In early June, I embarked on a radical experiment: I gave up email for 30 days. Here are my results…

When I started the trial, I felt completely overwhelmed by email, and I just wanted a way out. I was waking up every morning to an incessant barrage of PR people, sales letters, chain emails, people wanting me to write about their product, companies wanting me to promote them without compensation, and–generally–a bunch of junk. Not “spam”, really, because it was sent by real people (sadly.) But a ridiculous pile of useless crap that wasn’t easily filtered.

Since my email address is public, and my blog is popular, it seemed like every day I’d end up on some list that I didn’t ask to be on. People would sign my email address up for everything from political updates to PR posts about seemingly random companies sent from a “do not reply” address.

In short, my email inbox was a micro-Hell waiting for me every morning. (more…)

Something has to change, because this is killing me. It’s taking over my life, and it’s slowly but surely sucking my soul away. And yet, getting rid of it may prove to be one of the most difficult feats I’ve ever attempted.

Before I tell you what it is, let me share with you a typical day in my life as of right now. I want to show you exactly what the hell is that I’m going through. (more…)

Every year here on erica.biz, at the start of the year, I post goals that I want to achieve. Some of them I’ve achieved with wild success–like growing my blog and starting a startup–and some I’ve miserably failed on. But all have been learning and growth experiences.

In December, realizing the new year was coming up, I again sat down to write goals. At first, I wrote them privately–in my notebook. (One of them manifested almost right away, which was surprising.) I fully intended to faithfully copy them down and expound on them in a blog post for the New Year. I even started writing the blog post.

But I never finished it. And the more I wrote, the less it felt “right.” It got to the point where I didn’t blog for three weeks because I was stuck on that post.

I was stuck on my #themeword for a while in December, too. Actually, it kept coming up for me, but I felt like it wasn’t right. The word? Breathe.

I feel as though I’m sitting on the cusp of a huge transition in my life. (more…)

Wow, it’s October! It seems like I just wrote my July update. Here’s what I have been working on in the past quarter, as well as those much-requested income numbers. 🙂

(If you’re new here, welcome! I set 3-5 major goals every year publicly on my blog and update my progress every quarter. Here are my goals for 2010.) (more…)

We’ve reached the end of the second quarter of 2010…and what a blockbuster quarter it was! I’m excited to share my goals and income with you.

(If you’re new here, welcome! I set 3-5 major goals every year publicly on my blog and update my progress every quarter. Here are my goals for 2010.)

Let’s see how I’m doing! (more…)