As we know, the internet has a huge potential for entrepreneurs and it’s expanding daily. It’s gives thousands of people the options to do business and make money. At the same time, the web has a lot of things that will literally waste your time and they are covered under the umbrella of research, information and networking.
Let’s be honest with ourselves; a lot of the time spent in cyberspace is not productive. Since I started my software reviews and coupons blog, the VeryBestSoftware.Net, this truth has haunted me. I had to search through all my online activities and pick out those time wasters in order to make my blogging endeavours more effective and my time more productive. Here are some activities you should examine.
Stop The YouTube Madness!
Is it just me or do you also end up watching F-18 crashes after Matt Cutts’ interviews on YouTube? What about checking your Facebook wall every other minute? (BTW let’s see who pocked me just now) The impact of social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube can not be over emphasized. They are very good avenues for growing your business and gain an active online presence. As beneficial as they are, they are also very good factors that can suck away your time without you knowing it. Most of these sites are addictive in nature and you can’t possibly get out of there easily if you are not disciplined. Watching, uploading and downloading pictures, commenting on group posts, etc, has replaced most of our networking activities on Facebook. You will always want to know whether somebody had a comment on your tweet, or perhaps to look out for a funny video or check out how many people have watched your video on Youtube.
If you want to be safe from this time crippling activities, it is better you don’t go there at all or be disciplined enough to take that back-step when you have to; if not, your online blogging business suffers the consequences.
Stop Searching For Shortcuts
If there is anything you need to do to achieve an overnight success it would probably be on sale now and I am sure you may not even be able to afford it. From the short experience I ‘ve got with my Software Reviews and Coupons blog, there is no such thing as a short cut, don’t spend your entire blogging time looking for one; you won’t find anything. Better get to work right now. I recommend you read Sean Stephenson’s recent motivational book: Get off your “But”.
Don’t Let Your Goal Suffer
Once you have set a goal, keep it in mind and never let it go. It is always better to have a list of things that will lead you to your goal and stick with them. Yes, once you set your concentration on one thing, it goes away from another. If you pay too much attention to the design and layout of your site, you will loose concentration on the things you need to do to achieve your goal.
Stop Doing Too Many Things At The Same Time
It is good to plan and analyze your surrounding factors, but doing that excessively will definitely have negative effects. We may not really know when too much planning becomes a negative, but if you record the time you spend researching and planning, you will get to understand how much time you have lost. You don’t really need to plan and analyze everything; concentrate on the immediate ones. Get them done and face one thing at a time. “The shorter way to do many things is to do only one thing at a time” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Your Email Is Not Your Work
If you come online every morning and the first thing you do is open your mail box and stay there for the next hour, you are not doing yourself any good. Set out specific times for checking your mail and don’t go there any other time of the day. Avoid opening forwarded junk i.e. Guinness Record videos, “the world longest beard videos” or nature photos Powerpoint presentations etc, when you should actually read your business e-mail.
Stay Organized And Keep Your Focus
One of the major time wasters of every blogger is being disorganized. The time you spend searching for items may have been better spent working on your business. Keep a clean work arena and stay tidy. In fact, take a look at your desk right now and see what papers and other things really need to be there. Be organized in your computer folders too. Better keep your business related documents in a main folder and use sub-folders with clear titles for your various tasks. This will save you a lot of time and will help you stay focused and motivated.
Avoid Too Much Information
When you gather more ideas than you have to, you will surely not know what to do first and where to start. Believe me it happens. Take one step at a time and act on every idea you know will bring you closer to your dreams. Check out their impact before taking another. This will also help you identify what is not working and the things you will have to concentrate on.
Learn To Say No
Don’t act to please people around you. Never give other people the time you should be spending on your business. Take full control of your time and never accommodate any appointment, meeting or call, when it is not right for you. Learn to say NO when it is not right for you.
