Stress can truly wreak havoc on your life, both personally and professionally. Symptoms of extreme stress can take both emotional and physical forms. Especially if you have any disorders to begin with.

Some common physical symptoms include aches and pains, diarrhea or constipation, nausea and/or dizziness, chest pain, rapid heartbeat, loss of libido, and frequent colds. Emotional symptoms may include moodiness, irritability or short temper, agitation or inability to relax, feeling overwhelmed, a sense of loneliness and isolation, and depression or general unhappiness.

When feeling overwhelmed by stress, it’s important to try to identify specific stressors and to examine how you cope with them. You can then work to avoid, alter, adapt to, or accept the stressors in your life. You can also pay attention to the fact that they are brought on by a specific stressor or a general symptom.

* To avoid unnecessary stress, learn how to say no. Know your limits and stick to them, in both your professional and personal lives. Whenever possible, steer clear of people who cause you stress. Take control of your environment – if scary movies make you anxious, for example, don’t watch them. Stay away from hot-button topics like religion or politics if they make you upset or cause conflict. And finally, pare down your to-do list. Separate the “shoulds” from the “musts” and drop anything that is not truly essential.

* To alter stressful situations you can’t avoid, express your feelings rather than bottling them up. If something is bothering you, convey your concerns openly but respectfully. At the same time, remain open to compromise. When you ask someone to change their behavior, be willing to do the same so that you can find a happy middle ground.

In addition, be assertive and deal with problems head on, doing your best to anticipate and prevent them. And finally, manage your time better. Don’t stretch yourself too thin and end up running behind.

* If you can’t avoid or alter the stressor, you can adapt to it. Learn to view stressful situations from a positive perspective. You can reframe a traffic jam, for example, as an opportunity for some reflection time. Also, look at the big picture of a stressful situation. Ask yourself how important the stressor will be in the long run and whether it’s really worth getting upset over. If not, refocus somewhere else.

Adjust your standards as well. Don’t set yourself up for failure by demanding perfection from yourself and others. Focus on the positive by thinking about all of the blessings in your life, including your positive qualities and gifts.

* A fourth way to deal with stress is to accept the stress you cannot change. Don’t try to control the uncontrollable – a category that encompasses many aspects of our lives, including other people’s behavior. Focus instead on things you can control, such as your reactions to problems.

Again, look for the upside when facing major challenges and try to see them as opportunities for growth. When the stress gets to be too much, confide in someone you trust. Expressing your feelings can be cathartic, even when you’re powerless to change a situation.

* Last but not least, learn to forgive – yourself as well as others. Accept the fact that we live in an imperfect world, and people make mistakes. Let go of anger and resentments and move on.

Remember that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so take time to relax and have fun when you detect symptoms of stress in your life. Set aside to time to rest, spend time with positive people, and do something you enjoy every day. Your family is there to enjoy. And most of all, keep your sense of humor – including your ability to laugh at yourself.

Content is one of the most valuable assets of an internet marketer. But you need to make the most of your content, to repurpose and reuse it in as many ways as possible. Here are a few easy ways to make the most of your content.

1. Article marketing. Articles that are published on your website can be rewritten and used for article marketing purposes. The rewriting process is simply a matter of changing the content by changing the wording, not the overall concept or information in the article. There are tools online that you can use to ensure your ‘rewrite’ is considered ‘original’ by the search engines.  But I don’t recommend using them as the sentences will usually not make since and the grammar may become strange. Content can be rewritten by you, a virtual assistant or outsourced to a writer for a nominal fee.

2. Blog posts. Large articles can be segmented into several smaller blog posts. In fact, often one paragraph in a larger article (1000 words or more) makes a great blog post because it’s very specific. All you need to do is write an introduction and a short conclusion and you have a great blog post from content that’s already written. Or you can rewrite a shorter article using the strategy in #1 to create a unique blog post.

