Erik’s Blog: Board Shorts and Business Suits

January 2006 was a hectic month. I didn’t add any goals to my list last month but I progressed on the ones I had. I have been trying to learn some time management skills before I go insane but the process has been slow going. Thanks for all those that have been regularly returning to my pages. I hope to increase the quality and helpfulness of my content through more in-depth posts. I have been spending a lot of time searching blogs and sites for ways to increase exposure of a blog and feel as though I need to stick to a few really good blogs and leave it at that. With a full time job it’s hard to keep up on too many blogs.

The month overall I would say was a success but I need to stay focused on my goals. I will talk more about this in a later post but I need to eliminate wasteful tasks that make productivity halt. There are things that I know we can all eliminate and hopefully I will have some words of wisdom in February that can keep you on the right track to accomplishing your goals.

Now on to how the last month went…

JANUARY RECAP

WebStats
erikvossman.com

1518 Unique Visitors
4091 pageviews
19 people have syndicated through feedburner stats

I average about 24 hits from search engines and my page was selected as honorable mention from success begins today as new blog interface. I decided to take off monetization of this site until I build more traffic. My goal is to get 5,000 Unique Visitors a month before I think about monetizing again. I am working towards some articles more directed at becoming better at what you do but as I have stated in the past I am working towards that myself.

Aloha Update my blog and site about Hawaii had a few issues early on in the month after it was launched in late December. I took advertising off of it after a trial period in hopes to attract more repeat visitors. However, I seem to be having some trouble getting the site indexed with Google so I will continue to work on that. I also added a blog to front page which I think helps it out as a legitimate regularly updated travel site.

In an effort to get 12 sites in 12 months I have been developing another user interactive site that is nearing completion. This means that I will need to put out two sites in February to stay on track but feel as though it should be possible considering the current one is almost done. I will keep you posted when it is launched and my guess is at least one of you who regularly read this with have something to say on that site.

Athletic Endeavors

Running - After taking time off around the holidays I have kept up over the past 4 weeks with running at least 3 times a week for more than 3 miles. It has been going OK with some tiring of my legs. I plan to keep this level of mileage for the next month so as to not burn myself out so early on in my battle to reach the four minute mile.

Golfing - In my quest to become a scratch golfer I have been making in my humble opinion, some decent progress. The last 4 times I have been out I shot 90, 90, 94, and 88. These scores are again taking no mulligans. What I am most excited about is that I have begin to realize that even if you duff a shot the hole usually allows you to save bogey and sometimes reach par. This was a big part of my golf game that was missing, seeing that even the bad shots can set you up nicely. This month I was able to get out 3 times on a course and 1-2 times on the driving range. I want to continue this routine if my budget will allow it. Golf is a pricey sport. Maybe more times in the park chipping would serve me well.

Tennis - I have to thank my girlfriend for the patience to help my tennis game. She is the only person I play with and she got a full ride to college playing tennis at Michigan so you could imagine that I might bore her. I am working towards a 1 handed back hand and found a lot of frustration with it last month. I tend to get out about once a week but hope to improve that to 2 times a week in the month of February.

Become a Millionaire

In January I erased my credit card debt which was a huge relief. I hope to keep it that way but I have fallen a little behind on my bills. I am going to spend the evening playing catch up and hopefully will make a big dent in my backlog.

Work

As stated I have a fulltime job that keeps me very busy. I could be spending more time at work which I think is going to happen over the coming months. I am learning a lot about time managment and peopel managment in general. Being a startup with very few employees we are all busting our humps to keep at it. Which reminds me, lunch is almost over I should wrap this up.

OUTLOOK FOR FEBRUARY

My hopes for February are to mainly increase traffic to Aloha Update and erikvossman.com. Mainly the first because I would like to monetize that site. I also want to launch 2 more sites and really work on quality content that my readers here at erikvossman.com want to read.

In terms of athletic goals I am thinking of adding another one to the mix that would be more of a week to week goal that I would have to keep up on regularly. I have been playing with it as of late and think it is do-able. As mentioned I want to keep running the same distance and times as well as playing tennis 1-2 times a week. With my golf swing I have gotten back with my form and am focused on bringing consistency to my back swing.

Another big part I have learned is to be well organized. Both at work and at home I am not that organized at all. I am searching for a system that will work for me because I feel my productivity levels will rise while lowering how much I am stressed out. We are coming into a busy time at work and I need to be fully capable of keep track of everything we are trying to accomplish as we move the company forward. This I see as the biggest priority as well as the biggest challenge. As I find things that help me I will be sure to relay them here.

Thanks for tuning in
Erik