photo credit: liquidnight

Something to seriously consider: If you find yourself not working productively – don’t do any work at all!

A rudderless speedboat at full throttle

It’s very easy to begin your day or week with a mental list of all the important things you want to accomplish; some of this work may should even qualify as contributing mightily to your actual success. But what happens if you don’t document your planned work and then conform to some sort of schedule to do the work? You’re like a speedboat without a rudder. You dash to and fro in the oceans of information and diversion called the internet without focus and end up being far less productive than planned.

Doing things that look like work is not a good replacement for actually accomplishing meaningful things. Have you ever heard yourself saying, “Arrgh! I’m sooooo busy!” when you’re really just being…well…busy?

There’s no deeper feeling of satisfaction planning an important and meaningful piece of work and then making a focused effort that leads to its completion. Conversely, knowing you need to get stuff done and then consistently frittering away your time feels like you’ve just kicked your best friend in the balls and cussed out your mom – you feel pretty lame.

Medicine for your troubled mind

So here’s an idea that serves as a kind of reset button for your work life: If you find yourself aimlessly working on mostly unimportant work, stop working and do something totally different and unrelated. Your productive work time will then contrast sharply with your unproductive work time.  And if you do something non-work related you’ll convert what would have been time wasted into time well spent. The hope is that you’ll serve a mild rejuvenating penance while clearing out the jumbled up backlog of unorganized and unprioritized tasks in your head.

There are three steps to the “No productivity = No work” experience:

1. Get away from your work – Run, don’t walk away from your computer/office/desk/shop/sewing machine/backhoe.

2. Do something unrelated to work – This is how you’re being “disciplined” by yourself into not making the same mistake twice!

• Go for a brisk walk around the block.
• Go home early and play with your kids.
• Visit a bookstore and read random magazines about random subjects to expand your knowledge.
• Watch an art film that’ll make you think.
• Pray.
• Exercise vigorously.
• Journal.

3. Plan your work for one hour per week – No hard science here, just basic planning advice. One hour of planning per week should give you a pretty solid outline of what’s important to do and when to do it. Try to group your niggling little tasks into bigger blocks of time.

Sure, your spouse may wonder what the heck you’re doing home at 11:45 am on a Monday but it’ll be better than wasting your time. (In my humble opinion.)

If you’re looking for some more on this subject read my post “How to plan your work quickly” from last August.

Thoughts or insights? Share them in the comments below.

photo credit: 3rdmartini

It’s very easy to spend a large percentage of your time working on projects that aren’t very important. It’s very difficult, but rewarding, to work on only the projects that add a lot of value to your life.

Not very important: Surfing the internet in lieu of getting something done. Answering emails/providing support for old clients who are no longer paying you. “Organizing” things (folders, directories, bookshelves) during normally productive hours. Facebook/MySpace/YouTube for pleasure. Unscheduled goofing off, and anything that isn’t an investment in worthwhile projects. (add your list here)

Important: Planning and reverse engineering your income/revenue for the next six months. Learning what you need to know to be successful and then practicing it until your good at it. Making sales calls. Writing content for your paying customers to read on your company blog. Finding places to advertise and then actually buying the advertising to grow your business. Focusing on one thing at a time. Ruthlessly pruning your activities to include only important stuff.

Etc., etc., etc…

I’m a very busy person. I’m a husband, father, and friend. I’m starting businesses, consulting with clients and advising business beginners – but I find that a lot of the work I do, when evaluated for how much “value” it contributes to my life, is a waste of time.

To be sure, I’m enjoying myself most of the time; I love hanging out with people, helping others succeed, and having fun learning new things and just goofing off. But if I don’t focus on what adds the most value to my life when I’m working then I’ll end with less time and resources to take care of my family, help others and enjoy life.

How do you manage your time to include mostly important things?

I am very bad at focusing on things that matter. When it comes to completing a difficult task that requires focused effort I tend to auto-distract myself in a million different ways. I really hate this about myself but I take some perverse comfort in knowing that this is an epidemic problem.

It seems to be an altruism that anything worth doing is going to be difficult. The activities that create success in anything – business, music, friendship – do not tend to be simple. In short, it’s typically not the “low hanging fruit” that fills the plate. I find that when faced with a large problem that will require my brain’s maximum computing power I will downshift into a seemingly “important” task to find relief. In this way unimportant tasks are like crack to a junkie who’s trying to get sober.

