I just returned from a 1:00 am Mother’s Day run at the 24-hour Walmart near our house, and next to the 24-hour McDonalds. Before you start calling me cheap, just know that my wife received a Ninja Kitchen System 1200 (which retails at $159 and is something she’s wanted for awhile now), the highest quality silverware Walmart has to offer (about $45), and a dozen red roses that look Conroy’s quality. I also bought Claim Jumper gift cards for my mother who will be here early in the morning to celebrate with my wife, her mom and her grandmother at her annual Mom’s Tea Party. It wasn’t a cheap trip, but I can’t think of anyone more deserving then moms.

After the midnight run, my rumbling stomach reminded me that I had not had a chance to eat yet today, aside from some chips at my sister-in-law’s graduation ceremony. The day was spent rushing out the door to meet a client in Newport Beach, rushing to Cerritos for a graduation, and a caused-by-exhaustion crash nap from 7:30 to 10:30. So, I decided to roll through the neighboring McDonalds to grab a burger on the way back home.

Bad idea.

I pulled into the McDonald’s drive-thru at 1:30 am. There was a line of cars that had already ordered and one super nice looking Acura in front of me. Had I know I’d be trapped in that part of the line for 15 minutes, I would have just hit a 7-11 and grabbed a bland sandwich. Two cars pulled up behind me; I was trapped.

10 minutes went by so I decided to turned my engine off. 5 minutes later I was giving my order. I’m usually a pretty easy going guy. I have no enemies and can adapt to any circumstance. However, 15 minutes just to order was ridiculous, so my mouth veto’d my brain’s virtuous patience and released a snide remark: “I can’t remember the last time I had to turn my engine off at a drive-thru.” Crap! I hope they don’t do something to my food. Maybe she didn’t hear me? I quickly followed up with my 4 cheeseburger and medium fries order. I don’t think she heard the comment, whew!

By the time I got to the window it was 2:26am. Yes, if you’re counting, that is an hour wait. The lady at the window was polite and extremely attractive, but I waited and hour and was pissed. I knew something was wrong when I noticed the clipboard and my order written in pen. There goes Mr. Mouth again, but this time he was tripped by Mr. Brain who turned a rude comment into a simple request for answers. “Wow, you must be down staff tonight?”

The lady, I think she was a manager, saw my debit card in hand and replied “you don’t have cash by any chance do you? Our machine is down.” Sure I had cash, earlier, before the concession stand at the graduation and Chevron decided they needed it more than I needed a burger. “No, unfortunately I don’t. Can you just write my card information down?”

Even though it was 2:30 in the morning, I’m pretty certain that I felt a ray of light shine through the sky as the manager said, “that’s okay, you’ll still get your meal.” Wow, maybe I won’t write on my rant blog when I get home, after all I did get a free meal. Wait, the story’s not over.

Nearly 6 minutes later (as though they didn’t have burgers sitting under a lamp), she comes back to the window. Not with food, no, apparently their system came back up, so now she wanted payment. It’s $6.44, so I didn’t fuss (how could I after spending 300 bucks at Walmart?), but wasn’t I just promised a free meal? Hey, at least I have a receipt to warrant my complaint now, right?

She brought the bag to the window and said politely, “sorry again for the wait (this was actually the first time she apologized), at least your food is fresh.”

Okay look, complaining about an experience at McDonald’s is somewhat petty, I know. But you have consider the responsibilities I have in my life and how hard I work with the hours I have in a day. My nap earlier wasn’t just a nap, it was all the rest I was going to get this weekend thanks to some urgent support my consulting clients need after Google’s latest Penguin update scared them half to death.

My clients pay between $150 – $375 per hour, depending on the specific consultation rate, retainer agreement and contract duration. The work I had planned to do from 2am – 8am was work my clients paid approximately $200 per hour for. And it’s worth it when you run a delta report on their online marketing after 6 months of working with me.

