This year I’m going to do the same. My theme is focus.

There are just too many distractions in my life. Email, blogs to read, comments to respond to, Twitter links to click, text messages, phone calls, and oh yeah, the dog wants to go out. Yikes! Talk about a lot of stuff pulling my concentration away from my work!

So there are some new rules to begin a new year.

• Email, we’ve got to see less of each other. I’m taking you off my Blackberry so you won’t be always there blinking at me, and I will not have my gmail account open at all times like I have in the past, anxious to jump every time I see a new message arrive. I’ve even installed a new plug-in to help me plow through the email accumulation when I do open it, Active Inbox.
• Twitter, I love you, but we need to put some distance between us. It’s not you, it’s me. Really. I need some space. I’ll still check in several times a day, but no longer will TweetDeck be running constantly in the background. It’s just too tempting.
• Firefox, I thought tabbed browsing was a work of genius, but now I wish you’d never invented it. Just now I had 14 tabs open, and I hadn’t finished reading even one of them. In fact, I’m not even sure why I opened some of them or where I found the link to click on. Frankly, I blame Twitter, but don’t tell her I said that.
• Skype, I don’t know what ever possessed me to allow you to start up every time I turn on my computer. I don’t even like you that much. From now on, you’ll be on at my convenience, not yours.
• iPod, you’ll always be my first love, but I have to face the fact that I can’t write and listen at the same time. Something has to give, and I’m afraid it’s you.

What about you? How do you keep distractions to a minimum so you can get some work done?

Get more great self-employment tips by visiting Cindy Bidar.

Get more great self-employment tips by visiting Cindy Bidar.

Get more great self-employment tips by visiting Cindy Bidar.

As sad as that is, what I found even more startling is that I am in the exact same place I was eight years ago. Same office, same job, working for the same company.

Now I’m not complaining about that. I am truly grateful to have a job, and I am thrilled to have a job working for a company I can respect, and that respects and appreciates me. So I’m not exactly bloodying my fingers trying to claw my way out of my cubicle.

But that doesn’t mean I want to remain sedentary, either.

So, yeah. One more reminder that it’s time to step up my efforts and move forward rather than just stand still.

What are you doing to move forward in your business?

Get more great self-employment tips by visiting Cindy Bidar.

Photo by William Warby

Ooh, the first post! So much pressure to say just the right thing, be just witty enough without turning off my hoards of potential readers who are just dying to click my feed button.

The truth of it is, no one reads the first post on a blog. Or the second. Or the tenth. Except maybe your mom, and since my mom’s been gone a few years, probably not even her.

There. Pressure’s off. Now I can say whatever the hell I want, right?

Well, here it is in a nutshell. I don’t know why I think I need another blog. It’s not like I don’t have enough to do already, trying to juggle a full time job with a full time Internet startup where I’m floundering around struggling to find my focus. So if you are reading this, don’t expect to get daily updates or anything. Weekly, at best, and maybe not even that. I’m making no promises here.

What I will promise is to make this blog some sort of record of my adventures in Internet marketing, blogging, and doing business online. If that’s your thing, I hope you come back.

Get more great self-employment tips by visiting Cindy Bidar.