remarkably purple spots...: A Day In My Life

November 12, 2005

A Day In My Life - Dr.Mani

Many times I've been asked how I manage to get such a lot done. I've just smiled it away, or answered (only partly) jokingly, that I simply don't sleep.

But having some spare time today, I thought I'd post a little 'daily diary' of my day yesterday, so you can see what a 'typical' day in the life of a 'heart surgeon - online marketer' is like.

Friday, 11th November.

6:30 a.m. - Check email. Reply to urgent messages. Drop by Warrior forum to quickly catch up on the day's (or night's!) happenings. Check stats on my Google Adsense account.

7:00 a.m. - Read a short special report on customer retention. Jot down notes on some great ideas to implement, in my big notebook that sits beside my iMac.

7:30 a.m. - After successfully fielding requests to help her with several things, I finally give in and go to the aid of my 7 year old who is racing the clock to get to school on time!

8:00 a.m. - It's time for my own race - to beat rush hour traffic that could turn a 20 minute drive to hospital into a 45 minute nightmare.

9:00 a.m. - Surgery. When you're fixing a serious heart problem on a 5 year old girl, there's little time to do much else except focus on the job at hand. Incidentally, this is how I've learned to focus narrowly on one thing at a time - one of the major keys of my ability to get stuff done.

1:30 p.m. - The operation ends. It went off well. With my patient settled in post-operative intensive care, in the safe hands of a colleague, I return home to continue work on my current online projects.

2:00 p.m. - I enter my room, and start scribbling notes in my book. While driving, I got the most amazing idea for a headline to use in my new sales letter - along with a fantastic 'hook' for the offer. If I don't jot it down somewhere fast, it'll fade away - probably never to return. It's happened before - and that's the reason my notebook isn't far away!

2:30 p.m. - A quick check of my email, a short break for lunch, and back to my 'scheduled' tasks - a pretty intricate database set up for my new project which has a 'strict' promotion deadline (one determined by how often Googlebot will visit my site!)

3:00 p.m. - I read Jason Potash's new report, "Big Brother Is Watching", about Google's new policy about scraped websites. There's an interesting software he's offering - for free. I spend 30 minutes downloading and installing it - TWICE. Won't work! I can't unlock it :( Frustrated after 2 attempts, I give up and email Jason about it.

3:30 p.m. - Amazing just how much gets done in half an hour of concentrated effort. The silence is pierced by a delighted shriek. My daughter is back from school and the next hour will be sheer chaos! On the spur of the moment, we decide to go out for ice-cream - a decision that's greeted with a renewed outburst of ecstasy.

4:45 p.m. - Back at my computer. Have you heard of a 'Choco-chillo'? It's coffee with chocolate ice-cream - ummm... delicious! The next hour vanishes in a blitz of adding content to my website, browsing a few threads in online forums and checking out various links and offers I got in my email.

6:00 p.m. - A short tea break gives me time to review progress and prioritize things left to do today. Top of the list is a note to my subscribers about several great ebooks and reports I've read this week... and that they'll find useful too.

6:30 p.m. - The mailing has been created and sent. This has become a snap ever since I moved all my lists to a couple of services, instead of having them scattered all over the place. I now use Aweber for a few lists, and most of them are on ThirdSphere.com where I also host a few of my sites.

6:45 p.m. - My sister calls about something, and I make a few phone calls including one to a friend I'm helping develop his real estate website. A call to the hospital confirms that all is well with today's patient. We have an on-call rotation, and I don't have to go in today. Still, it's nice to know everything is fine!

7:00 p.m. - Study time again. I open up a short report by Mike Sin called the 'Greenback Hat Manifesto'. It has some cool information. I'm glad I signed up to his new paid newsletter - and look forward to receiving this useful stuff every month.

7:30 p.m. - I go back to my new project website, and make some minor tweaks to take full advantage of the tactics I learned in 'Greenback Hat'. Then I follow Mike's instructions to the letter - and submit my link to a PR-8 site.

8:00 p.m. - Back to the time intensive work of adding content to different sections of my site. I'm working on a process to have this happen automatically, or at worst, by getting someone else to do it for me. It'll happen soon - until then, this step is mandatory.

8:45 p.m. - Made short posts to some of my different blogs on niche topics. In all, I must have around 40 blogs, each updated on a different schedule - and all pulling in some free traffic to various sections of my sites. It's one thing I enjoy doing - and the results justify the time committment.

9:00 p.m. - Relaxation and dinner. I'm cooking today, my wife is busy working on her own project and I love making pasta (especially when it's the kind that comes in a box needing boiling for 7 minutes, and you're ready to eat!)

10:00 p.m. - A quick look at my stats log shows Googlebot has been at my site while I was having dinner. And this time, it's been digging around deeper than last time. 168 pages were spidered. And that's great news. The 'Greenback Hat' report is validated. I will now follow the rest of the advice with more enthusiasm and energy. That's another lesson I've learned from Jay Abraham - the only risk you ever have to take in business is an inexpensive test!

10:15 p.m. - Dropped by the Warrior forum and notice a thread about Firesales. This is a hot topic, one that has strong passions associated - and I expect to see sparks flying soon!

10:30 p.m. - Back to the 'Greenback Hat' report - it's the flavor of the day, particularly because it got Googlebot to my new site within 24 hours! Set up two more links back to the site from high ranking pages. And with the content updates I've made, the spiders will find fresh new content when they return.

11:00 p.m. - Went back to read Yanik Silver's sales letter for his Underground Seminar, to get some pointers to help with crafting my next sales page for a membership site.

11:15 p.m. - Some more reading left. I got a review copy of Mark Joyner's latest book, "The Great Formula" - and I'm mid-way through it. Really cool stuff - I'm going to send him a testimonial soon. After finishing it, I'll read some of 'Cracking the Millionaire Code' by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen... until I'm sleepy.

To many this will seem like a crazy, hectic day. And it is - but there's not many things in it I'd change, if I have the choice (which, incidentally, I do!)

Donald Trump had it right - when you love what you do, you don't mind spending all day doing it. His Rule #2 for billionaires is: "Never take vacations".

The rationale? If you love what you're doing, why would you want to take a break from it?