I am amazed at the amount of instant traffic you can get to your blog by tweeting your posts. Twitter is quite the phenomenon on the Internet today. If you’re not on Twitter, I suggest that you sign up and start tweeting.  Once you are on Twitter, you can follow me at twitter.com/mikesmind.

This morning, I wrote a post for one of my blogs.  This blog has about three to five views per day.  It is a WordPress blog, so I added a plugin to automatically tweet a link when I publish a new post.  Within a couple hours, I had 30 views.  Now, that is pretty powerful and it doesn’t take much imagination to see how a plugin like this can really get you new readers for your blog.

Here are two plugins that I have tried that automatically tweet your blog posts when published.

1. Twitter Tools – This is what I am using on the blog mentioned above.  It is written by Alex King, who is well known in the WordPress plugin world.  It is configurable and I have included a screen shot of the options page.  As you can see, it is pretty straight-forward to configure.

   

   I found this plugin easy to use and it works like it is supposed to.

2. Another plugin that I am using to automatically tweet my blog posts is a commercial offering called TweetMyBlog.  This is an affiliate-based plugin that gives you the opportunity to make some money.  I have it installed on this blog, but have not made anything from it, yet.  It is free for you to install, but it does have a commercial intent as well as look and feel.  I found the extra graphics too much for many of my blogs, but if your blog is about making money, then this plugin should help you do that.  As you can see below, it doesn’t have as many configuration options as Twitter Tools.

   

   This blog has a few hoops to jump through as you get set up to receive affiliate commissions.  If you are looking to add another income source and increase traffic by automatically tweeting your blog posts, TweetMyBlog is a good option.

Either option I listed above will help you build traffic to your WordPress blog by harnessing the power of Twitter.

My thanks to Robert Plank for his comment last night to my post called When can you quit your day job?.  At the close of that post I said, “I’m not quite ready to answer these questions yet. I will start thinking about them.” Robert replied, ““Start” thinking about them? Why not just answer them?” He is exactly right.  It was a push when I needed one. How will I ever accomplish anything unless I do something.  You have to be a “doer!”

Robert is a great example.  He is a high-energy “doer.”  Robert has published a great resource called Time Management on Crack.  It’s all about becoming productive and getting the right things done, right now.  This package includes a 22 page report (packed with information), four videos, and some exceptional bonus content.

Everyone is busy.  You can either decide to work more, or decide to get more done in the time you have.  Time Management on Crack gives you the knowledge, techniques, and motivation to do just that.

I don’t know how many times I needed to extract information from a web page and build it into a spreadsheet or document.  Up until now, I usually used copy and paste as my method.  Jonathan Leger has just come out with a new tool called Web Data Parser.  This tool allows you to extract data from almost any web page.  I just installed it and did a quick extract from my Twitter home page.  It was pretty cool!  I look forward to really learning this tool and getting the most out of it.

Web Data Parser is extremely powerful.  Don’t just take my word for it, but click over and view the demonstration video.  The price is right and Jonathan even gives you a 60 day guarantee.  I’m sure that this tool will save both me and you a lot of time.

I have Robert Plank’s blog in Google Reader and read an interesting post about quitting your day job. In it he mentioned Eric Holmlund’s day job quitting questionnaire. I searched for the original source for this questionnaire, but didn’t find it. Since Robert published his answers, I thought I could at least list the questions here.

1. Is your job hurting you?
2. Do you have a vision and a solid plan for your business?
3. Do you already have a written goal for quitting your job?
4. Are you committed to the business? (Required)
5. What do you have to lose? (If you have little or nothing to lose, it’s a good time to quit)
6. How long will your savings last?
7. How much income is your business bringing in?
8. What are you willing to sacrifice?
9. Do you trust your gut? (And is it usually right?)
10. Will you dare to do what others only dream of?

These 10 questions look like they cover the important points for making this decision. I’m not quite ready to answer these questions yet. I will start thinking about them. What about you?

One of my goals for working from home is to have more time with my family. Because of my decision to buy a farm in 2007, I have an 80-mile commute. My employer helped me out by allowing me to work remotely, one day a week. (I must say that they have been very open-minded and supportive!) Recently, I was able to expand that to two days a week. This is a real blessing to me as it eliminates almost 8 hours of drive time each week.

I have always been interested in managing virtual teams, since I went to a ProjectWorld conference in the late ’90s. At that conference I went to a workshop on managing distributed teams. My reason for attending was that I was beginning to manage a team of programmers in India to help with system maintenance and Y2K work. Now, I am the one who is a virtual/distributed (40% of the time) team member!

Two books I read, this past year, gave me encouragement to step out in this way: The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss and Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: No Schedules, No Meetings, No Joke–the Simple Change That Can Make Your Job Terrific by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson. The 4-Hour Workweek gave me some strategies for changing my work schedule to allow me to work remotely. Why Work Sucks gave me solid strategies for focusing the evaluation of my work on results (ROWE) and for dealing with negative comments that the authors termed “sludge.”

If you are looking to have more freedom in your work life – the freedom to get results, then I recommend that you read both books. My life now has better margin and control. It is intensely liberating, less stressful, and now has some margin. Most of all, it is already having a positive impact on my family life.

The 4-Hour Workweek

Timothy Ferriss. Crown Archetype 2007, Hardcover, 320 pages, $1.50

Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It

Cali Ressler. Portfolio Hardcover 2008, Hardcover, 224 pages, $2.63