I briefly touched on the Zero Inbox philosophy / methodology, but didn’t go in depth.

This methodology is so critically important however, I decided to write an entire article about it.

Implementing this methodology will allow you to:

• Drastically reduce the amount of work-related or blogging-related stress you have.
• Never “drop the ball” on communications again.
• Get things done much faster.
• Improve your personal relationships.
• Free up time so you can work on other aspects of your business.

Best of all, it doesn’t take any effort at all once you get used to it. The first month or so takes a little getting used to, but this system will pay off for the rest of your life.

This isn’t a theoretical article. This is something I’ve been doing for over a year. The screenshot in the corner is an actual screenshot from my currently empty inbox. This is what my inbox looks like at the end of every day, even if I receive 40 emails that day.

Here’s how to implement this system and how it’ll affect your life.

The Golden Rule

The golden rule is very simple: Every day, at some point, your email has to hit zero. If it happens mid day and there are a few emails that gather up later in the day, that’s fine. But at some point, your inbox must hit zero.

When your inbox hits zero, you and your subconscious mind will know for a fact that there are no responsibilities or tasks that you might be responsible for that you don’t know about. You’ll breathe a huge sense of relief.

Getting to Zero for the First Time

If you’re like most people, there’s a good chance that there are hundreds or thousands of emails piled up in your inbox right now. Most people just don’t have a system for getting rid of old emails and simply let things pile up. Their subconscious mind feels stressed, because there’s no way to know for sure that there isn’t something you’re supposed to be doing somewhere in that pile.

So, the first step to getting rid of the pile is to just hit the delete button on any email more than 2 to 4 weeks old. That simple. Just select all and delete. Or archive. Chances are, you’re realistically not going to go back and read those emails anyway. So just get rid of them.

You can save them in your trash file or a separate folder if you really want to read them later. If you’re in Gmail, archived emails aren’t truly deleted anyway.

Then go through your emails from the past 2 to 4 weeks and apply the following process.

Processing Your Emails

When you’re going through your emails, process them like this.

If there’s an action that requires planning, add the action to your to-do list then archive the email.

If it’s an informational email, read the content then archive the email.

If it’s spam, mass mailings, email groups or anything else that doesn’t need a response, archive the email.

If the email requires a quick action and you have the time right now, just do the action. For example, someone asks you to send them Nancy’s phone number. It’ll take you 30 seconds to take out your phone and email it to them. If you’re not in a big rush, just do it.

Go through all your emails in this methodical fashion. For each email, ask yourself: “What needs to happen with this email before I can comfortably get rid of the email?”

Often time’s people procrastinate handling email simply because making that decision can be tough. But when you force yourself to think in terms of what needs to be done for an email to truly be handled, you’ll quickly come up with an answer.

Do this for the last 2 to 4 weeks of email. By the time you’re done, you can be sure there’s no balls dropped from the last 2 to 4 weeks in your communications. It’ll be a huge sense of relief.

Keeping it Up & Finishing Words

Keeping it up can be tricky for the first few weeks. It’s easy to avoid making the decision (singular!) necessary to figure out how to get rid of difficult emails. But once you get in the habit, it’ll seriously pay off.

Your relationships will improve, because you get back to people quickly and never forget to respond. You’ll appear more professional, as you respond to clients, bosses and peers much faster. Your projects will get done more quickly, as again you never drop the ball. And most of all, you’ll experience much less stress in your communications and your everyday life.

Not convinced? Try it for 30 days. This is something I personally use and can personally guarantee will make a big difference.

- Derek

Hmmm…what has he been hiding?

Well the truth is, Derek leads a pretty exciting lifestyle and has been traveling the world for about a year and half so far, starting about 1 month after he started writing for us. Yes, that’s right…he’s been using his writing skills to achieve the freedom most of us only dream of.

Recently, I asked Derek a few questions that would give us the opportunity to learn more about him and even provide us with a few tips on how we can also achieve such freedom in life. Whether you’re traveling or just want to have more freedom and flexibility in your daily schedule at home, Derek is certainly someone we can look to for inspiration.

