just a walk down the street. Sit and observe people or find a friend (or stranger) and start up a conversation. Get your mind off writing - or whatever the task is. Fresh air, being around people, or just getting outside can really stimulate the mind and help get the good ideas flowing. Just remember, don’t force it - you will just end up going crazy and writing a bad post (or whatever your project is).

Note: these tips can be used for anything not just blogging and writing…

- Michael Hargis

Popularity: 68% [?]

A Blogging Tip: Having trouble writing those posts? Here is a quick idea…

It seems like every time I sit down and stare at that big blank computer screen I loose all motivation to actually write something. Then procrastination takes over. I start browsing the Internet and tell myself ‘it’s for inspiration.’ I navigate to some of my favorite blogs and start reading their stuff when I should be writing my own. Then I would start to think about how much I really need to write something and how I really want my blog to be successful, but I lack motivation.

I have found a great way around this (for me anyway). I get away from the computer. No, not just to take a break, but to grab my Samsung Blackjack. Yep, that’s right my Blackjack. I open up the notes program and just start typing away - I wrote this post on my Blackjack. Sure typing is a little slower - I’m getting pretty good at it - but for me there just aren’t any distractions when I’m on my Blackjack.

I suggest you get some kind of PDA/Smartphone device with a full QWERTY keyboard - makes it a ton easier to write long posts. My Blackjack only cost me $39.99 (refurb) and then the phone bill stuff which I need a phone anyway, so that doesn’t really count. This may not work for everyone, especially if you are always texting or talking on the phone. Though, if that is the case, you might try using a device that is not also your phone. Give it a try…

- Michael Hargis

Popularity: 75% [?]

A blogging tip: Motivation and writing multiple posts when you are in the mood to write…

If you really enjoy writing then this might not be a problem for you. If you are like me and are a descent writer but some days (or many days - I have plenty of weeks like this) you just really do not want to write about anything, then I have a simple idea that might help you out.

On those rare days that you are really pumped about writing a new post/article, instead of just writing one, write three or four, or even five if you are feeling crazy. Actually just writing two would be great. Then you have at least one backup you can use at anytime. You don’t want to make this a backup quality posts. You want to write something you plan on using. Get the article into the mix when you feel appropriate, but don’t just sit on that same article forever. You’ll forget about it or lose confidence in it. It should be thought of as writing an article or two ahead. Write something that you want to post in the near future, but keep writing new posts and cycle them in when you are ready. Writing ahead will help you on those days when you are sick, sick of writing, or just need to take the day off - it’s all about balance.

- Michael Hargis

Popularity: 70% [?]

Do you set goals for yourself? How often? And how do you record them, or do you?

There are short-term goals, which are usually set either day to day, or weekly, mid-term goals, which are more like monthly sets of tasks, and finally there are long term goals, which can be something like six months ahead or a year or more away.

It’s important to set goals for yourself. For me personally they give a little more motivation to get things done. I think setting goals is one thing, but if you don’t actually write them down then you are less likely to act on them. So, get out a piece of paper, or notepad since you are at your computer, and jot down a few short-term goals. It’s very important to start small and not try to overdo it. If you start out setting lofty goals you may get discouraged quickly. Honestly, I was having a hard time getting motivated to do anything extra - like start a blog or work on other personal projects - then I decided I needed to start setting some goals - nothing big - and my first one had nothing to do with blogging or the internet at all. My first goal was to do 100 sit-ups everyday day for a week. At the end of the week I had my 7 days of 100 sit-ups and I felt great about accomplishing that goal. It was a pretty small goal for me, but it made me realize that setting goals really helped to motivate me. So, I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and wrote down a few more goals. I broke them down into short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals. At that time, getting this blog up and going was one of my mid-term goals.

So, start setting goals for yourself. Write them down and put the paper somewhere you will see it every day. I know some people say set your goals high, but I say you need to start out small to gain some confidence in the fact that you can complete these tasks if you set your mind to it. Get a taste for the great feeling you get when you accomplished a goal or two and you will realize just how much such a simple task can help you.

- Michael Hargis

Popularity: 33% [?]