In January, I decided to try my hand at creating additional streams of passive income. It all started with eHow and slowly progressed to other avenues such as Today dot com (aka The Biggest Scam on the Internet), Bukisa (worthless waste of space), affiliate marketing (aka Clickbank) and Infobarrel (my new favorite place to write). This afternoon, I decided to compile a simple profit and loss statement to see how I have been doing, and let me tell you….IT AIN’T PRETTY!

I knew that I was not making much money, I just did not realize just how truly pathetic it really was. This has got me thinking about whether or not it is even worth the effort to continue building these income streams. I do, after all, spend a ridiculous amount of time online writing articles, making landing pages, etc. I would be better served working the late night drive through at McDonald’s. At least then I could take that money, invest in a solid dividend paying growth stock and spend more time with my wife and son.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I am not the type of guy that gives up easily. Nope! I am too hard-headed for that. I am, however, going to set some income goals for the next six months. If I am not achieving these goals by December 31, 2009, I am done – completely done with writing articles, promoting affiliate products, etc. The only thing that will continue is Chasing The Bull, and maybe Experimental Blogging.

I have spent way too much money chasing the newest technique. I should have stopped with One Week Marketing, since that guide actually works, but I could not help myself. As such, I will not be purchasing ANY new eBooks, courses, training manuals, etc. I will take the ones that I have already spent good money on and make them work. No exceptions!

Additionally, I will continue to write for sites that I know make me money. Currently, these include eHow and Infobarrel. I will continue to use Squidoo and Blogger blogs to promote some affiliate products and will create a few Hubs over at HubPages. Each of these will get one day per week maximum, so that I can properly diversify my passive streams of income. Finally, I am going to begin creating a few niche sites that should take about 4 to 5 hours each to complete. Each of these sites will be a few pages of quality content that provides useful information and points to an affiliate product or service.

By the end of December, I want to be making the following monthly income (from passive sources):
Affiliate Sales: $250
Ad Revenue: $50
eHow: $125
Misc: $75

$500 a month should be an attainable goal for me. While many internet marketers would scoff at such low goals, $500 per month would help me pay off my mortgage 15 years earlier. ChasingTheBull, is after all, a blog about personal finance, investing and passive income. It is time to put up or shut up!

What about you? Are you achieving your online goals in 2009?

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Being bored at work is perhaps one of the most miserable experiences possible. Sometimes it can feel like you have been staring at that computer screen for hours only to find that the hands on the clock have only moved 30 minutes.

While some people resort to playing Solitaire or Freecell, I tend to try and challenge myself to get more done in less time. I have always been sort of a self starter, but lately it has become more and more challenging not to simply start reading any of the hundreds of blogs that I follow. Sound familiar?

To stay focused and avoid being bored at work, try these things and see if you can become more productive.

1. Analyze Why You Are Bored – Do you have a job that you absolutely hate? Are you stuck behind a desk when you would rather be out in the sunshine? If you could pick any job to have, would it be the job you  currently have? If not, check out Dan Miller’s 48 Days to the Work You Love.

2. Challenge Yourself – Often we tend to get comfortable in our day to day routine. If nothing bad happens, we may think that all is well.  Simply coasting by in life can get boring. Instead of waiting for your boss to challenge you, challenge yourself. Set a new goal for yourself. Explore additional responsibilities that you could assume.

3. Create Lifetime Goals – Many people make a list of weekly goals. I consider this to be more of a task list than a goal list. What is it that you really want to achieve in life? Grab a sheet of paper and jot down what is it that you want to accomplish in your life. Do not limit yourself to what you can complete this year. Imagine what you can accomplish over the next 30 years.

4. Pick Up a Hobby – You would think that after working on a computer all day long, the last type of hobby I would chose would be something on a computer. This is, however, exactly what I like to do with my free time. Whether it is writing articles for Infobarrel, creating lenses on Squidoo or constructing new One Week Marketing campaigns, I love creating passive income online. Is there something you want to learn how to do? Perhaps you want to try training for a marathon. Whatever it is, pick something and have fun!

5. Educate Yourself - If you are truly bored, and there is no end in site, read a book about something you may want to be when you grow up.  Take some night courses or take a few private lessons. About 6 years ago, I was a low-level manager at national grocery store. I loved it but was so bored that I thought I would fall asleep standing up.

I decided to do something about it. I went back to school and picked up an accounting degree. After a tough 4 year run with Ernst&Young, I got my CPA license and now manage a small company in my city. My newest passion is learning as much as I can about opening my own practice. Who knows? Perhaps in a few months I will open the doors to my own small company.

What do you do to stay motivated at work?

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Now that we have established what I have accomplished during the past 100 days, it is time to think about the future. Like the old saying goes, ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail’. I must admit that in the past planning has been a bit of a weakness. I prefer to just see what happens and adjust.

Unfortunately, this type of thinking can really get you into trouble. In fact, over the past 24 months, the ‘old bull‘ has managed to pack on about 30 pounds. Since I never really plan my lunches out in advance, I typically get into a crunch for time and just grab Zaxby’s, or something equally as unhealthy. Additionally, my doctor is so frustrated with me that he did not even gripe at me. He simply sighed and told me to come back in three months. Talk about demoralizing!

With that in mind, it is imperative that I do something about my shape! Yes, I know that round is a shape, but I truly need to work on my fitness levels. I have been so focused on trying to become debt free that I have stopped doing the things that are truly important in life. So here it goes…written goals for the all the world to see – all three of you

Fitness Related Goals

• eat a healthy diet (no more McDonalds and Zaxby’s)
• 30 minutes of cardio – 4 times a week
• free weights – 3 times a week
• drink 5 glasses of water and no more than 6 sodas (yes friends – I drink 8 to 10 diet cokes a day)

Personal Finance Goals

• complete a zero-based budget every two weeks
• stop the slippage that is occurring in our budget
• re-establish our emergency fund

Passive Income Goals

• write 10 articles for eHow and Infobarrel
• write 30 articles for my bum marketing experiment
• make 5 sales on new affiliate products not previously promoted
• get ChasingTheBull up to a page rank of 3 (currently sitting at PR2) – which reminds me, if you want to advertise here, just let me know
• write at least 4 posts a week here (I know I have been seriously slacking lately)

So there you have it. My next 100 days are planned out and set in stone.

What are your goals for the next 100 days? What do you want to accomplish by August 8, 2009?

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