Meet Derek

Derek was born in Redwood City, California. He spent about 6 of his formative years living in Hong Kong and for the rest, grew up living in the San Francisco area with his mother, father and brother. He still considers San Francisco home, even though he is currently traveling the world. He hopes to settle back down there, start a business, get married and even have some kids.

Growing up, Derek had a passion for business and never cared much for school. Instead, at about age 13, he found great interest in the works of people like Robert Kiyosaki and Anthony Robbins and devoured whatever he could. To the chagrin of his parents, Derek dropped out of high school at age 16 and left college at 18, never completing his formal studies.

But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been doing his own independent study to carve out the life he has always hoped for. Derek says:

Business has always been my interest. Anything pertaining to business, from marketing to economics to finance to HR to raising capital to real estate to trading has always fascinated me. I never studied it in school, but I’m always reading books and listening to audiobooks. I typically read about 4 books a month, plus listen to podcasts like NPR’s Planet Money and Mixergy and stay on top of various internet and business related blogs.

So, I guess it’s no surprise that, at the age of 22, Derek decided to take his self-made know-how and put it to the test on the road.

Traveling The World

With only $2000 in his bank account, Derek left California and went to Thailand, the birthplace of his father. This was the beginning of his journey that he has been funding through his online writing efforts. Derek says, “I was earning about $1,400 a month from freelance writing at that time. It wasn’t much for San Francisco’s standards, but for Thailand, my first destination, it was more than enough.”

And so it began. While on the road, most of Derek’s income comes freelance writing because he says its the most reliable and steady source of income. He also dabbles in affiliate marketing as a secondary source of income. However, when it comes to earning money online he has dipped into a number of things including buying and selling domains, consulting and even online poker (what would his mother say?! ).

Derek has traveled to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Philippines, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, England, Scotland and throughout the USA. Next, he is heading to Greece and Israel. He will likely be visiting Spain, Croatia, Latvia and Estonia. He is hoping to make it to Morocco and Egypt before he heads back to the Americas where he’ll start with Nicaragua and work his way down Central America and South America.

About his travel “wish list” he says:

I’m also very drawn to South Africa, more or less purely for the great white shark diving. I can’t really justify flying all the way down there and back up just to go shark diving; so at the moment I’m probably going to save Africa for a separate trip in the future.

I asked Derek is travels on his own or if he has a travel companion. He told me:

My trip overall is on my own. I very frequently meet people who I’ll travel with. For example, I went through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam with a group of people that I met on the road. Occasionally friends will fly out and meet me somewhere in the world as well. By and large, travel companions usually stick around for 1 to 3 weeks. The trip overall though, which will probably last over 2 years, is solo.

Here are a few photos from his adventures:

Boating in Vietnam. Actually, one of my favorite experiences was bamboo rafting in Thailand, but I don't have any pics of that. On a bamboo raft, you half float half sink down a river. You're half submerged, so you feel cold, it's a little scary because you're not really floating but you are.

Remember how the Beatles stopped taking LSD and found a guru in India instead - then wrote the White Album? This was taken at the abandoned ashram where the Beatles wrote that album. It was closed when we got there, but we "broke in" by sneaking in the side.

Taken in India, next to the Ganges (river) in India. In India, cows are sacred and roam freely, so you'll literally see cows wandering main streets, even in big cities. This one such cow.

This was from the Lantern Festival in Chiang Mai. If you've ever wondered what the 4th of July would be like without laws, this is what it'd be like. Kids were firing off fireworks in the streets at cars. People shoot fireworks from motorbikes. People throw crackers in front of tourists to freak them out. Much more dangerous than the states, but good fun anyway. By the end of the night, the sky was lit up by lanterns flying up in every direction.

Taken at Ankor Watt in Cambodia. Cambodia was devastated by war just 40 years ago, so there's still a sense of recovery and even some violence beneath the surface. Overall a very friendly place, but you can still feel a bit of the war in the air. Anyone alive in Cambodia today has a parent or grandparent who witnessed or participated in the war.

Fitting Writing into Your Travel Schedule

Obviously, it’s not always easy to find time to write when you could be out having fun instead, but Derek seems very organized in this regard. And actually, as one of his clients, I know that he always meets his deadlines and does stellar work. So how does he do it?

