This document provides guidance on organizing one's work through establishing goals, planning projects, and creating to-do lists. It recommends developing both long-term programs spanning months and shorter-term weekly and daily to-do lists to stay on track. Key aspects include evaluating progress regularly, documenting plans and notes in a binder system, and focusing efforts on the immediate tasks that move projects and programs forward step-by-step over time. The approach is meant to help freelancers and individuals get work done efficiently through organized goal-setting and planning.
3. Table of Contents
Online Sunshine Plan ....................................................................
0. Introduction...........................................................................1
How to get the most out of this book ......................................6
How this book is set up ...........................................................9
I. Purpose/Passion - what drives you, what makes you
really happy? ..........................................................................12
Articles: ..................................................................................16
II. Business Basics ................................................................48
Articles: ..................................................................................54
III. Market Research .............................................................115
What is marketing? What is a market? ................................115
How to research for your community-market ....................118
Keywords, their care and feeding: Niches...........................122
Keywords, Their Care and Feeding: Finding Them ............127
A possible approach to keyword research ...........................131
The short version of keyword research - 9 steps: ...............135
The convention analogy .......................................................136
How search engines used to work .......................................139
Where to look for your keyword research - Part I - Basics . 141
Where to look for your keyword research - Part 2 - The Real
World ....................................................................................144
Where's the money? I'm from Missouri - show me.............146
Finding and Building Your Community..............................150
Learning from the Experts in your Niche.............................151
Finding your way out of this wet paper bag ........................153
Articles: .................................................................................155
IV. Your Sales Funnel - ........................................................179
Lining up your chickens .......................................................179
Collecting up your eggs into baskets. ..................................182
That narrow end of the funnel isn't, really. ........................184
Copywriting - how to talk your walk ...................................187
Articles: ................................................................................193
V. Search Engine Optimization ...........................................212
Why do people think search engines are important? .........212
Search Engine Myths ...........................................................214
Strategies old and new .........................................................216
4. Names to follow and why .....................................................221
Recommended Products ......................................................221
Articles: ................................................................................222
VI. Promotion .......................................................................242
Networking and Promotion ................................................242
Social Media Defined...........................................................244
The care and feeding of social media ..................................247
There is no ROI in Social Media Marketing .......................250
So how do you convert viewers to clients through Social
Media? ..................................................................................252
Now for the Social Media All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet ............254
Write once, publish many ways, many formats .................260
Addtional Online Promotion ..............................................263
Offline and Classic Promotion ............................................266
Articles .................................................................................267
VII. Summary ........................................................................310
5. The Online Sunshine Plan
How and why you have to organize to get anything done.
Suddenly hit me when I was all sour about the stuff I had to get done
compared to what I wanted to get done.
It wasn't some mystic/spiritual attitude adjustment I needed to do, but
rather simply following my own advice.
For many years, within that corporation I was part of for so long, I was very
(VERY) good at consulting and counseling. But the key thing I kept dealing
with in other peoples' lives was their lack of organizing. And that
corporation had some definite instructions about how to organize, and as an
internal consultant, I had narrowed down those instructions to just a few
issues. And applied them myself to my own overloaded/undermanned scene
so that I lived a fairly comfortable existence (within their pretty bizarre
corporate structure).
The problem is that I threw out everything I had been following when I left
that corporate structure, figuring that if and when I needed some data that
was actually vital, I'd simply be able to pull it back up again and start
applying it. Meanwhile, I was going to go out on my own and see what the
rest of the world (did I mention this was a corporate cult?) had to say about
how to get things done.
All these books I'd been studying and serendipitously discovering - they all
kept saying the same things:
• Concentrate on your goal
• Discover your own purpose
• Develop a "burning desire" and devote all your energies toward that
end.
• Plan your work, work your plan.
And as I meandered around, I saw that the more I didn't apply those few
datums, the more I kept having to do something else for someone else.
Unhappiness continued to surface.
33
6. Dr. Robert C. Worstell
Looking back to times where I was getting things done, showed that
(regardless of the corporate mess I had gotten myself into) - there were
times when I was actually getting things done and making some progress, at
least toward their goals if not my own.
The conflict between their goals and mine finally reached a peak and I left.
Now I just had my own goals to discover, sharpen, and achieve.
