Take A Moment: Is It Time To Change?

by DazzlinDonna 

Let’s start this post out with a couple of quotes: one old and one new.

Albert Einstein supposedly said, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.“. I’m sure we all occasionally bang our heads against a wall, repeatedly, without even realizing what we are doing. I know I do. I assume you do too.

Someone recently wrote this about me in a forum post. “She is always coming up with something new to think about. Or something that you haven’t thought about for a long time, that you darn well should have! The best webmaster “tickler site” on the internet.”

That made me stop and think. I do try to remind people to do certain things that I know they already know to do…but I also know they may forget to do them now and then. For example, I usually remind all of you to backup two or three times a year. (We can go ahead and count this as one of those times this year). So, in some cases, doing things over and over again is a good thing. Because I have a tendency to write those kinds of posts over and over again, some people find value in it. The difference, however, is that expectations are met. I expect that my reminders will be useful to some (and probably annoying to others). No harm, no foul there.

But we all do things repeatedly that don’t meet our expectations – and yet we continue to do them anyway.

Let’s see if any of these scenarios hit home with anyone.

Some days, we get distracted and get nothing done. And then the next day, we get distracted again, and get nothing done. And that day turns into another do nothing day, which turns into another do nothing day, which turns into a mostly do nothing year. And we only stop long enough to think, “Wow, I really need to get off my @ss and get some of those things done”. And maybe we do for a day or two, but the distractions rear their ugly heads once again, and the same repetitive pattern begins anew.

Or maybe we hate change. Change scares us so we buck it at every turn. Instead of trying new things, or moving with the flow of progress, we cling to the things we’ve always done. They worked in the past, so they’ll keep working … right? Right?? And yet, we know deep inside that while some of those tasks are still worth doing, others are tasks that no longer work, but we continue to do them anyway. (Think about some of the optimization tasks you’ve been doing for the last 5 years. Which ones don’t work anymore? Why are you still doing them?)

This is my “tickler” for all of you today. Stop for a few moments and ask yourself, “Is it time to change? Am I continually NOT doing something, and expecting rewards from that? Or am I continually DOING something that is a waste of my time? Are my expectations of either of those situations realistic?”

Sometimes, making one small change can make a huge impact. Removing distractions so that you can add just one small, but meaningful task to your day, can bring rankings and traffic you’ve been missing out on for … how long now? Conversely, stopping some activity that no longer has any value could free up an enormous amount of time – for more productive tasks.

Just consider the possibility that maybe … just maybe … you’ve been slightly insane for a while, and that possibly it’s time to make a little change.