Step 7: Consolidating my online strategy – Redirecting my WordPress.com blog to self-hosting

Published May 9, 2010 by Jo Jordan

The time has come to redirect my WordPress.com blog

Finally, the time has come to redirect my two year old blog with its 740 posts from http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com to http://flowingmotion.jojordan.org.

To remind you of where I am

The original blog is on http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com
An exact replica (with some theme updates) is on http://flowingmotion.jojordan.org

When I imported a copy of the original (see earlier steps), I made sure that I adjusted the permalinks first so the post urls are exactly the same, except for the name of the domain (wordpress.com and jojordan.org).

Why do I want to redirect my WordPress.com blog?

The problem I need to solve now is this. If someone linked to me on their blog post,, say 18 months ago, a reader would follow their link to the original blog but the last post there would be as of a few days ago. The blog would look deserted and because it has no updates, it will slowly lose page-rank, or google-favour.

I can’t ask everyone who has ever linked to me to update their links. That’s not feasible. So how can I bring those visitors to my new blog and keep my standing with Google too?

How does the redirect from my WordPress.com blog work?

What I can do is to set up a permanent redirect – a 301 for geeks – from http://flowingmotion. wordpress.com to http://flowingmotion.jojordan.org. Then when someone follows an old link, they will be taken through the magic paths of the internet to the WordPress computers, and their computer will redirect the reader to Dreamhost, who will serve up the version of the post on their computers.

The reader will barely notice the redirect. They have what they want and they are on an active alive blog where they can interact with humans and leave comments (which link back to their work).

I, of course, can update my posts when necessary, provided I leave the title intact.

How do I redirect my WordPress.com blog to a self-hosted version?

To accomplish this feat, I go through three steps.

Redirect my new blog temporarily to WordPress.com

On my new blog at Dreamhost, I log in to Dreamhost (not my blog), go t0 Manage Domains, and choose the line for my blog which happens to be a sub-domain in this case (http://flowingmotion.jojordan.org).

Now I am going to pick Full Hosting and remove it. Scary, huh? I am not going to delete it in the far right column. I am going to remove the hosting in the middle column. This will keep the copy on the Dreamhost intact and I will recover it shortly.

Now I am going to chose the DNS for the same record and go to the next window. In the middle, there is provision for a Customized domain. In there I see an A – that is for IP addresses. I don’t need that. But in the dropdown menu is CNAME – I choose that.

Then under Value I insert the url for my old blog, which in my case was http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com. [Note well there is a fullstop (period) there. Make sure you put it in.]

Update

Redirect my old blog to Dreamhost

Now I head off to the WordPress computers and login as usual to my old blog http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com. Under Dashboard, at the bottom of the left hand column, I choose domains, and add the domain name for my new blog which is http://flowingmotion.jojordan.org.

Worpress checks that is has access and that by definition I own the new blog. That’s why I had to open it up temporarily.

When it sees everything is OK, it tells me to whip out my credit card and page $9.97 and reminds me that I must pay them every year to keep the redirect going. So put this date in my diary!

(At some point, I set my new blog as the primary blog. It is self-evident when you see it.)

Reclaim my new blog

Now I head back to the Dreamhost computers, log in to the “panel” (not to my blog), choose My Domains, find the line with my blog (in my case a sub-domain http://flowingmotion.wordpress). I chose DNS and go and delete the value for the CNAME, which you recall was http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com. Update.

I go back to My Domains and chose my blog again and this time stay on that page, go to the middle column and select full hosting. A new window comes up. I check the settings and choose full hosting.

Done!

Now when I put http://flowingmotion.jojordan.org in my browser, I should bring up my blog. When I put my old http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com in the browser, it should send me at the speed of internet over to Dreamhost and show my blog in the browser.

Blunder

Of course, it didn’t go quite this easy for me. My redirect got in perpetual loop and the advice from Dreamhost, unfortunately, was “Wait. These things take time.” Fortunately, young Nick Cochiarella from Olney nudged me 12 hours later to tell me Dreamhost were wrong and I got back in touch with them to check my settings.

This is what happened. Two steps back, before the One Click Install, when I set up the subdomain I had chosen the wrong combination of make http://wwww go to http://. There are three choices and I left it on the default.

When I One Click Installed, my wordpress on Dreamhost was set up as http://www.flowingmotion.wordpress.com. When I redirected from WordPress.com, it was to http://flowingmotion.jojordan.org because that was the only choice we have.