At this particular point (today), I find that I now know all I actually have to
know to make a success online (which is the cheapest and most recession-
proof of getting things accomplished.
So why aren't I rich already?
Because I'm not following my own advice.
Here's the advice I use to set out for others:
1. Figure out what you actually should be doing, producing, or
presenting.
2. Figure out what your ideal scene or situation should be.
3. Work your production sequence out backwards from your final
product to where you start. Include all the sub-products you need to
create along the lines.
4. List all the hats/jobs that need to be done to get your production
actually done.
5. Work out a schedule in sequence so you can get these all done. This
will be daily/weekly/monthly - as not all jobs have to be done every
day or every week.
6. Write a plan for yourself to get this organization in.
Now, here's the basic policy we used to use in that corporation - which really
has quite a reputation for getting things done (even if what they were doing
was a bit "tetched" at times):
34
7. The Online Sunshine Plan
1. Evaluate your scene based on the ideal you want to achieve. Find the
key point that, if handled, keeps you from achieving that ideal scene.
2. Write a program which will move you from where you are to where
you want to be - within the existing resources you now have.
3. Now, write a weekly To-Do list which starts getting that program
done - includes everything you really need to get done this week.
4. Every day, write a daily To-Do list which gets that weekly list done.
5. At the end of the week, review your progress, as well as production
metrics, to see if you are getting closer or further away from that
ideal scene. Also look to see what steps on your To-Do from the
week before actually got done - which means what steps of that
program got done.
6. Write a new weekly To-Do for the new week, which has steps to
correct anything which moved you into the wrong direction and
actually gets your programmed production done.
7. When that program is done, or close to done, evaluate your current
scene against the ideal you want to achieve and find what key steps
you need to take to move you forward again.
8. Then, start writing you weekly and daily To-Do's again to get this
done.
Organization by folders
As well, there was a physical organization that went along with it.
They had corporate administrators which oversaw production. And they
reviewed and handled production for several different areas and had to keep
things straight. So they used folders for each area they had to handle. I used
a version of this personally.
In that folder:
1. Inside left cover: current evaluation write-up with program on top.
Stapled in or under a binder-clip.
35
8. Dr. Robert C. Worstell
2. Weekly To-Do on top of that, under a paperclip.
3. Right inside cover: Daily To-Do's. A copy of the metrics were kept
just below the DTDs - this was on graph paper, ran on usually a
quarterly basis (at least 12 weeks) and was updated by hand. A new
daily To-Do was made out every day and put on top of the old one
(usually paper-clipped together by the week.)
4. At end of week, these were collected and stapled together with the
Weekly To-Do on top.
5. Analysis of last week's progress was in a short paragraph at the top
of the next week's To-Do.
6. Program was updated with all the steps marked off as done.
7. New weekly To-Do was then slipped under the paperclip on the
inside cover and the first daily To-Do was written and placed on top
of everything else on the right side.
Using a clipboard for mobile organization
Now, I used to keep all this on a clipboard if I had to move around a
production line - and then clean out that clipboard weekly and filed it in
that folder. This is so you can track several different production areas.
On the clipboard:
• Bottom - program with current steps you're working on on top.
• Next up - the weekly To-Do
• Next - A grid for the week of all the key metrics you were tracking.
These were set up so that you set production goals for the week on
every metric and then broke them down into what needed to be
accomplished that day. For five days, if you had a 200 widget goal,
you'd have 40 widgets being produced each day. And you kept this
marked every day, finding out from that area what they had
accomplished the day before. So you knew if something was not on
quota and could concentrate on figuring out how to debug that area.
I also marked in last week's production by days, so I could see if I
36
9. The Online Sunshine Plan
was ahead or behind in what I needed to produce.
• Above that, your daily To-Do with the steps you needed to take to
get that production and accomplish that program.
Daily, I'd write that day's To-Do against the metrics and the weekly To-Do.
Then follow that daily To-Do. Best was to write it out first thing in the am.
At the end of the week, the clipboard was cleaned out, a new metric-grid
printed off and filled in with the week-before's production and quotas for
this coming week. New Weekly To-Do, new daily To-Do.
Use 3-ring binders for an individual online freelancer
Now - to apply this to your own daily scene, and to adapt it for the
individual freelancer - we would make some changes.