To wrap this up; do not confuse your being busy with being productive. These are totally two different terms. Being in the “rat race” is nothing but a waste of your time. Don’t forget that results are counted with numbers and statistics, not by how much time you sacrifice in front of your PC or how tired you feel at the end of the day.
Author’s bio: Steven’s new venture is the VeryBestSoftware Reviews & Coupons where he gives blogging tips, software reviews and discounts codes like the Norton 360 coupon and the recent Acronis Coupon.
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You made me realized that searching is time wasting because I always do that. That’s the reason why I paused in writing and caught my attention. Thanks for the help. I love doing business online where I used my heart for my living by blogging and writing.
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Twitter: stevenpapas
says:
if you could count all that time we search for things either in internet or off-line you would be surprise how much time we waste. Being organized is also time saving
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Agree with Steven You have hit the bull right on its eye and I can tell you every word that I have read here is right to the point! There are innumerable ways in which we waste our time online and at the end of the day we often find that there is a major imbalance between the time spent in front of the PC and the work we have finished! This is because of the various time crippling activities that we indulge in and those things like uploading and downloading pictures, commenting on posts, etc which suck our precious time away!
That is a great list. I actually set aside a set period of time to answer my emails – not every 5 secs – and ban myself from news and socail sites during work hours. The increase in my produtivity has been enormous.
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Hi Steven,
nice post.I think fb is a both a boon and bane.We need to pick up its good features rather than the bad ones.Just think about it with its 600 million users it can convert any marketing campaign into a religion.
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Thank for these post you made me realized and think more ideas on how to be more effective in my online business. Business online is my daily work to have a great time to gain profit. God bless:)
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Twitter: tauseefazhar
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Thanks for sharing new ideas. Almost 12-14 hours I spend on surfing Internet just boost my knowledge and to enhance my blogging skills. Presently, I am working as a SEO and have already planned to start my own online business, however, after reading your article, it forces me to rethink over my plans and strategies on some issues which may cost me alot in future. I don’t want this. It guide me truely.
Business are going to be global and dynamic. So competition has increased. Now it’s really a very tough job to sell your product online without having any strategy/policy. Making a powerful policy for your online business is a must step. I always think about how can I increase my potential customer of my online business. Here I have got few powerful tips. I will implement these on my business. Hope they will work.
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Much obliged, that enlighten, and most importantly, just in time. Just think, six years already in the internet, but I believe this is the first time I hear it.
Twitter: stevenpapas
says:
yes Michael, if we all had a better approach to time management we would work far more effectively and thrive.
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Those are great tips to get me better with my blogging. And things that you wrote about You Tube are absolutely truth:). I have to be more focuse on the goal and stop to do to many things at one time. It is always good to hear some advices from a more experienced bloggers like you. Thank you for this tutorial I’m sure it will help a lot of people with improving they blogging skills.
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Twitter: stevenpapas
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thanks Voigt! “The shorter way to do many things is to do only ONE thing at a time.”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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This would be another realization to me and to some people who spent half of their lives on the internet. It is true that internet’s reliability and credibility of delivering facts and information are deteriorating. Anyone can post their feelings and writings on the internet. Anyone could comment on a certain issue. But stopping this trend is like stopping a huge tornado. It is difficult. We cannot stop this completely and immediately. We can only stop these madness if internet stops operating.
Im trying to improve my productivity at the moment and I have just looked though your list, most of it I am already doing/not doing as the case may be but the one area of weakness I have is taking on too much or tryig to do too much at once.
I am supposed to be working on one site, because I did not get the results I wanted I started another but didnt drop the 1st, then a spur of the moment idea had me created a 3rd so have 3 times the work to do but there is still just me.
The problem here is when I dont see the results (as I would if I was just working on 1) I think I lose some motivation.
Thanks for sharing, its obvious once you have read it and thought it though!
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This is a helpful tip for my blogging. Internet helps me a lot.
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I find myself watching youtube videos that I don’t really care about, just because I can’t say no. I’m wasting a lot of my time with almost all you said in your article too. But I can’t stop myself.
