Howdy Reader! Tonight I listed ten catalogs on eBay from start to finish. Earlier in the day I wrote the task in my notebook. Almost as an afterthought, I said that it would take about an hour to do this. I honestly had no idea. I got the work done -- taking the pictures, editing the pictures, and putting everything in listings -- in a little over an hour. This is something I haven't done in a while: Estimate how long a task will take. As I was doing it, I was looking at the clock to see how...
1 day ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! My newsletter client sent me a link to sign up for a Wise account. It's a payment processor that he uses in his business, and he loves it. Here's the link if you want to check it out. I had a lot of things to get together to sign up for it. It took the better part of an hour because I hadn't organized things well. I still may not have everything I need, and will need to call the IRS to get a document. Disorganization costs time, and money. (I wrote about this quite a while ago...
2 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! I had a choice of activities today. One was a picnic with my colleagues. The other was a once-a-year art and wine festival that my wife and I have attended several years in a row. It was unfortunate scheduling, but I had to choose. What won out was who I'd see there. I spend a quarter of my week with my colleagues. Most of the interactions aren't friendship, really. I'm showing professional tolerance. I'm polite, they're polite, but they're mostly in it for themselves. It wasn't...
4 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! So I mentioned that I sold a couple of products this week. No better feeling in the world. If you're posting on social media (I like Threads) it's good to give far more than you take. Once in a while, though, it's also good to post on your wins. Like I did about a day ago. Lots of good will coming back at me. Plus over a hundred likes, and eight new follows from this post. It's social proof. Showing results beats showing plans for results. Don't be afraid of tooting your own...
5 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! I've been creating content since 2003. I put articles up on my website by stuffing paragraphs into an HTML template. It's far easier in 2025. Heck, it was far easier in 2006! But every article, every post on Threads, every video, is an asset. It may not pay off this week, or ever. But with enough of them, some of them will pay off really well. Building something every day adds to this porfolio of work. It reduces stress in the face of job uncertainty. It's getting some eggs in...
6 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! A few months ago, I put up a product on Gumroad. It was an Obsidian starter kit for content creators. It went up in July. I got a "first-customer" sale because I bought a course from someone. So that one kind of didn't count. No sales in the rest of July, August, September, and most of October. Then ... two sales this week! One on Monday, and one today. It's like things woke up for a bit. I get a decent paycheck from my day job. But having two people believe enough in me to buy...
7 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! I got a notification from a channel I started, but haven't posted to recently. It's been over five months since I posted anything there. But two days ago, I got this notification: "People are loving your videos! You've hit 10 hours of watch time. Great job!" A total of seven videos, four of them shorts. Yet some of them, like this one, are getting views right now. The shorts have Amazon links to a few products I like. They just sit there, sending some traffic that might get me...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! A friend from church pays the $20/month for ChatGPT Plus. He uses it all the time for stock analysis and a host of other things. When we chatted, I wasn't using it a whole lot. Even now, I use it infrequently. I told him at the time: "I should use it more. I don't want to be a dinosaur." So I'm at least thinking of new things to try with ChatGPT. One experiment I ran was cataloging a bookshelf. I took one picture of a couple of shelves. I fed the picture to ChatGPT. It not only...
10 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! Well, it was bound to happen, I suppose. For several months, I've gotten this email out to you all every Monday through Saturday. I've clung to this newsletter as a testament to my consistency. Well, yesterday, I missed. Why I missed doesn't matter. But, this is a great opportunity to quote James Clear in his Atomic Habits (emphasis mine): The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing...
11 days ago • 1 min read