The big rocks won't fit themselves in.
Lack of focus cost me millions of dollars with my website.
My blog was one of the original “money blogs” in 2005. A number of my blogging buddies and I were putting out content and running our websites for our five-to-nine.
For the rest of that decade, our sites grew. My colleagues' sites grew more, though, and a firm paid several of them very, very handsomely for their content.
Seven figures handsomely, in fact.
That wasn't my blog. If I were to add everything up, I probably would have about broken even between services I barely used and steadily declining revenue.
Trying too many ways to make money
I attribute that missed opportunity almost completely to lack of focus.
Too many side hustles and not nearly enough follow-through.
Candy machines. Screen printing. Selling back issues of magazines and whatever else on eBay.
The blog was doing well. It just wasn't shiny anymore. And my lack of caring/feeding was its decline right there.
Making mental space for Medium
Fast forward to 2024 and I'm still — still! — clearing out the distractions from my side income life.
With a goal to make $100 in one calendar month from the Medium Partner Program by August 2024, low-value activities have to go.
I had my last cash-out at one get-paid-to site earlier this month, and I've done the same at two others. No more needing to run a crappy ad-incentivized video site for pennies an hour.
I had uninstalled TikTok from my phone a couple of weeks ago.
A few days ago, I was tired and reinstalled it. Hours down the drain almost immediately.
It's uninstalled again.
I foolishly installed an idle incremental tower defense game on my phone. Cool graphics but no redeeming value, and more hours and distractions. It's gone, too.
More needs to go, though
It's a bit sad that I feel the need to keep using these low-value apps, squeeze out the last cash-out, and not leave any money “in the app.” I'll do that though because it helps me to get closure on them and let them go.
A couple of get-paid-to sites have referral income coming in, so I'll keep those accounts just active enough to not have them closed due to inactivity.
Others, though, will go. One has a couple of dozen referrals but they're inactive. I might just let it go now.
I have an app that pays me a few cents per ad and it's reliable, but it takes up time in the morning, at dinnertime, and before I go to bed to keep the money flowing. I could use that attention and sleep back. I've earned $140 total in the app, but that's over a couple of years.
I'm leaning toward not playing poker online anymore, or at least far less than I do now. The site took away most of its subsidized tournaments, so it's not as easy to play on house money anymore.
There's more mental space to reclaim, but that's something.
My hope is that removing a lot of the low-income gravel from my bucket will leave room for bigger rocks, like Medium income.
However, I acknowledge that I've picked up these habits over decades, and it will take work to turn them around.
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Header photo by Kevin Ortiz