Derek says:

I use the Pomodoro Technique. (Derek also wrote a post about Pomodoro a little while back.)

Basically, I segment my work into 25 minute chunks of pure work – No bathroom breaks, no cellphone, no Facebook. I work 4 to 5 Pomodoros a day, generally. You could look at it as only working 2 hours a day, but the reality is my work day’s probably more like 5 hours, sometimes longer depending on how productive I need to be. If I was working with zero distractions at all, I could probably get all my daily work done in 2-3 hours.

That said, unless my day is jam packed, I usually do a Pomodoro then play some poker, browse Reddit/9Gag or just hang around doing not much, then do another Pomodoro. If I do need to finish my work quickly however, like if I have plans during the day and at night and only have a few hours to get things done, I could usually get my day’s work done in 2.5 hours.

I keep track of all my deadlines in one notepad file. They’re just a list of dates and the times by when they need to be done. Keeping along with my 5 pomodoro work limit, I only accept work that I feel I can fulfill on. I also manage my Warrior Forum post bumps so that I only bump my thread when I have a block of free days coming up. The goal is to manage my work so I fill exactly the amount of work I want to have, without taking on more and without taking on less.

I try to find co-working spaces in the various countries I go to. It depends how long I’m there for. If I’m in a country for 2-3 months, I’ll definitely try to find a co-working space, as working out of my bedroom can be a little depressing and unproductive. If I’m on the road, I’m perfectly happy working out of the hostel or guesthouse.

I think apart from that it’s just practice. Develop the ability to get things done quickly and get a good sense for how much work you can get done in a certain period of time.

Biggest Challenges

I asked Derek what the biggest challenge he faces on the road and you might be surprised it wasn’t earning and income. Instead he says:

One of the biggest challenges I face is balance. To keep up with my freelance writing, my traveling, my social life *AND* continue to build my other streams of income is extremely tough. Sometimes one area just completely falls off the wagon. I’ll completely neglect my future financial goals for example, or I’ll just go without much of a dating life for a little while.

Social life and dating on the road is very interesting. You more or less hit reset on your social life every few months. That means having meaningful friendships and relationships in your life is always something you need to actively cultivate, rather than just having a set social circle and/or significant other.

What About the Uncertainty of Income and What Will Happen?

I asked Derek what advice he would give to someone who would love to embark on a similar lifestyle, but were concerned about the uncertainty of it all. To this he said:

A human being’s ability to fight for survival is truly amazing. If you just throw yourself into the the unknown, you’ll figure out a way to make it work. If you find yourself in Panama with no choice but to make an internet income, you probably will.

That said – I wouldn’t just jump without a safety net at all. Try to hit about $1,000 a month first. That should get you by in most developing countries. Work online for 2-3 months before you leave so you get a good sense of how to get clients, how to deliver on work, how much work you can do in a certain time period and so on. Have a backup plan for what to do if a client source dries up.

Also, if you’re worried about the uncertainty of it all, it helps to know that the reality is that foreigners can find jobs in many countries *very* easily. Anywhere in Asia you can pick up a job teaching English, working at a hostel or working at a bar that caters to foreigners in under a week. The job market is actually much stronger for foreigners in entry-level jobs abroad than at home in the USA. That’s an easy fall back plan if things don’t work out.

I think the idea of making money online and traveling just seems a lot more uncertain than it really is. The reality is, the financial pressures while living in Thailand or Poland (expenses = $800 or less) are just so much less than San Francisco (expenses = $2,000+.) Your chances of living a financially abundant life are much higher abroad than at home. You have much more free time as well.

I think Derek’s advice is well-grounded. These days, a regular old job back at home rarely provides much security and by having the ability to seek out your own opportunities, you might find yourself in a much better place when it comes to financial security. Of course, it doesn’t help that traveling means you can often greatly reduce your cost of living.

Top 3 Tips for Traveling Writer Hopefuls

Derek has plenty advice for people who want to travel and write, but I asked him to narrow down his advice to his top 3 tips. This is what he told me:

1) Figure out the income you need to live in your first destination. It’s often much lower than you think and definitely much lower than any first world country. For example, Thailand you can easily live on $800 a month, food included. Then you can just buy a ticket and travel as soon as your income surpasses that number. Most people make the mistake of measuring themselves by the financial goals they’d need to hit to live where they are, rather than where they want to go.