3. Reports. Collect like articles and blog posts to create a unique report. You’ll need to write an introduction, a conclusion and some transition paragraphs to make the report feel seamless. However, you’re creating a valuable product you can sell or give away from content that’s primarily already written. If you’re an affiliate marketer, also include a page at the end with resources readers can use that pertained to the report.

4. Guest articles/blog posts. You can rewrite articles to publish on partner websites or as guest blog posts to boost awareness and credibility.

5. Autoresponders/newsletters. Use your article content to create autoresponders or newsletters. Many of your prospects do not visit your website regularly to catch up on new content. You can publish your best articles in a newsletter or you can summarize them, or publish a teaser and link to the article on your website. Thus increasing website traffic.

6. Ebooks. Just like creating reports in #3, you can create ebooks by collecting groups or chapters of like content. Sell it or give it away as a bonus, lead generator or viral product.

7. Ecourses. Use your articles to create short lessons for an online course which you can again give away or charge for as an information product.

It should be noted that all of the points here are on how to make the most of your article content; however, if you have books and reports, they can easily be segmented into articles, blog posts, ecourses, newsletter content and autoresponders.

Whether you’ve written the content, outsourced it, purchased PLR or a combination of all three, it makes good business sense to make the most of your investment.

And rough doesn’t even start to hit it. I’m used to my time to get things done on the side.  I schedule client work and then have plenty of time to work on my own blog posts and business. OH MY! Nothing like a complete lack of time to show you that you the time you were previously wasting.

Yes, I’m now very aware of how much time I am spending working and how much time in recent months I’ve just been online. I know I go through times like this, but right now I need to get it back under control.

I’m loving all the time we’re spending as a family or just hubby and I getting projects done. I obviously have no problem scheduling that in It’s the reason I want to work solely from home now.

However, it’s time for me to sit and get some major goals written up. Goals that I really have no choice but to hit. But I do have the choice of when these goals are hit and if I hit them with my own business or if I have to take on more clients to hit my monetary goals. I’m liking the balance right now so I guess I better get my private time straightened out for working my own businesses.  That and also get some focus.  I have a master list of domains and sites and yet again it’s time for weeding out.

We’re over half way through July and there’s no time like the present to make some more money.  Do it right this second as a matter of fact.

Take a look at your income so far for the month or a past month.  What is the thing that is making you the most income?  Write it down at the top of  a computer document or notebook paper.

Write down 5 ways you promote this product or service that work the best.  Now go and quickly do those 5 things.  Put this at the top of your list for the day.  These are proven things to earn you money and if they are working then you should be pushing them.

Next brainstorm 3 news ways you can promote your product or service.  Try and get them to be quick ideas if you have a big to-do list already that needs to be completed.  A few examples of quick things would be:

1.  Hit your twitter account with a link to a blog post or just a quick tweet and affiliate link or sales page link.

2.  Use your facebook account. Add a status update to promote this product or service.

3.  Add a blog post, it doesn’t have to be a long post.

4.  Add a link to your sidebar.

5.  Swap links with a friends site.

6.  Swap guest posts with a friends site to promote each others products.

Don’t neglect those things that are already making money as you look for more avenues.  If something is working then you need to jump on it and see how far you can push the income towards your goals.

This blog has always been a product of adaption. Working WAHM is a silly, redundant title, but at the time it was created it was because I worked outside the home and had my online biz’s. It was my vent for dealing with it all. Kind of like my main personal blog that has been around forever. It was my VENT!

Not so much for either anymore. This blog is and always be about my working online and my interaction offline. I can’t help that. I’m a people person and no matter how much I work online and how much I LOVE working online, I still need that personal interaction. I’m killer at customer service and that is personal no matter how we try to change it.

So right now I’m working on a mix. Yes, online biz still. I still have my offline biz but it’s light and then I am actually looking for a small offline job to have that steady paycheck between. It’s just that time. I’ve put a couple of clients above my own work and frankly it really messed up my own stuff. So now it’s time to rebuild.

