Do I plan or do I act

I am a person of planning. I love making to do lists, short and long term goals lists, step by step ways to achieve something, making budgets and calculating expenses etc… But for the last month, all that has changed. I merely keep in mind those things I must do and the rest lies in the back of my head waiting for their turn to be completed. As the days go by it’s like survival. I aim for the best and go ahead with my life. And is not that I live carelessly it is that I used to live with too much care. Actually so much that I ended up doing nothing. I used to do about 3 to 5 to do lists a week including the budget and expenses plan. Now I simply do it once or twice a month. I noticed that I became the slave of a list and restricted myself to that list all the time leaving too many things undone even when I had the list to guide me. I realized that life can’t be guided by an inflexible plan but by a flexible and capable of evolving course of action. Right now is about acting according to whatever life throws at you.. This is what is happening to me:

1. I must do something.
2. I act (do what ought to be done without much thought).
3. I move forward to the next step.

To do lists and plans should accomodate to life changes. You can cross over anything you decide not to do on the list or you can erase and put something else on that spot. But that never compares to actually doing it. From now on plans and to do lists will be to gain a perspective of where I am and where I want to be but the real drivig force will be action.

7 months of change

It took me 7 months to post here once again , but don’t think I have nothing to say to you. On the contrary I have a few things I would like to share. These are the highlights:

• A change no matter what causes it or when it happens brings good and positive things. And that is due to a change in setting.
• The comfort zone is not as good as it seems.
• You are never ready except when you actually act. If we wait
for the perfect moment it might never come. What we need
is the perfect desire and the perfect action.
• Experience (as I have said in previous posts) is still the #1 teacher.
We should never forget or take for granted any of our life
experiences.
• Desire moves us, comfort makes us stagnate.

I learned all of this by moving from my comfort zone (my mom’s house) to my own apartment. Even though I knew I could do it I kept on procastinating. WRONG. It only delayed me and my posibilities in life. I have more responsibilities but also more freedom and flexibilities. And also more goals to achieve. All this makes my life more exciting at the same time. So when you feel uneasy don’t wait for the perfect conditions or the perfect moment a change of scenario might be what you need and everything else will accomodate.

Build a Readership by Being an Interactive Blogger

Image via Wikipedia

We are all bloggers here and we want to share our thoughts, experiences, funny events anything that comes to our minds. We are usually told to build a readership by creating good content, offering value to our readers, learning to drive traffic to our site and so on to promote our blog but I think that us here at wordpress are not doing a few things that could get us closer to one another’s blog and atract some readers. We need to be supportive to each other and do a few things to make our blogs more enjoyable and interesting and this are a few ways to do it:

1. Like a post: we are not experts at blogging and I have said this many times but if you read a post that’s interesting, funny and you simply like it don’t be afraid of being the first one to click.
2. Subscribe: Don’t think you’ll get hundreds of emails by doing this so don’t be afraid to do it. Most of us post once or twice a week so I think subscribing to at least 5 blogs to start ( if you realy like the blog) is fine. Scan other people’s blog and if you find it worthy of subscribing then do.
3. Make good comments: If you do this people reading them may feel interested in you and will visit your blog. If they comment in any of your posts you can check their blog too and see what are they writing about.
4. Make a “contact me” page: This is good to let your readers know that they can get closer to you by email, twitter, facebook, messenger or any other social media.
5. Let others see you: The idea of putting a picture of me was kind of scary at first but then as I visited other people’s blog I saw that those who had real pictures of them ( wether it was really them or not) got my attention more than those who had an avatar or nothing at all. So pick up a nice picture of you. Believe me it won’t hurt.

These are just a few tips to start being interactive in the wordpress community or in any blog you visit. Do you have any others?

Making Time

This past week has been a busy one filled with work overload (at college) and stress at work too. I have been struggling to get things done on a schedule specially since I’m in final exams. Things have turned out pretty well but while on the process I noticed that I was lacking time. Specially to cover the study material for my exams. That’s when I reasoned about time and told myself: well, I can’ slow time, stop it or even reverse it. And I certainly can’t create time but I could make time. How? Making a few adjustments. So this is what I did:

1. First I needed some quiet time to put my thoughts in order and decide how to make time. So I listened to music while relaxing.

2. Then I paused blogging so that I could finish what was at hand first but never giving up on ideas to blog about. ( Blogging and learning about blogging can be really time consuming :p).

3. I started to go to bed early so that I could wake up earlier and be more productive ( I tend to be productive after a good rest early in the mornings).

4. I did what I had to do when I had to do it, to minimize the acumulation of work.

5. I rewadrded myself after completing the tasks, not before.

Now I can relax and go back to my normal rithm. So what do you do when you lack time and feel like everything is accumulating and you won’t be able to finish it properly and on time?

Here are two links to posts related to this subject. They offer good tips on how to manage and organize your time:

• How To Find Enough Time To Do Everything You Want
• How To Make Time For Your Personal Goals

To Blog Or Not To Blog

Why would you want to blog? Because you have something to say. Everybody’s got something to say and it’s ok to share it. You might say “but who is going to read it or even see my blog?” Let me tell you that I’m still learning the mysterious ways of the web but believe me people find you and read you. I started this blog on July 22, 2010 and my first post came out on July 25th 2010. Since then up till today (August 14, 2010) this blog has been seen 318 times. Not much right; but considering that if I hadn’t started this blog that number would have been zero I feel pretty happy and proud of myself . Ranking, comments and the number of likes on my blog or posts is irrelevant for me at this time. It’s something that all bloggers want but for now, as long as I see my number of visits raising (even if it is by 2) I feel the satisfaction that someone somewhere read a few words of something I wrote.

So… to blog or not to blog? Well blog of course! Write about anything you like. Believe me, someone out there will read you. You do have to be clear about a few things: is it just for fun?, for sharing your likes and interests with people interested on the same things as you are? Or do you have another plan? For example I blog because I want to share my thoughts, ideas and my knowledge on certain topics and because I like writing. But I’m also learning all there is to learn about blogging because I want to have my own domain. That’s why I call this my experimental blog. I’m hoping this blog will help me identify the main topic or topics of my future .com blog.

Now going back to the blogging issue.. yes! Blog. Here are a few random topics I thought of that you could write about:

Common topics

1. Music – you can write about your favorite music, artist, musical instruments, new sounds or musical integrations.
2. Books – you can write about the books you are reading or have read and post a quick review or summary.
3. Writing –  writing styles, methods, history or evolution of writing, writing in other cultures.
4. Personal – you can make kind of a diary and share your  life experiences.
5. Religion – write about your faith, beliefs, revelations, religious life.

Not so common topics:

1. Pens and Pencils – I would love to see a blog talking about kinds of pens and pencils that exist in the world, prices, manufacture, quality of ink for the pens or wood for the pencils.
2. Numbers – their meaning, symbolism, interpretation of them, the importance of numbers around the world, uses.
3. Paper – kinds of paper, uses, quality, production.
4. Weird pictures – if you like taking pictures fill your blog with interesting pictures and write about them. For example I always take pictures on my phone when I find them interesting or they give me an idea to write. Some of them I use for my posts.

As you can see there are many things you can blog about. There is no limit to it! All you need is the desire to say something, passion to share and transmit your thoughts and an open mind combined with a good imagination to keep posts and ideas coming. There is always something to write about. I’ts not about the topic its about the way you present it.

Should you blog? That’s a big YES!!!