It’s 7:30 on Saturday morning, and I’ve been awake for over two hours. Ergo, the birth (or rebirth, if you’ve been reading long enough) of the weekender, where, sometimes, on the weekends, I’ll post inspirations and thoughts from around the internet. Grab a cup of coffee, and sit a spell.
Stock Images Are Fun
We have a giant stock image package through work, where we’re allowed 750 downloads a month, and we use about 150. So, I get to use one or five for my own blogs! It’s through iStock, and I can honestly say that finding just the right stock image for company blog posts is one of my very favorite parts of my job. The best one this week was an image for a post about shore excursions, and how they’re dangerous. I’m not sure they’ll use it, but I loved it:
Why am I bringing up stock images? I mean, aside from the obvious point to demonstrate how cool I am.
Because, I was feeling so inspired this morning, so I wanted to find an image that appropriately showed how full of potential I was feeling. I typed “magic” into iStock, and was happy, no, thrilled, to find that I’m not the only one who finds magic in books. If that link doesn’t work, and I’m betting it might not, since there’s all kinds of junk at the end of the URL, go to istockphoto.com and type in magic. See? Amazing.
Note: that’s not an affiliate link. Just wanted to show you something neat.
On My Mind
So much to do, so little time, amiright? But really, I have an ambitious to-do list, and there are at least a few things I want to accomplish before I’m even ready to talk about having babies. This week, the internet understood my dreams.
- This post from LearnVest suggests that we spend the first 90 minutes of each day working on our primary goal, for 90 days. For me, that means after waking up and exercising (either a run or a walk with Stanley), and coming back, turning on my computer, and working for an hour and a half on my own primary goal. That also means writing. I am a far better writer in the morning than I am in the evening. So, personal writing for 90 minutes a day. Ebooks, specifically. I joined a writer’s group on Facebook, and I’m amazed at how many people are writing books. I’m ready to push myself from the safety zone of talking about writing a book one day to actually writing a book. Or two. Or 25. Stay tuned.
- My friend Nate is working with Applebee’s to launch a 30-day personal productivity experiment. It’s called #BetterYou movement, and it’s pretty motivating, actually. I filled out my October goals, and now I’m keeping track. In case you’re wondering, I exercised five times already, and I’m going to the gym later this morning.
- Speaking of productivity, there’s a lot to be done at work, too. We just configured an awesome marketing plan that we’ll implement over the next year. I loved creating a 12-month strategy, and will create one for my personal productivity as well. I am interested to try this method of working and taking breaks that Fast Company wrote about. I’ll start working on that method next week.
- Darren Rowse (who I got to meet this summer, he’s very nice) wrote a step-by-step guide to publishing ebooks. It’s like he read my mind. He’s sold more than 200,000 ebooks! Holy smokes.
- Speaking of people telling the entire internet exactly how to do things, Brian Dean wrote an amazing article on Smart Passive Income talking about effective backlinking. Typically, articles like this speak over my head, but this one is outstanding.
- I’m going to organize like a boss this weekend. The weekend is relatively light on scheduled time, and that’s great, because I can barely be in my office right now, let alone find a zen place to focus.
- I’m on Ello, and I’ll be honest. I don’t really get it. It’s hard to find people I know… but maybe that’s the point? I currently have one friend… the one who invited me. I’ll be honest again, and say I didn’t understand Facebook when I signed up there either, and still don’t understand poking. Want an invite? Shoot me an email. Maybe you can explain it.
Enjoy the weekend, friends! And remember, you don’t have to be broke to live frugally.
