Lifehack.org: Personal Effectiveness without Intention Manifestation

[Cron]

If you are into reading articles about personal effectiveness ( goals, productivity, time management, motivation, self-discipline, overcoming procrastination, habits, organizing, problem-solving, decision-making, etc ... ) but you don't care for mystical beliefs like Intention Manifestation ( IM ) you might enjoy Lifehack.org:

Lifehack.org : Productivity, Getting Things Done and Lifehacks Blog

I've been reading the blog for about a month now and I am pleased with it.

The blog updates regularly. It accepts comments. The comments are generally useful. The blogged articles come from a variety of authors so you get an interesting mix of topics, expertise, and approaches.

The forum there is DEAD so this site is probably better if you want to interact with people with an interest in self improvement.

Standard Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with lifehack.org in any way

[thecubemonkey]

Interesting stuff. Nice to see some balance in the whole manisfestation topic. I agree, lifehacker is pretty good. I've been a reader on and off for a while.

Thanks for the link Cron.

[Brutha]

I also subscribe to lifehacker. It's also a place that features post from all the other personal development blogs, so you can also use it to find new blogs.

[RT Wolf]

I've been following lifehacker for a few months now, on and off and my experience has been the following:

- Its a bit repetitive. After consuming a lot of info on PD, a lot of stuff starts to pop up again and again, but lifehack in particular tends ot focus on a very tight niche in PD (mostly around productivity).
- It updates too frequently. It updates so frequently, that reading all the articles that are of interest to me would take like an hour a day. Waste of my time, especially considering that I'll only get marginal returns by each new article I read.

So I stopped reading it. I would like to have an article featured on it, though, its a nice big traffic boost I hear.

[alexinspire]

Wow! they have close to 40k readers. I'm sure they are providing good value!

[Brutha]

According to SnapShot of lifehack.org (rank #10,438), stevepavlina.com (#14,069) - Compete it's rather 175k unique visitors in the last month, which is a bit more than Steve has.

And they still were unable to set up a good working forum.

[Cron]

Originally Posted by RT Wolf

I've been following lifehacker for a few months now, on and off and my experience has been the following:

- Its a bit repetitive. After consuming a lot of info on PD, a lot of stuff starts to pop up again and again, but lifehack in particular tends ot focus on a very tight niche in PD (mostly around productivity).





- It updates too frequently. It updates so frequently, that reading all the articles that are of interest to me would take like an hour a day. Waste of my time, especially considering that I'll only get marginal returns by each new article I read.

All of those complaints are things I desire.

In my own life the biggest problem with good ideas to me is remembering to use them and remembering to think about them. Having things come back up and repeat are good things for me.

I understand where you are coming from and how those things can be annoying. I get around that by using RSS to pipe the article headlines into my Yahoo portal page. I can hover over an interesting title and decide if it is something I want to click on or not

[Brad Isaac]

Originally Posted by Brutha

According to SnapShot of lifehack.org (rank #10,438), stevepavlina.com (#14,069) - Compete it's rather 175k unique visitors in the last month, which is a bit more than Steve has.

And they still were unable to set up a good working forum.

I don't know for sure why their forums aren't so active but I believe that is because they are more of an internationally focused site. it is probably tough to get everyone on the same page.

Hey, and thanks for posting the link to competes analytics. I hadn't heard of them before. it looks like they have some interesting tools at their disposal.

[RT Wolf]

Heh, yep. Its amazing how the same exact stimulas can have a vastly different reaction in different people.

[Brutha]

I don't know for sure why their forums aren't so active but I believe that is because they are more of an internationally focused site.

What reason do you have to believe that they are more internationally focused? (after Alexa, they focus is the same)
I think they simple messed up the building a community part.
It a good lesson to other people who want to build a forum on their website. Just installing vbb-Bulitan doesn't do the trick.

[bus9hy]

don't confuse lifehack with lifehacker which is another popular blog. I did for a bit

[Cron]

Originally Posted by bus9hy

don't confuse lifehack with lifehacker which is another popular blog. I did for a bit

Me too!

