I added a hit counter to my blog today. I wanted to get some idea about how many people were visiting my blog, so I did this as this was the easiest to do. I could not find any such stats with Blogger (you can't complain much when you get to blog for free with them.)
The counter I got was from freelogs.com and it was decent and had a template to match my blog template.
So lets see how many are actually visiting my blog, trying to figure how many are reading it will be another matter altogether.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Get A Life!
I ran across an interesting article on Fortune calledGet A Life!. It is an interesting and provocative article which sheds some light on how a few selected companies are trying to strike a balance between their top employees work and their personal lives.
It is interesting because the current norm in thinking is that you have to work 10-15 hours a day in order to prove that you are a top producer in your company. This norm is a proponent of working hard over working smart. Even if you work smart and manage to finish your tasks you will find more work on you table the next day. This in turn turns people away from working smart.
For a while I have been trying a strike a balance between my personal life and my professional life. I value my personal time as much as I value my professional time. One of the main reasons that I work is to support a quality personal time with my loved ones. Though I have achieved that target, I often it is at the expense of my professional life, because I choose to let go of some star assignments because it will cost me my personal life.
But the article speaks about a few examples where a few companies have re-designed some jobs in order to allow the employees to have a better work-life balance. I liked one quote in the article which read "Companies need to be 24/7, not the employees."
And another fact we face in Sri Lanka is the emerging super economies of the region, India and China have a work ethic of 18 hour days. And us being the tiny neighbor, we are trying to compete by overdoing them. And laments comparing our hours with that of theirs are very common. Is our approach correct? One good example is in this article itself, where it compares the work ethics of three teams in India, China and Hungary. And it boils down to the approach that each team had taken towards the work.
So the question still remains. Are we willing to do whatever it takes reach the top? What is the price that we are willing to pay? I for one, don't want to be the next Bill Gates or Jack Welch. Instead of reaching the top and drawing a 7 figure salary and missing out on my kids growing up years or sharing my life with my wife, I would rather draw a salary that will sustain my family and share those moments. But that would mean that I may miss out on some opportunities out there. But if I let my life go by, there's way that I can pull it back. I do not want to wake up one day, all alone in a big house with a swimming pool. I'd rather wake up in a humble bed, with my wife next to me, to the shouting of my kids!
It is interesting because the current norm in thinking is that you have to work 10-15 hours a day in order to prove that you are a top producer in your company. This norm is a proponent of working hard over working smart. Even if you work smart and manage to finish your tasks you will find more work on you table the next day. This in turn turns people away from working smart.
For a while I have been trying a strike a balance between my personal life and my professional life. I value my personal time as much as I value my professional time. One of the main reasons that I work is to support a quality personal time with my loved ones. Though I have achieved that target, I often it is at the expense of my professional life, because I choose to let go of some star assignments because it will cost me my personal life.
But the article speaks about a few examples where a few companies have re-designed some jobs in order to allow the employees to have a better work-life balance. I liked one quote in the article which read "Companies need to be 24/7, not the employees."
And another fact we face in Sri Lanka is the emerging super economies of the region, India and China have a work ethic of 18 hour days. And us being the tiny neighbor, we are trying to compete by overdoing them. And laments comparing our hours with that of theirs are very common. Is our approach correct? One good example is in this article itself, where it compares the work ethics of three teams in India, China and Hungary. And it boils down to the approach that each team had taken towards the work.
So the question still remains. Are we willing to do whatever it takes reach the top? What is the price that we are willing to pay? I for one, don't want to be the next Bill Gates or Jack Welch. Instead of reaching the top and drawing a 7 figure salary and missing out on my kids growing up years or sharing my life with my wife, I would rather draw a salary that will sustain my family and share those moments. But that would mean that I may miss out on some opportunities out there. But if I let my life go by, there's way that I can pull it back. I do not want to wake up one day, all alone in a big house with a swimming pool. I'd rather wake up in a humble bed, with my wife next to me, to the shouting of my kids!
Chitika eMiniMalls
After reading Steve Pavlina's blog and the post about the Million Dollar Experiment, I decided to follow some of the additional revenue generating schemes that Steve had mentioned. I followed Steve's referral link to Chitika eMiniMalls and signed up with them.
It took Chitika eMiniMalls around five days to process my application and yesterday I got a mail admitting me as a memeber. So now this blog will carry Chitika eMiniMalls ads. And hopefully this will monetize my blog bring me some revenue.
The only complication that I had with setting up Chitika eMiniMalls was that you have to define the key words beforehand. Unlike Google Adsense, it does not populate the ads by the content of the blog. So this means that the ads on Chitika eMiniMalls will always be based on the keywords that I defined earlier. I will try to do my best to tweak and tune the keywords as and when my blog entries take on different themes.
So if you are looking for a way to monetize your web site or your blog, go ahead and give Chitika eMiniMalls a try. And in doing so, please use these referral links to sign up. You wont lose anything and you will help me earn something as well.
It took Chitika eMiniMalls around five days to process my application and yesterday I got a mail admitting me as a memeber. So now this blog will carry Chitika eMiniMalls ads. And hopefully this will monetize my blog bring me some revenue.
The only complication that I had with setting up Chitika eMiniMalls was that you have to define the key words beforehand. Unlike Google Adsense, it does not populate the ads by the content of the blog. So this means that the ads on Chitika eMiniMalls will always be based on the keywords that I defined earlier. I will try to do my best to tweak and tune the keywords as and when my blog entries take on different themes.