So there you go, McDonald’s took away my hour, was an Indian giver on my free meal, and frustrated me to the point of writing this rant. I’m doubtful that they have an ORM team, or even care about what people say online, but it’s out there now. I read awhile ago that McDonald’s was on the only franchises to actually thrive during last year’s recession, most because of their leadership. Hopefully greatness trickles down and I’ll get someone’s attention.

For the record, my receipt information is below:

1400 South Beach Blvd
La Habra, CA 90631
KS# 5 May 13’12 (Sun) 02:26
MFY SIDE 1 KVS Order 87
MER# 50527102

Guys, we call it fast food because we expect it to be fast. If your system is down, have the courtesy to send someone outside with the clipboard to notify patrons that the service will be 10 times as long and that you are only accepting cash. Also, once you tell someone they are getting a free meal, even if your system comes back up, honor it.

That’s how I killed a day on the morning of Mother’s Day at America’s largest fast food chain, McDonalds. Have you had a similar experience with McDonalds? Share your comments and feedback on McDonalds below.

It’s easy to kill a day shopping, especially during the Holidays when women are more likely to run you over with their shopping cart then say hello to you. No offense and I’m not trying to single you ladies out, but wholly crap you are MEAN when it comes to shopping from November 25th until the after Christmas specials end. No, not just MEAN, outright EVIL.

Want proof, check this out, literally 83 million results in Google from you maniacs.

The Solution

So, I’ve decided to do my shopping online this year. That’s right, now instead of crowding parking lots, the only way you can affect me is by crowding the server bandwidth of my favorite online stores.

I’m going to start at Skechers.com, by buying my step-dad a pair of awesome golf shoes. You didn’t know they sold them I bet. Well they do, and they’re super cheap. To boot, they’re part of their fitness “Shape-Up” line, meaning Pop can work his gluteus maximus while hitting 18 rounds (yah, he wishes he could hit 18 rounds).

Unlike the Shape-ups I weare, the SU Tour golf shoes have cushioning and support similar to a Shape-ups shoes but do not have a rocker bottom design like some of the other Shape-ups. They are supposed to be ideal for grassy surfaces like a golf course, so walking in these will be a little bit different than walking in regular Shape-ups. He’s not much of a walker to begin with, so not having the rocking motion will mean a higher likelihood of him not falling on his ass.

Other Websites I Plan on Shopping with

Here’s a list of other websites I’ll be surfing this week (particularly on the 28th (tomorrow):

• BestBuy.com & MicroCenter.com (I’m a tech geek, so duh)
• ToysRUs.com (yes, the Barbie Dream House is in my daughter’s list), as is a Go-Go Doll (whatever that is)
• Target.com & Walmart.com (whichever has the better deal)
• Dealster.com (my favorite daily deals website)
• iLoveSexy.com (a hot new online store for buying the wife sexy dresses)

Well, that about wraps it up. I didn’t kill a day with this post, but I kill an hour or so. Best part is, I won’t be getting killed by you nutso ladies out there who look at a parking spot at Target like Lady Gaga looks at a piece of meat for event apparel. That’s just gross.

Happy shopping!

If you are an Internet marketer in the Greater Los Angeles Area, and have Time Warner as your cable internet provider, you may have experienced delays and Internet connectivity problems with the NETGEAR Advanced Cable Modem Gateway CGD24D router. I have killed many days because of this in the past. Specifically, packet loss and horrible download speeds. My packet loss was between 94% and 98% consistently until we sourced the problem to something called IP Stacking in combination with other router settings.

I’ve had nearly a year of off and on connectivity issues with Time Warner and today I think they fixed it. As an IMer, I’m constantly on the Web and taking calls via Skype, InstantPresenter, and GoToMeeting, where my clients consistently complain about me cutting out. The problem could have taken down my consulting business had it not been for the extra $1k or so I paid Verizon for my cell phone dial-in alternative.