Working WAHM has always been about the best resource to use. Not the most affordable, the cheapest, the latest or the one that will make ME the most affiliate money. So I need to get back to basics for ya and move to the resources. Like Hootsuite…wanna hear my love affair tomorrow? Better comment if you do or I’ll ignore it!!

The WAHM community is a small community.  If you are just starting out, it may seem huge, but the core has been interconnected for years. It’s taken me a while obviously to post this and I really struggled with how personal it hit me. But I’m always about everyone learning from what I learn, so here I am all out there for you to pick-a-part.

It was shocking and horrible to get up late this morning (6/28, yes that was a bit ago now) and find out that Denise Willms had passed away suddenly on Sunday.  Devastating for a few reasons.  The unexpectedness for one thing.  She’d just celebrated her birthday on Friday turning barely older than I.  Our kids are of a similar age.  I can remember when she was a complete newbie and took over WAHM-articles from my good friend. It’s been awesome to watch what she’s done over the years with it.

Being the same age and being so young this is hitting home for me. I can take a look at my life right now and like the direction I’m going with both family, friends and work. No, I’m not making the money I would like to, but that’s not what people will remember about me anyway I hope. My hope is that I’ve left everyone, especially my family, with many moments that they can start with…”Do you remember when…?” I want to be home to leave those moments, not away working so many hours that I miss out on the moments.

If you would like to leave your condolences a memorial page has been set up. I know Denise touched a lot of people’s lives and many will miss her.

I felt it hard because I am not where I want to be. With my family and friends, yes, but in biz…NO. I felt it extra hard because I have more than I want on my plate and more than I want associated with me if something did happen. Telling isn’t it? Drop the crap woman!

Denise will continue to touch my life. It’s unbelievable to me that she won’t hit me on twitter at any moment. I’m wondering if it’s even worse for online relationships to move onward than the offline? I’m not comparing how much more she touched those in her life she had daily interaction physically with, but I am wonder because I didn’t have the daily. So here I just keep waiting for that quick blurb from her It’s difficult to believe it will never happen and my heart goes out to her family. She will be missed and I will put her memory to great use. I will keep my priorities in check and keep enjoying every second with my family that I am given

Yahoo and Google Groups functions both offer users the ability to organize large groups of people. They’re particularly useful if you’re teaching a course, hosting a club function or even collaborating with several people. You can keep files for everyone to pull from whenever needed and set up links for your data.  However, they’re not created equal. Both have their pros and cons. Let’s take a look at both Yahoo and Google Groups.

Google Groups

Google Groups allows group members to self-enroll or enroll by invitation only – it’s up to you. And you don’t need to have a Google email account to sign up with Google groups. You do need a Google account, but that’s free. (Yahoo Groups requires all non-Yahoo account holders to establish a Yahoo ID and then “link” that ID to their email address.)

Google Groups sends each member a message every time a page is changed or a comment is added to the thread.

Google forums are organized by topic and members must sign up for a topic to receive email alerts and updates. With Yahoo, messages are presented in a list. Whether this is a pro or con simply depends on how you prefer your messages, topics and forums to be organized. It’s a personal preference.

Both groups allow you to specify public or private membership. And you can also choose a “newsletter only” membership with both groups.

Member profiles are easy to edit via Google Groups.

The pages feature allows users to create web pages, whilst Yahoo offers sections for posting additional information. Again, this is neither a pro nor a con, simply a personal preference.

Both groups allow users to choose how they receive their emails from the group – as individual emails or as a daily digest.

Generally, most people tend to prefer Google Groups because it’s easier to use and more intuitive than Yahoo Groups. However, many users complain about their inability to moderate posts with attachments or quoted text. And owners cannot designate certain powers to managers. It’s an all-or-nothing choice.

Yahoo Groups

Yahoo Groups allows you to personalize your welcome message in a number of easy to use ways including adding a syllabus, links to external pages and attachments. (Google Groups limits your welcome message to 250 words.)

Both groups allow you to add members manually or invite them by email.

Yahoo helps users manage any email problems by tracking bounced mail. They also make it easy to resolve lost password issues.

