JoeBailey.ORG

Yes, times are tight, if you want to save money on your website, you can do it. Psst… This is information from inside the web programmer world.

1. Transfer your domain name to a cheaper location – Some companies charge you up to $50 each year for a domain name. Don’t forget, you can get a domain name for under $10. Potential savings: $40 a year

2. Change hosting companies – Hosting can also be cheaper. If you are using what is called “shared hosting” you can definitely get cheaper hosting. Most small businesses in the world use shared hosting. Dependent on what you need, you can find hosting for less than $5 a month. Potential savings: $20+ per month

3. Hire a different web company or firm. Rates can get pretty high. For example, the people that hire me, typically charge their clients at a rate of $125-$200 per hour. I’m not billing them that rate.

4. SEO – How much are you paying for your SEO?.. and is it working. Remember, don’t hesitate to make a decision and move on.

5. Are you paying for other services for your website? If so, chances are, you may not need these items. Today, a lot of things can be done for free or may be unnecessary.

6. Submit articles, products, etc to Google Base. Yes, you can add your information DIRECTLY into Google. Why try to get into Google, just do it.

7. Turn on Spam filtering or get it. Chances are you spend a certain amount of time each day deleting spam. This time could be spent on running your business. If you have a contact form on your website, don’t forget to add some way to ensure an actual person is filling out your contact form ( captcha ) This eliminates unwanted emails from your website.

8. Use email marketing. Yes, I know there is a lot of spam out there, but people still look at their emails. When you sign up for email software, it should be less than $10 unless you are sending more than the average number of emails. Potential savings: $5+ per month

9. Pay attention to how your advertising online, where your spending money online, and what is successful. I stick with the 80/20 rule. Keep duplicating and enhancing that top 20% of your online ads. Remove the bottom 80%. Continue doing this until your satisfied with the results.

10. Last but not least. Always trust the people you work with. If your gut tells you something is not right about a project, quote, or cost, move on. Web costs can be expensive and can add up fast. Also, choose the right individuals to do the work. Keep in mind, in our world there is NOT 1 person that can do everything extremely well. There are typically 2 general categories of web people, those that can make your site look good and those that can make your site run.

If you would like to save some costs on domain names, hosting, etc, please visit www.joeswebshack.com

If you would like some help with some programming on your site, please contact me here through the site.

Ok, we’re all taking trips this year, it could be for summer break, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, whatever… Now, that gas is a major issue, how can you save money on the road? Well, there are now ways to find out where the gas prices are the best while you’re on the road. Granted, technology is changing so it will take a little work.

First things first, you must be comfortable with maps. Second, get your directions. Once you have directions, follow the instructions below and you’ll see where you should stop and fill up your gas tank.

• Go to www.gasbuddy.com
• In the top navigation, go to “Map Gas Prices”
• Type in your zip code and press the “Go” button.
• Now that you see a map of gas prices in your area, simply move the map along your route to see the gas prices.

What we found?
We’re going to avoid filling up in some states, therefore, we’re filling up before we enter the state and once we leave.
Some cities have better gas prices either entering or leaving the city.

Ok, let’s cut to the chase. We’re all looking to save money right now because gas prices are getting so high. Here are a few tips:
1. Dump the trunk: Empty out any unnecessary things from your trunk and the car.
2. Who’s driving what? If you have two cars, determine if you need to switch cars on certain occasions to save money on gas.
3. Join a club. We’ve joined a Costco that has a gas station. Prices are always cheaper there. Time your routine to pass by there and get gas cheaper.
4. Do you really have to drive? Make a mental list of those places you drive. Do you really have to drive there? Or, can you combine trips. One big thing we found saved us time and money were services such as Netflix and Concierge-To-Go. Netflix, of course will send you your movies through the mail. We’ve saved a ton of time and money using this service. Concierge-To-Go is a dry cleaning to your door service. The dry cleaning prices are the same and we save at least 30 minutes of time per week without having to go and pick up the dry cleaning.
5. Drive in the slow lane. Yes, it’s a pain. But, by driving slower in these lanes, it saves money on gas and is less stressful. You will also use the accelerator and brakes less often.
6. Monitor your gas mileage. Some car display systems tell you the used miles per gallon. Keep this information in the display at all times. Getting more miles per gallon becomes a game after a while.
7. Pick a different time to drive into work. Sometimes changing your work schedule can save you both time and money.
8. As always, carpool or use public transportation if you can.
9. Keep your car in tip top shape. Make sure your tires have the correct pressure and all maintenance has been done.
10. Use online tools such as gasbuddy.com to find the most cost effective gas.

