Last year I set some goals for Ian’s Messy Desk. With the execption of the monthly-revenue goal, I surpassed all the other goals I had set; in some cases, coming close to doubling my goal. The revenue goal was missed by a matter of a few dollars, so I am happy with how things worked out.

In keeping with a tradition observed by other blogs, here are the ten most visited posts at Ian’s Messy Desk in 2008:

1. How to Leave a Good Out-of-Office Message – This post had cycles. Before the start of holiday weekends and throughout summer in the northern hemisphere, this pos received loads of visits.
2. Sample Voice Mail Templates – This posted is related and linked to the above, with similar traffic patterns. Searchers were looking for sample wording to use on their voice mail.
3. How to Write a Christmas or Holiday Card – This post was written late in the year, but jumped high on the traffic list. I guess many of us find writi something on a greeting card to be a challenge.
4. Priority Planning Model and Worksheet – This post listed some tips and had a download pdf priority-planning worksheet to help readers evaluate priorities.
5. 4 Basic Types of Speeches – Effective public-speaking preparation requires identifying the purpose of your speech. Once you’ve identified your purpose, you can move on to the objective of your speech.
6. 10 Resources to Help Overcome Procrastination – A link post with links to 10 articles which address dealing with procrastination.
7. 14 Old Testament Ways to Get a Wife – A humour post.
8. 7 Ideas for Inexpensive Christmas Gifts – Instead of getting something from a store as is done every year, you can try something different like giving a more personal gift which the receiver will appreciate.
9. 13 Annoying Things to Do at Wal-Mart – Another popular humour post.
10. 17 Affirmations For Building Self-esteem – Examples of phrases you can use to overcome negative self-talk.

A BIG thank you to all who have visited, read and commented here. I hope something that I have written has been useful for you; even if it was only to give you a laugh.

How will things look in 2009? Make sure you visit regularly to find out!

Recommended: The Zen Habits Handbook for Life!

Ian’s Messy Desk is ESTP – The Doers

The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

Hopefully ESTP can co-exist with ISFP, because that’s what I am.

Apparently, these parts of my brain are dominant during writing.

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Recommended: The Zen Habits Handbook for Life!

I was Working Smart , but I really wanted something RIMarkable. An adventure was in order.

A couple of galaxies down and one nebula over, I entered a BBHub. I saw felix hominum making a Chris Brogan list with a big nosed ugly guy about 50 ways to transcend coffee.

Nearby the Chief Happiness Officer was sparkplugging and Jordon Cooper had just shouted, “EAT MY GAMES.”

Meanwhile, some Fractals of Change were wandering aimlessly and asking, “Has anyone found The Lazy Way to Success?”

No one seemed to notice the group in a candlelit corner. Dressed in black, in cognito, the Slacker Manager held a rendezvous with a Dumb Little Man, and JenSense. Rumor has it they were Only Here for the Food.

The meeting of folks from The Daily Tee broke into conflict with Wise Bread over Not Eating Out in New York.

That seemed HUGE until a ProBlogger started stuffing bits of the Evil HR Lady into 43 Folders.

The Daily Saint was ready to lead a counterattack with Black Belt Productivity. As a result, two thousand people decided to Make It Great! with Phil Gerbyshak, and we heard the battle cry, “join the Smart Canucks,” for days after.

The Technology Evangelist reported, “It’s simply Social Patterns.”

My own perspective, even when we Manage To Change, we’re still just a bunch of Blogaholics.

End of story.

Recommended: The Zen Habits Handbook for Life!

So far, I’m impressed with the things I have been able to do with the device. My biggest gripe is the virtual keyboard. Even with my smallish fingers, typing is a challenge. Unless there’s a way to improve on that problem, the iPhone will be reserved for shorter posts.

Recommended: The Zen Habits Handbook for Life!

92,230
How much money is your blog worth?

Recommended: The Zen Habits Handbook for Life!