1. Keep everything in a 3-ring binder, punching holes in your papers
to keep everything in.
2. Inside left - your program, with weekly To-Do on top of that.
3. Inside right - daily To-Do. Grid of your metrics below that - week to
week for online business.
4. Assemble your daily To-Do's with your Weekly To-Do and put these
all in sequence, maybe clipped together by each week for the last few
weeks - whatever works and doesn't get in your way. You need to be
able to quickly see what you'd done in earlier weeks for your
analysis.
But where you get other data, like nifty print-outs of stuff online - or
production notes - or brainstorming -- put these into the back of that binder
(behind a divider) or into a separate binder. Date these, but organize by
type and use - so you can find what you need again. Use post-it's as tabs is
one idea, particularly colored ones. With two binders, one is straight, hard-
core production. The other is bright ideas and stuff to do to improve your
scene. This latter one will be used when you write your new program.
Writing Programs
Essentially, you are doing weekly and quarterly production analyses. You'll
also do fuller analysis when your program finishes. Your To-Do's are mini
and micro versions of your program, designed for that time period
37
10. Dr. Robert C. Worstell
immediately ahead of you. The program should be designed to last about 3
months, but can last as long as it takes.
Now, this doesn't mean you can't update your analysis and program as
needed - particularly if it looks like a program is bugged and will need
special handling to get it back on the rails.
If you aren't doing a major re-write, just a debug - then simply put this
debug program on top of the other program and orient your To-Do's toward
getting this debug program done first and then get back to your original
program. Retire the debug program behind the original program when it's
complete.
Once a program is fully complete - or replaced by a new program, retire the
program with all it's To-Do's into a records binder. And when that records
binder gets too full, empty it into a labeled file folder and put that into a file
cabinet or banker's box so you can refer to it if you ever need to again. (And
keep these for five years or so, then chuck. Five years is an eon in Internet
time.) You'll have something like four folders a year (one for each quarter),
and something less than 100 sheets in that folder. So one banker's box
should hold all your archives.
And this is also why you keep your bright ideas separate. Those stay in
binders and go on to your shelves if you find yourself too full and not
referring to them much. These give a different way to analyze what you've
been doing.
Advantages of Weekly and Daily To-Do's
Really, this allows you to concentrate on just what immediate targets you
should be taking.
The program can get overwhelming when you try to get a grip on everything
you want to get done over the next few months.
Get inspired once a quarter or so, and write that long-term plan to make
your goals.
Then only focus on what you can realistically get done that week, while
taking the steps needed to set other actions in motion which will be needed
later.
Like cooking a meal. Not everything is best clunked into the microwave.
And you also have to clean dishes on a daily basis. Food preps and shopping
38
11. The Online Sunshine Plan
are also steps you need to take - but these are best done when the prices are
lowest and it is most convenient for you. So you might set a stew or roast
going in the Crock-Pot before you head out the door, but taking a sandwich
and fruit and a thermos of tea with you for lunch. (Breakfast was something
simple, like oatmeal with milk and fruit.) Then, when you get home, you
dish out some stew with vegetables and some sliced bread with butter and
jam. Pour yourself some fresh milk. While you have all the day's dishes in
the dishwasher, you put the rest of the stew into small containers in the
fridge or freezer so you can warm them up again on a later day. Put the
dishes away before you go to bed so everything is set for the next morning.
From the above, you can see what steps you have on a Daily To-Do in order
to feed yourself. Of course, you don't write these out - but that example
shows you how something could be organized for immediate and future
actions.
How to start this
You probably already have some piles of paper sitting around. Some are
partial programs, some notes, some inspired ramblings.
1. Simply gather all of these up, punch holes in them, and put them
into a binder - behind a divider. Fresh start.
2. Write a comprehensive program in sequence of what you need and
want to achieve.
3. Print that program off and put it under a binder clip in the front left
of that binder.
4. Write a To-Do for the next week (even if you only have a few days
left) and clip that in front of that program.
5. Write a To-Do list of targets to get done today and hole punch it -
put it in the rings on top of everything on the right. Note what
metrics you need to achieve - or that you need to figure out some
metrics that will help you track your goals as a target for the week.