Above all, when travelling this summer, don’t get caught paying too much. Some states charge more for gas than others. For example, we’ve found that North Carolina charges more for gas than South Carolina and Virginia, so we always fill up before or leaving the state.

Yes, we’ve all heard the 80/20 rule. In this case, we’ll approach email. The approach, only check email at 11AM and 4PM. Results, I’ve saved a ton of time. Granted, it’s extremely hard to do, it’s like an addiction. Here are some tips on how to save time with your email:

• Set an auto-reminder letting people know you only respond at certain times. If they really need to reach you, have them call. Chances are they won’t call.
• Delete all spam and miscellaneous emails without even looking at them.
• Clean your inbox every time you go in there. This eliminates the excuse to go into your email and check a task… then checking for new emails.
• If you have a task based on an email, put that task in your to do list categorized by the Covey Quadrant. Chances are the task from that email is not important an can be handled at another time.
• Turn off the bell for Outlook, or close Outlook until the right times.
• Hide the BlackBerry. Just keeping it in front of me was still too tempting. Put it in the desk drawer and out of site.
• Calculate the amount of time you save. I guarantee you’ll save at least an hour.

As a consultant I often find it a hassle to carry around my laptop. Not only did it add extra time and baggage to every trip, it also added risk. For example, when working out in the gym, I was concerned someone would take it, or it would get wet in the rain. After a lot of thought… but a lot of delay, I looked into a way to keep my laptop at home when I could work on someone else’s computer or while on vacation.

After some online checking, I found most companies would charge for this service. Then I found LogMeIn which is FREE if you do not use all of the functions. Granted, when I say not all functions, you can’t copy back and forth easily. But, I’m able to log onto my computer, check and send email, write documents, etc. I’ve been using it for over a year. Not bad.

www.logmein.com

At least once a week for the past couple of months, I’ll work while listening to one of 2 Randy Pausch lectures found on his home page found here: http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/. Also, for those of you who have not heard of Randy Pausch, he’s a professor diagnosed with cancer and these speeches are messages to his family and children on how to live life. If you have an hour, it is well worth your time… What would you do if you knew your days were numbered? Would you sit around and watch tv? Guess what, all of our days our numbered.

Anyway, getting back on topic…

One phrase stuck with me I didn’t catch the first time. He mentioned making phone calls while riding his bike for an hour would not take away from his family time. All of a sudden it dawned on me, he was accomplishing two things at once. Ok, it sounds obvious. But, as a father, I try to stay in shape, but in order to do so, I’ve been away from the family while working out, and not accomplishing anything else at the same time. For weeks now, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to spend time with family and work out, AND accomplish something else at the same time. Let’s face it, when working out (I love running) you don’t accomplish anything else.

After time, I figured out a way to do both. My solution was to give the kids a bath and have a circuit training workout while they played in the bath.

Here are some ideas to consider when trying to maximize your workout time:

• Give your kids a bath and workout while they play
• Listen to some educational audio while you lift, run, etc.
• Make phone calls while working out. This may be best on a bike or running since it allows for working out for extended amount of time. If you were lifting weights or doing a circuit workout, it may ruin your workout.
• Run while your kids ride their bike with you.
• Just walk with your family.
• Work in the yard with your family. It’s amazing how much kids love working and helping out. Learning with the attention is a huge accomplishment.
• Let your kids workout with you!

