Keeping Balance, Without stretching yourself too thin...

 

So this is my Submission for Cold's Gold Factory Carnival which I highly advise you check out over at this link.

I wanna talk about how my real life experiences during University has helped my gold making, and on a side note my blogging too.

So Check out Cold's Gold Factory and settle down and read through my post and the others on the carnival...

So to give a little more background on myself "Gimp", Im 24 years old and last summer (2010) I graduated from university with a "Bachelor of Science with Honors in Computer Games Development". Now while I was in my final year of university I was also working at two jobs. One as a barman at the student bar and one as a mobile/cellular phone sales person.

My bar job involved customer service and bar upkeep but as it was at the Uni bar I was allowed to swap shifts for exams and even do assignments while at work if it was quiet. Whilst my Sales job involved targeted sales where my salary was based upon commission. Now while I learnt a lot of things from these jobs that have helped make gold thats for another day.So its my Final year on a very practical based degree course and I have two jobs to attend as well as multiple assignments, and a Thesis/Dissertation to program and document, leaving me very little time spare. So how did I deal with this. At the beginning of the year I carried on as I had done in my previous term, and just went to work and Uni, spending my time as I thought was "normal".

Now after roughly 5 weeks I realized something was not working right, my grades where slipping leaving me with a disappointing predicted degree grade and I was finding the bar work more and more tiring. At 1st I couldn't figure out why this was, as I was following a schedule I had already had for over a year. So I put some time aside for myself and had a think, and I what should of been very oblivious to me finally came through, I was working the same amount of time at my sales and bar jobs, but I was rushing my assignments as there was more of them and they each required much more mental effort, which left me a lot more drained.

So with this in mind I decided to cut my hours at the bar job, and started doing some of my documentation writing as draft whilst at my sales job. This worked out great, my grades got better and my degree prediction grade soared, so life was great right?

Wrong! Due to dropping hours at my bar job, and not being fully committed to my sales job my income had dropped massively, as the number of sales I made each shift had almost halved, which left me with very little money for food and drinks after I paid my rent and bills. So again I realized something needed to change, so I looked at the situation, my Uni work was going great but my finances where crashing, I was really at a loss, so i discussed it with some friends and came up with a plan, at the time my weeks where roughly split as 45% Lectures/Assignments, 25% Sales Job 10% Bar Job and 20% Sleeping, exercise etc etc.

I decided that if I swapped cut my bar job hours down to 1 shift a week I should be able to cover my bills and have more left over to spend, as I could work harder at the sales job where I had the potential to get lots of money from comission if I made great sales.

To break this down into the steps I had taken upto this point:

Step 1: Equal Focus on Uni and Jobs - BAD for Uni Grades

Step 2: Main Focus on Uni, Secondary on Sales Job, Less focus on Bar Job - Uni Great, Income Bad

Step 3: Main Focus split between Uni and Sales Job, very little focus on Bar Job

Looking at the breakdown now, I would predict that my income and Uni situation would balance out and leave me with more money. HOWEVER this is where I fell down for forgetting why I had taken the bar job in the 1st place, along side the sales job. Flexability!!

So by this time Uni had come round to an examination period, where I needed a lot of time away from work to sit exams and revise, the problem here being i could no longer keep my income high and attend all my exmas, as i didn't have the ability to freely swap shifts at work with other students, so again my income dropped.

Now I'm gonna leave this story here as at the time it took me alot of juggling and balancing to finally hit the balance right, and it was only after reading a single quote that I figured out and learnt from this experience.

"If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one"  Russian Proverb

Now this taught me that to balance my life, and keep my goals in site i had to priorities, as if i was chasing both rabbits (in my example, Uni success and financial success) then I would never achieve both, however I could chase one rabbit (Uni success) and just keep one eye on the second rabbits progress.

Stop rambaling Gimp and explain how I use this in wow gold farming Gimp??

Ok Ok sorry!


So when I decided I wanted to make gold I knew there as many many things that would/could achieve this for me, there was all of my different professions, there was farming, there was selling specific services, there was Auction house flipping, and many many other things I could list.


However due to my experiences at Uni I knew that it was better to break this down and focus on one thing until I had it balanced, and the smaller goal of perfecting this one action mastered. I have talked about how I started in my All adventures Have to Start Somewhere Post but at this point my main goal was to pick one direction and work within it and balance it within how I played. So with all the optional rabbits running around in front of me I set my Targets on one, the "Hit 100k from Jewlcrafting" rabbit and I started sprinting at this rabbit. Now this taught me to not stretch myself thin, but whilst I still try and chase only one rabbit I still try and keep myself balanced, making sure I have Knowledge and practice to a small degree in other areas.


Now when I look back at my Uni time I consider myself Chasing 2 Rabbits along a balancing beam, and this is how I look at Making gold, I set myself targets (my Rabbits) and I work towards them, however as I meet my targets (catch a rabbit) I look at it as a weight I must balance as I continue to move forwards.


So the lesson I learn is to have single targets at a time, and balance the old targets within myself, learning from my mistakes and re-adjusting the weight as I move along.


I want you as a gold maker to think about your past targets and future ones, and consider how you could balance these actions within your routine, and if there is no balance, maybe you should stop running after the rabbits, as you may just fall down a hole.


So again I contradict my own advice and say to you guys and girls, Keep it simple!
and have fun!

Gimp

Todays Quick Tip : Once a week go through your alts bags and banks and organize any items you missed that may help another alt make money (ie hidden materials)

Post To check out - Bangkok Bill's World of Goldcraft Making Gold with craftables in 4.2 post, it has great details to help you prepare for 4.2!

Posted in: Pyschology,Reasoning