Time Management

To Succeed At A Home Based Internet Marketing Business You Must Be Ruthless About
Controlling Your Time

From David Vallieres

Time management is absolutely vital to your success!!

One of the fastest ways to kill a home based internet marketing business is failing to control your time. This is true for any business, but it's especially true when you work from home.

When you boot up your computer in the morning, you have to watch your time very carefully. If you don't, you will lose that time. Once it's lost, it's gone forever.

It is so easy to get on the computer and simply surf all day. I'm sure you've had days when you've done that; and I've done it too. That's not wise time management.

If you sit at your computer without a clear objective of what you need to get done for your home based internet marketing business, you'll waste a lot of your time in non-income-producing activities. That's the last thing you can afford to do if your goal is to make a living on the Internet.

I will usually get into my home office around 9:00 AM, after taking my kids to school. If I had absolutely no clear goal for how I would spend my time, I would not make any money.

When I sit down at my computer, I have my TO DO list in front of me. I get right into my priority tasks, keeping one eye on the clock that sits in my system tray.

I will normally set aside a certain amount of time for each of my 'to do' items for the day. When that time is up, I switch tasks.

I follow my schedule and discipline myself to cut myself from an activity that has gone on too long. That means I keep an eye on my time by using the clock on my computer desktop.

Let me give you an idea why time management is so critical to succeed at a home based internet marketing business.

Since I create and write a lot of my own products, I spend about 2 hours each day on this task. I love creating or planning new information products for my home based internet marketing business. This is a critical income producing activity and I give it high priority.

When the 2 hours are over, I wrap up any loose ends on the project and move on to my next priority.

If I didn't have the discipline to stop creating or planning new products, I could happily spend all day doing it. But then I wouldn't get other, just as important, income-producing activities done for that day. My income would suffer as a result. And sooner or later, my home based internet marketing business would die.

Creating new products is something I really enjoy and have 'fun' with, so it's hard for me to break away from such a pleasant activity. But if I don't break off from this activity, then I won't get to write my e-zine, get new subscribers, find affiliate products to sell, or many other really important income-producing activities and marketing priorities.

On my "off days" like Saturday and Sunday, if I find a block of time to work on a new project for my home based internet marketing business, I'll use it. But on prime business days, Monday to Friday, I am in my office, totally dedicated to what I have to get done, and I'm ruthless with my time and schedule.

When I finish my day around 3:00 PM, I re-write my TO DO list for the next day.

My TO DO list includes the activity I need to complete and the time allotted for that activity. If I didn't finish a task from today's list, because I didn't have the right tools or information to get it done for example, I place it on the list for the next day and keep putting it on the list until it's done.

This is all pretty much routine for me now. But when I first started to organize my time by priority and time allotments, I rebelled against it and constantly fought with myself. Time management was a change that I knew I needed to make if I wanted my home based internet marketing business to actually make any money.

The reason you need to find a system to do time management is pretty simple:If you don't control your time and manage it carefully...someone else will manage it for you.

One of the habits I got into when I was still working for someone else was to block off times during the day to get my work done. I wouldn't take any calls during that time. Instead, I would instruct my secretary to simply take messages. Then at the end of the day, around 4:00 PM, I would retrieve my messages. I'd prioritize them according to importance, and between 4:00 PM and 5:00 PM I would return all the calls in the order I prioritized them.

Of course, during the day, if it was some sort of emergency, I would take the call. Otherwise, I'd just let the secretary take a message for me.

Other professionals in my department would take calls whenever the phone rang. Their days were constantly interrupted. When they took calls like this during the day, they didn't have the chance to prioritize the calls or prepare for them in anyway.

Then they would constantly complain that they could never get anything done! No wonder! They were constantly at the beck and call of whoever was on the phone. They were allowing these other people to manage their time.

Like I said, if you don't manage your time, someone else will.

Time management is absolutely vital to your success!!

When you work for yourself, when you're trying to build a successful home based internet marketing business, time management is absolutely critical to your success.

You cannot answer the phone all day long and expect to get anything done. If your business requires you to take incoming calls (because you're taking product orders, for example) then use your marketing materials to tell customers when to call to place orders.

Tell them, for example, that you only take phone orders between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Choose times that are best for you. Then you can schedule your "prime time," your most creative time of day, for your most important projects.

Most people will in fact call during the times you suggest for placing orders. But if you set no time limits on the times when you'll take phone orders, calls will come in morning, noon, and night. And you'll probably end up missing a bunch of orders anyway because you're not there to answer the phone.

Once you get to the point where your home based internet marketing business is making some decent money, you should seriously consider hiring someone to answer the phone for you. Then tell that person to handle all calls unless it's an emergency.

Think very seriously about this for a moment.

I'd heard about time management for years. I'd even practiced fairly good time management when I was working for someone else to make a living. But it didn't prepare me for the time when I was on my own, in business for myself.

When you have your own business, even if it's part-time, you have to be ruthless with your time. Protect it from being stolen, just as if it were a valuable jewel. I value my time more than money.

Let me tell you plainly: If you haven't firmly embraced these concepts of controlling your time, then you are doomed to fail. I know that sounds a little harsh, but you will FAIL if you're not totally ruthless about controlling your TIME.

If you are one of those individuals who are already highly organized and have no trouble managing your time, congratulations! I'm not one of those people. So I had to change my habits to be able to control my time effectively. Yes, old habits can be very difficult to change. But change them and you'll succeed at your home based internet marketing business.

Think of it this way: Are your current attitudes and habits helping you to get everything you want? If not, then it only makes sense that those attitudes and habits need to be changed.

Time management is absolutely vital to your success!!

Right? Enough said!

You Can! Make Your Living Online!

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