If you’re a one-man show, you’ve probably got a daunting list of tasks that need to get done. It’s easy to feel defeated even before getting started. The trick is simple - Break down large projects into smaller components, and chip away at them a piece at a time. This way, you get the satisfaction of completing an item from your list, while working towards a greater goal.

That said, it’s important that you don’t put off an important task and focus instead of the easier ones.. I know I’m guilty of that, and that’s why my May Newsletter still hasn’t been sent out.. (as we now enter July. )

Spend 10 minutes today, and look through your to-do list. Are there entries on there that have been ignored for months on end? Why are you avoiding them? Can you break them down into smaller pieces and chip away at the problem?

Whoops! A bunch of our blogs are still on a shared host, and I guess they were putting too much load on the server. Without warning, I’m staring at a “Your Account Has Been Suspended” message! We are getting ready to move everything over to a new dedicated server, and as such, a few things have slipped through the cracks.

If you’re running Wordpress, it’s vital that you keep up-to-date with plugin updates. WP makes it easier than ever, since it now tells you when a new version is available for download! Our “excuse” was that we had 25 blogs running on this host, and going through each one and updating the plugins was very time consuming. Whoops!

Another HUGE oversight was not installing any sort of caching. Most people use WP-Cache, and it works very well for the most part. But for whatever reason, when I setup these blogs way back when, I didn’t enable WP-Cache. (I think it was screwing up one of our counters - A stupid reason not to run caching, in retrospect..)

I discovered WP Super Cache awhile back.. This is WP-Cache on steroids! We had a story picked up by a major news media source, and it resulted in 18,000+ hits in 24 hours! It was chaos, and our server became COMPLETELY unresponsive. I was able to enable WP Super Cache, and the situation was quickly contained.

At that moment, I should have gone out and installed it on all of our other sites. But with a thousand other things going on at the time, I put it on the backburner. Big mistake! Luckily, I was on the server when we got shut down, so I was able to contact support, find out what was going on, and address the issue immediately. But what if this happened next month, when I’m down in Punta Cana without Internet Access? I’d be SOL, as I’m the only one who knows anything about the servers - The rest of my staff just writes..

So learn from my mistakes, and protect yourself from future issues.. Update your plugins, and make sure you’re using caching so you don’t piss off your hosting company!

Recently, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been posting as often as I usally do. I’ve been working on a number of projects, and I’m just totally burned out! So, I’m taking the day off. A simple concept, but one that the work-for-yourself crew doesn’t get to enjoy as much as they should. Eventually, you get to a point where you’re completely lost and unproductive. That’s where I’m at now.

So I’m just going to relax, watch a movie or two, read some magazines, and chill. I won’t be able to escape work completely, as I’ll still have phone calls and e-mails to deal with, but I’m not going to spend 12 hours in front of the computer screen!

If you’re feeling worn down, and a little out of sorts, take a day for yourself.. You probably deserve it!

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* New .COM, .NET, or .ORG domains given away each hour are good for 1 year registration, are limited to 1 domain per customer and are not valid with existing domains. Free domain coupons are valid through midnight, 7/02/2008.

Season 2 of Bravo’s hit series “Flipping Out” returned last night with everyone’s favorite obsessive-compulsive house-flipper, Jeff Lewis. He’s a character for sure, but you’ve got to respect his abilities!

As some of you know, I’ve been flipping houses (foreclosures, estate sales, short sales, etc) for the last 2-3 years. The real estate market took a REAL ugly turn earlier this year, and I got stuck with 2 properties still on the books. It’s not a big deal right now, I’m just renting them out until the market recovers.

But Jeff’s got millions of dollars tied up in his properties, so I was anxious to see how he handled the real estate downturn. He’s taken a similar approach to me - Working on other things to bring in money while weathering the real estate shit-storm.

In his case, that means working for someone else - Which should make for some great TV, as he’s a total control freak! Be sure to check it out, every Tuesday night at 10pm on Bravo!

Wishing all the fathers out there a Happy Fathers Day!