While the title of this post seems a little bit unrelated right now but after reading this post you will see my point. Lately, I have been very stressed out. Why? Because I am overworking myself. This Blog, Local Business, other projects and more. In the past few days I saw myself a bit unproductive. My work rate was slowing down. Creative ideas wasn’t hitting my mind. Until my mom and friends pointed out my daily schedule and how it is getting weird. Than I started analyzing myself. I came up with the list of my unhealthy habits that is effecting my productivity in blogging and working online. Good thing is that I caught myself early before the damage can be severe. Read the tips so you can avoid these things.

1) Lack of Sleep – Sleeping was not something that I was considering as a necessity. With excessive amount of work and meetings, I was postponing blog post and other work to later in the night when everyone else is sleeping. Now my schedule was something like this: I work in the day such as go outside and meet clients. I come home work on the computer a bit. Take care of designing orders. At Night I work until 6 a.m or so. Thats actually the morning. I take a nap and get back up around 10. So in 24 hours, I was only getting 4 hours of sleep. Yikes.. 20 hours of hard work. VERY Unhealthy.

2) Caffeine Intake – is also something that I was heavily relying on so I can continue my normal routine. I was drinking atleast one energy drinks a day. Sometimes Redbull other times Monster. I was drinking nearly 24oz. of Soda. 2 cups of Coffee in the morning and one cup in the evening. That is alot of Caffeine there!!! I was up all day running around, and I crash sleep for 4 hours. But during the caffeine intake there was another thing that I was lacking. I wasn’t getting hungry…

3) Anorexic Behavior – Well since I was taking so much caffeine, I wasn’t eating alot because I never feel hungry. So I have coffee than I have soda, no space for food. I was only having one real meal in the day. Which was impacting my attitude alot. It was fine for a first few days, but than I was losing energy.

4) Unhealthy Diet – Aside from one real meal. I was eating alot of snacks. Ofcourse Junk Food. Sometimes it was choclate, other times chips, doughnuts, french fries. Nothing really healthy. I wasn’t eating these foods while I was relaxed. Usually these were my breakfast. Except for French Fries, but the rest was my breakfast which I was having in the car.

5) Lack of Exercise – I wasn’t moving alot. I get up and use the computer, leave for the meeting which I drive to. Than I meet with clients in their office so I sit there. I come home and have lunch. Than I get back to work, and I am still sitting. All the Junk food, no exercise. I am starting to gain weight. Feeling sick to my stomach sometimes.

6) Lack of Social Life – While I was continuing my routine, I was losing my social life. The most social thing I did was Plurk. Most of my plurks were about myself having headaches. If my friends or family comes over, they never really find me in a good attitude. I was always exhausted. I was not going to alot of places. And if I did go, I was busy with phone calls. So I was constantly stressed.

7) Avoding the signs – I was avoiding every symptom my body was trying to give me. I would crash every night badly. I was feeling sick to my stomach almost every day. I have headaches all the time. I couldn’t think of creative ideas when I was designing.

All came down to me breaking down. I had a headache all day, not feeling good. I couldn’t work straight. Couldn’t write a good post. I am not talking to anyone in the family. Until my friends and my mom started asking me whats going on. You haven’t been eating lately. You are acting different. Than I started looking into my daily life style, and I found all of the problems above.

I wasn’t being very productive at what I was doing. My blog posts were suffering. I was pushing myself to do too much. I started slowing down. I got back to my normal routine and things started to get better. Than I wrote two successful posts back to back. One was 13 ways I used to promote my blog to success, and the other was about Vlogging 101 – Guide to make all type of Videos.

Now I am on routine which I will try to balance from now on. Here is what I think is necessary for a webmaster to be productive

Good NIGHT Sleep – I noticed that when I was getting night sleep it is much more relaxing. Because people in the house are not making noises. Specially because I have a little brother who is 4. So I can’t have a restful sleep during days. Therefore Night sleeps are necessary.

Well Planned out Meals – Personally I think the food pyramid is BS. So just pick your meals wisely. Some proteins, fruits, carbs. Have atleast 3 meals in day on the right times. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Snack here and there.

