Growing an Online Income: The (Honest) Strategy I’m Using

Obviously, the goal is to make somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000/month.

I’m working my way towards that — as I’m sure so are you. 

This is the strategy that I’m committing myself to. You’ll probably notice that many of these headers sound vague and non-committal, but I promise you, I go deep into exactly how I plan to grow my income inside each section. 

Oh, and one last note, transparency is really important to me — so it’s important to me that you know that I’m not writing these articles to sell you a course, I’m a digital marketer and content writer who’s doing this to build my online brand and get my name in front of people looking to grow their website traffic.

If you’re reading this, then you know my strategy works. 

Here’s exactly how I plan to grow my online income. 

Step 1: Setting My Monthly Goals For An Online Income

Monthly goals are important to me, as I’m sure they are to you. 

If you’ve sent any amount of time in the personal development space, you’ll probably have heard of SMART goals or the OKR framework. 

SMART stands for:

• Specific: The goal is clear and specific.
• Measurable: The goal’s progress can be tracked.
• Attainable: The goal is realistic and doable.
• Relevant: The goal is aligned with the organization.
• Time-bound: the goal is timed and has a due-date.

OKR stands for:

• Objectives: The goal
• Key Results: The measurable performance indicators to that goal (milestones)
• Initiatives: Daily tasks to achieve the goal. 

It doesn’t matter which framework you use. It’s not something I think about — but I do like to use OKR because it highlights initiatives and the daily tasks required to achieve the goal. 

But I also like to make sure that my goals are time-bound. 

See what I mean? The framework doesn’t matter.

Break the framework. 

Here’s what my current goals for the month of August look like:

Monastic Spaces (My Website)

• Goal: To become a leading resource for remote workers and digital nomads looking to live an alternative lifestyle. Anywhere is an office. 

• Key Results: Generate 5 clicks per day

• Initiatives: Write 16 articles and create 40 backlinks. 

Myself

• Goal: Document my life. Build an audience of side hustlers who love what they do. 

• Key Results: 70 Medium followers + 30 YouTube subscribers

• Initiatives: Post 4 articles per week and create 2 YouTube videos. 

To be honest, you didn’t have to read my monthly goals — I wrote them to keep accountable with what I’m planning to do. 

Step 2: Building Process and Routines

I love the concept of Paretto’s Principle. “80% of your results come from 20% of your actions.”

You don’t rise to the level of your goals; you fall to the level of your systems. 

Content creation, for example, was something that I had trouble making time for in the past 2–3 years. But if you check out my profile history, you’ll notice I’ve been more consistent with creating content. 

And that’s because I systematize and build routines out of every single part of the process.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, I spend the whole day writing articles. I outline 3–5 articles the day before, then just blitz through them on the day of.

In the days between, I like to edit the articles, work on structure and flow, and add images. 

To make sure I get this done, I break down my tasks into three daily to-do’s. 

Before I start my day, I take 10–15 minutes to list these three tasks.

I suggest you do the same. 

Three big tasks every day because it forces you to be very intentional with what you choose to do throughout the day. 

Plus, there’s always the chance of new tasks popping up throughout your day. Depending on their urgency, you may want to get straight to them. 

Having three big tasks means you have the time buffer and mental bandwidth to take on any urgent pop-ups while finishing the tasks you initially set out to do that day. 

Step 3: Execution and Accountability

The last step is to actually get out and finish these tasks. 

So, here’s a breakdown of my current day-to-day. 

It’s a little different, those night shifts. I don’t see it as extra work, I just get creative and work on whatever task I feel like working on. That’s why I think it’s important to have hobbies.

I’m done by around 11pm, get some rest, and do it all again the next day.

You’re done probably looks a little different, but no matter how your day looks, you could stand to benefit from productivity frameworks that help with focus. There are a lot of systems that could help you do this.

Here they are:

• Pomodoro timers:
• Time blocking
• The decision tree
• 3/3/3 method
• Eating the frog

Your framework doesn’t matter as long as you get the job done. Try out all the systems from the list and see which one works well for you.

Bonus Step: Setting Expectations For Myself

You’ll have good days. You’ll have bad days. Just don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t reach your goals. Sometimes, life just gets in the way, and things don’t turn out how you expect them to be. 

If you don’t meet your goal this time, that’s fine. So long as you’ve built the routines and implemented the systems to succeed in the long run. 

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