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I have been in Spring Cleaning mode here.  Up until yesterday we enjoyed seventy degree weather for a few weeks.  It was wonderful!  I have basically reorganized and purged most of my home!  This week my husband and started a Square Foot Garden.  SFG is container gardening.  We have not yet planted anything because it  is too cold still.  The day after my husband build the box and put in the soil it snowed!!  As I was thinking about the seeds we are going to plant and the harvest we will receive in several weeks, I started thinking about business!

What kinds of seeds are you planting?

As you know with any plant there has to be a growing period.  You have to nourish that seed.  You need to protect that plant.  Then harvest at the right time!  So what seeds are you planting.  In other words what do you want to harvest?  When I was at NAMS in January Mark Hendricks talked about how you need to have the end in mind.  This is the same idea! Do you want to build a list?  Have an increase in traffic?  Or do you just want an increase in income?

What will you do to nourish that seed?

So the seed has been planted in your mind as to what you would like  to harvest, now what?  It is time to go to work.  With a garden you have to consistently weed and water.  So how do you nourish your seed?  To build a list you need to get the word out, provide an incentive and maybe do a Telesummit or guest blogging.  To increase traffic do link building, guest blogging, consistent blogging on your blog, maybe some pay-per-click or advertising some other way.

The nourishing of this seed needs to be consistent.  This will be every day work or at least several times a week work.  It will be work where sometimes you get really dirty.  This is essentially the work you will do to make the harvest all worth while.  If you forget to water for a week your work will be a loss, so don’t let things slide! Read more »

Last week I was a bit absent from the blog.  This is because I was trimming the fat off of my business!  I know that sounds funny but it is what I was doing.  I have been spreading myself way too thin on everything I have been doing.  I guess that comes with being a mother, okay, maybe not.  Maybe it comes from being a type A personality!  Where ever it comes from I did it!

Too many blogs!

Up until last week I had four blogs and probably about ten websites.  I still do have all of them but I am not going to actively blog and update these sites!  I am finally doing what I really love!  I started a website on genealogy/family history.  It is called Start Your Family History.  This is where my main focus will lie!  Genealogy has been my passion for a very long time and I want to focus on helping others get started!  It can be quite overwhelming to figure out things on your own.

So in addition to affiliate marketing I am going to become an information product developer!  I am going to be selling the content that I create.  I have a long way to go on this project but it will happen!  I am really excited about this!

Focus your business!

It is really important to focus your business.  I know I have talked about this before but I am always needing more focus.  So what can you cut out of your business.  If you can’t cut things out can you outsource those jobs to someone else?  What I would challenge you to do is really take a good look at your business!  What can you do to have more success?

Yours,

PS. The catalyst of this change was going through Problogger’s 31 days to building a better blog.  It is a great ebook!

photo credit: Micah Sittig

Today is Organize your home day! I think it is kind of funny that we have to have a day named after organizing our homes! But it is true a lot of us live in chaos. Each day we come home we don’t know where to put things and they just pile up. Or maybe you are one of those people that do really well keeping your physical home clean but it is pure chaos in your mind!

How disorganization affects me.

I don’t know about you but for me when my house is a mess then I am a mess. I must have things clean around me or I can not concentrate or get work done. This can be challenging for me since I have four children ages 8 to 1 and a husband! I have been really diligent on having a chore chart and having my children and husband help out each day. It is a team effort right?! When we all work together to get the house clean it works. Then reality sets in and we get sick or we have activities that keep us from our schedule. I found this great article about how to get started at a Christian Home.

Meals are hard to organize.

My husband and I really like fast food or any restaurant food in general. It is our downfall! So if we do not have a menu of what we are going to eat ahead of time then we are in trouble! Last fall my neighbor mentioned on facebook that she has been loving emealz! I decided to check it out. With Emealz they send you a list of recipes that use products that are on sale. We have been subscribed for about 20 weeks now and we don’t follow the recipes exactly but it has really helped us become organized in our meals. This has been extremely helpful.

So how ever you spend today I hope that you are getting organized in some way!

To you,

PS. Check out some of these great books on organization: Eliminate Chaos: The 10-Step Process to Organize Your Home and Life by Laura Leist, Organize Now!: A Week By Week Guide To Simplify Your Space And Your Life by Jennifer Berry and my favorite Organizing from the Inside Out, second edition: The Foolproof System For Organizing Your Home, Your Office and Your Life by Julie Morgenstern.

photo credit: evelynishere