Once I had corrected the address of my new blog by logging onto the blog (not Dreamhost panel) and taking out the www in the address registered under Dashboard/Settings/General, everything worked fine.

I also went back to the Dreamhost panel, Manage Domains, the line with my blog and DNS, and fixed up the redirects there to send any traffic looking for http://www.flowingmotion.jojordan.org to http://flowingmotion.jojordan.org.

I’m still a bit confused by it all. The point is to remember you have an address registered within your new WordPress blog. You may not think of it as you are staring at an unfamiliar Dreamhost panel

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Ah, an intelligible (and funny) article about the Euro-zone

Published May 9, 2010 by Jo Jordan

Euro or not? EU or not?

With the way things are in Greece, and the UK debt scaring the politicians silly, a lot of Brits are happy that we didn’t join the Euro. After all, we can always print money and inflate our way out of our profligacy, right?

Understanding how the Euro-zone works

We get the bit a about using the Euro in just about every European country but ours. Otherwise most of us have the slimmest ideas about why the Germans are quite so mad with Greece and how all the lego-bits for running the Euro fit together.

“we get it, we’re drunk drivers, we’re selling our cars and resolving to get around on a German-piloted bus.”

Phrased-like this, it’s a bit easy to understand. Mathew Yglesias has written a brilliant primer on the European Central Bank.

If you know as little as I did at the start, it is about a ten minute read

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To have created a window of opportunity is the British genius as producing Obama was the American genius

Published May 8, 2010 by Jo Jordan

A very British hang over!

Today, we still have a hang over. We agonized about how to vote and we trudged off to vote with sinking hearts. Few of us voted for someone we really wanted to represent us. We voted to hang parliament. And we achieved our goal. Somewhat improbably I think. In a surprising example of the possibilities of crowd sourcing without central control, a highly irritated British electorate set out to hang parliament and achieved its goal.

Regretting that we did it our way?

This would be story enough but I noticed today that the #ukelection #ge2010 stream on Twitter is jumpy and nervous. The politicians are doing their thing. They seem to be acting responsibly. Though the press have tried to exaggerate the odd moment, no one has made a rash intemperate move. Talks are continuing. Leaders and party members are consulting. Discussants on programs like Any Questions are providing good thoughtful background pieces.

Why are those of us who wanted a hung parliament panicking now that we have it?

Making sense of success and failure is hard

I once did some research with a then-student, Phil Mlambo, on student politicians who elbow their way onto committees and don’t do what they promised. This is a fascinating psychological phenomenon. When we have gone to such trouble and made promises publicly, we should be motivated to do what we said we would do. Though in many ways the opposite to pursuing a hung parliament and panicking when we get one, we may have something to learn from what Phil discovered.

Phil did a fantastic piece of fieldwork. He tracked 50 student politicians who had made a public promise to do something for their group the very next day. And he interviewed them again the following evening. They had all started. They had all set off confidently with no doubt that they would do what they promised. But only 50% succeeded. The 50% who succeeded remained confident. The 50% who failed were disconcerted and unsure how to interpret their experience. Disappointed, frustrated & embarrassed, they felt they were to blame.

Phil took down the full story of their day and as we untangled events, in every case, there was no sign of laziness. Nor was there any sign of undue external events. There was simply daily life mixed with inexperience and unexpected conditions. The students had assumed the person they had wanted to see would be available. They had assumed goods they wanted to buy would be available in the quantity and sizes that they imagined. In all cases of failure, students had been thwarted by a mixture of chance and an absence of contingent thinking.

So here we are. Surprised by our success and alarmed by our success. Are we just inexperienced and startled that we moved into the next stage of negotiation quite so easily? Are we surprised that Plan A worked and now find ourselves without Plan A2?

Reflected best self

As a relative newcomer to the UK, I must say that I am impressed. Migrants took a battering in this election and it might surprise Brits to know what migrants think of you. OK, I tease a little. Positive organizational scholarship has an interesting technique called “reflected best self” – RBS – not to be confused with the bank, of course.

In reflective best self, we take the good things that people say about us, and ponder on them.

A long standing migrant, who is now a British citizen, told me that although the English are very inefficient (you do know people say that about you?), though the English are notoriously inefficient, when it matters they come through.

We have a very short election season here of 6 weeks. I noticed the quality of debate did pick up markedly but it was still weak. By the time election day came around, I felt depressed. I dragged myself to the polling booth bribing myself with the chance to use a pencil tied to a piece of string (yes, that’s true).

