Project FED Nigeria

The key to finding time to write when your schedule is busy and you have many duties to complete is preparation and organization. Prepare ahead of time all the supplies you need and create a system of organization that will help you make the most of small windows of time and opportunity that come available. What Is a Portable Writing Kit? At its simplest, it contains four things: A tote bag to hold all of the writing materials you need, a journal, your writing outline, and a zip lock baggie of pens. This is the minimum you need to take advantage of the time you have available to you to write. I don’t recommend fussing with a laptop as it takes time to boot up and in that time you could have already been writing.  10 Tips to Getting the Most of Your Portable Writing Kit 1. Pack it up the night before and check it for all the needed supplies. 2. Keep the portable writing kit with you everywhere you go. 3. Tuck your outline into the journal right after your last entry so you can quick...

 It’s Thanksgiving Thursday again and that means it’s time for our weekly celebration of Successes, Supporters, and Progress made on the road to transforming Project FED into a profitable venture that helps low/no-income earners make money online promoting products that support orphans in Nigeria. Celebrating Successes This week, we managed to reach out to 56 people on Facebook using our new social media sharing strategy . We sparked a whole bunch of new conversations and, more importantly, because I reached out privately to ask about the well being of people who hadn’t posted in a while, I discovered friends who were struggling and in need of prayer. Those human connections where we get a chance to make people feel truly loved and cared about are the ultimate success and the true goal of Project FED. Yes, I want to help people find freedom from financial fears and achieve financial independence while also serving the needs of those who can’t serve themselves, but the most im...

If you make no sales, your business won’t be successful, so sales must be the first part of your training. However, once you make that first sale, you want to continue growing that success. During this past Friday Freebies, one of the Freebies I spoke about was MailerLite, an email automation platform. That inspired me with this blog post on the value of creating systems that lead you toward success. and I'm going to do it with a story. 1.   Systems Leverage Past Success To Create More Success Let's introduce you to Betty. She loves to cook. One day she creates this brilliant dish that everyone loves. If she writes down the ingredients she used to cook that dish and the methods she used to cook it, that's called a recipe. A recipe is a system that allows her to easily create more of that dish. 2.   Systems Create Consistent Results Without a recipe for her brilliant dish, it's going to be tough for Betty to duplicate the conditions that allowed her to make that di...

During yesterday’s Marketing Monday blog post , I talked about getting creative with your marketing. Today, I’m going to show you how to apply that same strategy to your time management so you can reclaim some of that precious time you’ve got to spend while getting more done with less effort. 5 Steps to Creative Time Management Here are 5 steps you can take to apply your creativity to the challenge of finding the time you need to do the things in life that matter most to you while getting done the mundane, must-do things that can’t be avoided (like bathing or brushing your teeth). 1.    Look for ways to Combine Activities You may not always be able to do this, but there are plenty of ways you can combine activities. You need to spend time with your family, for instance, and you need to eat. Having dinner around the dining table is one way to combine your need for healthy, nutritious meals to fuel your brain while also spending time with your family. Daily prayer is imp...

  No is a word that can liberate our time and free us to focus on what matters most. It is a powerful word when it is applied to the right situations and for the right reasons.  Many times, the greatest challenge in learning to manage our time is learning when to say no to the things that are not for us so that we have time to say yes to what is. No Is Our Friend No is not our enemy. It is our friend. We must embrace no and welcome the boundaries it represents.  These boundaries restore our peace and reclaim our sanity. They prevent our efforts from being watered down across too many commitments.  They ensure that we are making time for love in our lives, and for the friendships, the family, and the other things that add lasting value. It is a word that will, if we allow it, protect us from being used and abused by those who might take advantage of our generosity or misinterpret our willingness to help others as a license to enslave us to their own desires. No Must B...

Once, years ago, I took a job for $14 an hour. It seemed like good pay compared to the jobs closer to my home. I thought I was getting a good deal. But there were costs to this opportunity that I wasn’t evaluating which – in the long run – actually meant I was being paid less than minimum wage for that job. How can this be? Let me show you how to calculate that in real numbers. Opportunity Costs Are Something Businesses Looks At Before Investing Most big businesses know about opportunity costs . It's something they use to evaluate whether or not to invest in one opportunity over another. They don't teach employees this same skill. It's not to their advantage to do so. But it is something I feel strongly every person should know how to do for themselves. Time: How Much Time I Was Spending at the Job and Commuting. The job was a typical 8 hour a day job with an hour lunch. However, I didn’t have a car. So, that meant I was stuck at work during that hour. I only lived 30...

