Personal Productivity for Internet Marketers: 4 Tips to Keep You on the Path to Results
In this industry, it is extremely easy to get distracted from what you're doing, and lack of focus is one of the biggest killers of possible success. You're working at home, you've got tons of distractions, and at times you feel like information overload is drowning you. Here are some quick tips to help you manage yourself more effectively and keep on the path to making money.
Here are 4 personal productivity tips for internet marketers.
1. Work in Highly Focused Blocks
One of the easies ways to power through and make some real progress is to develop a laser-pointed focus. Set a timer and focus on one thing at a time. I find that an hour spent just doing one thing can be highly productive. Then take a ten minute break to move around or even meditate, and then do another hour-long session. This is great for eliminating the horrible habit of multitasking.
2. Start Off Your Day With a Workout
A powerful way to keep your mind and emotions functioning properly is a daily workout. A lot of internet marketers wake up and stumble groggily to their computer, just to turn it on and get right to work—often with their breakfast in hand.
Take a moment to let yourself wake up, then charge yourself with a good 30 minute to 1 hour workout. There are many good reasons this is smart and healthy—just looking at the physical condition of most IM'ers should be reason enough—but you'll be amazed at what exercise does for personal productivity.
3. Never Turn On Your computer Without a Plan
Every time you sit down in front of your computer, decide what it is you want to accomplish. Don't give yourself too much to do, and don't deviate from the plan unless absolutely necessary. If you don't do this, its way to easy to start running around the endless connections of the internet, getting lost in a maze of your own making.
4. Make a Vision Screensaver
Goals are an extremely important component to personal productivity. You need to have something to set your sights on—something on the horizon—in order to find the energy and focus for tasks at hand.
Have you ever heard of a vision board? A vision board is when you make a collage of images that represent everything you want in life, and then you hang it up in your office so you can look at it everyday. It might show financial possessions, the home you want to own, activities you imagine your successful self doing—it offers immediate inspiration every time you look at it.
The Vision Screensaver is similar, but it's on your computer. Open up a simple program like Microsoft Publisher, and then find images all over the web—there are plenty and it's easy to find good ones. Assemble them in a collage. Consider putting a white box in the middle of this collage that states a specific, monetary goal—for example: "By November 3, I will create $5000 a month in passive income."
The goal is, of course, up to you.
Now turn it into your screensaver so you see it every time you go to work. Very powerful.
5. Practice Disciplined Email Management
One of the most distracting tools online are our email accounts—well, if you ignore Facebook (you should really starve yourself from Facebook unless you're off work). It's so easy to pop into our email accounts to see if there's something important and then next thing you know you're running around doing a million things everyone else wants you to do.
Follow some of Tim Ferris' email rules from The Four Hour Workweek. Only check your email twice a day—one time about 2 hours after starting work, and one time 2 hours after lunch is over. Let people know what times you check so you don't have problems, and handle all your emails at designated times. See Tim's book for more of his ideas.
I even outsource my email. My Filipina virtual assistant runs the account, as well as others, for me, and she emails my personal account if we really get something she can't handle on her own. Works like a charm, and my personal productivity has gone through the roof.
Here are 4 personal productivity tips for internet marketers.
1. Work in Highly Focused Blocks
One of the easies ways to power through and make some real progress is to develop a laser-pointed focus. Set a timer and focus on one thing at a time. I find that an hour spent just doing one thing can be highly productive. Then take a ten minute break to move around or even meditate, and then do another hour-long session. This is great for eliminating the horrible habit of multitasking.
2. Start Off Your Day With a Workout
A powerful way to keep your mind and emotions functioning properly is a daily workout. A lot of internet marketers wake up and stumble groggily to their computer, just to turn it on and get right to work—often with their breakfast in hand.
Take a moment to let yourself wake up, then charge yourself with a good 30 minute to 1 hour workout. There are many good reasons this is smart and healthy—just looking at the physical condition of most IM'ers should be reason enough—but you'll be amazed at what exercise does for personal productivity.
3. Never Turn On Your computer Without a Plan
Every time you sit down in front of your computer, decide what it is you want to accomplish. Don't give yourself too much to do, and don't deviate from the plan unless absolutely necessary. If you don't do this, its way to easy to start running around the endless connections of the internet, getting lost in a maze of your own making.
4. Make a Vision Screensaver
Goals are an extremely important component to personal productivity. You need to have something to set your sights on—something on the horizon—in order to find the energy and focus for tasks at hand.
Have you ever heard of a vision board? A vision board is when you make a collage of images that represent everything you want in life, and then you hang it up in your office so you can look at it everyday. It might show financial possessions, the home you want to own, activities you imagine your successful self doing—it offers immediate inspiration every time you look at it.
The Vision Screensaver is similar, but it's on your computer. Open up a simple program like Microsoft Publisher, and then find images all over the web—there are plenty and it's easy to find good ones. Assemble them in a collage. Consider putting a white box in the middle of this collage that states a specific, monetary goal—for example: "By November 3, I will create $5000 a month in passive income."
The goal is, of course, up to you.
Now turn it into your screensaver so you see it every time you go to work. Very powerful.
5. Practice Disciplined Email Management
One of the most distracting tools online are our email accounts—well, if you ignore Facebook (you should really starve yourself from Facebook unless you're off work). It's so easy to pop into our email accounts to see if there's something important and then next thing you know you're running around doing a million things everyone else wants you to do.
Follow some of Tim Ferris' email rules from The Four Hour Workweek. Only check your email twice a day—one time about 2 hours after starting work, and one time 2 hours after lunch is over. Let people know what times you check so you don't have problems, and handle all your emails at designated times. See Tim's book for more of his ideas.
I even outsource my email. My Filipina virtual assistant runs the account, as well as others, for me, and she emails my personal account if we really get something she can't handle on her own. Works like a charm, and my personal productivity has gone through the roof.
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