— Imagine going to your WordPress site and finding that part of it is gone. Either there are no posts, or your pages have disappeared. Would you know what to do?

Recently I learned a very important lesson about WordPress when not one, but two, people I work with lost part of their blogs. As far as I can tell, their databases somehow corrupted leaving one woman with no blog posts and the other with no pages. Because we took the appropriate steps both blogs were fully restored.

Would you know what to do if this happened to you?

Let’s back up a minute so I can explain what I am talking about. WordPress runs on a database.  A database is information placed in tables so that it can be retrieved easily when WordPress calls for it to be loaded onto a web page. Someplace in MyPhpAdmin-land is where your database lives. Many hosting companies allow you direct access to your database. Most of us have never gone to MyPhpAdmin-land – and never will. We just post our blogs the way we always did, confident that the universe is doing what it’s supposed to be doing.

For most of us this cozy little world we live in will never, ever change. But, every once in a while something happens to that database. It could be a WordPress version update that breaks the database, it could be a plug-in conflict. Most times we will never know the reason it happened. We will just wake up one morning to find out that our posts or pages (or worse, our posts and pages!) are gone.

Tips to Survive a Database Malfunction

1. Stay calm. Accept the fact that technology malfunctions. There’s probably nothing you could have done to prevent this from happening. And freaking out doesn’t get your blog back.

2. Become proactive. Make sure your database is being backed up on a regular basis. I use a plug-in called WP-DBManager. This plug-in backs up your database on a regular schedule that you pre-determine. You should back up as often as you post. If you post weekly, then you want to back up weekly, etc.

This plug-in will also optimize your database. Each time WordPress calls for information, there’s a good chance that it won’t be put back in the right order. Just like you need to “defrag” your computer, your database needs defragging also.

3. Find out if your host backs up your database and what you need to do to ensure that they do it. Also ask them if there is a charge to restore the database in the event of a catastrophe.

In both cases above the hosts had backups. The first host only backed up monthly and discarded old backups. They also charged $100 to do the restore. The second host didn’t automatically back up databases. I had to go in to the control panel and tick a box that asked for the database to be backed up. But in a time of crisis, they had several restore points available and I was able to do it myself with, again, a tick of a box.

4. Go to your blog often. In one of the cases above, the site was down a while before we knew that her pages were gone. It was less than a week but it may have been more than a few days. How long can you go with your site down?

5. If you find out you didn’t have a back up system in place, you can try using Google Cache or the Way Back Machine to see if they have copies of your old pages. I’ve used that method in the past to find old things I’ve deleted then changed my mind and decided I wanted.

6. This may not be the best alternative but if you want to be super-sure that you have backups, you can keep copies of all your posts and pages in Word documents and store them on your own file back up system.

The rules are simply to write 100 articles between now and July 1st and then submit them to Ezine Articles . Some have asked if there is a prize. There isn’t a prize from Jeff Herring, but there is a natural prize – increased web traffic to your site.

Each of my articles will also be posted here on this blog so my faithful readers will not have to go anywhere else to read them.

Imagine what you could do with your business if you had 100 articles to work with? You could bundle them into an ebook. You could make them into teleseminars. You could turn one or two into white papers and give them away free to your subscribers.

So, how does one begin writing 100 articles in 100 days? Well, you could begin by repurposing what you already have. If you have old newsletters, teleseminars, parts of an ebook, old blog posts, anything that you’ve written, you can turn those into an article and it will count.

You can use search.twitter.com to find out what people are talking about for inspiration on what to write about. Just type in your keywords and all the current conversations will pop up.

So what’s the difference between an article and a blog post? Well, a blog post is typically 350-500 words long while an article can be 750 words long. But I think it’s more than just the length. A blog post can come off the top of your head. And it’s written in a more informal manner. An article usually involves research on the topic you are writing about.

If you decide to join the challenge, please comment here so I can subscribe to your blog.

Someone shared this image on Twitter this morning. I wanted to share it with you because although it was meant as a joke, as with most jokes, it’s based on fact. In a traditional office, how much time is wasted talking or playing on the computer? Sheesh, in your home office how much time do you waste talking and playing on the computer? When we work from home we only get paid for actual work done, yet you have to eat.

It’s all about balance – and being honest with yourself. Are you working towards turning your fantasies into reality or are you just dreaming? Are you chatting with buddies or are you networking? There’s a difference. Not that chatting is a bad thing. Just be aware of the time you spend chatting vs the time spent networking.

