My online session earlier really didn’t do much to maintain spirits — in fact, it did quite the opposite. As I was saying last week, I’m trying to avoid spending too much time on looking up how many visitors my website is getting, or how much it is earning from one day to the next — this is a common mistake that people in our industry make, and it can end up wasting so much time in causing so much demoralisation when things don’t change overnight. (18:40) — rather than just comment on this, I’ve used it as a starting point for two articles on running revenue generating websites — one about the top mistakes to avoid, and the other about the things that have kept us in business. I’m still slightly wary of doing this — Web traffic has fallen now for three consecutive weeks. I know there is still plenty of bad economic news out there, but March should normally show an increase compared to February, and we’ve already seen a massive drop-off in this year compared to last year. So who am I to write articles about how to run a successful Internet business? Well, the best businesses know how to keep going through the bad as well as the good, and even if I wouldn’t exactly say we are thriving at the moment, we are still surviving, and there are plenty of things we are trying to do to pull ourselves back up again. It might be extremely demoralising when a whole load of effort goes into improving your website, only to find that three or four weeks down the line, there is no change, but again I need to take a reality check here — these things can take months to turn round, so hold tight!
Just before five, I got a phone call to say that the bike wheel had been sorted out, but I then messed around having a couple of Skype conversations, and didn’t leave the house until 10 past, making it a bit tight to get to the bike shop. As I was driving there, I was getting more and more angry, especially as there was (unsurprisingly considering the time) so much more traffic on the road than I’m used to, and twice I just missed the traffic lights at busy junctions. Looking back on it now, this is the kind of frustration that most commuters have to put up with twice every single day, but as I am so used to working from home now, and as most travel I do outside the city is by train, the idea of having to wait more than a minute at a traffic light fills me with dread! As I am thinking back over my worries of web traffic going down, and how further reductions in revenue could really squeeze us, I’m also thinking of this utility of having to sit in traffic just so I can go and collect the wheel that I need to get my bike working again. I am also watching the time and thinking that if I miss the shop by one minute, I will have wasted this journey completely, just because I didn’t pull myself away from a Skype conversation which really can awaited until another time. Luckily, my worry is needless, as I just catch the shop as they are about to switch the lights off. When I’m in an irritable mood, I do try and find something to pull me out of it, but I’m not always successful. Relieved that I had just managed to get the wheel sorted, I was driving out of Kenilworth, and noticed a row of seven houses which all had what appeared to be recently thatched roofs — there I am thinking ‘what a nice little touch’, but somebody must have spent a lot of time coordinating that!
(18:55) I’m back at home now, and this little dictation session seems to have done a reasonable job at stabilising my mood. In many ways I’d rather be a little bit angry than lethargic and depressed — at least when I’m angry, I will have the motivation to do something about it. On the additional plus side, my brother, who is normally there to reign in my more fanciful ideas, is considerably more upbeat about how the business is going than I am right now. He reminded me of all the things we are doing to turn things around, and I know that there are numerous content ideas we have talked about which could bring in extra visitors and useful links. I think I’ve talked enough about mood management for now — or at least enough for me to put that area of my mind onto autopilot, so I can go back and sit in business class and create some content for my other website.