While this isn't exactly what I do now it is the base for my everyday task list. I modified this below to add things like water intake but it is still 90% of what makes me productive. One of the biggest mistakes when starting this system was I put more than 10 things on my to-do list. Don't do that. You may think that doing 10 things in a day makes you productive but I would rather focus on 2-4 things and do them right.
What Are You Working On?
It's been a while since I updated the blog. I can't let that happen anymore, now that I have a new system.
Over the last couple weeks I have been experiencing a change with the way I write. I started using a voice recorder, and Dragon dictate software to transcribe the text. The results are mixed, but they seem to get better with time and training.
I joined a couple Facebook groups where they talk about dictating with using Dragon and using voice recorders. Using the voice recorder with Dragon is a bit tricky especially if using the Mac version to transcribe your text.
The Mac version of Dragon Dictate isn't as good as the Windows version. Last time I drove across the country, I listened to a lot of podcasts. One was the Author Biz podcast that is hosted by Stephen Campbell and it had in-depth listen with Scott Baker.
Scott Baker has writing books down to a science using Dragon. It was a really eye-opening podcast for me, it made me realize that I can talk a lot faster than I can type. This has put my writing back on track. What used to be an afterthought, is now turning into a full-fledged book writing experience.
For years I wanted to write a book about all the people that I've met in the subway while I was working there. I met some pretty interesting characters as you can imagine. When I started back in 1988 I basically had the worst subway stations to work in since I was a junior guy and of course that led to the most craziest people you can ever imagine.
I'm writing a book right now which is going to be a series call “Six feet on the Brooklyn”. The book is probably going to be about 10 to 12 books long in a series from what I can see. The Beatles put out 12 albums, so I will put out 12 books. It should be a fun journey! Go like the Facebook page to keep updated.
Each book will be about 50,000 words and will probably be on a timeline from 1988 and on. I am about 15,000 words into the first book right now and the plan is that 1000-2000 words a day. So that means every six day weeks will be another book, because you have to leave time for editing. A few weeks ago I went into New York City and took some pictures of subway stations that will eventually be my book covers.
Finding the right book cover artist is hard but since I already have the pictures, and I know what I want it should be pretty easy.
It is also part of my plan for 2017 to get a little bit more diverse of when it comes to income. Writing books is just to be part of it going forward.
Another thing I've been expanding into his T-shirts using Amazon Merch. It's pretty cool to take a photo, and put it on a design and then be able to sell it on Amazon. The cool thing about this program as they do all the printing and the shipping all you have to do is make the design and make it once. I've been listening to a few podcasts, and joined a few Facebook groups on the subject.
I am also going to have a podcast in the near future. I've been putting it off too long. The problem I have is what the main focus of the podcast is going to be is going to be! Affiliate marketing, social media, writing books, Amazon merch, the list is endless. The other day I was interviewed on Shawn Collins This is affiliate marketing podcast and it really got my juices flowing and to start podcasting again.
Hootsuite Bulk Uploader Date Changer
I use Hootsuite a lot for scheduling my social media post. I have a few spreadsheets that I upload every month with 30-50 items in each and when the month changes to the next month I have to go into my Google Drive (Never use Excel with Hootsuite) and open the spreadsheet. One of the things you would think is that you can just do a simple search and replace and change the month. Normally you would think that would work but what ends up happening is the days of the week also get messed up.
Let's say I am going from July to August. I would open the spreadsheet and go EDIT > Search and Replace and change the date from 7/ to 8/. Well it works fine but it also changes the date on the 7th, 17th, and 27th of the month to the 8th, 18th, and 28th. Needless to say that if you don't fix this the spreadsheet will have errors in it when you upload it via the Hootsuite bulk upload tool because the post are not in order date anymore and the times will get messed up.
Hootsuite Bulk Uploader Solution
After months of struggling with this I finally figured out a solution. In the find and replace box add a caret (That funny thing above the 6 key on your keyboard) in the find section. Then scroll down and check off match case and search using regular expressions. You should then be able to look at your csv file and notice that the dates for the 7th, 17th, and 28th hasn't changed at all.
Save the file as a csv and you are good to go. Then make the same changes the next month. This will save you valuable time using the bulk upload tool.