In this post I’ll be announcing the most valuable commenter from last week’s discussion thread. I’ll also be announcing the overall winner of the Ask the Readers competition.

Lastly, I’d like your input on what to do now the discussions have finished.

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Two days ago I resigned from my part-time job. Starting towards the end of January my income will be completely online based. I’ll be living pretty frugally for a while as I re-invest my time in writing an eBook. Once the eBook is done, I’ll re-invest my time in writing more content for Skelliewag (something I’m really looking forward to).

I’m not sure how the eBook will fare but I want to make it as value-packed and affordable as possible. If things don’t work out I know I have freelance writing to keep me afloat until I can re-take another part-time job. While I’m taking a risk on this, I won’t be betting the house on my success.

My commitment to keeping Skelliewag ad and affiliate free is something I don’t see ending. To wrap up my answer, I do make an income online but in a relatively unorthodox way.

This week’s Ask the Readers question (the last one!) could be very simple or very complicated. It’s this:

What’s your attitude to making money online?

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This week I wanted to encourage a fun exercise with some pretty concrete benefits. I’d like you to answer the question:

What would you do if you had unlimited time to blog/run your website? How would you reach your goals as quickly as possible?

The purpose of this exercise is to get us thinking about what we’d do if time wasn’t an issue. Throughout the answers to last week’s question — where are the holes in your leaky bucket? — there was a pervasive sense of readers feeling that they never had enough time to do what they wanted to do.

By taking away the issue of time constraints, it will interesting to see what actions people would focus on and what route to success they’d take. You might also start to think about extra projects you’d like to start, if you had more time.

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As bloggers, webmasters and web workers, none of us are perfect at what we do. From the A-listers to the Z-listers, there are things we all need to work on.

For the sake of illustration, try to think of yourself as a leaky bucket (hopefully something you don’t do too often). The little holes in the bucket are flaws, mistakes, areas in need of improvement.

The water represents lost opportunities — whether those opportunities are new feed subscribers, more traffic, more links, better networking relationships, and so on. Close up more of those holes, and you retain more opportunities to move towards your goals.

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This week, I want to challenge Skelliewag readers to set out a concrete definition of success for their blog or website. A point where you can say you’ve achieved everything you wanted.

My personal definition of success is focused around two goals: to be able to quit my part-time job and make my income online doing something I love, and secondly, to release a book or eBook through the blog. I haven’t achieved either of these yet, but I’m on track to do so.

What are the goals you’re working towards?

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