Honestly, I can’t believe how easy it is for me to lose my focus and be distracted. It’s laughable. Yet I observe others around me struggling even more with how they conduct their lives of attention. So I’m reading a book that (haha) caught my attention – It’s called Rapt by Winifred Gallagher. Here’s an excerpt from my reading this morning:

WHATEVER YOUR TEMPERAMENT, living the focused life is not about trying to feel happy all the time, which would be both futile and grotesque. Rather, it’s about treating your mind as you would a private garden and being as careful as possible about what you introduce and allow to grow there. Your ability to function comfortably in a a dirty, germy world is just one illustration of your powerful capacity to put mind over matter and control your experience by shifting your focus from counterproductive to adpative thoughts and feelings. Rapt page 53

Of course, being able to focus your attention has benefits beyond being more successful in work. It can contribute to greater happiness in relationships and a greater sense of personal well-being.

If you’re like me and you can be best described as an attention scattered schizoid then you should pick up a copy of Rapt.

photo credit: Christine & Eric

If you want to be good at something, practice it until you’re good at it.*

Haha! Isn’t that hilarious? But it’s true. Here’s a conversation I’ve had too many times to count…

“Hey Mark. I want to start my own business.”

“Really? That’s awesome! You know what I think of that! It’s the best way to financial prosperity – Kapow! And now let’s do a dance of celebration!”

“Yeah,  yeah. Anyways, I’m kind of stuck. How do I start?”

“Well, what do you want to do? Do you have a product or service you want to sell? A unique idea that you’re not sure how to capitalize on?”

“You see, that’s the thing. I want to sell X but I don’t know how to do it!!”

“Ok. Totally. But why don’t you start by looking at where you want to go with X and then reverse engineer your success?”

“What do you mean ‘reverse engineer’ my success?”

“What I mean is, what’s your goal? Define what that successful business would look like and then deconstruct the steps it’d take to achieve it. Figure out what you need to know that you don’t know yet and then learn those things as you take those steps.”

“Yeah…I should go back to business school I guess. Get an MBA or something. Then I could start.”

And from there the excuses for not starting pour in. And they’re all very credible excuses at first glance. I’ve had many versions of the above conversation ranging from  “I just can’t learn how to use this program therefore I can’t do X therefore I’m a failure.” to “I need to get my sub chapter S Delaware LLC set up with my iron clad operating agreement in place before I can get started.”

You don’t have to have a degree, pedigree, trust fund, bank loan, bank account, advisor, mentor, board of directors, letter from your mom or have “The Secret” memorized to get started down the path towards success. What you do need is a determination to learn and practice. All of the other stuff will happen as it needs to happen.

*I realize this whole post is an over simplification of a process that has a thousand sub-components but it’s the truest thing I’ve ever written.

I don’t have tens of thousands of subscribers to Vacant Desk but I have enough to say, “Sorry I haven’t posted more often.”

I’m very passionate about this idea of getting out of the office, living life, not being defined by our work – yet making a killing anyways.
I know this is a very Tim Ferrissian sentiment but I don’t care. I’ve been working my whole life to achieve this. And by some measures, I have. (From time to time)

I started working for myself in my early 20′s and I’m 35 now. I had about two years of 15 hour work weeks and I loved it. Unfortunately, that business mounted up on wings like Icarus and then swiftly plummeted to the depths of the sea called “housing market train wreck”. That’s right, I was an evil real estate developer. Bwah-ha-ha!

My “self-employment” history:

1. A Waterjet processing facility - Cutting big thick hunks of metal and plastics.
2. An architectural metals company – Cutting aforementioned hunks of metal and assembling them into something that (supposedly) looked cool.
3. An industrial design firm – I had grand hopes of creating interactive kiosks and placing them everywhere. That would have been such a service to humanity! (by the way – That company was called Interacticon. I know, Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto…)
4. A licensee of interesting products I could sell to the public – That lasted about a month.
5. A real estate developer - This is where things start to get very, very interesting. In good and very bad ways.
6. An internet marketing professional -And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where I am today.

The sum total of this journey of capitalism has encompassed roughly 13 years or so.

I’ve learned a lot!

However, one thing I’ve learned above all, and I guess this is the reason for this post, is that it’s all meaningless if you’re not enjoying life. It’s an absolute waste of time.

If you’re someone who is entirely and completely defined by your job title, the amount of money you make, how many people call you “sir”, or how many hours you work per week, (and I’ve met plenty of these people and struggled with this myself) then this blog may not be for you. Or, perhaps, it’s what you need more than anything.

This isn’t an easy subject to write about…not only are these concepts very broad they apply to so many different niches/approaches/practices/etc.

Here’s what I believe it is though:

• Not putting in the hours a normal American commits to their job.
• Not focusing on how much money you accumulate but the spread between your life costs and your earning capability.
• Being able to point to the most important aspects of life and engage in them: Family, friendship, service, faith, health….

