Marc Norris

Well, I suppose that since I have a phone, it should come as no surprise that I get calls from telemarketers.  Much like having that mailbox on the front of my house, sometimes you just get nasty surprises when you pick up the phone.

This week, we have received calls from the same private and blocked number about eight times and they have wanted to speak to my wife every time.  “Unfortunately” she has been working, so tonight was the first time that she was home.

After they talked to her for a couple of minutes, the lady on the other end of the line wanted to talk to me.

Great.

When I picked up the phone she started rambling on how my wife had signed up for some contest on some site and we had won a trip to Universal Studios.  Being skeptical, my first question was:

“What site did she register on to enter the contest?”

Her response:

“It could have been any site…”

Wrong answer.  I asked her to take my name off the list and the call ended right there.

One of the things that I like to think about myself is that I am a pioneer of sorts and not so much a sheep.  It pays to stand out of the crowd, and for the most part that has been the results that I have seen.

But at the same time, you find yourself with very few people to bounce ideas off of.  This can be problematic when you want to try something new – you have no one to talk to.

This just means that you need to use a little more trial and error, but in the end, you usually end up learning some valuable lessons.

An example of this is what I am doing right now – I am working on a plan to mass market a large number of blogs – 850 or so at the time of this writing.  Though most people would be intimidated by the task, these sort of challenges get me excited and remind me why I have decided the career path I have chosen.

So don’t be afraid to be different – where is the fun in being a sheep?

I will be the first to admit that I am not so good on time management.  In fact, I would have to say that I am one of the worst people when it comes to procrastination – but I do very well in a crunch for a deadline.

But procrastination will not get me or my family to the financial position that we need.  After my wife being let go last week from her job, the success of the business is even more important.  So it is time to “put up or shut up” and I better do what needs to be done instead of just farting around.

I have decided that an easy way to help me focus on work instead of just “farting around” is that I need a computer that is just solely for work.  This mean no Twitter, Skype, or checking stats (or email) five billion times per day.  This is a big time waster for me, and I can’t do that anymore.

So, I will be working by the clock, using a timer and working 50 minutes out of every hour.  During my break I am “allowed” to check my email and all that other “fun” stuff, but when I am working, that is all that I will be doing.

I will be reporting back in about a week to let you all know how it is going – I know that in the past when I lived my life by the timer I actually got a lot done, so I hope that it will work well this time too.

Anyway, enough of this blogging – I should get back to work before I need to go to bed (that is the new time management focused me talking   ).

Like many people online, I joined Squidoo to promote some of my sites, share topics that I was interested in, and make some money (of course, right   )

Well, it has been over a year now, and finally, I have a lens that has made it into the top 100.  It has taken  a lot of marketing, but it is nice to finally see that it has made some ground.

But, I am concerned that it isn’t going to stay there for long – though it gets some good traffic, it needs more people to comment on it.

So, if you have a chance, could you visit my lens on proxy websites and comment and rate it – I would appreciate it very much

Many things have changed in the month and a half since I last blogged here.  I don’t want to bore you with all of the details, but here are some things that are different:

• Well, the babysitting job that I started I managed to only last a month.  The kids I was babysitting were brats and were ganging up on my daughter, so that was the end of that.  You should always remember to put your family first before work – and it was a great example to learn from.
• Had a scare this past week with my wife.  She had chest pains and had to be rushed to the hospital.  Thankfully, it was only Costochondritis, and nothing serious, but scares like this are never fun.
• We have been fighting with our new bank and losing money in NSF charges at our old one due to a huge mess caused by transferring banks out to the town that is closer to where we live.  Didn’t help that the person that setup the transfer of our funds messed up and it has been nothing but a headache.
• Another new look for the site was added today as I decided that the old one kind of sucked.  Okay, it really sucked, and I hope that you all like this one better – tell me what you think in the comment section.

Otherwise, that is about it.  Have plenty of work that needs to be done, and I get to spend the weekend with just me and the kids as the wife has gone to the city to take a break – can’t wait until it is my turn