My Squid Life

To some small extent, I think I am a victim of my own success. Laughable actually. It’s not that I’m earning a 6 figure income or anything, but after I exceeded my money making goals last year I just started slacking off. It took quite a while to get to a point where it all seemed like it would come together, and now, well, I guess I’m tired.

I talked a bit about the need to start working smarter and not harder late last year. Now I need to get down to it.  My first goal I guess is to learn a bit more about keyword research and how to do it more efficiently. I want to waste less time.  I want fewer Hubs and Lenses that sit and do nothing while 30% of them work wonders.

I’m going to be reserving time for more study and hands on learning versus writing for a couple of months. My revenue will suffer I’m sure, but I think in the long run my success and quality of life will benefit significantly.

For now, my newest lenses/hubs were bicycle baskets, TV trays, and under cabinet can openers.

My big plans for being more productive during the snow days were dashed. I developed a nasty cold and was pretty incapable of working for a few days. My head was incapable of focusing.

Then I needed to take a day to devote to my mother. I finally decided to write about some of her recent medical issues. Thus, I have a new hub about Temporal Arteritis. It’s a potentially life threatening problem that I have to assume few people have ever heard mentioned. (I know I hadn’t) Her symptoms were relatively limited and I think could have easily been overlooked.

I also added a page about a new TV with iPod dock (or iPhone) that allows you to easily enjoy the audio and video you have stored on your portable device on your HDTV. The other new page is about white TV models that some people prefer in rooms with a contemporary design or perhaps in a kitchen.

Well, a day long assault by freezing rain and sleet has made me productive. We may get up to 15″ of snow tonight, which should result in a lot of writing over the next day or two also. The boredom I’ve been feeling may be blown out the window with the need to survive the weather imposed isolation.

Anyway, in the past couple of days I added a couple of lenses.  One was on buying a one cup coffee maker, something my hubby was needing. and another was on choosing an under cabinet radio. Today then, I finished up work on one that I chose based soley on keyword research, it’s certainly not something I would immediately think of doing…it’s on buying a white TV.

I haven’t ignored Hubpages either. My new topics there included an under cabinet coffee maker and an under cabinet toaster oven. There aren’t a lot of these products available, but there does seem to be an audience interested in them nonetheless.  I only recently realized that people have submitted questions to me to answer…giving me the opportunity to develop new Hubs in response to those questions.  (yes, I’m slow sometimes) My Hub on backlit sensors is my first requested Hub.

As I mentioned a month or so ago, I’m not going to be setting 2011 goals for a particular number of lenses (or Hubs for that matter) to be written. I plan on allowing myself to spend more time promoting my lenses/hubs, updating them as necessary and so forth. 

That doesn’t mean of course, I won’t be continuing new development, it just means I need to be realistic. So far, it’s working well. I don’t feel as though I’m neglecting things, and I don’t have many lenses or hubs that I feel are worthless because they are so out-of-date. 

My new lenses for the past several days included one on why I write on Hubpages…I aimed it toward Squidoo lensmasters specifically and another on Green Beans…one of my favorite garden vegetables.

Over on HubPages I added hubs on hammock stands, camping hammocks, and one on vinyl tablecloths….any idea what I have on my mind this week?  Couldn’t be nicer weather that’s beckoning me.

I really can’t imagine how much more success I would be having if I would just take advantage of the opportunities that are available. (she says with disgust)

Squidoo is just one example. They provide us with so many handy tools, and I fail to implement. It was only a month or so ago that I started to use the Amazon Spotlight Widget. It’s such a great way of grabbing attention and focusing it on a product. It will take time but I’ll get it done.

Now just in the past several days, I realized I could add an RSS feed to one of my blogs on my lenses too. Well, I knew I could add it in the body of the lens but I felt like that was just clutter. Now, with it in the side bar, I think it will get noticed without making the page just too long for readers to bother with it.  I’m loving it.

I’ve started a few lenses this week, but none of them are yet published. So, more on that next week. For now I just have some new Hubs.  One is on Picnic Baskets…everything from packing tips to safety when dining outdoors. It came about as I sit here in constant snow, longing for warmer weather.  I think it’s time for Hubby and I to become “snow birds”, moving south every winter.

Another Hub was on Novelty Alarm Clocks. I have many pages about various types of alarm clocks so it fits in nicely. Then finally, I added one on dehumidifiers for the basement. Just thinking ahead to summer again.