Here’s one of the videos explaining why you should use Twitter, which I’m assuming is a big part of the challenge…

If you think this is something you’d be interested in, you can . Enjoy the video.

I’d like to share with you a good habit that a client has that I have recently adopted. That is, keeping the subject line in an email intact and changing it when the conversation changes. It is such a simple habit that can save you lots of time in the future.

I have to admit that I am guilty of answering an email, then adding a paragraph or two at the end that is completely unrelated to the subject line. I guess in my rationale, I had decided that one email with several subjects is more efficient than several separate emails.

The problem comes when you are looking for a piece of information later. If the subject was X , how will I know a month – or even a week – from now how to find that second bit of information if the subject doesn’t mention it? The answer is that I now have to read each and every piece of email and hope that I don’t skim past the information I am looking for.

I caught myself this morning almost hitting send without changing the subject line. It may take me 21 days, but this is a habit that I am committed to changing.

I say success is tied to quality of life. Goals are great because they give you something to reach for. Each time you reach them, they are like mini-successes, but now you need a new goal. There are many miserable people driving BMWs. My brother’s ex-girlfriend is one.

A true successful person is happy to get out of bed in the morning, every morning. They are happy with everything they do during their day. I dare to say that you can’t call your business a success until your personal life is exactly how you envisioned it. Well, you can, but you’d be living a lie.

Part I:  Where do you want your business to be?

For this first part of the exercise, sit down with a notebook and mentally catapult your self into the future. Bring yourself to a time when your business is wildly successful. Now, write out what your personal life looks like. Why do your personal life first? Because ultimately starting a business is all about raising your quality of life.  

So, let’s begin… What time do you get up? What do you eat? Who is with you? Where do you live? What does your house look like? What kind of car do you drive? What do you weigh? What time do you go to bed? Fill in as many details as possible and make this day as perfect as possible.

Next, write down your future self’s perfect day at work. What hours do you work? What do you do during those hours? Do you have employees? How much money do you make? Where is your office located?

It may take you a few days to do this portion of the exercise. Especially if you don’t typically daydream about your future. It’s important to know where you want to be or you won’t know when you get there, and more importantly, you won’t know when you are on the wrong path.

PART II:  Where you are in your business right now.

For this portion of the exercise you are going to assess your business first. I wouldn’t expect your personal life to be perfect yet since you are still in a building mode. No daydreaming and be honest. No one sees this paper but you.

How much money are you making. How many clients or customers do you have? How much is each one worth to you, money-wise? What are your working hours? What tasks do you do during the day?

Part III:  Purge what doesn’t belong to make room for what does

You should start to get a clear picture about now. You know where you are, and you know where you want to be.

I watch those cleaning/organizing shows on HGTV. They have you make 3 piles: keep, give away, throw away. Start with the things you are paying monthly for. If they are not bringing you the benefits you had expected, dump them. And go right through the rest of your business. If something works, keep doing it. If it’s not working, get rid of it. If you and a client aren’t meshing, give them away. Make space for more of the good things.

Part IV: What is missing?

What is in your perfect day that’s missing from your current life. Each of those things will be your mini-goals.

The trick is to do this exercise at least yearly to keep you on track to reaching your ultimate success goal – a perfect personal life.

Know what is good about your competition

“. This line was written by in one of her free email courses that I subscribed to. She goes on to explain why she feels you should know what’s good about them, but it got me thinking about why I think it’s a good idea to know what’s good about them.

What’s good about your competition can be why someone chooses your competition over you. It may be something you cannot compete with, either. Charisma, for example, is something you either have or don’t. It’s not something you can purchase or fake. Back when I sold real estate there was an agent that had charisma. Me, well, I like to think I’m fun. But I am not a charmer. This other agent was a charmer. Everyone liked him, or wanted to be more like him. From what I could tell most of his business was buyers. At the time so was most of mine. Our buyers were pretty much in the same price range so that made him my direct competition. Whenever I showed a property that he also showed, it usually came down to his client or mine. Lots of times he won out and my buyers were left to find another property.

I couldn’t compete with his charisma, but I could compensate by being knowledgable about the market and about the properties that I showed my buyers. I never had a buyer think, “I wish I had chosen him as my agent.” Knowing his good points helped me to know where to up mine.

The side effect was that my competence gained his attention. When he opened his own office he contacted me and asked me to be a buyer’s agent for him. I turned him down, though. I had too much fun competing against him to work for him.