How Long is this Gonna Take?

That depends on how fast you want to succeed. Some successful Internet marketers recommend that you spend at least 2 hours a day on building your online business for at least the next 6 months if you want to see any measurable results during that time. Obviously, in order to do that you are going to have to find time in your current schedule to allow for these 2 hours.

You may be thinking – “Oh sure, I’ll just snap my fingers and …where am I going to find 2 hours a day?” Especially if you have a full-time job, family and kids and don’t feel like you have 2 minutes to spare, let alone 2 hours! Its one thing for a full-time Internet marketer to spend 2 hours a day on their business, it may be quite another for you.

Don’t stress over this – it’s just a recommendation! But, you will have to find some time to work on your business.

The first thing to do is to sit down with pen and paper and list your daily and weekly schedule as it is now. Start with what time you wake up. Then, activity-by-activity, list everything you do each day until the time you go to (collapse into?) bed. If you really think hard, you will probably find some time in each day that can be utilized in a more constructive or efficient manner.

Remember, building your business is important to you! That might mean that you have to drop a favorite pastime for awhile or stop watching a favorite television show. (Maybe you can get it on Netflix and spend some time on the weekend to watch multiple episodes at one sitting and without the commercials.)

Maybe it means that you will have to get up a little earlier each day or stay up a little later every night. Whatever it is, you need to decide now and make a commitment that you are going to dedicate that time to growing your business

Efficient time management comes down to planning what you’re going to do, scheduling time to do it, and then sticking to your plan as much as possible. A good method for doing this is to map out your week ahead of time.

By looking at your week as a whole, it’s easier to spot opportunities where you could be doing something more productive. Once you identify these possibilities you can then plan to use those times for working on your business.

If you are not already doing so, you should seriously consider using some type of day planner system, such as Day-Timers. You can buy these at any office supply store. These systems are based around the principal of putting first things first.

Start putting things together by looking at your current schedule and planning ahead of time when you are going to accomplish certain tasks. Begin by blocking out the time required for tasks you have to perform (your job, running the kids around to their activities, eating, sleeping, etc.). Do this for as many weeks in advance as you feel comfortable doing.

Then look at the first week and block out those times you’ve identified as times you can be working on your online business. Try to allocate time each weekday. Schedule a little “review” time toward the end of each week. Use this time to review the week’s plan and schedule to see what worked and what didn’t work. Then make adjustments as you plan your schedule for the following week.

Lastly, each evening before you go to bed make a “to do” list of the things you want to do work on the next day. Doing this will help you dive right into your tasks instead of spending your “allocated” time figuring out what to do.

Whether it is 2 hours or 20 minutes, spend some time each day doing some business building task. Starting your own online business will require some sacrifices in the beginning. But, if you keep putting consistent effort into your business activities, you will succeed.

Like this post? Please feel free to comment below. I know you are busy and I very much appreciate your time!

Accomplish Online Marketing Tasks by Setting Deadlines

If you don’t set deadlines for accomplishing tasks you need to do in starting your new online business, you run the risk of…

o Expanded Scope: You’ll start looking at adding new features, strategies, tweaks, etc. If you don’t control this tendency, your time frames and budgets will quickly blow apart.

As you discover things you’d like to do that aren’t essential to your task, set them aside as “possibly”. Once all the important things are done and the blog is published and promoted, you can then go back and look at possibly adding some of these features.

o Procrastination: A task will always take as long to do as you allow for. Given an excuse to put it off until tomorrow, it will always be put off until tomorrow. Creating a sense of emergency, setting a strict time frame, and rewarding yourself when a task is accomplished can help. Avoiding procrastination takes self discipline, especially if the only one you answer to is yourself.

I personally don’t procrastinate – I’m just very good at re-scheduling!

o Analysis Paralysis: Without a set deadline you can easily find yourself wasting hour upon hour that, in the end, adds nothing to what you are trying to do. This is especially true for a task you have never done before.

Don’t try to find out how everyone and their bother have done the same task in an effort to get it “perfect”. Don’t misunderstand me, there are more and better information resources available today than EVER before. But that creates a dilemma in knowing which route to take, and how to get started.

What might be right for one person – may not suit another! Because of that not every solution will work for everyone. You need to find the one that works for you. Then, make a decision and act on it! Pick what you think is a good source of information and follow it.

To make progress in starting your own online business, set deadlines for each task you need to accomplish. Then allocate time to those tasks, use a timer and make sure you are spending time working on tasks that move your online business forward!