If you’re looking for a blogging client that integrates well with Firefox (and Flock) check out ScribeFire. You can download it from here.

ScribeFire – ScribeFire: Fire up your blogging

New features

* Added MySpace support. (issue #33)
* Added Tumblr support.
* Categories will now be available for Blogger blogs (issue #201)
* Entering a YouTube URL in YouTube search field will now return that video for embedding. (issue #182)
* Added the “Keep Content” button back. (issue #195)

Interface changes

* Made publishing buttons shorter
* Made right sidebar resizable
* Fixed bug where note icon overlapped with note title

Bug fixes

* Fix for users who could not delete notes. (issue #193)
* Fixed some bugs with “Blog This Page” (issue #205)
* Fixed issue where “more” button was not being enabled. (issue #210)
* Fix for broken image uploading when using ScribeFire in a tab (issue #214)
* Fix for “Blog This Page” not working with non-ASCII characters (issue #211)
* Various “can’t login”/”can’t add blog” issues fixed.
* Better error reporting when account setup fails.
* Fixed bug where “Save note” button would be hidden when it shouldn’t be.
* Fixed double encoding of ampersands (a.k.a. the & or problem)
* Reorganized note-handling code
* Fixed broken RTL support (issue #228)

Translations

* Available in the following languages: Bulgarian, Czech, German, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Indonesian, Icelandic, Italian, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Thai, and Chinese (both China and Taiwan).

Recommended: The Zen Habits Handbook for Life!

In the first month, I made .44 cents.

I wasn’t discouraged. I figured, my site traffic was small and maybe the problem was with Google. I decided to see what the next month would bring.

In the second month, I made .10 cents! At this rate, it was going to take more than 30 years before I reached the $100.00 payment threshold.

I left the ads on my site, but for several months I paid no attention to them. The earnings increased slowly, though it was almost a year before I saw my first payment.

After several more months of drifting along like this, I decided it was time to do some digging and see what I could learn about improving my AdSense earnings. My research led me to Joel Comm. It wasn’t so long ago he was making only $30 a day with Google’s Adsense program.

Then one day it hit him over the head like a ‘2 by 4′ and Joel began testing other ways to increase his Adsense earnings…

Not only did it work… but… (and this is a BIG BUT) Joel documented everything he did to make his Adsense commissions shoot up to the sky…

There were a lot of people, whose opinions I trust, that recommended Joel and his book. I bought and read the book, then implemented some of his tips and suggestions. Within a week, the book had paid for itself.

AdSense Secrets

I’m not talking about Joel doubling his Adsense commissions from $30 to $60 a day… but more like a staggering $500+ per day! (I told you it was significant.) While my earnings are not in the same realm as Joel’s, I went from $12 per month to over $700 per month, by implement just a few of the many suggestions and tips he gives in his book.

Let me tell you… this one book is crammed solid with Adsense marketing tips – the kind you won’t easily find elsewhere… That’s why I’m excited to tell you about it.

When I bought the book, it cost $97. As I said, it paid for itself in days. It was worth every penny. This is must-have marketing information and I highly recommend that you check it out for yourself if you are using Adsense now… or ever plan to.

AdSense Secrets

Here comes the shocker…

Joel has had a successful run of training materials. Not only does he enjoy fantastic passive income from AdSense, but the revenue generated by the thousands of satisfied readers has allowed him to reach beyond his wildest dreams.

Now he want to give back!

So the 222-page Fourth Edition of AdSense Secrets is NOT going to be $97.

It’s not even going to be $77, which was the price of the FIRST edition over three years ago.

He could EASILY charge $47 for this book and thousands of people would jump on it. The information inside is that valuable. But he’s not charging $47.

At $27 you would think he’d lost my mind and was giving it away.

But he’s not charging $27. Nope.

He said he wanted to give back.

So it’s not $27. It’s not $19. It’s not even $12.

For a limited time, you can download your very own copy of AdSense Secrets: Fourth Edition for the incredibly low price of just…

$9.95!