6. Start getting that daily To-Do done.
7. Tomorrow, you'll check off your weekly To-Do and then write
another Daily To-Do, hole-punch it, and put it on yesterday's To-Do
- then work that one for the day.
39
12. Dr. Robert C. Worstell
If you don't have a binder and 3-hole punch, put it on a clipboard. No
clipboard? Find a paperclip and a stiff piece of cardboard. And then when
you can, get to the store and buy your needed supplies. Make a list of them
and then note down what day you should do your shopping. Then work that
list.
Summary
Know your goal. Plan for that goal and then work your plan. Break down
your actions and track them daily and weekly. Review your goals progress
quarterly. Keep track of your metrics to see how you are or aren't achieving
your goals.
Use binders and files to keep yourself organized and focused.
And if you have people working for you, see if they can't profit from the
system you work out.
There's a lot more to organizing than this - but the principle is the same:
break larger areas down into smaller ones so you can concentrate on just
those smaller parts.
40
13. Thrivelearning Guide
Find ways how to improve your life, run a
successful online business, get your freedom
back.
Thrivelearning System - A Guide
I've searched over the Internet for really workable programs for more than a
couple of decades. The main criteria was that they had to work and they had
to help people actually improve their lives. The goal is that people are enabled
to get their abundance which is already native.
People don't know how simple it is to have a peaceful, free life. They don't
know that starting an online business does have a learning curve, but when
you find the right mentor and the right partners, it can be really simple and
successful.
So these programs each individually work. But the real power is that they
integrate into a powerful system that is more effective than the single parts.
There are two approaches to this - Spiritual and Business
Spiritual: You should be able to have all the freedom, peace,
and abundance you could ever want.
Business: You can and should know how to leverage the
Internet to make your own online success.
Like many, I was caught up in the “get rich quick” “how to make money
online” schemes that are very often pushed with Internet Marketing.
And it took me a long time (over a year) to learn enough to earn my money
back out
of the scheme I bought into. (No, I had to attend “Hard Luck U” and sweat it
out with a keyboard and Google searches - it wasn’t found in the “training” I
bought.) And that company has improved considerably since that time - it
was lessons all around, the way I saw it.
14. But since then, I’ve really discovered how to thrive - by discovering and
testing the exact techniques of self-help and spiritual training which will
attract any amount of money or abundance you want. No “institute” required,
no expensive ”schooling” or “coaching” - learn at your own pace, from your
own home.
Now I am starting to regularly earn money working at home, mostly from
online affiliate sales and my own books . It’s not hard to learn, if you want to
invest your time (and a little cash here and there.) But you only get out what
you invest of your self…
Here’s the programs I found that actually work:
Spiritual
1. Find your inner peace - Use Release Technique
2. Learn how to remain calm under stress - Use Silva Life System
3. Thrive financially with your Millionaire Mindset - Learn from T. Harv
Eker
4. Simply Wake Up and Live! - Dorothea Brande's classic.
5. Get a library of proven, workable materials - Spiritual Training
Materials
Business
1. Do market research for products which can factually earn you online
income - Chris Malta's Worldwide Brands
2. Master social network marketing - Charles Heflin’s Synnd
3. Get a site builder and web host with decades of experience -Ken
Evoy's Site Build It!
4. Find the simplicities to protecting yourself legally – Dr. Frederick
Graves' Jurisdictionary
5. Get and stay scam free from here on out - Get Scam Free (book and
online course)
15. Release Technique
Release Technique is simply learning to actually
look at what is happening around you and letting
go of what you don't want. Too easy, actually.
Some people have to know more about such a
technique before they can really put it to use in
their lives. Larry Crane used it to save his life. He
was already a millionaire - even on the cover of
Time - but found he wanted to commit suicide because of his own inner
stress. He met a guy named Lester Levenson, who taught him to release the
inner programs which caused that. Larry changed his life – and has been
teaching and promoting this course ever since.
Silva Life System
Laura found herself in trouble. Her health was
failing, she couldn't keep a job, she was
desperately "in love" with someone who only took
advantage of her. Then she rediscovered for
herself the system of active meditation she had been involved with since
childhood, literally growing up around it. Once she put this to use in her own
life, she became more and more successful as she applied it. Now happily
married with several children, she has devoted her life to continuing her
father's proven program of active meditation. More people than ever have
found how easy it is to meditate through Jose and Laura Silvas' works. There
are reportedly millions internationally who are using Silva materials to gain
calm, successful lives. You can, too.
