Time is money in your online business, just like in the offline business world.
The problem is that the typical Internet entrepreneur is in a race against time: he is often overwhelmed by many things to do, trying to achieve maximum results (income) within the precious and very limited time available.
Especially if you have a full-time job while trying to launch or expand your internet business in your spare time, you have very little time to waste.
If care is not taken in the way we spend time online, our personal and family life can be affected, not to mention bad financial consequences.
To add to that pressure, family members may resent the amount of time we spend with our company, compared to the limited income they can earn initially.
As the author of an audio program on time management, I am going to share with you some proven tips on time management, which have been adapted for running an online business. I can’t promise you more than 24 hours a day, but I’ll share practical tips to help you work smarter and more profitably online, rather than harder or harder.
Two main keys to making the most of the time we spend online are:
A) Be selective and
B) Stay focused.
We must be SELECTIVE, because there are an infinite number of things that we can spend our time online that will not produce productive results.
We must stay FOCUSED, because any one of an infinite number of things can easily distract us from doing more important things.
That brings us to the first step of effective online time management …
1) Set goals
If you don’t know your final destination, how can you act to get there? Hence the need to set goals.
The goals you set for your online business will vary, depending on what stage you are in and the direction you want to go from there. It’s helpful to write down your goals and review them periodically. Many feel that this allows your subconscious mind to help you work toward your goals.
2) Maintain and use a prioritized to-do list
Keeping lists may seem simplistic, but the most productive are often methodical users of to-do lists.
Make sure to rank each task on your to-do lists by priority, such as high, medium, or low. As you tackle items on your list, always tackle the highest priority tasks first and the lowest priority tasks first, as time allows. Obviously, your highest priority tasks will correspond to achieving your highest priority goals.
I found a 3-ring binder near my computer to be a good place to organize to-do lists, project notes, and other frequently used online information, right at hand.
Once your goals are set, you’ll know exactly where you’re going (and what to stay focused on), and when you use a prioritized To-Do list, you’ll have a step-by-step plan for reaching your destination.
3) Exercise of self-discipline
The best time management system in the world is useless if we do not exercise self-discipline.
It’s very easy to log into the web, you just plan to “check your email” and before you know it, get distracted by other things and end up spending a lot more time on things we hadn’t planned and wondering where the time is. he went away.
I know, I know: easier said than done, but exercising self-discipline will help us stay focused and avoid wasting time or being distracted by less important activities. If you can stay focused on the most important tasks (which you’ve identified by setting goals and prioritizing your to-do list), you’ll see better results from your time and effort.
4) Where possible PLC
I have written much more on this topic than the limited space in this article allows, but let me mention a few tools that are not new to online marketers, but whose time-saving value is often overlooked:
* Autoresponders
Autoresponders are very useful tools to automatically respond to requests for information from your potential customers about your products and services, without interruptions, 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
* Email filters
The “filters” feature of good email programs like Pegasus and Eudora Pro makes automating many email activities a breeze. If you’re not using them, you don’t know what you’re missing.
~ Pegasus: http://www.pmail.com/
~ Eudora Pro: http://www.eudora.com
5) Periodically analyze your business
In our quest to get more value from the time we spend in our online businesses, it helps to take a step back and periodically analyze which activities have worked and which have not.
From there, we can pay more attention to expanding what has been working and adjusting, changing or eliminating what has not worked. In this way, we can see progressively more profitable results from the time we spend online.
Conclution
If you want to get the most out of the limited time you have to accomplish things in your online business, or in any other area of life, you need to manage your time well.
When you do, you will accomplish more and remember your work with the satisfaction of knowing you did the most important things, rather than looking back with regret.
As Benjamin Franklin said: “Do you love life? Then don’t waste your time, because that’s what life is made of.”