Yesterday afternoon, I was exhausted. All week I'd been working with my new agency client to get acclimated to the two accounts I would be handling for him, putting together blog posts and new designs for Project FED, helping someone else coordinate an event, helping yet another person with the edits to a manuscript that we're co-writing, and working on a web design project so that the rent could get paid on time (it did). I'd done so much work that day, and I still had a lot that didn't even get touched. I was discouraged. I was feeling frustrated with my inability to get everything done that I wanted to do. I sat down to pray and I asked God for a new strategy. One that would ensure I got everything done without draining my batteries so completely. To my surprise, God didn't drop a strategy into my lap. He just told me to get up and go listen to some music. This isn't something I normally do. I usually work in the quiet so that I can focus and concentrate. I d...

One of the most important skills that someone who desires to build wealth must learn is how to distinguish between an expense and investment. The super-wealthy don’t spend money on expenses. Even when it looks like they are spending frivolously, they are investing in making themselves more money. An Expense An expense is something you spend money on that will not grow your bank account. It is a purchase that may be a necessity or it feels good in the moment but ultimately is not going to profit you. If you spend $600 on a purse, and you are spending it because you want to impress people, that’s an expense. It’s not going to make you money. It’s not going to help you get closer to your goals. It’s not even going to impress the people you want to impress. Buying a t-shirt or a purse or a pair of shoes that promotes someone else’s brand or carries their logo is an expense. The only thing it’s going to do is add dollars to their wallet, not yours. Truly wealthy people do not buy things to ...

“Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” – Psalm 90:12 Last week, I introduced Time Management Tuesday , a time where I talk about how to make sure you are getting the most out of the time you are going to spend in this life. Today, I’m going to dive into the very first and most important step to take on this journey of getting control over the way you use your time. Get Clear About What Matters…and What Doesn’t “Begin with the End in Mind” – Stephen Covey I was 26 years old when I heard a voice tell me, as clearly as if someone had been standing beside me, “5 years. Make them count.” I knew in my heart I was being told that I had five years to get my life in order. I went home that day and took the list of 100 things that I’d wanted to do before I died and I tore it up and threw it away. Suddenly, none of those things mattered to me. I sat down on the bed and wrote a list of five things that actually mattered. I found out that day what my five big...

I am a goal-oriented individual. I have a target in mind that I want to hit and I tend to be single-minded in my devotion to getting there. That can be good, because it means I am relentless in my pursuit of any objective once I am convinced it is the right objective, but it can also be bad because it means I tend to focus so intently on where I want to be that I don’t take time to appreciate those who have helped me get there or the progress that has been made toward achieving the objective. That’s why I’m dedicated Thursday to Thanksgiving. Not the U.S. holiday where we set aside time for food, football, and family, stuffing ourselves full of food until we slip into a turkey-induced food coma as a means of celebrating the pilgrim’s first successful harvest and the founding of the nation we know as the United States. No, this is more of a universal thanksgiving. Celebrating A Major Success Many people who work in marketing know how difficult it is to get even well-established brands r...

  Yesterday was a pivotal moment in Project FED's history. After time spent praying over the direction to take Project FED and asking God for His help in seeing to its success, I received answers on multiple levels. The Struggle Is Real It's tough to get the majority of people interested in doing something for others. Most people like to talk about it, but when it comes time to rolling up their sleeves and taking action, they are too busy.  Only  25% of Americans  - my home country - do volunteer work of any kind. Those that volunteer typically do so for just ONE of the many organizations that need help and support. While 73% of Americans do give to charitable organizations, the  average donation is just $128 . There are so many causes and organizations to support, so many people asking for support that people begin to feel overwhelmed.  They know that - at least on the surface - what they give today won't come back to them and the money they have is a fini...

  Over the last two days, I've talked about   Project FED   and the   work I'm doing   to get it going. Yesterday, I read about the  kidnapping of yet another priest  in Nigeria by Boko Haram. They also kidnapped 140 schoolchildren, most likely to raise ransom money. It is the fourth mass school kidnapping since December. Nigeria: The Canary in the Mines Why do I care? First, I have friends who live in Nigeria and other friends whose families live there.  Second, because I see Nigeria as a sort of canary in the mines for America and all resource-wealthy nations. What can happen to them can happen to us. What we do about it will determine our destiny. Underground miners in America used to bring canaries down with them into the mines. In addition to their music providing the workers with something to help cheer them, those canaries were an early warning system that notified them when the air was becoming too toxic. If the canary stopped singing, the...

  Yesterday , I introduced you to   Project FED , my effort to help Father Lucas raise money for the three orphanages he supports in Nigeria. It took me all day yesterday to try and find the right home for an online shop where I could sell the designs that I am creating to use in the campaign, but I finally set up shop on   Zazzle .  We got our first email signup for Project FED as well as the first volunteer to help keep our momentum going. It may be a small gain in the relative scope of things, but every giant redwood tree began as a small seed, so I have confidence that if I keep up the work, we will keep up the momentum. Today's Work   It is my husband's birthday and Wednesday, which is my day to celebrate my husband's life and my granddaughter's. I won't, therefore, get the chance to do a lot of work on Project FED.  However, I have spent the morning hours creating several different products and setting up a Pinterest account  specifically for sho...