Twitter: stevenpapas
says:
Hi John, youtube is a great tool but great time waster too. Some people make money out of youtube and facebook but the majority just waste their time. Sometimes, I can’t say no, either
I certainly agree to some points that you have discussed on this post. I appreciate that you have shared some reliable tips on this review.
I always find myself reading blogs I don’t need to. I’ve been slowly weening myself.
I totally agree with there not being a short cut, it takes hard work just like any other business you would begin. Anyone saying otherwise is not telling you the full picture.
Twitter: Jameshughesblog
says:
A very interesting and informative post.
I have just come across your blog and have gained some good knowledge
already.
James
I agree strongly with all your points. I’m a novice and I think I committed all of this mistakes. I’m a very analitycal person, so I guess I stuffed my mind with all kind of products and reports, and I wasted so much time. Now I’m trying to stay focused and learn to be patient.
I have found that all of these points are absolutely true. I use Entourage, a mail client for Mac and recently I had to set me retrieve mail from 10 minutes to 20-30 minutes. It has really helped me stay focused on what I am working on instead of getting constantly distracted by email.
Great list, thanks.
Thanks for taking the time to discuss about it. This is an excellent write up. Thanks for the excellent resource! Keep sharing…
Organization is key. It’s the ultimate time saver.
You certainly know that when shooting a wedding and then making sure you get all the other shots before or after the wedding with all of the wedding party, family and the like. I did it once and I was frantic.
Reading your note Sophia sure brought back some memories. We all love weddings but I was also doing some photography for a friend and my husband was doing the videography and it was all I could take. I was ready for a bottle of wine to celebrate the end of the wedding (:
Selina,
Weddings are great if all you do is attend and enjoy.
Your conclusion is so appropriate and relevant in my industry as we get paid only for performance. Time wasting goes straight to the bottom line and spending all day at the office means zippo. If more folks were paid only for tasks completely successfully, imagine what kind of productivity increases would happen through-out corporate America!
You can ease on the social media if you don’t get emails from the system. Just don’t use the default email me when something happends button and you more free from checking everything that is happening in those social platforms. Another thing is that you can turn email off. Give yourself a time when you can check emails and at other times just shut down the program and do what you have to do so that you are productive. Make notes during the day how you spent the hours and you’ll see where you were productive and where not.
These are the most effective key points in any online business. Anyone whose online business is suffering with a lot of problems can resolve all with these given tips because all the different problems ends at these given few points. Its the most important thing to concentrate upon created goals and not suffer them. Create small targets and let achieved them one by one. Not all at same time.
Whenever we can we really are trying to get a short cut to make it easier in life. Well in business, it is always the hard way because shortcuts don’t really get you nowhere.
Interesting insights. I am very much into online marketing myself and I am just thinking of re-organizing tasks to get simpler and get quality life.
Henrick, Adelaide web startup expert
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Hi Steven,
Nice post. I think, in this fast moving world we should have to be organised in order to save our time because we have to do different tasks in a single day and if we are not organised and waste our time in useless things then at the end of the day we feel tired without getting a good statistics or result in online business.
The post seems to say everything that I want to hear.. Been having issues on how to focus lately, the youtube madness, I can relate though,..
Hi stevenpapas,
This is really very good and informative article. The content was well chosen and well explained too. Well thanks for the information.
Being able to focus is, I believe, the hardest element of most businesses. Owners need to stay focused on their product/service and stay away from the shiny objects in life. Eventually, all that hard work does get rewarded, but not without sacrifice.
I think we are thinking the same. For me social media is a time wasting activity in your work. spending more time in commenting in fb or twitter is not like a good habit for your business.I believe, the best thing to do to your business is to focused on their product or service they offer rather than spending more time in a “not related” business activity.
There are known shortcuts in online marketing. In order to be successful you have start from the beginning like everyone does. I appreciate your thoughtfulness by sharing these expert tips. Very useful post, thanks!