2) Have at least 2 avenues for getting clients. It can be very nerve wrecking to not have a fallback plan. When I lost eHow as a client and didn’t have eLance and the Warrior Forum figured out, it was pretty scary. Today, I’m very confident that if I lost most of my clients, I could rebuild relatively quickly.

3) Track your expenses and your income meticulously. If you don’t know exactly what you’re earning and spending, it’s very hard to feel relaxed around money. You won’t feel “safe” about leaving until you do this. I wrote a post specifically around this as well.

With a plan and sources of work, you can get yourself there. And, of course, like Derek said be very detailed in your record keeping. It’s a great lesson for when you’re traveling or when you’re ready to settle back down.

Check out Derek’s Blog: Earn on the Road

About 2 months ago, Derek started his own blog to share tips and his adventures on the road. I actually didn’t know about this when I asked Derek to do this interview, but was glad to hear he had a place for people to get more information.

When asked why he started the blog, Derek said:

I want to create something that’s both a real asset and something that actually helps people. One issue I have with affiliate marketing and most methods of making money online is that I wasn’t actually *creating* anything real. I was just funneling traffic. My intention with this blog is to eventually turn it into the #1 resource online for people to figure out how to travel and make money. I certainly intend for it to be a money making site in the future. I’d say it was a combination of me wanting to do something that genuinely contributes to the world, a desire to create something real and a desire to create a more substantial business.

While the site currently focuses on earning through freelance writing, in the future Derek plans to interview other people who have earned money while traveling. Whether they worked as scuba diving instructors, online poker players, English teachers, WOOFers, people who’ve started business in foreign countries, people who have found jobs in other countries and more.

Be sure to drop by Earn on the Road and subscribe to Derek’s RSS feed. He even has a free guide Unlimited Travel: Earn Your First $1000 Online that you can download.

Before you go, here are a few more photos from Derek’s adventures. You may have seen these in the staff portion of our Reason Why Video, but if you haven’t seen them yet…enjoy. The snake one makes me shiver and shake a little each time I see it!

Volunteer English teacher in Laos

Scuba Diving in Bali

Derek and a giant snake in Vietnam

Skiing in Poland

Again, check out the Earn on the Road blog and feel free to post your comments and questions below.

But please don’t take this to simply be a rant because my real goal is to actually help anyone who has struggled with creating their own content.

Here’s the back story…

For the past couple of weeks, I have been chasing a woman who has relentlessly taken it upon herself to publish the content of others, while making it appear as though she wrote it. She does this on a daily basis, across 4-5 websites and perhaps plenty more. One website is her own and the rest are blogging networks, so it’s actually a little difficult to track down all the copying and pasting she’s been doing.

Anyway, I have made some headway with the help of a few other people and got (most of??) my content removed, but it appears she is putting her focus into other victims for now. She continues to use her same method of copying content and making it look like she wrote it with a little link at the bottom that links to the original source. She’s just doing it with other people’s content now and that still makes me angry because it’s absolutely and undeniably wrong particularly because she is trying to position herself as some type of blogging / content expert.

Even when confronted by a concerned online publisher, she indicated she felt she is doing nothing wrong because she gave credit to the original source of the content. After all, the content wouldn’t be on the Internet if the creators didn’t want it republished everywhere, right? Of course not…that’s the lamest excuse for copying content ever.

I have spent way too much time chasing this woman around for two reasons:

1. I want to protect my other fellow online publishers from copyright infringement.
2. I don’t want her to spread the misinformation that what she is doing is okay. It is simply NOT okay.

With that in mind, I’d prefer to stop complaining about someone who is eventually going to burn herself out and turn this into a positive message for our readers instead. If you struggle to create fresh content for your site on a regular basis, there is no need to resort to such tactics.

Of course, I realize that I am probably preaching to the choir because I know that when many of our readers struggle with content creation, they go through legitimate means to get things done. However, I also know that many others feel paralyzed to do anything because they’re not sure how to get around the obstacles they face in regard to publishing content.

