Archive for January, 2007

Timelines for my 2007 blogging goals

January 28th, 2007

Well, since I said I’d have my timelines posted by the end of this weekend, I guess I better get to it.

  1. Complete Lorelle’s Treasure Hunt. I have 90 treasures still to find. My goal is to finish by March 31. If I find 2 treasures per day, I should be able to finish on time plus have a little breathing room for other posts—emphasis on little!
  2. Blog more consistently. This starts now. I’m aiming for 5 posts per week between this blog, my Benjamin Bratt website and my sandbox.
  3. Consolidate. I’m well on my way to meeting this goal. I’ll give it a deadline of January 31.
  4. Create my first WordPress theme. This is a Very Big Goal, at least for me. I know little to no PHP and my CSS skills are not that great. I’ve been following the theme tutorial at Urban Giraffe (I even bought the book), but I’m running into some glitches. The tutorial is based on the WP Default theme, which has several alternate page views. I could try to work with the WP Classic theme (which I actually like better). It’s simpler, in that it has fewer files to work with. And one of my favorite theme designers, Joni Mueller, uses it as her starting point. So, how about a useable theme by October 31. That way I’ll be done before the holiday rush.
  5. Find my niche. Another tough goal to set a deadline to, mostly because it’s more of a passive goal. I have a few ideas to try, so perhaps, starting in April (after the treasure hunt is done), I can test some of my ideas. For this goal, I’m giving myself until December 31. If I figure it out before then, hooray for me!
  6. Incorporate tags. I’ll aim for July 31.
  7. Social bookmarking. Actively participate by September 30.
  8. Support blog marathon participants. No set date for this one, as it depends on when a blogging marathon happens. But I’m sure there’ll be at least one before the end of the year.
  9. Write about recipes. I’m starting next week, February 4. (I need a little time to get organized.)
  10. Create a timeline for reaching my goals: Done! Yay! :-D

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My Top 10 Blogging Goals for 2007

January 26th, 2007

Lorelle’s Blogging Challenge for this week is to list your top 10 blogging goals for this year. How did she know I need to make some order out of the mess that is my online life? Anyway, thanks for the push, Lorelle! The last blogging challenge I took up was her Treasure Hunt. As you can see, I haven’t gotten very far, but I figure I can make that my first goal.  So here are my blogging goals for 2007:

  1. Complete Lorelle’s Blog Treasure Hunt. I think the reason my interest died so quickly was that I made it harder than necessary. I tried to find at least 2 articles on each subject, since one of the rules was to not repeat web sources. I wanted to have a backup with every topic in case I needed an alternate reference. What I should really do is just jump in and see where the hunt takes me.
  2. Blog more consistently. This has to do with my lack of discipline and being easily distracted. I simply need to make blogging a priority. So I’m going to aim for 5 posts per week—that’s 5 posts for all my blogs, not for each blog.  (I’m addressing my myriad of blogs in my next goal.)
  3. Consolidate! I think one of the reasons I’m so negligent is that I tried to compartmentize my blogs. I ended up with so many, and didn’t know what to do with each of them, they languished for fear that I’d organized them incorrectly. I’ve already deleted my WP.com blog and one of my “test” blogs (where I’m trying to learn WP design). The next one I need to look at is one I started at LiveJournal. (I’ll talk more about that in another post.) With only 2 exceptions (one being a separate website, and the other my “sandbox”), there’s no reason I can’t write about all of my interests here.  At least for now.
  4. Create my first complete WP theme. That’s a pretty big goal in my book, because it means I need to learn PHP and become a better designer.  I could probably break this down into smaller goals to list here (thus finishing my list without too much more effort), but I’m not really sure what those smaller goals would be.  So I’ll continue on with my list…
  5. Find my niche. I figure one of the best ways to do that is to blog consistently and see what I end up writing about the most.
  6. Incorporate tags in my posts. I’m still a little fuzzy on their purpose, since WP has categories, but I’m sure if I do some research, things will start to become clearer.
  7. Learn more about social bookmarking.  Since I don’t really understand how Del.ico.us, Digg, and other Web 2.0 sites work, anything I learn here will be an improvement.  Perhaps a more specific goal would be to participate in these blogging communities.
  8. Actively comment in at least one blogging marathon.  Since I know my health won’t allow me to blog continuously for 24 hours, I can at least help out those who are by visiting their blogs and commenting.  Who knows, maybe I’ll make some new cyber-friends.  And maybe even get a new reader or two.
  9. Chronicle my experience with recipes from various cookbooks attempts to get my life under control.  This sort of relates to goal #5, finding my niche.  But the real impetus behind it is to force me to plan my meals, shop for groceries, eat decently, and improve my health.  I have a couple of other ideas in the genre (blogging about my experience following certain “self-help” programs), but I think this is the most important, for obvious reasons.  Ok, I decided I better stick with the two good habits I started to work on last weekend: getting my bills paid on time (& my finances under control), and decreasing the piles of dirty clothes lying around.  Once I get my checkbook and laundry under control, I’ll work on the better eating habit. [Edited on Feb 1st]
  10. Create a timeline for reaching these goals.  If I don’t set some deadlines, I might put everything off until November.  And then won’t I be in a fine mess?  So, look for the deadlines to be posted sometime this weekend.  (That means by the end of Jan 28, 2007.)

Wish me (good) luck!

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New Season, New Theme

January 25th, 2007

Well, since it’s now officially winter (ok, it’s officially been winter for about a month, but it hasn’t felt like it), and it’s now cold, and we’ve had our first snow (and are anticipating our second snow this evening), I have changed my WP theme. Don’t get used to it. You know I’ll change it at some point.

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Happy New Year!

January 2nd, 2007

Ok, so I’m a day late.  What do you expect from a world class procrastinator?  As you can see, I didn’t come anywhere near to meeting my December blog goal (post every day).  That’s partly because I spent much of my time working on my Benjamin Bratt site/blog.  I did get the spam under control, but I’m still working on the site.  I’m trying to redesign the site, but, hey, it’s a blog and my PHP skills are negligible.  If you want to watch my progress, you can check out my sandbox.  But I must warn you, it isn’t pretty!

Resolutions?  Hah!  Actually, I’d like to lose one pound per week this year, and I want to start by improving my eating habits.  However, here I’m sitting at the computer rather than planning meals & shopping for groceries.

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