Blogvember

Hitting the Halfway Mark on the Blogvember Challenge

by crisanzai · Nov 16, 2017

So I’m a little over at the halfway mark of this challenge and I have to say it hasn’t gotten easier. In fact it’s more difficult than when I started!

It may be because I have a bit higher standards and constraints on what to write and how to present the information. Also I’m mentally exhausted – mostly from my day job(s) where I come home just mentally exhausted and unmotivated to do things. I wish I could carve out time during the day to write as my brain is firing on all cylinders, but I guess that’s life!

This stagnation may also be caused by the season – I do get some energy from being out from the sun, but now that it’s getting darker, I feel a bit more tired when I get home.

Also I could be just making excuses, because of laziness…

So What am I Going to do About It?

I think next month I’m going to focus more on a side project that I’m working and hope to get off the ground and do less writing on this particular blog. Which really is a journal of sorts of random thoughts. I think having the freedom to write about anything is actually harder than having creative constraints.

I’m going to try to dedicate more of my “free” time on the weekends to tend my content garden and mentally prepared for the week ahead. I feel like I’m approaching a wall. I need to buckle up or shut up… I have to remember this is a marathon and not a sprint.

Have a great night and thanks for reading!

Coming Attractions: November Blog Challenge

by crisanzai · Nov 1, 2017

I’m going to approach blogging a little differently this go around. As you recall from my post yesterday, I’m going to try to be a bit more intentional in my writings. I don’t plan on making drastic changes overnight, but they’ll eventually start coming. For now I’ve decided to do some structural changes which include Tog Tuesdays (where I talk about all things Photography) and Five things Friday, where I’ll sum up 5 things that I found interesting such as products, articles, blogs, concepts, etc… I also intend to have a consistent Biblical post once a week, where I apply something I’ve read in the Bible to my current life. I haven’t decided what day that will be, but will keep you posted.

What this Blog is About

I slept on it and I’ve decided for this blog to focus on 3 key concepts personal development – how to improve life, learning, and inspiration. Inspiration in the sense of writing about topics I enjoy and learn from, also things that motivate me. This blog will a

I’m going to shift my focus from writing to a general audience to a very specific audience. This may just be for the month of November, but my audience for this month is my child and possibly future children. I’ll be writing in a way of a father writing to an older child, maybe one that’s just graduated high school.

This blog will be an exercise in discipline – which I admittedly lack and which is something I’ve been struggling with all of my adult life. There’s a concept at work that my CEO developed called creative discipline:

We are Disciplined People engaged in Disciplined Thought resulting in Disciplined Action. We build firm foundations. We execute any process the best way we know until we find a better way…and then we adopt that better way. We know that operational excellence arises from attention to a 1,000 little things. We permanently solve temporary problems. We don’t make endless lists where things go to die. We just see what needs to be done, and we do it.

I think this will help me the most and this blog will be a channel for exercising this concept.

What this Blog is Not About

I’ve decided for now that I’m not going to monetize this blog in any way. In fact I’m “paying” to write this blog with the domain fees and the money I used to buy this theme. This blog is not going to be a resource for people, in fact the views that I take may be entirely wrong or don’t apply to your situation. This blog is for entertainment purposes only.

Other Projects

The last 31 days of writing helped me reveal an opportunity and project that I’ve had in my head for a while. Because of all of this writing, I’ve learned to open my mind to other possibilities. That being said, I’m excited to say that I am indeed working on another blog in tandem to this one that I think will bear lots of fruit, more to come on that later!

One of my five year goals is to have multiple streams of passive income. This may come from investments, businesses, as well as book and art sales. I’ll probably write a post about it. I’ve even “practiced” investing using a stock simulator with my coworker. In the game, which is very realistic (only the money is not real) – I’ve managed to accumulate (as of this post) $623,637.69 and started off with a hefty $500,000.00 with an annual return rate of about 26%. We started playing on December 8th of last year and so far my account has been tracking several points ahead of the S&P 500. I’ll probably post on this later – but I think it’s a great “no risk” way to see how well you would do with investing (as long as you take it seriously).

Well those are my thoughts, thanks for reading!

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Goodbye Blogtober! Hello Blogvember!

by crisanzai · Oct 31, 2017

Happy Halloween! Today marks the final day of my Blogtober challenge. This was originally spurred by my CEO’s involvement in a monthly blogging challenge. He stated that it made him a better CEO and I thought I’d take a shot at it too with no real expectations.

Key Takeaways So Far

As I’m writing these blogs, I’ve noticed they work as a sounding board for myself (if that makes any sense), for bigger ideas. For example, if I wanted to start up a Photography blog – which I’m actually going to pursue separately (more on that later). Simply put, writing these blogs have been inspirational for other ideas.

This blog challenge also has me reading more. I’ve been reading a variety of other blogs and articles to try to help inspire and fuel my blog’s content. Right now all the topics are scattershot, and I feel like I need to move toward a niche and focus.

What’s Happening in November

In November I’m going to start keeping track of the time spent writing these blogs. I usually write late at night starting anywhere from 9 or 10 at night, after I’ve settled down from work and any other activities (Church, gym, family time, etc…). I want to start tracking time spent on this blog, just out of curiosity, and see what my output actually is. Thank you Jason Scott Montoya for the idea!

In November the plan is to write more intentionally. What I mean by that is to have more focused posts and planning out posts. I’m going to be writing less (I actually did the challenge incorrectly by writing every single day, instead of every single weekday) to give me time to plan out topics to write and have some sort of strategy. I think the first part of November I’ll be thinking about where I want CrisAnzai.com’s identity to live. It may end up just being a personal blog or a “catch all” where I post everything and anything and I may have separate blogs where I want to explore other topics.

As I continue writing, November, I hope, will be a refinement month, Hopefully my writing is actually improving… Anyways November will be as much of a challenge as October, I can already feel it. More details to come in tomorrow’s post!

Thanks a bunch for reading!