It’s been a while since I last did one of these “A Day In My Life” style posts, and thought it would be of some interest (value?!) to new readers to this blog.
So here goes, a step by step account of how November 15th, 2007, went for me…
07:00 a.m. - Woke up - and went through my ‘Morning Routine’ - a sequence of activities I created after reading Leo Babauta’s ZEN TO DONE. It includes looking at these sites of mine:
- The Infopreneur Blog
- Money.Power.Wisdom Blog
- 2 of my niche blogs
- The IM Inner Circle Private Forum
- StumbleUpon
- Google Adwords (Analytics Stats)
- My help desk for any support issues
To make this easy and fast, I have set up a web-based DASHBOARD - a simple HTML page with links to each of these sites opening in a new window… so I go click-click-click!
07:30 a.m. - Phone call. Bad news. A colleague who worked in our heart surgery team a couple of years back died last night. Called other friends to share the news and plan a visit there.
08:00 a.m. - Quick round of blogs - posted comments on a few. Replied to Caroline Middlebrook’s email with some thoughts about her promotion of ZEN TO DONE.
09:00 a.m. - Shower, breakfast, dress and leave to pick up some papers at a Government office.
10:30 a.m. - Typical sloth and slovenliness results in a 10 minute procedure being dragged out for an hour and a half. Forced to rush to hospital to keep an appointment.
11:00 a.m. - Arrive at hospital, listening to Janet Switzer’s ‘Publishing Mavericks Mentoring Program’ on the drive down
11:30 a.m. - Consult with a patient with Atrial Septal Defect we will be operating on next week, running tests and scheduling visits with other specialists. Spend some time on administrative tasks related to the Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation and settling some bills due from previous surgeries sponsored with the support of our generous donors.
12:15 p.m. - Drive with friend to attend our colleague’s funeral.
02:00 p.m. - Back home, taking a while to take a walk part-way in the sun, to enjoy Nature and reflect on what it all means. My thoughts are in a short blog post called “The Use of DEATH”
02:30 p.m. - Checked stats, delighted to find another surge of visitors from StumbleUpon - but it ended abruptly 2 hours ago. Why? Clicked to visit the page. And found it didn’t display. Spent a ‘fun’ 45 minutes trying to track the reason, opening a support ticket with the host, and getting increasingly frustrated.
03:15 p.m. - Got email from host saying their server had crashed, but was back up. The site worked - but the traffic vanished. Why? My page had been removed from the StumbleUpon BUZZ listing, probably because it wasn’t showing up when clicked! 
04:00 p.m. - Finished replying to some urgent emails (including an invitation to participate in a list building JV) and browsing a few blogs. Daughter back from school - which equals ‘no work for a while’
05:00 p.m. - The little one is having dancing lessons, so I catch up with the news at home with my wife, and then curl up with a Perry Mason novel and a cup of hot lemon tea.
06:00 p.m. - Short walk around the neighborhood with family to burn off the Snicker’s candy bars we gorged ourselves on!
06:30 p.m. - Suddenly remembered it was Friday - which is always one of my best days for online sales. Start work on a sales letter - and get it done in record time, simply by copying and pasting from prior samples I had on file. See the finished version here.
07:15 p.m. - Crafted an email promotion that went out to my pruned down list of just over 3,000 subscribers through my trusted autoresponder service, Aweber.com
08:00 p.m. - Finished an early dinner and back to work on some niche websites and blogs, pausing from time to time to watch a movie that’s playing in the background - ‘The Black Beauty’, based on the childrens’ story.
09:00 p.m. - Back to Perry Mason - left it hanging at an exciting page, and now must finish it fully before anything else.
10:30 p.m. - All done with the novel. Everyone’s in bed - and that’s when I get most of my work done! Quick round of Twitter, StumbleUpon and my blogs to see if any comments need moderating or anyone needs assistance with orders they’ve put in.
11:00 p.m. - Spent some time reading the thoughtful posts on abeautifulrevolution.com
11:30 p.m. - Posted a follow up to my earlier “7 Ways to Catch an A-list Blogger’s Attention” post on the Infopreneur Blog. This one is titled “7 Things NOT To Do After You Grab an A-List Blogger’s Attention!” This post should have gone online in the afternoon (which makes it early a.m. in the U.K. and U.S., when I’ve noticed the biggest impact happens… but that’s when my host was down! Murphy’s Law - gotta love it)
12:05 a.m. - Got done making my list of MIT’s - Most Important Tasks - for tomorrow. As Leo suggests in ZEN TO DONE, I’m making 3 every day… and then just getting them done. Today’s tasks were almost fully done, the few small ones left over will be moved to the next day.
12:15 a.m. - One last quick look at email inbox, StumbleUpon (a few messages in my inbox, replied briefly, “processed to zero” as “Zen To Done” suggests), Twitter - and then get ready for bed.
It’s not a ‘typical’ day - when I’m operating, a large chunk of time would go in the operation and post-op care, leaving even less time for working on the websites and other things.
However, the balance of time expenditure is nearly always the same. And strangely enough, the productivity doesn’t drop because of the lesser time available - meaning when there’s a lot of time, I tend to waste more of it, just like almost everyone else! (Parkinson’s Law - “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”)
To sum it up, here’s a list of what I did to grow my business/traffic today:
- - Posted blog comments
- - Learned from Janet Switzer’s course
- - Networked with a few other bloggers
- - Arranged to participate in a list building JV
- - Wrote a sales letter
- - Sent out a promotion to my list
- - Updated some niche websites and blogs
- - Posted to the Infopreneur Blog
- - Planned tomorrow’s action
This in addition to handling professional, personal, social and family commitments - and getting 6 hours sleep.
Tough?
I don’t think so. It’s become routine over the years. And is how I get stuff done.
With ZEN TO DONE, I see this becoming more streamlined and efficient. After all, I have a bookshelf full of excellent titles waiting to be read - and efficiency will give me time to do that long-pending task soon!
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3 comments ↓
Hi Dr Mani,
Interesting post
Re: “To make this easy and fast, I have set up a web-based DASHBOARD - a simple HTML page with links to each of these sites opening in a new window… so I go click-click-click!”
If you use firefox, just download this plugin called “session manager”. All you gotta do is install it, fire up your browser, have open all the sites that you need, and then save it as one session named whatever you like. “Daily tasks”, “daily to-do”, whatever.
From now on, you don’t even need “click-click-click”.
Just “click”
Here’s a link to the plugin. Hope it helps!
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2324
Hello, whilst searching I came across virgin’s Sponsorship pages which are globally connected towards non-profit sites and may be a valued place for you to browse.
I will return there and sign up with them when my financial situation improves to the point where I can Opt-In to become a sponsor with or through them.
It is Ironic how most of my endeavors and goals appear to be linked into my Modus Operandi. I chose my own goals through my desire and continued support towards a variety of organizations and Charities,Hospitals and Air Services which are a distinct element of who I am as a person. My personal morals have always outstretched towards those who are in a greater need and penultimately, it is the foundation of which I stand for within the scope of my lifetime. I must protect my own values & integrity not to assume too much nor make the assumption that my profile online becomes misleading in any way. I have paid a lot of money to get this far and I somehow think it may have been better served in the pockets of those who need it more. I can only hope as time progresses that the online community at large post-adopts similar traits for the betterment of Third World Countries and Government Institutions who could benefit funding for natural disasters & Relief Plans.
Thank You for your knowledge in your reports and the enriching information guiding me through the online encyclopedia.
[…] On two previous occasions, I have blogged in detail about a ‘Day in the Life of Dr.Mani’ - here (2005) and here (2007). […]
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