Hey Steven, this has become one of the most popular posts on my blog. Thanks again for guest posting. You’re welcome to submit more articles at any time.
Cheers, Michael.
There are so many ways on how to do SEO but there are only a few strategies that will work for you. I think you should you focus with the ones that are proven effective for your project rather than doing everything on the list. Very useful, online marketing tips. Thanks!
Well said. If you were to attempt to follow all the advice you read online you’d go crazy. Besides, not all of it will work for every situation.
actually we Should not waste our Time to the other Nonsense things. we should estimate our precious Time to the Important things to do for example in our job. we should focus to the things witch we can earn a money or to achieve our goals in life.but I didn’t meant that we will not give a time our Family we should also give them a time. we need to control our time or separate our time. to the Important things to do.
What do you think about writing and reading blogs during the workday? I kid. Great post.
Great post, it gives something to think about. I totally agree about the point in keeping the focus – it is very important. If you lose focus, it’s easy to waste a lot of time to get back on track
Stop doing things all at the same time-> This is my biggest dilemma. Thinking that I could do more work & finish the task quicker, I tend to do all sort of things at the same time (doing SEO, checking for other relevant website, answering emails, blogging). But apparently, it’s even slowing me down. I don’t often take a time out too (for the same reason I had earlier) which is really not a good idea. Thanks for sharing those. Looking forward on doing more productive work with the use of those tips.
Very informative blog on how to increase the effectiveness of your online business
When writing posts, I make sure I only do 15-20 minute research, open the sites in tabs and disable my internet as soon as I start to write. This removes distractions like FB, Twitter and email. Procrastination can sometime turn a 30-minute task into 2 hrs if you get hooked to it
Jane, that great advice. FB and other social sites can drain a lot of my time if I don’t set a timer or reminder.
Excellent post.I want to thank you for this informative info about online business, I really appreciate sharing this great post. Keep up your work
Yes, it is interesting how we spend our childhood trying to learn some kind of discipline, and then we automatically forget it when we feel we are grown-up and “free” when actually we have to realize we were being drilled for having discipline when working. The other thing is, it is interesting how emails take up so much time for people. It is the least frequented platform I own, while all the others are much more difficult to avoid, but absolutely manageable. Thanks for sharing your experiences!
I can relate to this post. Need not to waste your time in surfing the net, watching videos and photos. Instead, indulge in something that can help your expand your knowledge for good.
Twitter: homeSTRONGcoach
says:
I changed my desktop background image to an image of text that reads “Production not Consumption.” That message greets me every time I log on and reminds me to have something created at the end of the day, not merely information consumed.
That is a great list.Instead, indulge in something that can help your expand your knowledge for good.
I have used to struggle with lack of focus for a long time…I found Pomodorro technique to be useful, as well as a little application called Focus Booster, which is based on the Pomodorro Technique. Basically this requires you to focus completely on a task for 25 minutes, then you can have a 5 min break. When you start to notice that in several 25 minutes blocks you do almost nothing but checking email, FB, etc it becomes scarry
Erica
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I love the “your email is not your work” tip. This is also my challenge and I have to put up a big struggle daily to make progress. But I won’t give-up!
Best, Michael
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Hi! I believe the key is to keep your goal in mind all the time and act accordingly. But putting all these tips together is very powerful. I can only imagine how much I could achieve via implementing everything. Thanks!
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Guys, I started to use a few months ago a word editor that only shows a black screen and what you are typing. All distractions gone. It’s called WriteRoom for Mac, but there are a lot of them for both Mac and PCs. Just an idea – it has worked wonders for me.
Tomek
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I like the point looking for shortcuts. I guess everyone needs to find effective ways to handle thinks than shortcuts. If you can optimize your business and work, then there is a better chance that will succeed.
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Is it advisable to make a facebook fan page your site to make it famous?Im just wondering guys.