One of the concerns, aspiring Internet Marketers have when contemplating starting a home based business in the internet marketing field would have to be how to separate work time from play time.

In the beginning your e-business may require a greater time commitment from you, at least until you get things rolling. One of my favorite things about internet marketing is the automation. I built my business so that as time went forward, I’d be spending less time working, and more time having the freedom that comes from working from home.

I’m going to give you a few tips that have helped me with my own time management, in order for you to be a little more productive with the time you’re investing into your business. Workflow and productivity are two important ingredients for a successful business in any niche.

Planning and Setting Goals:

It’s important that you have clear set goals so that you don’t end up spinning your wheels throughout the day; it’s a good idea to have your goals written out and displayed prominently so you can keep track of them throughout the day. I use 3 types of goals personally. The first one is my long term goals, where I list my company’s objectives, things I’d like to achieve over the course of the next twelve to twenty-four months. I include things like income expectations, traffic numbers, joint ventures in place, etc. These goals give me a broad overview of what I’d like to see happen within my business long term.

Next, I break my goals into smaller chucks that are easier to manage. For example if you set your income goal as 120,000 a year, then you know you have to set your monthly target for $10,000 in order to achieve your long term goal, this can then be broken down further so you know your daily target.
What works for me, is a simple whiteboard that I picked up from Staples. It has a calendar that I can fill in as each month turns over, and it has a spot to the right, where I list out my goals for the month. I fondly refer to it as the “Goal Board”.  On my goal board, I’ll list out twenty things I’d like to accomplish with my business by the end of the month. Here I set targets for things like twitter followers, twitter income, Aweber subscribers, etc.

The last part of this process is breaking it down to a daily level. This way, you know exactly what you have to do, and approximately how long it will take you. It’s a good idea to break down your tasks into your “Daily duties”, everyone’s will be different. I’m going to include my list for today to give you an example.

Daily Tasks:

-          Backup data

-          Track stats and earnings for all sites

-          Check and respond to voice/email/tweets etc.

-          Research and write tomorrow’s article and schedule

-          10 Directory submissions for my website/websites

-          10 blog comments on various blogs

-          Create 10 backlinks using Angela and Paul’s method

-          Bookmark my post to 10 bookmarking sites

-          Submit 2 articles for article marketing

-          Do my Twitter maintenance (Follow/unfollow/schedule/etc)

-          Fulfill or outsource any outstanding services for clients

-          Track my keywords and rankings

-          1 hour on research and educational (if you’re going to be the expert in your field you need to keep up on what’s new and cutting edge)

-          Spend 1 hour on project (Can be any module you wish to add to your business)

This keeps me on track, and makes me much more productive that if I started work with nothing more than a vague notion of what I should be doing today. Another thing you might want to try is breaking your daily duties down into blocks of time, this way you can know at a glance how your day is progressing, and whether you’re behind, or ahead of schedule for the day.

Organization:

Organization should be another key ingredient in your business regardless of what it is. In order for you to accomplish your goals for the day, you need to have an inventory of materials and resources available or you’ll end up wasting precious time and energy.

“Make sure you keep a small inventory of the things you’ll need to run your business”

Keeping things organized is definitely a skill that I lack, so it’s a bit harder for me. What I ended up doing was devoting an entire day to organizing my offline and online files in a system that makes it easier for me. In our line of work, were constantly downloading, uploading, writing, revising, files upon files upon files. It’s important to structure your files in such a way that you can easily find then when you need them, and also recognize what you’re seeing so you know if you’re looking at an early revision or the latest one!

“Focus on the task at hand, until it’s complete”

Review:

From time to time, it’s important to go back and review the goals, and objectives that we’ve set for ourselves. This is a great way to keep ourselves on track, and remind ourselves of the things we’ve already accomplished, as well as the things we might be avoiding. (You know what I’m talking about) J

Once again, thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a productive day!

Warren

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