Quais Waseeq Dot Com

You know, Charlie, there are two kinds of thieves in this world: those who steal to enrich their lives, and those who steal to define their lives. Don’t be the latter. Makes you miss out on what’s really important in this life.

This is a quote by Donald Sutherland’s character, John Bridger, in the movie The Italian Job. I watched it last weekend on Channel 9, and this sentence stuck in my mind. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Now, he talks about thieves and stealing because that is the context of the film, but it applies to everything we do. From the simplest daily routines to the bigger and more complicated things, such as our careers, can be evaluated under this mindset. And I think we should do so regularly.

I know quite a few people who are teachers, doctors, mechanics, etc and that’s all they are. Their lives revolve around their jobs, and therefore there jobs DEFINE them. They don’t have a social life and no hobbies, their relationships are going down hill;  and they are the teacher, the doctor and the mechanic. That’s all! It might be fine for some (for as long as they don’t notice it), but the majority of us don’t want a life like that. We want to live a life that has a bit of everything in it.

Computer related activities are particularly the type of activities that draw us away from other things in life, according to my experience. The main reason for it is that we can spend hours behind a computer very comfortably, without any feelings of loneliness or boredom. It is much easier and safer to talk/chat to someone on the net than it is in person. And as per our nature, we always choose what seems safe at the time being, which may not be the best thing we could do.

So what is true in your situation? Do the things you do define your life or enrich it? I certainly hope it is the later.

Tags: Life, Lessons, Movies

Darren Rowse of Problogger.net draws our attention to a post by Raj at Performancing.com that outlines some of the solutions for those of us who have too many blogs but ‘not enough resources to run them all.’   

That is a very common issue among bloggers, especially among new bloggers such as myself. I, for one, can confess of having been in this situation. I still do have many domains waiting for me do something about them. But I have learnt my lesson. I used to have many blogs on Blogger, and for a few weeks I managed to do 3-5 posts per week/blog. But I gradually lost my interest, until I completely quit. The major discouraging factor for me was the lack of traffic. I worked really hard to keep updating my blogs, but because they didn’t get any exposure, it all seemed useless. Unlike our diaries, we want our blogs to be read by as many people as  possible. But it is very discouraging when no one visits the damn thing. The feeling is amplified when we have 4,5,6 or more blog. 

So what to do?

Focus on one blog first. You still have to go through the same phases of getting from nothingness to where you have a good level of readership and regular traffic. BUT, because you are putting all your time and energy into one blog, it will grow much faster and go through those developmental phases in a shorter period of time. This way, you also have a better shot at having a GOOD blog, rather than ten dying ones. After that…..

Leverage You Success.

That’s right. Leverage the success of your GOOD blog to launch more. At this stage, launching a second (and a third, fourth …..) blog is much more likely to become a success. First of all, you get instant visitors through your first blog, who will hopefully provide with feedback and encouraging compliments. If there are other bloggers among your regular visitors, they are very likely to review and link to your new blog, and therefore, send a portion of their traffic to you. Not to mention the value of the links in your future search engine visibility. In fact, all of this can happen before any search engine even finds your new blog, IF you are already known in the blogosphere. Secondly, from running your first blog you already have the expertise (hopefully) required to make this one a success as well. You learn a lot from running one blog for a longer period than running ten for a few weeks.

An Example

Let’s take Darren Rowse himself as an expample. He is a very well known personality in the blogging community with tens of thousands of loyal readers and many more monthly unique visitors. If he happens to launch another blog, regardless of how unrelated it is to blogging, it will get a tremendous amount of exposure. In fact, I found his photography and camera/phone review blogs through Problogger.net. But if on the other hand, I launch another blog, it won’t even get a thousandth of the exposure of Darren’s blog. Why? Because I am a nobody; no-one knows me, no-one cares about me. But Darren, well he is the Darren Rowse. He has already proven himself to produce great content, and we all know that he will do that with a new blog too, no matter what it is about.

It is the same as a well known company, like Google, creating a new product. People would try whatever new product Google develops. They are associate with quality, so whatever they introduce in the market will get a great deal of users, at least initially.

Hi and welcome to my online Crib. My name is Quais Waseeq, and I am a to-be marketing student and a casual blogger. This is where I will be rambling about things that interest me most (which might interest you too), such as technology, blogging, cars and soccer.

I have been involved in blogging since mid 2006. My blogging experience has mostly been with Blogger/Blogspot, and I hope that I have a better experience with WordPress.

I am a huge fan of the Spanish soccer club Real Madrid, and a proud supporter of the Australian Soccer Team who did a superb job in last year’s FIFA World Cup. Unfortunately, I am not much of a soccer player myself (I’m really bad, believe me).

Well, that’s something about me. I hope your enjoy your visit. Cheers.