Greetings, Steemians and Steemettes!

Can't help but feel good about how today went. Had way too little sleep for my own good. Which did not stop me from still reading a couple chapters and writing about them and making it to work shortly after. My sleep deprived mind was somehow thinking 24/7 about what I could do to get more out of my steeming experience and, of course, what I could do to make others benefit in some way, shape or form as well. So here are some ideas that I have come up with or have considered to work with. Maybe one thing or another will be for you too.

Tell me how you like these new designs. I really wanted to try something new for a change.

Getting the fish tank rolling!

At my work place, I had a couple minutes of calm and clarity. In that moment, I reflected on my last six weeks here on this platforms. The things I did, the things I did right, the things I could have done better and, and, and. First and foremost, I want to have a good time using steemit and so far, I can say that this has been a blast. This particular fish tank has given me a lot of fulfillment, great experiences and I enjoy being in a good crowd. Writing is fun for me and I never seem to stop having things I can write or talk about. And having people who enjoy what I have to offer is always it's own reward.

And because I really love this particular reward and because my German monkey brain wants to do things as efficiently as possible, I am always thinking about how to become just a little bit better than I already am with what little tools and time I have. There are a lot of different topics that I considered and that need to be covered in some way, shape or form.

It's a rich mans game

Let's talk about the money. I am not here for the money and no piece of currency I have earned here has left this place so far. That is probably not going to change anytime soon. Partly because the money is too small but also because there hasn't been a particular need. Also because I like to look at Steemit as some kind of resource gathering game where I make progress by amassing steem with the tools at hand. I highly suggest trying to think about Steemit this way for a while. It actually brings a bit more fun into the whole situation.

With that being said, for that very reason, maximizing the fun I have with juggling all these tokens and cryptos, I am of course wondering what I should do with them in order to maximize my possible gains.

I made a very rough calculation and checked how the rewards I have earned match up to the things showing up in my wallet. For the most part. My total earnings are slightly less than what they should be, which makes sense because I invested some Steem in Hive account@steembasicincome shares and also make a lot of use of bit bots which, especially early on, wasn't always the smartest thing to do.

So what am I going to do with the things I earn here? Well, the way I see it, there are three paths that I can take here.

1. Using Bid Bots

It is no secret that I am using Bid Bots. It is also no secret that I am no fan of them in general. I still think that the overall effect they have on the community is a bad one. With that being said, they are not all bad because they did do a great job at helping me grow quite fast around here. And contrary to how this affects others, I never did stopped interacting with the community. I would also like to think that some of the people who have been following me for quite a while have been getting decent curation rewards because of me using Bit Bots.

I have settled with a "rhythm" of sorts where I would use Bit Bots about one to two days after having uploaded a post so that people can have a good chance at getting some decent curation rewards out of it while still being beneficial to me. Especially over the course of the last couple days, this seemed to have worked out somewhat nicely and I feel like I have a much better understanding about how to use these bots in an efficient way compared to when I first started.

With that being said, I would be happier if I would not have to use them because they are still a fairly big question mark. And they still make my stomach hurt.

2. Powering Up

This would probably be the simplest solution and also the one that negates most opportunities to go negative. I tried to calculate how I would stand right now if I had just powered up everything I received. And to be honest, it lead me nowhere because the dark number of income generated by Bid Bots takes a lot of effort to calculate in and against while entering the territory of questioning how good I would have done with the increased SP.

In general, I think that using bit bots was still the overall better solution. It also feels good to have some coins lying around for one or another good opportunity which I would not have if I were to just power everything up. My Upvotes would not be much more or less powerful than they are now I'd wager.

3. SBI and Qurator

There may be more services like these, but these two are the only ones I am really feeling experienced with. SBI is by now somewhat commonly known to the people and has a very nice concept. I actually wondered how I would fare if I were to invest every bit of steem into SBI shares. Aside from this being a great help to other content creators, these votes would probably stack up high somewhat fiercly. For the sake of contest or just wanting to do something nice for someone, they seem great. I don't think that for focused blog growth, investing too hard on these is going to be the play.

Qurator looked a bit more efficient but more self-centered. I was willing to give it a try and invest some steem into the service. I even considered delegating a bit once I would have accumulated enough Steem Power at some point in the future.

Sadly, they did not want me and I got my four steem back a day after.

Apparently, they did not like some of the pictures I was using in one of my posts. The guy who explained this to me was very nice about it and told me that I could apply again in two weeks. I considered it and came to the conclusion that this would probably not happen. If others want to use their services, give it a try. In retrospect, I think that it may be better this way. At the end of the end of the day, I am here for myself and the people who like what I read. Qurator would just be another middle man being there for the money and in retrospect, that doesn't seem like a good thing to add.

Enough with the boring money talk. Let's talk about the actually interesting stuff!

I will never get sick of saying that July is the month dedicated to the #upvoteplankton and #minnowuprising movements. For the most part, I am glad that these movements existing helped me break through and encouraged me to post two times a day, even outside of weekends. I am thrilled to see how long I can keep this up.

Well, no, this sounds wrong. The thing I was actually wondering about was whether I would be able to actually get even higher and make it three posts a day!

I think I could manage doing that. I considered starting a second book reading series similarly to the one I am already running every morning for the last couple days. Just a different book and another story.

The idea would be this posting schedule for me:

4.00 AM: 1. Book Series Chapter

12.00 pm: 2. Book Series Chapter

20.00 pm: A regular post about whatever I feel like posting. Like this one. But better.

In general, i really like this idea and I would like to pursuit it, but it breaks with me not being able to post at 12.00 pm. Work sadly does not make that possible.

Or does it?

Steemauto exists and it offers the possibility to automatically post for you at a presaid schedule. That would allow me to, for example, create a book reading series on a sunday and then post about it automated every day of the upcoming week without me actually being present.

It is a nice idea. But I never used Steem Auto for that yet and I really would like to read someone elses experiences regarding that topic first.

If that were a feasable possibility, I could make three posts a day happen and they would still be of good quality. My weekends would contain a lot of work, but hey, I love what I am doing! And how many people can really say that?

DLive and Steepshot are also always nagging at the back of my mind, but I don't really feel that those will be for me. Once I finally come around to give these a try, I will let you be the judge of that.

Oh yeah, I am meeting the butcher again tomorrow.

I have an appointment at 9.00 am, so he will probably decide to take care of me at around 11.00 am or so. Sounds about right. Nothing crucial will happen, he will just remove the threads from the wound. At long last! I am so looking forward to being able to move my body in a regular fashion again.

About a month from now on, a friend of mine is celebrating her birthday and invited me in.

Jokingly, she said that I am free to hit on every woman that will be present. The last couple months left my form to be desiring, so I intend to make use of that month up until then to leave some jaws open.

If you would like to see little old me go through hell for a month in order to get back in shape (not necessarily for what I just described above, mostly for overall wellbeing), let me know and I will share that bizarre adventure with you. A lot can happen within a month and I tend to go hard on myself once I am dedicated to something.

I intended to have this post be super short and brief. What a fool I was! But I hope you enjoyed reading this anyway.

Read more of Papa Rodin!