Corey Creed

I leave for a week long trip to NY and Massachusetts this week.

As I wrote three weeks ago, I have been working on reading less and eliminating distractions.  I’m calling it my info diet.

I’m trying my best to avoid TV (especially news) at home, but I am much more concerned about my time at work.

So over the last few weeks I have systematically unsubscribed to almost every email newsletter I get.  Here are the only exceptions…

1. SearchCap daily news on search engines
2. MarketingVox daily newsletter
3. Marketing Sherpa weekly research

The process has been very liberating.  It is a strange feeling to come in to work in the morning and only have emails from actual human beings in my inbox.  It’s also strange to walk out of the room for an hour or two and come back in and have no new emails.  It’s wonderful.

The whole reason I’m doing this is to free up time to create more.  The new design for my SEO training site is now up and running.  It’s not perfect yet, but it’s getting where I need it to be.

A new feature of the new design is that I am going to be providing more “resources” for my clients, students, and subscribers.

Thus, I am working hard to spend less time reading and more time writing – at work, at least.

I’ve been working on this personal blog all morning.

I redesigned the home page to be a BIO about me and added a History page as well.

I also made the home page my BIO, not my blog.

The goal is to get people searching on my name to find the information I want them to find.

Starting this past week, I am going on an INFORMATION diet.

Right now I’m in the middle of reading a book on how to be more efficient.  I don’t really recommend the book because it’s not that great.  But one thing it recommends is to stop reading, listening to, and watching news.

I’ve thought long and hard about this one.  After all, I built my entire business since 2003 by reading and studying forums, blogs, articles, magazines, books, etc.  Also, I love to read.  I owe any success I’ve had to the tremendous effort I have put toward learning as much as I can about my industry (Internet Marketing).

But I think it’s time to be more careful about how much time I spend reading vs. how much time I spend actually working.

So I’m going on a diet.

• I’ve unsubscribed to all but one email newsletter. 
• I’m going to avoid all television news, magazines, blogs, and forums. 
• If something is important enough, I will hope that my friends or colleagues will let me know about it. 
• If I need to learn something, instead of reading and researching, I will ask those that have done it already.

The one exception will be the few podcasts I listen to while driving.  It’s much more enjoyable than the radio, and makes my driving time pass quicker.

I’ll use any extra time I gain to building valuable content for my clients and customers.  I also plan on spending more time with my wife, friends, relaxation, and personal projects.

This should also help me toward my goal of working 4 days per week in 2009.

Next time I talk with you, if I ask “What’s new?”…  Be assured that I honestly don’t know.