At that price, it’s a can’t-lose proposition. Improve your AdSense earnings now by ordering AdSense Secrets

Recommended: The Zen Habits Handbook for Life!

1. 10 Steps For A Successful Speech – An article by professional speaker Jacki Rose, with 10 ways to craft and deliver a successful speech.
2. 8 Ways to Improve Your Attitude – Transform your attitude from something ordinary to something extraordinary.
3. 10 Resources to Help Overcome Procrastination – A post pointing to ten resources with helps for overcoming procrastination.
4. 10 Steps for Practicing A Speech – No matter how good the content of your speech, if your delivery falls flat, so will the speech. Here are some steps for practicing your delivery.
5. 10 Time Management Tips to Keep You On Track – Ten simple steps for keeping your productivity on track.

Recommended: The Zen Habits Handbook for Life!

1. Narrowing the focus of my blog brought significant increase to my traffic and earnings.
2. Having a plan is beneficial. I started 2007 with the decisions to take Ian’s Messy Desk in a more focussed direction. I then developed an editorial calendar outlining the topics I would cover on each day of posting. Having a plan removed much of the pressure of deciding what to post.

Having learned a couple of lessons doesn’t mean that I am doing everything I need, to continue to see improvements. What are my blogging resolutions for 2008?

• To spend more time participating in and contributing to the on-line community. While I interacted more with readers over this past year, I can still do a lot more in this regards. I want to comment more frequently on other blogs, respond in a more timely fashion to commenters on my blog and become more active in forums.
• To learn more about analytic tools and to put the information gleaned from these tools to use on my blog.
• To grow daily unique visitors by 50%.
• To reach monthly revenue of $1,000.00.

Now that I have some goals, it’s time to get started.

Recommended: The Zen Habits Handbook for Life!

2007 was a breakthrough year at Ian’s Messy Desk. I realized an increase in traffic and revenue with a few simple changes to the blog. As I look back over 2007, these are the posts that drew the most traffic or the most attention:

1. Tips for leaving a good out-of-office message – This post ranked well during the summer vacation period and prior to holiday weekends. Rather than coming back to a packed e-mail in-box and a full voice-mail box, spend a few minutes crafting a useful out-of-office message and people will be able to redirect or park tasks appropriately.
2. Control Your Body Language for Effective Communication – Communicating effectively means more than knowing what to say and when to say it. Communication involves the subtle signals your body language sends to those listening.
3. A self-management checklist – This simple checklist was picked up by Lifehack.org and has drawn steady traffic since it was posted.
4. A Simple Template for a Farewell Speech – When you combine the dread of public speaking with the emotions of saying goodbye, you have what can be a stressful situation for most people. To simplify the speech preparation, I have a simple template that I use to write a farewell speech. Judging by the steady traffic this post draws, a lot of people need help giving a farewell speech.
5. Out-of-Office Messages for Your E-mail – This was a humourous post, but probably drew readers that were looking for something more along the lines of number one in today’s list.
6. 7 Lies that Prevent Powerful Results – This post, written by Kathy Gates, drew a numbers of comments and links. What you think about your circumstances may keep you stuck in a bad situation. That is why recognizing the lies you tell yourself is very important. These lies prevent you from being as powerful as you really are.
7. 10 Tips to Help Keep Your Desk Clean – This post drew the most links of any single post; appropriately enough for Ian’s Messy Desk.
8. The 13 Virtues of Benjamin Franklin – This post, outlining the 13 Virtues which Franklin used to guide his life, draws steady traffic. I may use these as a basis for a 13–part series in the near future.
9. Outline Template for Writing a Speech – Another speech-writing template. This time, more generic than the farewell speech.
10. 7 ways to maintain a positive attitude – Our attitude is a result of deliberate action. We choose the ways we respond to difficulties in our lives. That’s not to say that some situations are going to be more difficult than others, but there are steps we can take to help maintain a positive attitude.

Recommended: The Zen Habits Handbook for Life!