[dustin]

Hello, all. I'm Dustin, from lifehack.org, and sad to say, I agree with a lot of what's been written here. So here's my question, if it's not too unseemly to ask on Stave's forum: what would you do to bring back the lifehack.org forum? To be honest, it was pretty much DOA when I came on-board last July, and that's sad. We have so many great, smart readers, it would be a great resource. Alas, community management isn't my forte, so my efforts have been largely unsuccessful. But I'd love to hear some ideas!

[Brutha]

what would you do to bring back the lifehack.org forum?

I don't thing that the lifehack forum lived in the first place.

In general a forum needs action to draw new users.
I think the forum was created pretty much with the assumption that it just installing the forum software is enough.
I think there are three facor that Steve did right to start the forum:
1) The Steve Pavlina forum had over twenty moderators at the start. That is a lot of manpower to get the momentum required to get action. If I remember right around 60 people wrote applications to become a moderator.
2) There was also a lot of anticipation before the forum opened. People looked forward to the forum. This was archived by telling the users a few time before the forum opened about the fact that it will open.
3) The forum is the way to comment on blog article. This has also the advantage for Steve that we moderators moderate the comments.
4) We have an Introductions board.

What can you do about the forum?
1) Close it. And reopen version 2.0 in 3-4 month.
The following steps should take place in the month before the new forum opens:
2) Before you open ask the community for forum categories (one blog post asking for suggestions and one blog post to vote on those suggestions).
3) Let people apply to become a moderator in the board.
4) At the day the new forum opens switch to a comment system where people comment on your blog post through the forum.
Optional:
5) Ask other bloggers (people who have more than one blog post featured at your blog), whether they want a subforum on your site as comment system (they can also get it in addition to their old comment system) that they moderate.
(I see lifehack.org as a site that brings different blogs together at the moment)

[RT Wolf]

I really dig number 5. Creative idea.

[Brutha]

We have so many great, smart readers, it would be a great resource.

I don't think that the point of a forum is to be a resource, any more than a bar or a book reading club is a resource.
A forum is more than pure information. It's conversation and relationship building. It's a plattform that draws people from a community into it and gives the community a structure.

I really dig number 5. Creative idea.

The community from which you draw people should be the global personal development community (or as you label it: people who are interested to hack their life).

That community is a Small World network in which lifehack.org is at the moment one of the main hubs.
Those bloggers in 5) are also hubs that connect to a lot of people.

A goal of a forum is to be a sort of hyper hub. A centralised structure in a dezentralised network. While lifehack.org at the moment practically only connects hubs (bloggers) through featured articles, a forum would more directly connect to leaves (normal people interested in lifehacks without an audience).
Integrating a few bloggers into the forum through 5) increase the reach of the forum hub.

There is also a second phase, one you get your participation. Create structure. Don't let self promotion and spam take over your forum.
Encourage quality posters and try to limit "noise" that nobody wants to read. At the moment the old lifehack forum doesn't look like it's moderated and has quite a bit of "noise" that could be deleted to improve the quality. I remember deleting some of the posts in this forum so they are definitly crossposted for selfpromotion maybe even through bots.

If you are interested in building a community I would also recommand you to check out Research Blogging: Forums - Powered by vBulletin regulary. I would guess that we have a working forum there after some time is passed. That site tries to be a hub for blogs who cite research. It will be interesting how the project turns out.

[dustin]

Brutha: Thanks -- those are some good ideas. I'm not sure how many are feasible, since I'm not in charge of the forum's operation, but there's a lot there to think about.

I agree, forums are for conversation -- I don't want ti imply that the forum's content would be a resource (in the same way featured articles are) but that the orum itself would be a.. well, maybe resource is the wrong word. A useful thing for readers to have access to. A good place to have around.

Most importantly, I want folks to hae a sense of connection with each other and with us, the writers. I'm wondering, though, f the forums become the place where people comment, what is the difference between having active commenters and an active forum? It's the unique stuff, the "I have a question" stuff and the "hey, this is interesting" stuff that seems to me the reason behind a forum -- is there a case for integrating the two functions (commenting and original threads)? Is it simply a matter of not splitting people's attention?