There are also business tools, business models, and modes of thinking that apply to all this.

I hope to explore this subject on a more regular basis in the future. Please share your thoughts in the meantime. I’d love to hear from you.

I’m not exactly sure when GoToMeeting web conferencing started to work with Macs. All I know is that it has been amazingly useful for my mobile lifestyle.
I’ve been traveling for the last month and I have another couple weeks to go. In the time I’ve been away from my desk I’ve launch two websites and performed training for the customer using GoToMeeting. I also held a performance review for one of my internet marketing clients where I was able to log into her advertising accounts and go over the numbers.

Here’s what I like about using software of this type. Especially GoToMeeting:

1. It’s actually a better experience for demonstrating software and online work than being face to face. I know this may seem counter intuitive. It works though. Rather than crowding around a screen each participant can sit in front of their own computer comfortably and fully participate.

2. You can have multiple presenters and the hand off is super simple. With one of our meetings I had three presenters going over the areas that they were responsible for. To switch to their screens and give them total control all I had to do was choose their name from a simple drop down and instruct GoToMeeting to make them the presenter. You also can opt just to give them control of the keyboard and mouse while staying as the presenter.

3. It makes your clients feel good. Yes, it gives them the “warm fuzzies”. Or, at least, I’m assuming it does. A lot of your clients/customers/partners may have not had a web conferencing or webinar experience before. It’s a high-tech communication experience for them that gets the job done.

4. You can provide support easily. If a client needs help setting up a piece of software, needs training on a web tool, or needs you to look at something on their computer, it’s super simple to switch the present and have control of their mouse and keyboard. This has been very useful to me more times than I can count.

Check it out. They have a free trial period that includes all the features and functionality. Let me know how you like it (or don’t) in your comments below.

GoToMeeting: Free Trial + $10 Off.

I was reading a travel magazine today and started to feel euphoric. I realized that I’m really motivated by travel. It’s a big reason why I build businesses and push through, at times, unbearable impending failure.

Travel removes you from your current situation and your circumstances. It allows you to stand back and evaluate your world from a distance. It’s the great perspective machine as far as I’m concerned and everyone should do it. There’s, of course, the upside of digging your toes into the white sandy beaches of Mexico with a Corona in your hand or cruising the volcanic plateau of Santorini, Greece on your rented scooter. No matter your destination travel refines, relaxes and releases you from your cares.

Of course we’re big on the tools of travel but what’s the point of being able to connect from anywhere if you don’t have anywhere to go? So here’s what we’re going to start doing on the Vacant Desk blog. We’re going to start highlighting locations, accommodations, and the associated costs with escaping there.

Let’s start with one of my all time favorite destinations: Puerto Vallarta Mexico.

I used to live in Guadalajara while going to Spanish language school back in 1998. PV was a scant four hour bus ride to the coast. We’d stay in a partially completed hotel called La Paloma. (I think that was its name) We didn’t care if it wasn’t completed. We just wanted to hang out on the Malecon and the beach. Ahhh the carefree days!

You can still find some incredible deals in this pristine and historical coastal town of Mexico. I dug one up off of Craigslist in a cool part of town. It’s not on the beach but it’s got awesome views. Check it out.

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8,000 pesos is about $630 US. Not bad for a month in a very beautiful and restful place. For about $1,000 – $1,500 per month you could have a great time in Puerto Vallarta. Throw in the abundance of wifi connected coffee shops and restaurants and no one will know you’ve left!

Here’s a link to the property’s booking website.

Norm Brodsky wrote his monthly editorial in Inc Magazine this month with a title, “Get lost: Taking more vacations increased the value of my company. How cool is that?”

…Now, I will admit that I haven’t always been as strong a believer in the importance of taking time off as I am today. For eight or nine years after starting my first business, I took breaks only when my wife, Elaine, forced me to. She would go to Florida, where we had a second home, and I would join her on the weekend — maybe. If the technology had been available, I would probably have been one of those poor souls sitting on the beach with a BlackBerry in one hand, a cell phone in the other, and a computer on my lap. Or I would have been doing deals while riding a ski lift up the side of a mountain. It took a long and painful trip through Chapter 11 to make me realize the dangers of becoming consumed by the business. Looking back, I could see that I had gotten in trouble in part because I had lost perspective. My business obsession had clouded my judgment and kept me from asking important questions about what I was doing and where I was going…

A couple of salient points from the article worth taking note of:

• He’s been more successful the more vacation he took
• It took a chapter 11 to help him realize the dangers or being consumed by his business
• The business ran just as smooth (or smoother) when he was gone
• Not taking vacations is dumb
• Your business needs to up and running, cash-flowing, and largely succeeding before you can start vacationing aggresively

Anyways, it’s an article worth checking out. Find it here…

Ok. I’m going to tip my hand here. Where am I personally headed with this whole Vacant Desk thing? Not just the blog but the pursuit of the location independent lifestyle? Well, I realize that it’s not just about the amount of money I make, it’s about the time I create. It’s also not just about being free from a particular location – a cubicle or whatever the equivalent may be.