Mario, the supervising technician from Time Warner just left a few moments ago after solving the puzzle, so I thought I’d share what the solution was so that others can benefit as well.

My Current Setup

How to Fix Time Warner Packet Loss Problem

Specific to the NETGEAR CGD24D router configurations, here is how to fix the packet loss issue:

1. Go to 192.168.0.1
2. Use the username mso and password changeme
3. In the side navigation, choose Services under Content Filtering
4. Uncheck all of the option boxes

Watch me fix the problem

If the issue continues, contact your cable provider.

What’s Next for Me

I’m going to be monitoring my connection over the last few days and will also be upgrading to the new Turbo Plus (20 download x 2 upload) service. Thanks to Eva from the office of the President of Time Warner, I was able to not only get this issue escalated but was also credited for charges incurred as a result of them not being able to fix the problem. I recommend you do the same if you’re running a home-based business and have lost revenue or killed a day from Time Warner packet loss.

Now here’s a great way to kill a day (or 20), don’t screen your sales representatives. I’ve wasted about 60 hours and refunded over $1,500 worth of profit from sales agents who haggled their way into a poor small business’s pocketbook. Being the good guy that I am, and caring about my online reputation, I went above and beyond to make sure these small businesses were taken care of.

One sales rep in particular does just about whatever he can to close a deal:

• You can request a refund anytime you like
• You’ll receive calls and email inquiries immediately
• You’ll be #1 in Google for any keyword you want
• We’ll submit your business to all the web and business directories

The Solution

Don’t work with Sales Representatives who lack in hands on experience in your industry. I’d like to think that my affiliates would use my list of Selling Points and not make up their own, but my ignorance has come back to bite me and the only solution I could come up with that doesn’t have risk is to stop letting sales reps sell a product they know nothing about. I so we did, two and a half weeks ago.

Now I get to spend the next month killing valuable time doing slave labor to prevent chargebacks and refund; oh joy. At least the customers I touch are happy, too bad it’s not producing any revenue.

I’m trying not to think about what a horrible day I had, giving myself self-affirmations to convince myself that it’s over and that things will be better. But all I can think about is how baggage can kill your day, and will continue to kill your day until you get rid of it.

We all have some sort of baggage. Mine is a hybrid of debt and stupid people I chose to work with in the past who feel like a plague you can never get rid of. Worse than a plague. More like the crap that drips off the feces from someone who died of the plague. Yah, you know who and what I’m talking about, you’ve had someone or something like that in your life too, right? It could be emotional baggage, physical baggage, or anything really.

Examples:

• Car accident that disables or impairs you from running or standing for long periods of time
• A chronic cough that plays a toll on your health and medical bills
• Someone who believes that you owe them money, and won’t leave you alone
• A high school prank that ended up creating a horrible nickname that stuck
• Work you thought you could do because you had the resources at the time
• Personal projects you’ll never get to because you’re a slave to work and family
• Ex-girlfriends and ex-friends who setup Google Alerts and harass you on Facebook & Twitter

I have a few of the above. Share yours in the comments at the bottom of this post.

Let me stress that kids are not baggage. I have two, and they don’t kill my days, even though they sometimes add hours to my day that are well worth it. What I’m talking about is bullshit negative baggage that never seems to go away, especially when you believe you’ve moved on.

Moved on. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t it be great if you could wake up tomorrow like Frodo in the last episode of Lord of the Rings and find your best friends around you and the evil in your life gone forever? Wouldn’t it be great to find yourself in a warm haze of renewal where you could start your day with a nice, long breathe of relief that you get to start the next part of your life without the baggage you’ve picked up along the way?

You just want to scream “GO AWAY”, but the baggage just ignores you, even taunts you. Like waking up next to the horse’s head and hearing a voice saying “I’m still heeeeeere”, the baggage just does’t go away.