First, a Refresher on What’s Not Okay:

• Never copy articles or blog posts from another website if you don’t have permission. It doesn’t matter if you credit the original source or not.

• Never take articles from an article directory like ezinearticles.com or freeaffiliatearticles.com without including the full and clickable byline and following ALL of the directory’s terms of use.

• Never take somebody else’s and rewrite it paragraph by paragraph. It is OKAY to do research from various sources (and credit them in your work) and create your own content, but it is NOT okay to simply say what someone else has in a single blog post and reword it.

Now, What to Do if Writing Regularly (or at all) is a Struggle for You:

• Blogging is not a race and it’s not a matter of “he who has the most [blog posts] when he dies wins”. Volume helps for growing traffic, but if you don’t have an idea for every day of the week, realize there are so many other more important things you can be doing for your business.

• If you don’t fancy yourself a writer, hire a ghostwriter. Sure, this costs money, but this IS your business after all. You can use a writer to do all your content, some of it or just fill in the gaps here and there.

• If you don’t have the budget for a ghostwriter or are looking for more volume, use PLR (we have some here and here). You can publish it as is, edit it for your purposes or use it to supplement your own original content. It IS content that you can purchase the rights to and there is no need to credit the original author. It’s yours to use within the guidelines set out by the PLR publisher.

• Use articles from directories like ezinearticles.com or freeaffiliatearticles.com, but remember you must include the full clickable byline and follow all the terms of use.

• If you want original content for free or cheap, enlist guest writers who will publish content in return for a byline and/or a small fee. Publishing the content of others shows you as a great source of information from a wide variety of sources.

If You Still Don’t Want to Spend Money or Publish Other People’s Content with Full Credit

I get it, not everyone has the budget to pay for content and they may also be weary of using guest writers or free reprint articles because the focus goes to someone else’s business. If that’s the case, here are a few tips for you.

• Stick to markets where you are at least knowledgeable. It’s one thing if you struggle with writing, but you actually know what you’re talking about. It’s entirely another if you can’t write well AND you don’t know what you’re talking about either. People can overlook grammatical issues if they are getting great advice.

• Publish in other mediums including video and audio. If you speak better than you write, SPEAK. If you want to create written content from your video and audio recordings, transcribe the content.

• Photography and other images. If you’ve got photography skills or an artistic flair, use this to your advantage to help yourself stand out in your niche.

• Take courses to improve your writing skills. If English is your second language, basic grammar and writing courses will help you immensely. If you struggle with writing compelling content, learn about copywriting and effective content marketing. You can start with our free course here.

• Practice. Just like with all things in life, you get better with practice. Don’t decide that because writing is struggle today that it will be a few months from now. Practice, practice, practice.

If you want to be a content publishing success, you’ve got to work at it and you’re probably going to be shelling out some cash along the way. It’s your business and it’s so worth it.

photo credit: CraigMoulding

One of the greatest challenges of working for yourself is maintaining productivity.

When there’s no boss looking over your shoulders, no deadlines, no external source of motivation, how do you stay on task?

How do you stop wandering over to Facebook, stop checking email incessantly, stop checking sites like Reddit or StumbleUpon?

How do you stay concentrated and get stuff done? Two of the best systems I’ve found for improving productivity are the “Getting Things Done” system and the Pomodoro system.

The “Getting Things Done” System

The “Getting Things Done” (GTD) methodology is a system of organizing tasks and to-dos that is designed to free up your mental space and reduce stress.

Stress and pressure can be a huge source of unproductivity. If you’re constantly worried about future projects or things you’re responsible for, that’ll zap your energy and create a crushing burden.

The GTD system is a massive system, barely explainable in an entire book. However, in this post I’ll go over a few of the most important and highest impact changes you can make to your life to reduce stress and improve productivity.

1. Break Down All Projects into Small Actions

GTD defines any “project” as a task with one or more steps.

Instead of thinking about the entire project, GTD advocates breaking down the project into actionable steps.

An actionable step needs to be a physical action that can be performed. “Schedule marketing meeting” is not a physical action. Instead, break it down into a specific thing you can do – Such as “Call Bob at 333-444-555 and talk about meeting.” Picking up the phone is a physical action.