16. Millionaire Mind Intensive
The key point is that you have to re-learn all
you've learned up to this point about money.
What he starts out to begin with is to tell you,
“Don’t believe anything I say, but try these ideas
out in your own life - and trust these ideas you
are trying.”How Eker gets you to re-train your
millionaires mind isn't all that new. But he took
up the study of millionaire and rich-people psychology in earnest so solve his
own inability to make and hold onto money. While he made (and lost)
millions early in his life, it was his own studies into how people did this which
made him an international success. Now he spends his time only in helping
others to adjust their own Millionaire Mindset
Wake Up and Live
I was introduced to it by Earl Nightingale (of "Our
Changing World" fame). It was in his "Strangest
Secret" recording where he introduced her now
famous credo:
"Act as though it were impossible to fail."
And she explains how she got to that point in this book. The first section is an
autobiography of sorts, explaining the gist of her discovered philosophy of life
- and how that credo lead her straight to an amazing career after a rather
mundane existence prior. Newly republished in an easy-to-read format, this
book is an essential classic for anyone's library.
17. Spiritual Training Materials
For anyone to really make their way through life,
they have to find and follow mentors. With our
modern Internet Age, you no longer have to take
time out and travel to distant lands in order to sit
at the feet of a Master and absorb their knowledge.
Even the long-passed can reveal their secrets from
their book sand materials. I've assembled a short
list of books which have been proved time and again to hold the secrets to all
health,wealth, success, and relationships. The path is there - you have only to
walk it. Build your library today!
Web Site Builder
Site Build It! is the only product that takes the
time to prepare you to build a profitable business,
before you jump into building your site. For the
beginner, your learning curve will be shorter and
you’ll bypass any show-stopping errors. For those experienced in site-
building, SBI! deepens your level of understanding. No matter who you are,
you are guided all the way until you succeed. This approach symbolizes SBI!’s
steady-and-sure approach. It’s definitely not GRQ (Get Rich Quick) and keeps
you from getting distracted by false promises or dead-end tools and strategies
that end up costing more money. Experienced users will appreciate avoiding
time-wasters that don't help you succeed. Think of it as a simple, direct, hype-
free path that leads to success. Check it out for yourself.
Profitable Market Research
The reason Chris started WWB is just because he
knew how profitable it was to sell for others - but
ran into the same shady operators so many of us
do. He sat out building a company which did the
18. homework for you - so you only need login to their single interface where
they've already predigested the product discovery, keyword research, and
verified the drop-shippers as legit. No middlemen, no scammers. Just you,
your hard work, and your filling bank account. Not for the faint at heart - this
is only for those serious about doing the homework necessary to find salable,
profitable products to sell.
Social Network Marketing
Once you have a product and a website, you need
to promote it. Charles Heflin has been marketing
at least as long as the World Wide Web has
existed. And he formed Social Media Science just to study the social media
phenomenon. Per their website: "Social Media Science is dedicated to the
science of online social media as it applies to gaining visibility for you ronline
or offline business. We are dedicated to educating the business community
through a robust educational system as well as providing cutting edge
software tools to make marketing your business easier, more effective and
measurable. See what sets us apart." It's only here where you learn how to
really market online.
Get a Winning Lawyer -
Defend Your Company
Dr. Frederick Graves is a lawyer who has taken on
the formidable task of educating people how to
figure out what the hell is going on. But it's not all
that complicated. For any business, if you
understand the legal system, you can avoid
situations which would lead you into any unnecessary involvement in the
courts. Technically, you learn enough to use the laws to do what they are
supposed to - protect against inequality and bullying behavior. The point is
that when you do need to get a lawyer, you can also ensure that he's doing
what you're paying him for. With all else you need to follow in business, you
don't also need the excess expense which legal costs can bring.
19. FTC Disclaimer
Self-help and Spiritual Training are highly personal. You get out only what
you put into them. There are no "typical results." None of the above should be
considered as a “business opportunity”. These are personal training programs
and materials which you alone can determine if they assist your own progress
or help improve your life.
Caveat Emptor, and all that.