66 Days to Success

[Millenial_Kid5K1]

About a week ago I was stuck in a car for 12 hours, and ended up reading Elon Musk's biography. I was really struck by his work habits when he was building his first business, Zip2. Apparently he would sleep next to his desk, and work from the time he woke up until the time he went to bed.

Now my struggle has always been laziness, so I thought: I know that dipping into the realm of 'obsession' can be the only way to get a business off the ground, so I need to try this. I also recently read The ONE Thing, which said that it takes 66 days to form a true habit. So, I made a list of basic rules to go along with the "66 days to success" program:

The program is from the time I get up on Monday until 5pm Friday(works out to about 76 hours). During these hours, I cannot:

• Play video games
• Surf the web, including Youtube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Blogs, etc.
  
• Read any book not directly related to a skill for my business
• Hang out with friends for entertainment
• Browse forums (Sorry @MJ DeMarco, but take it as a compliment that your forums are addictive)
• Waste time laying in bed in the morning after I wake up

However, I am allowing myself to:

• Clean
• Cook
• Work Out
• Other stuff that needs doing, like laundry and basic maintenance on my house.
  
• Go to weekly entrepreneur/other important meetings I really want to go to that I would miss otherwise

Obviously all business-related activities are allowed.

Weekends I can relax, or hang out with friends, watch Rick and Morty, etc. I'm a very black-and-white thinker, so this method of just completely cutting out entertainment cold turkey during certain hours plays well to my strengths.

What are my results so far? I've been doing this since about 1 pm last Monday, and in 4.5 days, this is what I've accomplished(Some of this stuff may seem trivial, but keep in mind I'm reporting a very short timescale):

1. I sent out four samples to different reviewers who are big in my niche space. Two have already said they will be giving me a positive review
   
2. Went from no understanding of google adwords to split testing different campaigns at the ad group and ad level for different keywords and phrasing.
3. Ditto for Facebook Ads; went from a level of no understanding to that of being able to split test different images on different demographics.
4. Set up a google merchants account and created a shopping ad, am expecting the best quality clicks from this once it gets approved.
   
5. Got 1 business an IRS EID, and 2 companies filed for S-corporation.
   
6. Tied together woocommerce, google analytics, and google adwords, so I can build a retargeting list for adwords, and analyze my visitor behaviors
   
7. Spent 3 hours trying to make an ad video, ended up buying a prop to make the video creation easier if I decide to go that route this week
8. Had a good email conversation with one of the reviewers, and got a good feel for what my product has to offer within my niche that nobody else is offering.
   
9. Began talks with my manufacturer about the turnaround time on a 2nd order.
10. Spent at least 6 hours learning HTML on udemy. Coming along slowly but surely.

As you can see, it was a productive 4.5 days. And while this was all going on, I was keeping my house cleaner than it's been in a while, working out twice, and cooking every meal I ate. I'm determined to keep this up for the full 66 days (Ending October 5 for me.) I can provide updates on weekends, to keep track of whether or not I'm delivering on the "to success" part of the title thread

 

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[d.weglarz13]

Oh this is great. I will be following along. What would you recommend as the best resources for learning steps 1-6.?


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