Over the past several months, I've focused a lot on increasing comments. I don't have any special insight, but have just followed what I thought was right. And it's worked, the average number of comments per post have increased, and they're pretty good stuff -- sometimes as informative if not moreso than the post itself! The same strategies have not worked much at all for the forum, though I didn't put the same energy into it after the first few attempts failed to see much result. Like you said, maybe the forums never worked right -- it was there well before I came onboard, and I have no idea of its history. But it would be nice to see them take off -- preferably without closing them down first (which I'm not sure I can sell).

I'm not sure what you mean by "I see lifehack as a site that brings different blogs together". The content is all original, though the writers almost all blog elsewhere.

Last thing: you're dead on about moderators. I think there were some, but they've become inactive -- I do what I can, but I'm one person, and like you said, we probably need a good number of active moderators who can commit some time and energy to really working the forums. Party organizers, of a sort. Maybe guest contributors would want to take that role; I think that's what you're saying in #5 (though I'm unclear -- are you saying "their" forum section would connect back to their own sites?)

Thanks again -- you've given me a lot to think about, and even if I can't swing all that, hopefully it will inspire some new ideas that I *can* convince the rest of us to take up.

[Brutha]

I'm not sure what you mean by "I see lifehack as a site that brings different blogs together". The content is all original, though the writers almost all blog elsewhere.

I mean primarly post like:
33 Productivity Boosters - Lifehack.org
117 Creative Ways for Students to Pay for College - Lifehack.org
88 Tips for Succeeding in College - Lifehack.org

I could be that you changed a bit from doing this kind of featured posting to more orginal content, and I haven't updated my image of lifehack.org.
If lifehack doesn't understand itself that way any more 5) is maybe not the way to go.
A lot of forum I have taken part in in the past have been created by drawing together multiple influential people that were into the topic to create a place where the topic can be discussed.

Thanks again -- you've given me a lot to think about, and even if I can't swing all that, hopefully it will inspire some new ideas that I *can* convince the rest of us to take up.

In general I would recommand not to implent one idea at a time but to first wait and gather ideas and afterwards implent them shortly after another to create a certain type of momentum that is self sustaining, maybe 30 active people who write >1 post/day.
If you don't have those people I think a forum loses activity day by day. On the other hand the forum wins activity day by day if you have those 30 active people.
That makes it difficult to improve the forum step by step, because improvement that don't reach the critcal momentum don't help long term.

Most importantly, I want folks to hae a sense of connection with each other and with us, the writers. I'm wondering, though, f the forums become the place where people comment, what is the difference between having active commenters and an active forum? It's the unique stuff, the "I have a question" stuff and the "hey, this is interesting" stuff that seems to me the reason behind a forum -- is there a case for integrating the two functions (commenting and original threads)? Is it simply a matter of not splitting people's attention?

1) A lot of the people post also elsewhere in the forum once they decided to join the community. Making an introductionary post forum supports this.
2) You can look for other posts of the person. Maybe someone find the things that commenter X says were interesting. At the moment it's difficult to find the other comments of that person.
3) Nobody ownes his name. I can comment using the same name other people used to comment.

I think that's what you're saying in #5 (though I'm unclear -- are you saying "their" forum section would connect back to their own sites?)

Rudius Media Message Board is an example of a forum that connect multiple single blogs together (even when those blogs are all from authors of the same publisher).
Those blogs are to small to have a own seperate forum but a subforum works.

[dustin]

Brutha: Thanks again for your thoughtful responses. The posts you highlight are not very representative of the content on the site, so yeah, I think a fresh look might be in order. Most of the posts these days are original essays; the posts you highlighted are older posts that follow more of a "lifehacker" model, which works for lifehacker.com, I guess, but that I don't find all that useful.

Still, the idea of integrating our semi-regular writer's forums into ours is appealing -- like you said, if they don't have the traffic to build critical mass on their own, it might be a real benefit.

I agree that it's probably a good idea to make a clean break, but it may not be something I can do. I will definitely bring some of these ideas up with the rest of the lifehack.org crew, though.

Thanks for your time and thoughts -- I appreciate it!
--Dustin