Exercise – Exercise keeps your mind fresh. It gives your body the workout it needs and keep you in good shape. So you will not have overweight problem. I am sure if I had continued my schedule, you would see me as another obese person. Than I will be blogging about how to loose weights and things that I am trying. lol

Socializing – Family time with family is a must. You don’t know how much you miss when you don’t interact with your family. Alot of my post ideas come from my family. Like this one was suggested my mother. Socializing with your friends is another thing that is needed. You need to go out and have fun. Can’t work all day. Relax your brain a little.

Limit your Caffeine intake – Caffeine is like something that your body just want more and more. Today one red bull might be enough, but tomorrow you would need 2 to do the same amount of work. The synergistic effect comes in play. I am not saying don’t drink coffee because I know I can’t operate without it, but limit your caffiene intake. Don’t drink excessive amount of sodas because you are gaining alot of useless calories also.

Do the following and you will see the difference. Now I find the energy to write longer and more useful posts. Better quality because I have the energy to do so. Try it yourself if you don’t believe me.

Disclaimer: I am no health professional. I am just sharing my experience with you guys so you don’t do the things that I have done. For health advice please consult a professional. While I understand I am pursuing a career in medicine, I don’t have my degree yet, and for me to give health advices is against the U.S Law because that is practicing medicine without a license.

Oo if you guys didn’t know, I went to Island of Adventures in Universal Orlando. It was a family trip. We left on Friday and came back on Saturday night. It was heck of a day. We stayed at a motel for the night.

Since we were on a trip that I will be blogging, I thought of wearing my cool shirt that says: “I am Blogging This” which was sent to me by Market Leverage. I wore it all day at the park. Believe it or not, everyone asked me whats my blog and if they will be in the picture lol. One time the guy at the Jurrasic Park Ride who was checking the belt said if you want to read the review of this ride, he will be blogging this so check out his blog. So I will add a review for that ride All to all Market Leverage got good promotion out of it. (Thanks ML for the cool shirt, if you dont mind send me a few more because I wear this one alot hehe )

Alright, well I got my tickets online for $52 at Ticketmaster using a cool coupon which was through a membership so I can’t give that away I went on the following rides: Hulk, Dueling Dragons, Jurrasic Park, Spiderman, Popeye and thats all ….

Yeah do you know why? I was dumb enough to not buy the $45 express pass in the morning. Later on the day, I thought its a waste if I buy it now. Each line had a wait of about 45+ minutes. It was fun though because all guys with me made a big noise in the line.

Lets review all the rides:

Hulk - was had a pretty cool start, but after a while it got boring.

Dueling Dragons – Is a good one. Fire and Ice two dragons. Ice is a bit rougher so I liked that one. Tip: sit on flip flops if you are wearing those otherwise they will drop.

Spiderman – Much better than Back to the Future. Very Very cool ride.

Popeye – Prepare to be Soaked. Hope that you get a good side, so you are only wet not soaked.

Jurrasic Park – Its full of surprises. I loved the ride. First time it didn’t work well, so I complained and got to ride again without standing in a line. Which was cool. I rode all together 3 times on this ride. The surprises didn’t get old.

As for the meals, I got a $22 unlimited one adult meal plan. It worked at 4 fast food places in 4 different Islands, so you have food wherever you go. I paid $9 for unlimted refills. The best thing I did for myself. You walk so much that you get thirsty. Get your drink for free. Otherwise the price for water was $2.75 for one bottle, or 2 for $5 which is insane. If you didn’t buy a meal plan than you have to get the other glass with discounted refills. The glass is $7 plus $0.69 cents per refill.

O O did I mention. I got a Picture with Spidey

It is a well recommended place to go. Don’t go there on the weekend because it is more crowded than usual. If you do end up going don’t be stupid like me..BUY the Express Pass and avoid the lines. Get there early. Go on all the rides I went on because they were all fun. Take an extra pair of clothes with you incase you are wet which you will be. Let me know if you ever go. And believe it or not I do wear all the shirts that I get one time or another. So if you want me to advertise your brand send me a shirt.

After my post that announces that my readers can get a free blog review and free text links here at balkhis, I have been getting some good feedback. This question was the first one that I recieved via email.

