In order to benefit from scheduling your time, you first must determine how much time you will commit to spend on your business each day. Although your business should be a priority, you need to be realistic. Factor in time spent commuting, working at a job and family obligations. Don’t forget to schedule some time to relax and/or get some fresh air and exercise. The remainder is time you have for your business.
If all you have left is 2-hours each weekday and 4-hours on the weekend, that is still 14-hours where you can be very productive if you also plan how you will spend your time. Some tasks that are typical of an online home-based business might include monitoring your traffic and sales statistics, checking on marketing campaigns and implementing advertising transactions, posting to your blog and social networks and forums.
Then there is checking your email inbox. This can be a major time-waster and it is recommended that you strictly limit your time because otherwise you will waste time you could be using to promote your business. You can organize this if it is overwhelming and you will see how it can be manageable if you keep it ‘down to a dull roar’.
Your first priority would be messages from your customers and technical issues. All the messages from your affiliate programs you should just scan and then file off into folders in your email account – so that you don’t lose them. Offers would include a lot of spam typically and if it is not from a company you know you have opted in to, either put them in your spam folder or file those in a folder of their own.
It can’t be emphasized enough what a huge energy rip off your email can become if you do not get over the ‘next shiny object’ syndrome sooner rather than later. You need to focus on the opportunities that you have already chosen to work with and need to really just nip it in the bud if you can’t resist yet one more ‘last chance’ or ‘latest and greatest best opportunity’. Shuffle them right off without reading them unless you are actually business opportunity shopping – no matter how great they sound.
No program is going to work unless you work at it. If you have too many things on your plate you will not be able to give sufficient energy to each one but will end up doing them all ‘half-way’. In this regard it is helpful to really make a detailed list for what you need to do with each program. Where are you at with the process? Do they provide training? You may need to shuffle some things around to be able to avail yourself to special events like webinars, to watch a video or attend a coaching session.
