Maximizing and Prioritizing Your Time and Work in Internet Marketing

I was inspired by (WA premium member) Fullerlj's post yesterday ("Long Sleeve Burnout Tees" - September 20, 2018), and have been thinking about how easy it is to throw yourself into this work (internet marketing + all of the research and training) while barely stepping away from your computer to just take a break.

It's also easy to get lost in the weeds of all of the various offers and emails you may be getting from other people who are more experienced in the field.

My experience over the past several months has been that it is far more advantageous and effective to focus on all of the Wealthy Affiliate training, as well as the Friday live events with Jay Neill (and the previously recorded events on topics that will help advance your online business). Therefore I have mostly turned off the various email offers that were just far too distracting while I am building new websites.

Thinking about Fullerlj's post about working through feelings of burnout, I was thinking about how important it is to just get up from your chair (at least once every hour) and move! Make a daily habit of going out for a walk in the fresh air, even for 10 or 15 minutes, feel the ground under your feet, listen to the birds singing, the sound of the breeze in the leaves.

It's amazing how, just by going for a short walk, you may suddenly get creative ideas, suddenly come up with problem solving ideas. Inspiration comes to you when you walk; this is why walking daily is one of the most important tools that many writers cite as their most important habit to support their writing.

(The image above is a photo of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in the spirit of getting inspired to take time to go outside and breath the fresh air. A walk down the sidewalk or a walk in the park works wonders - try it and see what kind of creative inspiration comes to you while you walk!)

In addition, I was thinking about how doing this work can sometimes make me feel like I am going down a (wrong) rabbit hole as I begin learning yet another new skill that I feel I really MUST know to be successful in internet marketing . . . But the structure and foundation of everything we need to learn is right here at WA in the training and all of the courses and tools. Stay focused here at WA; the other shiny details can come later.

In thinking about how best to use our time working in internet marketing, without feeling burned out, another key is to effectively prioritize the work that we do in the time that we have to spend on it (whether full time or part time), and focus on the effective actions we can take that will get the greatest results.
Easier said than done? Even though I just wrote about how everything we need to get started and build a business is right here at WA, time invested in personal development also is time well spent. I highly recommend Tim Ferriss' book, The Four Hour Work Week to help focus on your specific goals at WA and how to accomplish them, on a day by day basis.

Specifically, in The Four Hour Work Week book, Tim Ferriss combines the Pareto Principle 80/20 rule (“roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes”) with Parkinson's Law (we use up all of the allotted time to complete a task, whether we needed that much time or not -- so create your own self-imposed SHORTER deadlines and get it done faster and more effectively.)

As Tim Ferriss describes it in his book The Four Hour Work Week:
"Parkinson's Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. It is the magic of the imminent deadline. If I give you 24 hours to complete a project, the time pressure forces you to focus on execution, and you have no choice but to do only the bare essentials." - Tim Ferriss, The Four Hour Work Week.

So combining Parkinson's Law with the Pareto Principle, in Tim Ferriss' words:

"There are two synergistic approaches for increasing productivity that are inversions of one another:

(1) Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time. (80/20)

(2) Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important. (Parkinson's Law).

The best solution is to use both together: Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines."

- Tim Ferriss, The Four Hour Work Week

One way you can help yourself set time limits is to set your timer on your cell phone (or use the online timer that Tim recommends in his book: e.ggtimer.com -- this is what I use when I want to set a time deadline for myself while working on my computer.) It's also a good idea to set the timer if you are about to head off into social media land . . . let e.ggtimer.com or your phone timer be a neutral observer that stops you from going too far down a path that is not focused on taking the daily action required to achieve your goals.

If you haven't tried this, you may be amazed and startled when that alarm goes off, and you take account of how much time you just spent (frittering away time on social media), when it may have seemed like only 5 minutes or so.

In summary, I'm not saying just go out and read (yet another) book instead of getting your work done, but Tim Ferriss' The Four Hour Work Week can be VERY helpful to focus your work, especially if you are working in a field (like internet marketing) that can tend to seem unstructured by its very nature. Tim Ferriss' formulation of combining the Pareto Principle with Parkinson's Law is powerful.

In fact, even though I have gone back to read and re-read this book over time, I am going to re-read these sections of The Four Hour Work Week again now, to find ways to make my work more effective so that I can get better results towards reaching my goals.

Give it a try (apply the Pareto Principle (80/20) + Parkinson's Law together to specific tasks that will help you achieve your goals), and share below how it works for you!

What is your favorite method for staying on track and focused, to use your time effectively, and also to avoid burn-out?

Cheers!
Kate