If you have some ideas to share, please do so!

It’s been 3 days since I stopped watching television, well almost. I found myself sneaking down after working at night for about an hour’s worth of tv. It satisfied my cravings, and I’ve found that it’s actually pretty easy. Overall though, I’m saving a ton of time and accomplishing a lot. Each night I watch less and less tv.

Tips:

• Reward yourself by working at night. Have a beer, do something fun while working, realize what you’ve accomplished
• Look at your tasks and realize how quickly they’re going away
• Realize that because you’re working, you’re eliminating stress that would otherwise occur when you did something the last minute
• Notice that the tasks you accomplish while watching tv go quicker than you thought.

If you want some inspiration, read a couple of these definitions. They tend to sound a little familiar.

• Procrastination – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination – Find some reasons behind procrastination.
• Time management- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management – Is it really time management that’s lacking or is it also task management?
• Parkinson’s Law – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_law – Managing tasks may eliminate the ability to always have more work. Something that dawned on me was that I will always have tasks, might as well tackle them now and have fresh tasks than worry about the ones I have.

  Best!
  

After finding out how much television I was watching (10-15 hours a week), I had to break the habit. Even though I knew it was a bad habit, I would fight it every night. I found myself struggling with the idea of relaxing to tv or working. Working again after a full day just didn’t sound like fun. In addition to watching tv, I picked up the habit of snacking on foods. So, this was a double edged habit. Once I broke the tv habit, the snacking habit disappeared as well. Not sure how much weight I’ll lose because of it.

How did I break the habit? Well, I had to distance myself from the tv. I chose a room in the house without a television and created a mini office. This is day 2 in my “man pit,” and I must say, I’m starting to enjoy it. It’s perfectly quiet and I have nothing else to do in this room but work. So, I found tv abstinence to be the best policy.

Other techniques I’ve heard of, good and bad:
-Put the tv’s away. This I found almost impossible with a family. A lot of push back there.
-Turn the tv’s off and read a book. This was actually actually a lot easier than I thought. Now, the kids like to sit down and read a book.
-Fake that the cable is out. I tried this, it doesn’t go over well with the family. I ended up becoming the roadblock or issue in fixing the tv.

Best

The average person watches 20-26 hours of tv a week. It’s a staggering number. So, avoid television. If you would spend just half of that time working on something else you would be that much further along in your goals.

So, if you live to were to do this for 40 years, you would have spent 4.8 years watching television. Imagine taking back 4.8 years of your life. What would you have accomplished or done?

Does this sound familiar? You are sitting at your desk working, you have an idea, you research it on the internet. Wow, you think, I found some great information, this gives me another idea. Since this is such a good idea, you think…. I’ll research this other idea and then, before you know it, 30 minutes have passed. Geez, in 30 minutes, I could have finished my work. Well, it happens to all of us. I call this Business ADD.

So, how do you solve business ADD, well the good thing is, you don’t need to see the doctor. An excellent solution to solve this is to do one thing, write it or type it. Since your idea is a great, you don’t want to forget it. So, track it. Personally, my solution involves using Franklin Covey’s time management quadrant and Outlook.

Here’s how it works. Open up Outlook Tasks. Every time you get a great idea or thought, type it into your task list, and get back to work. Set a time of day, let’s say before lunch or before you go home, take a look at the list. Next, go through the list one at a time, if you still think the task is worthwhile, keep it, otherwise delete it. By just doing that, you’ll save yourself at least 30 minutes a day.

Now, if you are getting advanced, there’s another trick. Using Outlook Tasks, create a category for eac of Covey’s 4 quadrants (Important|Urgent, Important|Not Urgent, Not Important|Urgent, Not Important, Not Urgent). Next time you go through your list of tasks, place the task into one of these categories. Now, sort your tasks on category and take a look. You will be amazed at what ideas/tasks are not important at all. Try this for a day, you’ll notice the difference in how much you can accomplish if you stick to the important items.