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The Christmas holidays are a wonderful time of year. My favorite time of year as a matter of fact. However, sometimes it can get a bit hairy, right?
Do you have a plan in place for your business or are you shootin’ from the hip every day?
Take if from me, if you are not scheduling out your days, weeks and months, you are not being as focused and effective as you can be.
I know everyone works differently, but I also know from my own experience as well as with many of my clients, that scheduling creates action guidelines that will keep you focused. It keeps you from drifting along day by day getting very little accomplished. [Read more...]
Shiny Object Syndrome or SOS for short, is a sometimes fatal virus you get from the internet. The problem is, it doesn’t infect your computer as other internet viruses do, it infects YOU!
What are the symptoms of SOS?
We could all stand to be more productive where our business is concerned. Heck even in our lives in general!If you are not doing so well in this department, there are a few tricks to help you to be more productive and focused. Here are a few.
Make a plan
Start with the end in mind. Think about this… If you were planning your first cross-country trip from New York City to Butte, Montana, and you had to be there by a specific time, how much more difficult and frustrating would it be without a GPS and map. You just have to wing it and figure it out as you go. Without a plan, it’s just like that in your business. It’s fantastic to know where you are going and what you want your business to look like, but it’s extremely important to have a plan, a map of how you are going to make that happen on a monthly, weekly and daily basis. If you are just shooting from the hip every day, sorry darlin’, it just ain’t gonna happen! You will be lost before you know it. [Read more...]
By Guest Contributor, Pat Fenne
OK, so you’ve reviewed and analyzed what you’ve accomplished and how to improve, set goals and created a plan of action for the year. You’re plate’s full and your to-do lists ready to go. Now…when and how do you get it all done?
Time management is something almost everyone struggles with! From the homemaker, with or without a business, to the CEO of almost any Fortune 500, we all have the same amount of time in a day – and “too much” to accomplish! There are probably as many methods and plans out there as there are personalities – no matter what the system, it has to work for you! Anyone I’ve ever talked to that uses their time efficiently has usually created something from a bunch of different ideas. Here’s some suggestions to look at to get you started on coming up with your “perfect plan”. [Read more...]
Learning habits to help us be more productive in online business seems to be something most of us need when first starting out.When you work online from home, and you have a boss in another location, it’s sometimes difficult to set up a routine that will allow you to meet your employer’s expectations. You have set deadlines you must meet, or you get canned. Period. There is accountability. You have the works habits you need to make it happen or you don’t have a job.
However, it’s a bit more difficult to set up those important habits when working online with no one looking over your shoulder. [Read more...]
Last week my husband came home and announced that he was starting on the evening shift at his job beginning the next day. He seemed really excited about the new duties and hours. My first response was to freak out quietly inside my head while smiling and nodding as I pretended to listen. All the while, thinking “Oh crap! Having him under foot all day is really gonna screw with my schedule and mess me up!” [Read more...]
It’s day 2 of my Intentional Internet Success project.
Are you ready? Today you are going to see how I make weekly goals and daily tasks or daily to do lists. Remember, not only do we have to work on the monthly projects, but we have to keep everything else going as well. It’s kind of like juggling in a three ring circus at times. This is where good planning, time management and outsourcing comes in to play.
The smartest thing a content creator (that’s you) can do is create content and spread it all over the web. Even though you need to have a lot of fresh quality content, you don’t just write it once, publish it once and call it quits. No friggin’ way you can keep up with the pressure of all that writing. What a waste of good content it would be for just a few here and there to run across it when you can make it available for many to see. [Read more...]
It’s so easy to get caught up in busy work and let the real income producing tasks go by the wayside when you are building your online business. That’s why you need to put your self on a strict business diet plan. No that doesn’t mean you eat celery and carrot sticks while you work.
A business diet simply put, is a means of effective time management. When you put yourself on a business diet, you must be very focused on the tasks you are performing during a specified time period. For example; I run a business on the computer from my home. When I was first building my online business I often found myself working 12 hour days with little to show for it. I was doing busy work, not accomplishing the tasks that would actually produce income. It was a matter of working harder, not smarter.
Does this sound familiar? If so, count yourself in good company. This a common problem among people who work at home on the internet. I call it the Shiny Syndrome. It is too easy to be pulled this way and that every time something shiny rolls across our computer screen. It requires dedication, good time management skills and laser sharp focus to overcome these shiny obstacles. If you find yourself acting like a Magpie, chasing those shiny things instead of being productive, put yourself on a business diet.
Set a specific number of hours that you will work every day. Without time constraints, you are giving yourself permission to take all the time you need to accomplish your tasks. Set a timer for each task and focus on nothing but that task until your time is up, then move on to the next one. When you time is up, your time is up. Period. You will see how focused this will force you to become.
Limit how often you check your email. Email is both a blessing and a curse. It’s like chasing rabbits. Email will lead you down many rabbit trails before you know what hit you. You soon find yourself in a forest of shiny objects once again. By only looking at your email in the morning and again before you quit for the day, you will be shocked at how much more you will accomplish.
Limit the time you spend in social media. Most highly successful people pop in and out of Twitter, Facebook and Linked In a few times a day, but limit the time they spend there. You should use a service that will allow you to organize your social networks in one place such as HootSuite, Ping.FM or TweetDeck. These social media management tools will also allow you to pre-schedule posts and post to multi-networks at one time.
Turn off the bells and whistles. This goes for your cell phone too. Those alerts make checking your email or running to see who said what on Twitter every time you hear a ping or beep irresistible. Turn them off.
You can learn and implement the time management skills it take to build a successful online business. It just takes a little discipline and planning.
I’d love to hear what you think. Please leave a comment below.