So if you are looking for a way to monetize your web site or your blog, go ahead and give Chitika eMiniMalls a try. And in doing so, please use these referral links to sign up. You wont lose anything and you will help me earn something as well.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Million Dollar Experiment
Steve Pavlina has a very interesting blog post about using the intention-manifestation model to guide your mind to achieve a goal. In his Million Dollar Experiment, he is going to use this model to attract a million dollars to himself, by allowing himself to be guided by intuition that will be guided by his intention. And he has opened his experiment to the public, whereby others are also joining into his experiment.
This method is very similar to what Napoleon Hill is talking about in his famous book Think and Grow Rich. In his book, Hill talks about how we can guide our mind to achieve wealth. According to Hill, if you make your mind to believe that you want something bad enough, then your mind will intuitively guide you towards achieving your goals. But in order to get your mind to tap into your infinite knowledge and to intuitively give you guidance, you need to make your mind really believe, without doubt, your desire to achieve your goal. For that you need to constantly remind yourself about your goal, like every morning and before you go to sleep.
Hill's approach to me seems a little bit more focused than that of Pavlina's. I am not trying to dispute Pavlina here, I am a great fan of his writings and I learn a lot from them. But Pavlina's approach which is based on The Millionaire Course by Marc Allen, seems to be more generalized. Since I have not read Allen's book I am not going to comment on that, but I will try to compare Pavlina's thinking to that of Napoleon Hills.
In Pavlina's post he says: Presently there's nothing in my life that's already in motion that seems like it would generate $1 million or more except over the very long term. So I have no idea how this money is going to manifest, and I have no existing plan to create it. I'm just going to choose to believe that it will manifest, and I'll allow the intention to sink into my subconscious for a while and see what comes of it. But in Hills book, he tells us to find decide on a way that we intend to make the money, and to fix a time frwithinthin which we intend to do it, and then to sell that idea to our own mind. Once our own mind accepts the fact that this is a the way that I am going to make money and that I am serious about it, then the mind will tap into our infinite intelligence and intuitively guide us towards achieving our goals. This confirms my argument that Pavlina's method is more generalized than that of Hill's.
After I read Think and Grow Rich. I was very interested in his work and now I am in the middle of How to sell your way through life
For whatever is worth I am going to take part in Pavlina's public experiment: Million Dollar Experiment - Version 2.0. So I can see the practical implementation of intention-manifestation theory. As opposed to Pavlina, I am getting into it for the money, not for the experiments sake.
This method is very similar to what Napoleon Hill is talking about in his famous book Think and Grow Rich. In his book, Hill talks about how we can guide our mind to achieve wealth. According to Hill, if you make your mind to believe that you want something bad enough, then your mind will intuitively guide you towards achieving your goals. But in order to get your mind to tap into your infinite knowledge and to intuitively give you guidance, you need to make your mind really believe, without doubt, your desire to achieve your goal. For that you need to constantly remind yourself about your goal, like every morning and before you go to sleep.
Hill's approach to me seems a little bit more focused than that of Pavlina's. I am not trying to dispute Pavlina here, I am a great fan of his writings and I learn a lot from them. But Pavlina's approach which is based on The Millionaire Course by Marc Allen, seems to be more generalized. Since I have not read Allen's book I am not going to comment on that, but I will try to compare Pavlina's thinking to that of Napoleon Hills.
In Pavlina's post he says: Presently there's nothing in my life that's already in motion that seems like it would generate $1 million or more except over the very long term. So I have no idea how this money is going to manifest, and I have no existing plan to create it. I'm just going to choose to believe that it will manifest, and I'll allow the intention to sink into my subconscious for a while and see what comes of it. But in Hills book, he tells us to find decide on a way that we intend to make the money, and to fix a time frwithinthin which we intend to do it, and then to sell that idea to our own mind. Once our own mind accepts the fact that this is a the way that I am going to make money and that I am serious about it, then the mind will tap into our infinite intelligence and intuitively guide us towards achieving our goals. This confirms my argument that Pavlina's method is more generalized than that of Hill's.
After I read Think and Grow Rich. I was very interested in his work and now I am in the middle of How to sell your way through life
For whatever is worth I am going to take part in Pavlina's public experiment: Million Dollar Experiment - Version 2.0. So I can see the practical implementation of intention-manifestation theory. As opposed to Pavlina, I am getting into it for the money, not for the experiments sake.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Winning by Jack Welch
I finished reading Winning by Jack Welch today. (While I was waiting for my wife to come after work). I had been reading it for over a month now. It had far too many valuable advices to be grasped in one stretch of reading. Hence I read through the book not skipping a single part, even if some of them were not really immediately relevant to me.
Overall the book was very good. It covered the whole gamut of management, things that are usually not covered in a single book. Obviously, the man has seen it all and done it all. And most interestingly the book is filled with past experiences and real world examples and was a real insight on how the corporate operates and more importantly on how to create a winning culture in an organization.
More importantly the book enabled me look at myself and my performance from the point of view of the boss. A critical evaluation of my performance. A real eye opener that not only opened my eyes, but also gave tips and advice on winning on the job as well. Hopefully I will be able to make use of them. Also, I look forward to writing about some of the topics in the book.
Overall the book was very good. It covered the whole gamut of management, things that are usually not covered in a single book. Obviously, the man has seen it all and done it all. And most interestingly the book is filled with past experiences and real world examples and was a real insight on how the corporate operates and more importantly on how to create a winning culture in an organization.
More importantly the book enabled me look at myself and my performance from the point of view of the boss. A critical evaluation of my performance. A real eye opener that not only opened my eyes, but also gave tips and advice on winning on the job as well. Hopefully I will be able to make use of them. Also, I look forward to writing about some of the topics in the book.
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