But when I woke late on Friday and heard the balance in power had been achieved, my first thought was “We have given ourselves a chance.” I felt relieved.

Most of all I was amazed that the electorate had done what it said it would do. That was a difficult feat. I felt proud for the British. My estimation of their ability, character and judgment shot up. My sense of collective efficacy, my sense that people around me can and will do what they say, shot up.

To have created a window of opportunity is the British genius as producing Obama was the American genius

I am relaxed about the political discussions going on right now. For the first time, I feel that the British political system works. Yes, we have a period of hard negotiation to get through. But to have created a window of opportunity is the British genius as producing Obama was the American genius.

I feel good, not in that heady I feeeel gooood way that presages a fall. I feel good in that way we feel when we are rolling up our sleeves and getting down to work.

Well done, Britain. We are proud of you!

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Step 5: Consolidating my online strategy – moving my content from WordPress.com to self-hosted Dreamhost

Published May 5, 2010 by Jo Jordan

Importing WordPress content to self-hosted Dreamhost

Was difficult but I got it sorted eventually.

I began with my content on my old blog: http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com, and I had already installed the shell of WordPress using a One Click install on Dreamhost.

Export

To move my content from my old blog to my new blog, I went to my old blog (on WordPress.com), chose Admin, scrolled down the left-bar to Tools, and selected export. WordPress automatically downloaded all my posts, categories, tags, comments and authors to a file on the hard drive on my laptop.

Import

To upload the content at my new blog on Dreamhost, I went to http://flowingmotion.jojordan.org/wp-admin and logged in. I chose Admin, scrolled down the left-bar to Tools and chose import.

Import Fail!

I followed the instructions and it timed out after 30 seconds.

Roadblock

If I were importing to a blog on my localhost (WordPress on my laptop), I could edit my .htaccess file and set the maximum execution time to 3 minutes. I can’t do this if I have One Click installed on Dream Host. I have access to all other files but not that one.

Workaround

Fortunately, someone has already solved this and has written a program to split the WXR (RSS XML) file that I had exported so successfully from my original blog.

WordPress WXR (RSS XML) Splitter

WordPress WXR (RSS XML) Splitter is downloadable as a zip file. I made a sub-folder in my WordPress themes folder and unzipped the splitter programme there. Then I ran it and inserted the path and name of the file of blog content that I had downloaded from WordPress.

Advantages of splitting the file of your blog content

My objective was to split the file into smaller files that I could import into my new blog one after the other.

I didn’t want to faff about so I cautiously set the splitter at 40 posts per file. I suspect more could be crammed in but I went the cautious route of 23 by 40 posts. Splitter runs fast and made me 23 files neatly labelled from 0 to 22.

I went back to my new blog and tried again (Admin-Tools-Import). And it all worked perfectly though it took me well over half-an-hour.

Result

So now I have a working theme with all my blogs, categories and tags, on a self-hosted blog at Dreamhost, and I can start tidying up details like RSS feeds, Google Analytics, email subscribe forms, and so on.

UPDATE from Dreamhost

“If I were importing to a blog on my localhost (WordPress on my laptop),
I could edit my .htaccess file and set the maximum execution time to 3
minutes. I can’t do this if I have One Click installed on Dream Host. I
have access to all other files but not that one.”

You do have access to the .htaccess file. The One-Click installer doesn’t
prevent that, you have access and can change/delete any file in that
directory.

The problem is that the “php_value max_execution_time 180” addition to
the .htaccess file will not change how PHP runs in the DreamHost
environment. It worked on your home computer because you are running PHP
as an Apache module (mod_php). On the DreamHost servers however PHP
processes are run in CGI mode. This means PHP will work independent of
Apache and therefor doesn’t look in the .htaccess file (this file passes
instructions to Apache) for configuration changes. When running PHP in
CGI mode most configuration changes come from the php.ini file which is
owned by the root user and therefor can’t be modified directly by your
user.

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Step 4: Consolidating my online strategy – prepping my WordPress shell to import my blog content

Published May 5, 2010 by Jo Jordan

Migrating from WordPress.com to self-hosted

My overall goal here is to organize my online assets and my specific goal right now is to move my 2 year old blog from WordPress.com to a self-hosted WordPress blog on Dreamhost. Though self-hosting costs a monthly fee and takes more maintenance, self-hosting allows me to control the theme, get Google Analytics and use advertisements.

