Today is the last day of Hanukkah, and we’re going to work, but also enjoy the day.
Last night I dreamed about my old boss again. He died in 2003, and I still miss him. We stayed in contact after I quit my day-job in 1995 and until his death.
In those dreams I’m always back in the office as a stand-in for his secretary.
He was a good boss.
Today I have a horrible boss. Myself.
And I thought I did so well, until a few days ago. Something happened that made me think that if I treated my business more like a business, I would probably work less and make more money.
Know the traps
I thought I knew all the traps:
- Facebook (I hardly go there).
- Playing games (never during my working hours).
- Fetching mail all the time (nope).
- Watching TV (hm… last time I watched TV must have been in 2012).
- Chatting on Skype (yes, guilty. That happens sometimes.)
You have to survey yourself and find out where your traps lie. Mine aren’t the typical ones. Your might be – or they could be something completely different.
Here are some of mine (I have to work more on finding out where they are):
- Not having a daily plan.
- Allowing Nefnef to distract me. (Cannot avoid this one.)
- Working too long on a task, getting bored, doing other things.
- Having too many things I want to do. Therefore unable to pick which one to do and skip from one to the next.
- Working far too many hours daily, but not 100% focused during these hours.
My plan to get on the tracks
Here’s what I’ll do from now on.
- Set up four overall tasks to do daily. (Fiction, Reviews, Products, Learning).
- Work on each of these four tasks daily.
I think I’ll start out by allotting 45 minutes daily to each task followed by 15 minutes of breaks, and then when I’m through the cycle, I can choose which one to continue doing.
Plus I need the daily Skype, email, Facebook etc.
I’m going to use http://kanbanflow.com to help me. It’s free to use, and I love it.
I would probably get better results if I picked only two tasks, like:
- Fiction and learning.
- Reviews and learning.
- Products and learning.
But I happen to love all three, so I’m going to compromise and do them all. Ha 😛
What about you?
You might not have eight hours daily to dedicate to your Internet business, but you can start out with less.
Even one hour spent on a task daily will end up getting you somewhere.
Today I’ll start reviewing a product that launches tomorrow, and which works very well even for people who have little time daily.
The content is organized on a dashboard with six weekly tasks. You spend 20 minutes daily on one area of the dashboard, going on to the next the following day.
Here’s week 1 of 5:
This dashboard will lead to the creation of big ticket items, and it’s created by one of the first marketers I got to know. It’s a man who’s surrounded by high respect by his peers, and he’s responsible for the first huge breakthrough I’ve ever had.
More about that tomorrow.
For now I hope this mail can be of inspiration for you.
Maybe you want to take your Internet business to the next level, but don’t know how.
Or maybe you think you’re already treating your business like a business, like I did, but you’re a lousy boss, like I was. Hopefully, this will help you see the traps you fall in.
At any rate, I hope it helped.
Now I’m off to start my daily tasks.