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Three weeks ago I posted How To Get Blogging Ideas When You Are Stuck to show you how I generate new blogging ideas. In addition to the online resources I mentioned in that post, I regularly use some superior online products. Google Notebook is one of my favorite online product.

With Google Notebook you can easily clip and collect the web pages you liked, and add your personal comments on them. You can create your personal blogging archive while surfing, and then easily find good article topics when you need in the future.

How to Install Google Notebook Extension for Firefox

If you are using Firefox, go to Google Extensions for Firefox and download Google Notebook. You need to restart your Firefox before using Google Notebook with Firefox. After you restart your Firefox, you will find Open Notebook icon at the bottom right corner of Firefox. Google Notebook is currently supported by Firefox 1.5+ and Internet Explorer 6.0. Please refer Google Notebook FAQ for more details.

What’s In It For You?

Did you like the quote you discovered in one of the websites? Don’t waste your time with copy/paste. Highlight the quote, click right mouse button, and click on Note this (Google Notebook). You will immediately create a new note in your Google Notebook. You will save significant amount of time with it.

• Spend 10-15 minutes everyday to clip and collect new blogging ideas from the web
• Give them relevant labels in order to group and organize them
• Write your own thoughts on each note in order to remember them
• When writing a new blog post, check Google Notebook whether you already stored relevant information
• Do this regularly for 6 months, and you will become a better blogger and thinker
• Do this regularly to write resource lists. i.e. Find good blog posts mentioning how to increase RSS readership, store them in your Google Notebook, and then make a post a few months later. Remember you will get many backlinks when you write a good resource list post.

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Yesterday Darren Rowse asked How do you Stay Motivated as a Blogger?

Well, I would like to quit my full time job, and earn my living from blogging. This is the main motivation for me. Apart from that, constant improvement keeps me motivated as a blogger.

My new Alexa and Technorati rankings have become 108,237 (previous was 121,233) and 17,958 (previous was 18,902) respectively last weekend. Still long way to go to to be in top 5000 for both in order to achieve 2008 Goals For Search For Blogging

By the way, how do you stay motivated as a blogger?

Popularity: 11% [?]

To be a person is to have a story to tell - Isak Dinesen

Last week I introduced you The Six Stories You Need To Know How To Tell
and told you why writing story-like blog articles are important. Today I will tell you more about the importance of stories.

My Quest on Storytelling

My quest on Storytelling started with one single question “How can I add stories into my daily blog posts?” While I was trying to find answers to that question, I traveled around the Web in 80 days, from one website to another, until I found some good answers and resources.

I thought my answers and the online storytelling resources I found could be valuable for your blogging too. Therefore I decided to start writing a weekly post series titled The Six Stories You Need To Know How To Tell.

Here we go…

Why Stories Are So Powerful Today?

Life has become more complex than before. People need guidance. They are even ready to pay money and attention in return for a valuable guidance. Information overload, global organizations, personal development books, TV series, blogs. They all create stress for people.

It isn’t possible for us to read our favorite books, and monitor the websites in our favorites folder anymore. It is even getting more difficult to complete half of the items in our To-Do lists.

Most of the people are not open to learning new things anymore. They don’t spend time on the quest for truth. They don’t care about their role in the big picture.

How To Influence Them?

And now you are trying to influence these people who solely focus on protecting their own benefits. They might be happy in their little worlds or feel like they are destined to an unhappy fate. But, most of them are suspicious about you, and your hidden agenda. If you tell a good story which sparks curiosity in them, or fix the complexity in their life, they will listen to you.

If you help people understand what is going on around them, and let them see the real facts, they will follow you. You can create a winner team from a group of losers with a good story.

Help People Find Their Path In Complexity

While the complexity increases, people are willing to listen to the people who tell the most meaningful stories or things. If you are trying to convince people with logical analysis, then you certainly have a serious problem: People don’t give decisions based on logical analysis. They think they do, but in fact they usually give decisions based on their feelings. If you catch their feelings with a good story, they will pay attention to you.

Next week I will tell you more about stories. Until next week, please tell me your own life stories by leaving a comment to this post.

Popularity: 29% [?]