So far, I have completed these steps

I bought a domain name, jojordan.org
I made a neat frontend for my domain using Posterous and connected it to the domain name that is housed at Dreamhost
I set up a sub-domain on Dreamhost flowingmotion.wordpress.om
I used Dreamhost’s one One Click install to set up WordPress including an admin account
I zipped a theme that I had edited on my local host version of WordPress and tested it on a dummy account

Uploading a theme

Now I am ready to import my own theme to my self-hosted version of WordPress.

I don’t need to login into Dreamhost. I simply go to my browser and type in the address of my blog: http://flowingmotion.jojordan.org/wp-admin and login in as admin (not me).

Now I can go to Appearance in left side bar and Add Theme. I use Upload and Browse to upload the them from my hard drive. Activate. Check. Done!

Setting up permalinks

Now the last task before I come to get the content here is to match the permalink style on my self-hosted blog to the style here. If I don’t do that, then the post titles are going to get scribbled and people won’t be able to follow old links and bookmarks to find the posts. I may as well leave them behind, in other words.

To prep the permalinks, I look at the bottom of the left sidebar, choose Settings/permalinks, and and choose the 2nd option, day and name. Check they are same as usual.

Ready to import content

Now if I am right, I am ready to import content. I will come to my hosted blog, go to dashboard and export all the content to my hard drive. This usually trips up over size and timing. As can never remember what I wrote, I will write it down this time and make post 5 in this series!

But that will be from the new blog! See you on the other side!

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Step 3: Consolidating my online strategy – make a WordPress shell on Dreamhost

Published May 4, 2010 by Jo Jordan

My Online Strategy

My online strategy includes

My own domain name jojordan.org (that I bought through Dreamhost and will renew annually with them or somebody)
A front page for jojordan.org to have a smart CV to add to the bottom of emails’s. I made that on (free) Posterous and “redirect” it to my domain name at Dreamhost.
A blog that I used to keep on WordPress.com (the free version). I am going to move that to Dreamhost now, and pay for hosting. Why do I want to do that? So I can control the theme, get Google Analytics and have the freedom to advertise.

Steps in self-hosting WordPress on Dreamhost

To make a WordPress shell on Dreamhost, I must go through 3 steps. Then I’ll be ready to pretty it up before I import it and attend to SEO (let the world know it is there).

#1 Set up a sub-domain

Because I am redirecting my Posterous blog to my domain name, jojordan.org, that domain is no longer available to host my wordpress blog. I need to make a subdomain, which I will call flowingmotion.jojordan.org. I thought of using blog.jojordan.org. It is shorter and easier to remember but some people already know my work as flowingmotion and flowing motion tells those in the know I am interested in a holistic paradigm of psychology. Using a subdomain does mean though, that my my domain, jojordan.org, won’t benefit from the pagerank that I have already accumulated on Flowingmotion.

To set up my subdomain, I . . .

Log in to Dreamhost
Look for Manage Domains on the right sidebar
Choose Add a Domain
Type in flowingmotion.jojordan.org
Submit, and all is done. Wait a bit and I should be able to access it from my browser: http://flowingmotion.jojordan.org

Now when I got to Manage Domains, the Dreamhost screen looks like this. Notice my jojordan.org is not fully hosted because the physical asset of the blog is actually over on the Posterous computer. Dreamhost is now expecting me to put something in space reserved for flowing motion, and, the world can find it. If I put nothing there, a visitor will just see an “old fashioned looking” list of generic files.

#2 Create a WordPress shell

So I have a space on a computer waiting for something and the world can find it. I am going to load up the WordPress framework into the space.

Dreamhost has a One Click Install. Choose it in right side-bar. Then chose the Advanced option (can’t remember why – tip I picked up on the net). Make sure the radio button for WordPress is selected.

Whiz down to the button and make sure Dreamhost will link to the right sub-domain. Submit.

Wait ten minutes or so. You should get an email saying everything is done! So easy!

#3 Create an admin account on WordPress

When the email arrives, follow the link. You are asked for a blog name and an email address and then given a password. Cut and paste the password in the login for admin and IMMEDIATELY change your password to something you can remember.

Done! You have wordpress loaded up. Now you are back on familiar territory of adding a theme, etc.

Next steps

I have already edited a theme on my own laptop and I am going to zip that into a file and try loading it up.

Then I’ll import my content from WordPress.com.