It’s a combination of the above. But what’s, possibly, the best industry to be in? Here’s what I believe it is…you ready? It’s…

…Affiliate Marketing

(Bells, whistles, applause. Raucous noise making.)

This industry could also be characterized as Search Internet Marketing in general but for the purposes of this article we’ll stick with Affiliate Marketing.

I admit there are a ton of ways to make money out there but very few allow for the location independence and scalability of affiliate marketing. Let me give you a few compelling reasons to back this up:

1. Anywhere you have an internet connection and access to a computer you can do your job.
2. It’s massively scalable. Once you get a good campaign going it’s possible to ramp it up very aggressively and multiply your profits exponentially with very little extra work. Most of the work is in the front-end.
3. If you’re a good affiliate marketer you’re actually learning what I consider to be the most valuable 21st century business skill: moving eyeballs (with money) from one opportunity to the next. Imagine what that’s worth to the average online retailer or business looking for leads or new business?!
4. There is a massive (and by that I mean….massive) amount of individuals searching the web for products, services, and solutions to a myriad of everyday problems. i.e. What’s the best price on truck tires? How do I interview an accountant? How do I break free from my desk job? I read recently that in August of 2007 there was around 700 million unique search queries on search engines!

I personally know people who are bringing in over $800,000 per year in profits. (Yes, profits. Not revenues. Profits) I also know people who are making a couple of thousand dollars per month but only need to work a few hours per week to maintain their income giving them a lot of time to do other things than focus on making money. (And, if you think on it, is a pretty good definition of what wealth really is.)

Rather than go into a 10,000 word treatise of how affiliate marketing works, how to get started, and what you need to know in great detail I’m going to lay out some general concepts. (Hey. This isn’t one of those annoying “Work from home and make a million!” biz opportunity sites)

O.k. Here we go: (This is a mish-mash. Sorry.)

1. This isn’t an easy business. To do well you need to outperform a majority of the advertisers that are on the search engines for the niche or product you want to promote. It doesn’t, however, mean that you have to be especially clever. You’ll just need to follow some best practices consistently and innovate.
2. Although it’s not absolutely critical to have technical skills – web design, coding – it sure helps. I don’t have those capabilities but I have a team that works with me. We all share in the upside. It’s possible to outsource all this if you understand how to give proper directions. No one is going to be able to produce what you need if you don’t know what you need.
3. You can actually do this business from anywhere. If you’re going to do it seriously you’ll at least need the following: Laptop, Business entity – it doesn’t really make sense to be a sole-proprietor the more you get into this, and knowledge.
4. Knowledge – Listen carefully here: There are many, many, many people out there publishing an ebook or newsletter that tell you how to make millions doing this. Most of it is crap . I’ve combed through quite of this and come out the other side actually doing this for a living and experiencing increasing amounts of success. Here’s what I recommend for the beginner: Jeremy Palmer’s Black Ink Project. This guy is not sensationalist and actually gives great step-by-step training on how to be a successful affiliate marketer. Other credible resources are Rosalind Gardner and Ahmit Mehta

There are probably a hundred effective ways to make money and be unchained from a desk – overseas teaching, consulting, transcribing, graphic design, photography, etc, etc. etc. – but I think affiliate marketing is one of the best.

Keep in mind, whatever you do you’ll need to “engineer” it in a way that allows for freedom.

You stay classy San Diego. (I don’t know why that’s been popping in my head lately. I’m just trying to purge it.)

Here’s a nod to one of the better nomadic lifestyle/work from anywhere/break free from the desk blogs out there. It’s called “Location Independent Living” and they’ve got some great content. The blog is edited by Lea & Jonathan Woodward and they’re, well, location independent.[ad]

Start by checking out their About Page

Topics covered include: How to start a location independent business, Travel tips, How to deal with family and friends that rain on your parade, Challenges and impracticalities of the location independent lifestyle, and on and on it goes.

This blog is all about helping others who don’t want to play by the rules…

• Realise that there are ‘real’ and ‘normal’ people living this kind of lifestyle (who aren’t millionaires)
• Understand how you could create your own Location Independent lifestyle
• Get a better quality lifestyle for less work & less money

Check out Location Independent Living here