Angad Sodhi asks:

Will/Has the ‘recession’ affect the incomes of us bloggers?

This question is more targetted towards the bloggers in United States. U.S Economy has been in a recession and it got to the point that a bank in California closed down. But that is whats going on in the U.S Market.

Blogging is more of an international business. My advertisers, affiliate marketing companies have contracts with advertisers worldwide. I believe that blogging is spread out worldwide, the income of bloggers will not see a significant effect from the recession in United States.

You might see some U.S Webmasters pulling out on advertisement because they can’t afford it but you can always make up for the income. The tip is don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Spread out.

Key to be successful is don’t rely on one source of income. Spread it out.

Adsense – It is always good in the beginning and sometimes on tutorial posts.

Private Advertisers – They are always good, but you should not rely on them for all your income.

Affiliate Marketing – Market Leverage, Commission Junction, and Azoogle Ads are the ones that I am with. I run their campaigns. Not relying on one entirely.

Other PPC – That I have mentioned on my Make Money Online Page.

All to all the answer to your Question is that No I don’t think Bloggers will be impacted in the recession. Maybe and Maybe if U.S goes in depression, then it will be a different story.

Well, Yesterday I wrote a post in which I am allowing users to share their social media profiles. So all Balkhis users can add each other as a friend more importantly, I can add all my readers as friends on social media networks.

Well, I am not done giving back to my awesome audience.

I have decided that once every week for the next 4 weeks, I will be writing a review about the blogs of one of my readers. Well, how would I notice your blog?

Simple. Comment on Balkhis and have your blog’s link in it. If need be I might even do two per week. Depends on the contestants.

Another way is letting me know about your blog via Plurk. How would you do that? Add me as a friend in Plurk, and simply contact me via Contact Page. Once you have done that keep commenting here and I will write about you.

Not Just that, I am also doing a Question Answer Session. Send me all your questions and I will try to answer them in details. Either in one post all together, or separate posts. The best question will get a free text link on Balkhis under cool sites.

What are you waiting for. Lets spread the Love and start commenting.

Well, I am sure alot of you noticed that I wrote an ebook about How to Make a Magazine Style Theme in Wordpress. Its been 2 days and I am very delighted by the results.

I don’t know if I have mentioned it before, I have never written an ebook or a book in my entire life. This was a first time and I was very nervous. One of the main reasons were the grammer. Knowing that english is not my first language, I was already frightened by the results. I didn’t ask anyone to proof read the book. I thought it would be worth a try if I write and just be myself in my book.

Apparently thats what everyone liked. Within the course of 48 hours, I have had 826 Downloads of the ebook. Usually it takes a while for my zip files to get these downloads. Specially this quantity. Within a day, I saw the book breaking the 500 mark and I was very happy that each of my reader got the copy.

Balkhis is still growing, and I cannot rely on subscribers to see how many readers I have. The downloads from this book and the comments I have recieved from multiple places were the true indication of how many readers I have and how happy they were to see this addition to the blog.

Before I begin to celebrate, I didn’t do this alone.

As you all know Blogosphere is more like a family where everyone helps each other out. My fellow friends helped me by writing about this book on their blogs, or at different places.

Enkay Blog

Jim Hutchinson, I met him on Plurk. If you are on Plurk do add him as your friend. Jim’s Plurk Profile.

Themerious

Aravind Jose – He is a regular reader on balkhis and we have talked via email before. Thanks for the link buddy.

Some other Plurk friends who wrote about my ebook on their plurk pages. And everyone who dugg, stumbled and added it to other social media.

I try to do the most by helping other people and I believe the good Karma returned. When I needed people to blog about this ebook, some of my friends jumped up and did it.

I myself wrote it about on all wordpress related forums which also got me results. I have been getting very good reviews of the ebook. So if you haven’t checked it out yet.

With this kind of encouragement, I will write another ebook in coming time that will be a bigger and much better resource. It will list all the details that I know about Wordpress, Marketing, SEO, Designing and much much more. Ofcourse since it have so much stuff, It will take time to write it.

Stay Updated.