Yahoo Groups provides a daily digest, email, or website email as options for receiving updates to the group thread(s).

Yahoo Groups offers a calendar feature. (Presently, Google Groups does not offer a group calendar feature.)

Yahoo has had a customer service issue in the past with closing groups and owner IDs without any warning or reason.

Additionally, message attachments are not stored on the group.

Many users complain about the advertising present. (Google also has ads but they’re less obtrusive)

There is a 750kB message size limit. (Google has a 5MB size limit)

Both Yahoo and Google Groups offer a number of features and benefits to business owners, non-profit organizations, and other organized associations. They enable large groups of people to communicate and work together in one area easily and efficiently.

I have a client that sends me tweets and facebook fanpage status updates to post to her account. It is very time consuming and not time appropriate for me to log into both her accounts and post at that time. Plus, my schedule varies and I can’t guarantee that I’m working online at the time it need to be posted.

I searched around to many scheduling programs for twitter and for one I was amazed at how many have a monthly cost. Definitely not what we were looking for. But others were just very cumbersome to use.

Hootsuite was recommended so I created a free account. I use twhirl for my twitter accounts as I like having the little box pop up for quick posting from multiple accounts and not have to open a new browser tab. But scheduling is something not available in twhirl unfortunately. Hootsuite was very easy to set up and I was posting in no time. Setting up my facebook fanpages took a little bit of figuring out, but I had 4 fanpages added within 15-20 minutes and that was mostly because of waiting while everything got permission to connect.

I hit my client up and asked her to check out hootsuite. She liked it too and set up an account. At first I was going through her main account, but now I have been added as a user to her business twitter and fanpage. I LOVE THAT! I log into my hootsuite account now and can update hers then quickly toss some to mine or vice-versa.

I can go in one day a week or a couple of times a month and schedule things for her. This works great and also forces her to work ahead. Great options for both of us. Plus the time saved logging into accounts can be better spent on other projects for her.

I’m giving hootsuite an A+ for usability and for holding options I don’t even know how to use yet. lol

Well unless you completely ignore everything I write, you know I absolutely love wordpress. I converted the last of my websites to WP about 2 years ago and it is all I personally work in now. The majority of my clients also use it or their first project for me is typically converting to wordpress. As with any medium it’s impossible for me to know everything. So I’m really looking forward to the Hot Seminar Series this year. It’s all about wordpress!

Just a few of the topics to be covered in this weekly series are choosing themes, security, branding, plugins and so much more.

This is a 9 week seminar filled with information.  The Hot Seminar Series has grown each year because of the incredible experts brought to the table.  This is not a pay as you go or an expensive series.  9 weeks of priceless information, with downloadable mp3′s to listen to as often as necessary and also video to watch later.  This way if you can’t make the wednesday night session’s you won’t miss out on the content!

Go get your subscription to the Hot Seminar Series and commit to learning and growing your business this summer.

I’m thankful for my spam blockers as I don’t go through the spam file any more. It’s just too full and if you put links in your emails then you don’t deserve any of our time.

But lately every blog has just been hit by so many commenters loading their name field with keywords. I appreciate that many of them are actual comments, but I am getting really ticked off at the blatant lack of etiquette by keyword loading.

It’s fine, cause what you may not have been told is I CAN CHANGE IT! So many have names in their email, I’m sure they are fake, but I still go and put that name instead. If I like the comment enough I’ll create a name from the website and email combo. It’s still a legit comment, I’m just not giving you the keywords for a one time posting.

One of my sites has been hit for so many months that I’m actually going through and deleting the url for the commenter along with adding their name. I figure that site ended up on a list as it’s one website in particular that keeps returning. I’ll slowly make my way through all the back comments I wasn’t paying attention to and get them all deleted as well.

Keyword loading isn’t friendly at all. It isn’t networking. I understand that it’s getting you some backlinks for the search engines, but not on my blogs. In fact if I have to correct it more than twice, your url will be deleted from all comments. So you’ll be posting out of the kindness of your networking heart