Don't Obsess, Relax and Learn From Your Experiences

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OMG, Talk About Frustrating...

Well, I finally did it. I got two keyword lists, one for each of my sites, populated with great keywords! It took me quite some time, adding words here and there, taking time to revisit them and change a word here and there, using alphabet soup, trying to whittle them down to truly great options. I'd say, all-in-all, it took me a good month to get 20 top-notch keywords between the two lists.

I felt pretty good about my choices. The next step, migrating the keywords to SiteContent, generating titles and building out the post frameworks. This is where I went wrong. Instead of migrating them all at once, I did them one at a time and, to keep track of my progress, I'd delete each one from the list as I went.

I was getting into the groove of things, copying the keyword, pasting it into my SiteContent template, heading back to Jaaxy and removing it from the list. Awesome! Then I did it. I accidentally clicked the option to delete the list, not the individual keyword, and automatically clicked the confirmation, as I was groove and running on autopilot.

As soon as the list disappeared I knew what I had done. A feeling of panic rushed over me, after all, I had only transferred two out of ten keywords. Eight keywords, that took me so much time to research, we're lost!

I tried to find a way to undo what I had done; I looked for a trash option, I tried to use control-z, I even logged in, using a different browser to see if maybe my change hadn't been recorded yet. No go. I asked for options in Live Chat. It no one was able to offer a solution.

As a last resort, I opened a ticket with SiteSupport. They replied, stating that they were working on the issue, which made me think there was hope. Sadly, a couple hours later, they informed me that there was no way to resurrect the data.

The feeling of panic quickly changed to depression. So much time wasted, so much work lost. There's no way I'll be able to rebuild that list.

Depression turned into anger, aimed at myself for making the mistake in the first place. At this point I simply didn't care anymore. I was pissed and I wasted my time.

I went to bed angry.

A New Day

The next morning I really wasn't any better. I told others to leave me alone, you don't want to be around me when I'm in such a mood, while I tried to figure out what I could do.

All I could really do is start a new list. Thankfully search history had my searches still. The only issues were that they were in historical order, there are many searches that didn't work out, and they didn't represent the work I performed to hone my findings. Still, it was a place to start.

In about two to three hours I had a new list of 8 decent (probably as great, if not better than what I lost but my mood wouldn't let me acknowledge that) keywords again. I can't say for sure if these were the same ones I had whittled down to before because I didn't have the list to compare it to.

I can't help but to think that I've missed a great one from my old list, lost forever but at least I have a list that's pretty close, based on my search history. To be honest, I think at least one keyword is much better than its counterpart that I had before but, again, I have no reference for comparison so I'm just going to have to let it go.

Moral of the Story

Don't do stupid things!!! OK, that's not the true moral but it still applies. Here's what I took away from this experience:

Don't go on autopilot. Pay attention to what you're clicking on.

Make a backup before doing anything! It can be a copy and paste or a screenshot, etc. just do it.

Let others know of your mistake in hopes it will save them the frustration you've endured. That's this post here.

Shoot Kyle a feature enhancement request to make the tool better. I did this already, asking for a trash and/or an undo feature in Jaaxy.

There are probably more morals to be gleaned from this experience but I think these are the top five.

Conclusion

So there you have it, my frustration, despair, recovery and words of caution. I'm still a little miffed and I'm sure there's a keyword I've lost but I'll have to suck it up and move on.

What trials have you endured and what did you learn from them?

Scott

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Recent Comments

11

I think all of us have had a problem that left us with similar feelings. I know I have, and of course, because you asked for an example, my mind's gone blank. However, good of you to remind us that our own carelessness can be the most destructive problem we face.

It's so true....by getting "into the groove" I let my guard down and made an error that could have been easily avoided had I been paying attention.

Wow Scott! I can say I have done something similar about a month or so ago.

But, was able to recover what I lost...I was editing a post on my website and accidentally deleted a whole paragraph...the good thing was I didn’t click “Publish”. So, I was able to exit and return to the post to re-edit again.

I too, felt aggravated but glad I could recover...sorry you had to go back and redo all the research again.

But thanks for the post and helping us all realize how not to make the same mistake.

I wish you the best.

Bob M

Thanks Bob!

Thanks for sharing.

Yikes. I feel your pain! A lesson to us all. Thanks for sharing

Great post Scott, sorry to hear about what happend but as I always say we can't change the past only the future so we learn and move on.

My biggest problem is impatience. I want to get everything done now. I don't like to have things outstanding and it can very easily lead to rushing things and either making mistakes or doing things poorly.

That's a difficult mindest to change particulary with what we are doing building an online prescence something that dosen't happen overnight.

I guess the most important message is to always learn from our experiences be they good or bad

Hope the rest of your week goes well

Kevin

Hey Kevin,
I have the same mindset but I try hard to be conscious about it. Still, when it comes to the menial tasks, like transferring from one list to another, it gets the best of me and I start to move fast and on automatic.

At the very least I'll be screenshotting stuff from now on.

Thanks man,
Scott

Whoa,! Thanks for sharing

Things can really get away from us when we're running on auto pilot! And when feeling tired and overwhelmed.
Lessons learnt, thanks for sharing.
And a positive outcome, improvement suggestions!
Good luck

Thanks!

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