You’re an hour into a project and feel GREAT about the progress you’re making. Suddenly that email comes in and you find yourself spending the next 2 hours in a flame that results in a call to your lawyer, that results in a meeting being scheduled to discuss something you had hoped was in the past. Then you’re stressed out about it and can’t get a damn thing done and find yourself writing a blog post at www.howtokilladay.com.

What’s your baggage? Share your thoughts and your own list below:

So you THINK that if you pound a Red Bull, AMP, Monster or other energy drink that you’ll be able to stay up through the night and play catch up, right? You think this because the inference is that you’ll have less distractions, can listen to music and be more productive. WRONG. Here’s what really happens, and how you can kill a day working through the night.

Part One: Staying Up

The first couple hours of staying up, once you’ve decided to work straight through the night, are spent at a slower pace because your mind think you have all night. The time is spent cleaning up your inbox(es) and writing out your plan of attack. Some of those emails will side track the hell out of you and two hours into your night of catch up, you’ll find yourself accepting friend requests or replying to video or blog comments people left for you.

Part Two: Catching Up

You’ll get a good 3-4 hours of work done before that energy drink starts wearing off. Hopefully, you spent it on the urgent stuff that’s due the next day, because that other stuff ain’t gonna happen my friend. You’ll spend double or triple the time on that urgent task that you thought you were going to (because you’re a perfectionist and because you keep toggling back and forth between the project and social media).

Part Three: Coming Down

2am rolls around, maybe 3am, and feel great, but you just looked at your screen and at the clock and realized that you haven’t completed a sentence for 30 minutes. This goes on for the next 2-3 hours. 5am, maybe 6am, comes around and you suddenly become alert again. You wrap up what you were working on and get the emails out to the people who you’re doing the work for. You realize that you haven’t eaten since you pounded that Red Bull at 9:30pm the night before, but you keep pressing on.

At 7am, you start working on those other items and realize your doing the drowsy thing again, and your neck is starting to hurt. You rush to wrap up as much as you can (which isn’t much), and you go to bed.

No Rest for the Weary

At 8:00am the alarm goes off and the house is restless. You try to sleep through but the kids miss you and want to jump on the bed while you’re trying to rest. You don’t remember much, it’s sort of like waking up during a surgery with a few images and words remembered between dozing in and out.

9:00am, your clients start calling you. Something urgent (well to them at least), so you get up and take a 30 minute call. You also grab a bagel and some OJ because you’re starving. 10am, you’re back in bed. 11:30, another call you have to take because it’s someone important and you value their business. 2pm, resources need help doing work, so your wife wakes you up and you get back online for an hour. It’s already almost 3pm, only 1.5 hours from the call you have scheduled for 4:30pm, why even bother going back to bed? You had figured on sleeping from 8am – 3pm – guess that didn’t happen did it?

The Other Tasks

Your call at 4:30 ends and you have to eat something again. You’re grumpy, tired and have those other action items that need your attention. You push through now after having a bite but it’s the same feeling as the night before, drowsy and pointless.

You just killed a day trying to catch up. You got the urgent item done, but none of the stuff that really mattered, and worse, now your tired, grumpy, and still have a ton of work to do.

Sick days don’t work for entrepreneurs.

Working straight through the night might work for someone who doesn’t have interactions with others, but definitely not for someone who does. I recommend scheduling 2-3 days off per month where you notify everyone that you will not be available AT LEAST twice before the off period. Take those 2-3 days, turn off the phone, turn on the auto-responder, and put a HUGE sign on the wall that says “FOCUS”. That’s the only thing I know to work.

What do you do as opposed to working through the night to play catch up? To qualify to answer, you must be married with at least two kids under the age of 5 and must have a role that requires interaction with resources, clients and vendors. I’d love to hear your feedback. Thanks for reading!

Neck to neck with the daily meetings, email will absolutely kill your day, if you get sucked into it the way many of us do. Just take a look at my RescueTime data from 2009 below. Email was by far the most time consuming activity of the year. Imagine spending 15 days straight writing and reading emails. That about sums up 2009 for me, spread across 365 days.