The final stages will be to add plugins, set up Google Analytics, add the spam catcher Akismet, connect to Feedburner and most importantly, set up redirects from WordPress.com so that anyone who is looking for me is redirected to my new address.

So next step. Have a go at importing a theme.

Comments very welcome!

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Step 2: Consolidating my online strategy – redirecting my Posterous blog to my own domain name

Published May 4, 2010 by Jo Jordan

Neat and tidy Posterous

I use a (free) Posterous blog as a tidy frontend to “serve” my CV at the end of emails and so on. Here it is jojordan.org.

Redirect a Posterous blog to your own domain name

First, of course, you must buy a domain name. Once you’ve done that, you will need to direct your Posterous blog to the domain name.

(PS You can buy a domain name through Posterous . I didn’t; but it looks possible.)

Dreamhost

I bought my Domain name through Dreamhost and I intend to keep other assets on their computers, that is, use them to host some of my online assets.

“Redirecting” my Posterous account to Dreamost

My Posterous account will stay on the Posterous computer though. But I want people who look for jojordan.org to be redirected there without them having to do anything extra.

The word “redirecting” is confusing, because it suggests the Posterous blog moves over to Dreamhost. The opposite happens. People looking for my Posterous blog will be sent by the world-wide internet system to Dreamhost who will redirect them, without them even noticing, to Posterous.

Settings on Dreamhost to “redirect” my visitors to Posterous

To setup Dreamhost to perform this magic redirection, you need to login in to Dreamhost and look in the left sidebar. Pick manage domains. Choose the domain that you will be linking to Posterous. Then choose DNS. You will get a wider screen. In the middle is the following information.

Copy the settings. The numbers in the second last line is the IP address of Posterous. You will use your domain name throughout, of course, not mine. The CNAME setting has the effect of allowing people to type your domain name without the www and finding you nonetheless.

Posterous settings

On the Posterous side, all you have to do is login, go to Manage (top menu bar), choose settings (tab one-third down) and type in your domain name. It all looks like this.

The link up will take at least 30 minutes (the world wide web is a physically big place!). Beware too, that once Posterous is directing to your domain name, if you break the Dreamhost side you won’t be able to get into Posterous because the WWW will still redirect anyone looking for http://yourblogname.posterous.com to the domain at Dreamhost. You are effectively locked out! So remember to disconnect the Posterous end before you fiddle!

Problems

Let me know if you have any problems and I’ll adjust these instructions. It’s sometime since I did this; though I did manage to lock myself out of Posterous today. I got back in again with a bit of Googling and reading so, all good. Patience and tolerance of geeky English and it comes together.

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Step 1: Consolidating my online strategy – self-hosting my blog

Published May 4, 2010 by Jo Jordan

3 reasons to self-host a WordPress blog

I am planning to migrate my two year old blog on WordPress.com to a self-hosted version (WordPress.com). The advantages of self-hosting are three

I can choose any theme I like
I can link up to Google Analytics that will tell me lot more about my traffic
I can add advertisements

Online strategy

I prepared for the big migration by thinking about my online strategy. Despite wanting to put some adverts on it, my blog is not part of my commercial strategy. I use it think things out and to write regularly. It is a notepad where I develop, rather than sell ideas.

Ideally, I want it to link to my “CV” sites and to use its page rank to boost other online ventures.

Online organization

As I dallied, a tai chi outfit in the states snapped up flowingmotion. com. My names is rather common as well. So I settled on this strategy.

Buy a domain in my name (jojordan.org)
Take up jojordanorg on Facebook
Set up an central organizing point on a free Posterous blog and redirect it to jojordan.org
Make my blog a sub-domain of jojordan.org (flowingmotion.jojordan.org).

The reason I did this is because Posterous makes a good-looking front end CV site where I can link out to all my CV assets – Linkedin, Xing, Slideshare, etc. It’s easy to redirect the Posterous blog to my domain jojordan.org which is hosted by Dreamhost.

I thought for a moment that I could host the blog at jojordan.org/flowingmotion and take full advantage of its page rank; but it seems not. So a sub-domain it is: http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com.

