I've been doing white hat and black hat projects concurrently for quite some time, even though I've only been on BHW for a month.

Just wanted to share some thoughts on staying focused that relate to projects.

For me running a business online can be the greatest form of financial freedom - if you are successful and stay focused. It's easy to get distracted with information overload which at times cause paralysis. I know happened to me too.

I recently got banned from a Domain Parking site for 'junk traffic'. I was pretty bummed but it caused me to take a look at my 'projects portfolio'. I realized I was trying to do too many things and overextend.

I had 4 blogs I was trying to write unique content for, all I didn't really care about much less write content for. All because an e-book a few years ago said blogging was the next way to riches. It wasn't for me, so I scrapped them.

I had 126 domains parked at a site (same one I got banned from) and I wasn't diversified. All because some e-book said domain parking was a way to internet riches. It wasn't for me. Just recently packaged and sold most of them off at a profit.

I had so many half-baked black-hat projects running, I couldn't keep track of where, what, when, why, or how. I scaled those back to a reasonable and manageable workload.

Today my desk and mind are free from the clutter of trying to do every project that comes down the pipe or ones that I read about. It's really nice.

I'm still working on a business plan on direction, but getting banned from a site was one of the best things that ever happened to me in online biz.

If you're a noob, take your time, go slow and build a solid foundation. Best of all do what you enjoy, if it's successful the money will pour in.

Hope this helps..

What you said is true, it become very easy to become distracted. For example there always a new technique of making money and when i see/read them i feel like what i've done previously was not enough so i stopped half way, try that new technique. Now i dont get any penny yet in result of bumbling around trying everything i read. I dont know why its so hard to control them.

good call, you gotta focus on a small number of projects and stay away from the latest "hot" way of making money. Keep plugging away at your chosen projects and you will succeed.
"Persistance beats resistance", every time

Well said.

The shotgun approach basically blew up on me. I spent a year bouncing from method to method, idea to idea and while I've made a profit, I never really became GOOD at any of these things.

A little less than two months ago (July 15th to be exact) I had a realization. That by the way is a day I'll never forget. I just "got it" all of a sudden one morning.

Since then I've been focusing on one project. Just one. I read, I catalog, I hang out in forums and learn, but I'm only working on one thing right now. I've got sticky notes and 3x5 cards, 100s of bookmarks and notebooks full of thoughts and ideas that I'm collecting as I go along, but all of my work is focused on this one thing.

The result is still unclear, but the sheer amount that I've accomplished in the last 45 days is easily 10 times what I managed in my first year online.

Once this project is up and running and making me enough to leave the old ball and chain, and it will, I'll have time and privacy (I can surf at my day job but can't really do much actual work) to really explore other things that I've developed into workable, profitable systems.

That word "system" by the way is very important. One of the things that always slowed me down was what I call "$50 a day syndrome." I kept chasing things that would potentially make me a few bucks and by doing so, instead of building a business, I distracted myself from what's really important - repeatability and scalability. Now I'm building a monetization system. And the cool thing is I'm not chasing a few bucks a month any more. I'm chasing $1000 per visitor.

That's a hell of alot more motivating than working 40 hours a week just to keep up with the trends and making half of what my day job pays.

Sorry for the long ass post, but try focusing on what you want IN THE END.

For me, that has given me a drive beyond just making a buck which is actually easy to do online. It's given me a passion for what I do.

And never ever ever give up.

Well said everyone. I made my first online income way back in the mid 90's. Back then you could throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and some would stick, meaning it was a lot easier to earn money with scattered and half-ass efforts.

That's not how it is today though. It's still pretty easy to make money, but you've got to put something serious into whatever you're doing to earn it no matter what that is.

It's funny when I think about it, but there's more money to be made online today then when I started and there's more people trying to get it... but there's fewer people actually making anything because the tables turned and it now requires real work and effort.

The upside to that though is that for anyone actually willing to work at it there's plenty of bank to be made because few people ever really "get it" and most will keep trying to throw tons of crap at the wall and hope something sticks.

This has been my problem as well. I buy a domain, and I think I NEED to develop it. So I half-ass another website so I can start working on this new one.

What I am trying to get to are websites that I can just let sit and they make me money. I have a few eBay ones that get very little traffic, but make about $200 a month.