Here’s another view of the same picture:

Here’s How I Broke the Pattern:

I TERRIBLY DISLIKE the font Times New Roman, so as a Google Apps (Gmail) user I send and receive email almost exclusively from Outlook. Microsoft Outlook allows me to create RULES, which I have several for. Based on those rules, my emails get distributed to respective folders. My new Inbox is actually a folder called “_Inbox Contacts” so essentially I only see email from contacts that are on my priority list. Everyone else gets sent to a specific folder or they stay in my default Inbox which I can look at when I have time (maybe once a day). Here’s my folder/rule layout:

• Inbox
  • _Inbox Contacts
  • _Web Analytics [aka: Ranking & Google Analytics Reports]
  • Completed Emails
  • Personal Emails [aka: Friends & Family]
  • Reputation [Google/Yahoo! Alerts for my name]
  • Not Important
  • Stuff I Want [Special Offers I Want to Use Later]
  • Stuff to Blog About

The underscores allow the folders to be listed at the top of the list. When an email comes in from a client or someone important (you’re all important, just some of you pay me to put you first), you get sent directly to _Inbox Contacts by my Outlook rule.

When I’m done with an email (replied, took action or whatever), I move the email to Completed, so that I can refer to it again later if needed.

My friends and family (non-business) get sent to my Personal folder, since I know those aren’t urgent. Family will use SMS or just call me, so most of these are jokes or whatever.

My reputation is important to me, so I have alerts on StepRep, Google Alerts, Yahoo! Alerts and a few other places that automatically go to my Reputation folder.

Newsletters, emails, special offers, and subscriptions I want to keep go to Not Important. As do my Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other alerts I choose to keep on.

Stuff I Want is a folder I move stuff into (mostly from Not Important). Currently fermenting there are emails from Bellagio Las Vegas for a special price on rooms, SES San Francisco early bird registration (which I guess I have to delete now that the offer expired), and 25% discount on a PRWeb.com press release.

Don’t Let Email Kill Your Day

Get organized, remove unnecessary notifications, and unsubscribe from anything you know you’re not going to need. Filters and Rules are a great way to stay organized, and to be honest, I can hit Ctrl+A on my keyboard and hit Delete when I’m in the Not Important folder about 95% of the time.

Happy organizing!

Business Meetings Suck

That’s right, you heard me: Meetings SUCK. Why? Because while you’re sitting there listening to what might be the third monologue from the organizer about the same work issue that you can’t seem to get done because you’re in so many meetings, your list of tasks is compounding.

Here’s what an average day for me used to look like:

07:00 AM: Go over lists of tasks to do for the day on the long commute to work
08:00 AM: Get to work and find 2 people waiting at your desk for a 30 minute unscheduled problem solving meeting
08:30 AM: Open Outlook and find 2 fire drills and 5 emails that each need 20 minutes of attention
10:00 AM: First “official” meeting of the day to go over that thing that I’ve been trying to get done
11:00 AM: Wrap up notes from meeting and send follow up emails
11:30 AM: Call with a sales rep who needs help closing a deal (conference call meeting)
12:15 PM: Lunch meeting across town with someone who has a great opportunity I know I won’t pass up (or be able to find time for)
01:30 PM: Get back to my desk and find a note from someone else who needs an impromptu meeting
02:00 PM: Management meeting (nothing got done from last week, why are we meeting again?)
03:00 PM: Finally, some time to finish those emails from 8:30 AM this morning – oh look a Webinar Invite (yeah!)
04:00 PM: Meeting with someone who wants to help, but lacks the experience to execute, burn another hour trying to help them get it
05:00 PM: Try to wrap up those emails, update Google Docs, check Pipeline Deals, check Toodledo, confirm tomorrow’s meetings and go home
06:00 PM: Add the NEW tasks to the list of tasks I didn’t get done today and convince myself that I’ll stay up late and do it (forgetting I have kids)

Is There an Alternative to Meetings?