Costs and maintenance

In summary,

I’ve purchased a domain name http://jojordan.org. I bought it through Dreamhost and will need to pay for an annual renewal. At the time of the renewal, I could move it to another host/registrant like GoDaddy, if I want to.
I set up a “permanent” CV front end with Posterous. That blog stays with them for free and I redirect it to the domain at Dreamhost. This seems counter-intuitive because it is working the other way. People go to http://jojordan.org and they are redirected to Posterous.
I am now taking my blog hosted for free at WordPress.com and I am moving to Dreamhost. I will pay them a monthly fee for hosting my blog on their computers but the software will come for free from WordPress.org. I will use a free theme which I have edited to suit me.

Clear so far? I need to add the instructions for redirecting the Posterous blog to Dreamhost because that tripped me up the first time I did it.

Now I am going to set up the “full hosting” for the WordPress blog.

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Little-and-often: The secret of beating writer’s block, procrastination, etc etc and so on

Published May 4, 2010 by Jo Jordan

Sleeping, resting or procrastinating before a big task

Have you ever noticed that minute you have to sit down to do a big task, such as write a paper, or get up to do a big task, like hoover the house, you want to go to sleep? You dither, you fuss, you try to talk yourself out of it. And you waste hours getting cross with yourself but doing nothing?

Procrastination is sane

Well you are in good company. Sane company. Your body is resisting being enveloped in one distracting task. It knows better. It knows everything else goes to wrack and ruin while you attend to this one big thing. At best, it wants a good rest before your start.

Work little-and-often

So how do you get round your dilly-dallying? Fussing and cursing certainly doesn’t help. It just wastes time.

The secret is in little-and-often. Yup, little-and-often.

Folks, 15 minutes is a long time for our alert, sociable, curious human brains. Go much beyond 15 minutes, and you body will protest (in advance). You might need an enveloping time slot of an hour to do that 15 minutes of work. In reality, you are only going to do 5 or 10 minutes, but you will need a buffer zone to remember what you were doing, get out your tools, do the work, and put it away.

What work can be done little-and-often?

How can you do this, you cry?

Successful people work little-and-often. That is why they are successful.

Successful professors, by which I mean professors who publish 7x as much as the run-of-the-mill professor publishing at 1x, get up earlyish each day and put aside 1 to 1.5 hours to write something, anything.

They get up. They go to their desk. They look at what they were doing yesterday. And they do a bit more. And the next day rinse-and-repeat.

And they don’t break the chain. They work little-and-often daily. Because when they take a break, they’ve added the additional task of trying to remember what they were doing. And then the task gets too big.

They write daily. Adding something. If they have two productive slots of 15 minutes in 1.5 hours. Great! But they just get something done.

When they have a real break, like a long vacation, they start again. They get up. They go to their desk. And they start work. The first few days might be spent in remembering. But they don’t get stressed. That is the beginning point. Because they have good work habits, they know the work will get done.

But what should I work on little-and-often first thing in the morning?

The trick though, is knowing our priorities. What is the big task that we will attend to regularly and get finished as a landmark of achievement?

Professors have a simple (though remarkably bruising) work life. They publish. They teach. They do community/university service. But they are only promoted for what is written and published.

So their priorities are clear. The first and essential task everyday is to write – with a conference in journal in mind. Then they go to campus and teach and “do” research for the next paper – tasks that are so much easier because they are sociable. Their “day-job” is relaxed ,setting up a feed for the real job, that cocooned writing time first thing every morning.

Can we copy the little-and-often work routine of successful professors?

When we are procrastinating, we can be sure that we’ve left a task get too big for a series of 15 minute slots. Or, we have left it too late and we have to do it in one fell swoop. If nothing else, this is what university life teaches you. Work little and often. And begin. Begin before you are ready.

To get into a comfortable working rhythm, we need to

Establish priorities (ONE, and two, three – no more)
Do what we are judged on first, before the house gets noisy.
Then do the feeder tasks during the day.

The solution is not reducing procrastination. The solution is knowing our career priorities. What are we judged on? If we are judged on published papers, then we need to go one step back – where do they come from – we write them. So writing is the main task.

How do we write? Well, while we are writing one article, we are preparing for the next. But without interfering with the main task. Which is done in small time slots, little and often, beginning immediately. The writing is the main task that must be protected.

The trick is understanding our priorities. But that is hard. A good mentor might spell out what we need to do. Until w have those 3 priorities clear in our mind, then we will be stressed and uncomfortable.

If we are in a readjustment phase, and not clear about our priorities, we might have to weather the discomfort for while, but we shouldn’t let that stop us moving towards that clarity. That is the hallmark of success and a comfortable, achieving life. Clear priorities.

What will I work on daily, little-and-often?

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