Let’s what you needed to do next was to improve your site’s design. Instead of thinking about the redesign as a whole, you’d break it down into steps like:

A) Find 5 comparable websites, look at how they did their site and take notes on the design
B) Open Photoshop and create 3 different style headers
C) Open a sketchbook and sketch out 3 different possible designs
D) Wait 24 hours, then pick the one(s) I like the best
E) Create a mockup of how the site will look in Photoshop
F) Go to eLance and hire freelancer to implement design

Notice how each action is something you can actually perform. Thinking about “redesign site” might cause a lot of stress and cause someone to freeze. Instead, opening up Google and looking at other similar sites – Which is the first action – Is a much easier task.

2. File All Projects into Actions, Waiting Fors, Never, Someday

There are many projects you have on your plate that aren’t necessarily active right now. Even if they’re not active, they still take up psychological space. You still feel like you’re “supposed” to be doing them.

By putting your projects down on paper in one place, even the ones that aren’t active, your brain will know that you have your eye on it.

Put all your active projects in one folder, along with all their next actions.

Put all the projects that are “waiting for” something in another folder. If you’re waiting for someone to get back to you, or waiting for another project to be completed first, put those on your “waiting fors.”

Put all the things you want to do eventually in a “someday” folder. From starting a business of your own to asking for a raise, from going on an exotic vacation to refinancing your house, all the long term projects that you can’t do right now, put them in here.

Finally, create a “never” file. Those are things that you feel like you should do, but probably will never actually do. File these as well.

Once you’ve got everything you ever might want to do filed away, your brain will be able to relax. It knows that everything it needs to keep an eye on is handled.

3. Do a Weekly Review

Unfinished projects and tasks pile up because most people never take the time to look at their life from a bird’s eye view.

If you do take the time, once a week, to just step back and look at the whole picture of your long term goals and all your current projects, you’ll be able to organize your life much more efficiently.

Schedule in a time once a week to take a look at your life and all your open projects. During this time, look at all your tasks and ask yourself: Are there any tasks that are superfluous? Are there any projects that should be added? Are you on track to your goals? If not, what can you change?

The Pomodoro System

The Pomodoro System takes a completely different tact than GTD. Pomodoro doesn’t focus on your life overall; instead it focuses just on the here and now. Its goal is to get you to be productive immediately.

Here’s how it works.

Instead of tracking your day by how many articles you’ve written, how many links you’ve built or how much time you’ve spent on the computer, the Pomodoro system advocates tracking the success of your day using “Pomodoros.”

A Pomodoro is a 20 minute period of uninterrupted work. No bathroom breaks, no phone calls, no Facebook, no emails, just plain uninterrupted work.

After the Pomodoro is over, take a break. Go to the bathroom, check any missed calls, do what you need to do. Then do another Pomodoro.

If you’re interrupted for any reason, the Pomodoro is void and you have to start from the beginning.

This system does several things. First, by tracking Pomodoros as your metric, you can measure and compete with yourself over how much productive time you actually had in a day. Second, it completely eliminates the chance of getting distracted.

The system doesn’t use complex sorting methods to figure out what you need to do. It assumes you know what you need to do and just need the concentration and dedicated work time to do it.

These are two different productivity systems that I use consistently to get more done. They’re both very effective and can be used in conjunction with one another.

- Derek

This SNL skit with Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter!) and the SNL crew had me in stitches for a couple of reasons…

It’s funny because it really rings true and the fact that it’s true is what makes the world today so awesome. It is so wonderful that the Internet levels the playing field for people and we can carve out careers for ourselves.

On the other hand, people are so focused on become well-known and being “Twitter Famous”, they forget about creating any sustainability to their efforts. It’s a good reminder to focus on providing true value, having a plan for what we’re doing and staying grounded in who we really are.

A Couple Related Posts You May Want to Read

* Fame or Money? The comments is where the action is on this one.
* Following Up: Fame or money? Tips for helping you decide where to put your focus.

Keeping it Real…Don’t Forget to Enter Our Photo Contest

Remember our roots and thinking about the things that really matter, make sure you check out and enter our Reason Why Photo Contest. Entry deadline is February 26, 2012.

Good for you for strutting your stuff…the Internet rules!