Yes, don’t have them unless you are disciplining someone or being disciplined. Clarify, prioritize and delegate your tasks in something like Toodledo, Zoho CRM, Basecamp by 37Signals, or another online tool. Use email for non-urgent communication and insist on phone-only for urgent communications.

Have a backup. My wife is my backup. My Google Voice calls go to here, my administrative-related emails go to her, the big time-consuming important things stay with me (I think Covey calls that “Big Rocks”). Can’t afford a backup? That sucks. Tough luck pal, looks like you made your bed, just don’t try to sleep in it if there are people who shouldn’t know where to find it but do.

The other solution? Sheep herding. Grab a stick, pack a lunch and get some fresh air and sun. My pal in Croatia and I talk about how lucky those darn sheep herders must be to not ever have to kill a day with meetings.

I have to be careful what I write here. Fortunately I’ve been through enough business partners that I can say “I wasn’t talking about you” if someone or someones decide to be whiny. I haven’t had the best of luck when it comes to finding people who are willing to contribute as much or more than you do. Well, they may think they do, but in the end money talks and bullshit walks. Here’s my advice on business partners:

Don’t Do It!

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, allow me to elaborate a bit on my own experience with people who want to leach on to you and suck you dry of everything you have or hoped to have. Our adventure begins around 2005, when I started an internet advertising company. I met a kick-ass Type A guy not too different from myself who showed ambition, motivation and dedication. He flew out from another state and convinced me to open an office a few blocks away from where I was working during day. This was his excuse as to why he wasn’t able to produce more revenue (he needed an office).

He was right, he did need an office. He needed it to run his business on the East Coast while I stayed up until 2am every night creating contracts, websites, advertising and more. He left me an office lease I couldn’t afford, several hundred dollars worth of phone and utilities and one very pissed off wife who was more upset at me for trusting him.

Years went on and so did the partners. One partnership I had actually stole every preconceived idea I had then tried to convince me that I was an employee when they reneged on their original partnership agreement. Another actually had the nerve to put my desk in a storage room while he took the posh window office. I liked him the most from the bunch because he had business savvy, but as always I could not replicate myself and being a one-man show when it comes to fulfillment simply isn’t scalable. That was about 6-8 months of pure exhaustion.

One business partner (grumble, grumble, grumble)

Where do I find these people? I finally decided on who the best partner will be for me. She’s a beautiful and very tolerant wife who has stepped in to fill many shoes. I’m thankful for my loyal clients, friends, and associates who stuck with me through the years. I’m also thankful for the willpower I seem to have to keep pushing through all the garbage that seems to kill every day of my being an entrepreneur.

Today’s a new day. I’ve got a great business model, amazing products, more ambition and discipline than anyone I know, and the support of dozens of people who believe in me. Oh and those little angels who love their daddy are just the icing on the cake!

As for business partners, let me repeat:

Don’t Do It!

While the rest of the world grows up and continues to use the Internet, biometrics, and improved efficiency, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) continues to kill everyone’s day with endless lines, paperwork, policies, and wackiness.

I’m getting ready to renew my license, and I just know I’m going to be one of the monkeys standing in several long lines like a moron waiting to take the same damn test I took 15 years ago (plus or minus a few stupid questions). No matter how early I get there I will be waiting for something, or will have to get back in line after they tell me that I forgot to fill out something.

I just can’t believe that after two decades the DMV hasn’t been able to do anything about the ridiculously long lines and slow process. Who’s running this outfit? Is it a money thing or just a lack of brains preventing this department from moving into the 21st Century? Why is it that I can vote on election day in 5 minutes flat with a few touch screen monitors, check myself out at the registrar in Target, and file my taxes electronically from the comfort of my couch, but can’t avoid killing an entire damn day standing in line at the DMV?

Am I off here?