What an amazing amount of time many of us spend online. We’re online from morning to night looking at websites, searching for all sorts of things through Google, interacting in one of the many social networks that have caught our fancy from Facebook to Twitter, watching and sharing videos through YouTube, and photographs through Flickr and Pinterst. We further interact through windows messenger or as in my case Skype. Whether at home on our Desktop Computer, in the coffee shop on our laptop or mobile using our Smart phone we are constantly connected anywhere up to 14 hours a day.
Now I’ve seen many discussions about how we’re all spending way to much time infront of our computers. To a point I agree. With the kids who also are very influenced by playing games online, there is a tendency to pass time away online at the expense of getting out and playing sports and keeping active. Many adults whittle away time in chat rooms and throwing their money away on gambling sites. So in these cases I completely agree that their time can be far better spent.
For others though, getting online can change their lives. Building my business has been a time consuming exercise, necessitating many a long night, but it has enabled me to create a business perfect for the lifestyle choices I have made, doing the things I love to do.
It is important even for the likes of myself to be thinking quality over quantity. I frequently evaluate where and how much time I’m spending online, and for what results. It’s great to check Facebook but not spend all day to see what all our friends have to say. Or reading the gossip about all our favourite movie stars, or keeping up to date with what’s happening in the sporting world. How easy it is to be distracted by checking our traffic, our email, our subscribers lists and all those other oh so important online accounts.
The temptation are hard to resist. The internet always has something to offer us to distract us away from our priorities, whether it be a never ending stream of music and video, friends to talk to, or as for me Sports Channels with news and videos.
Despite everything I will be first to stand up and say the Internet improves people’s lives. But when we’re online it’s important to ensure we know what our priorities are, and that we have a definite reason for being there, and this shouldn’t be purely to pass the time away.
Whatever your employment, it is essential that you make the most of your time , prioritising your work .
For me my blog is my number one priority. I have to make sure it’s running efficiently and that I create fresh content on a daily basis. There are so many other things to do in order to maintain a blog and only so much time to get everything done. Then of course I have to be there for my clients, both on a personal development coaching side, and also to those I’m helping build their online businesses. You can never forget marketing either, after all what blog owner doesn’t want more traffic, so then you have to determine which platforms to direct your attentions to. This part is much easier if you understand exactly who your target market is and where they spend their time.
What’s important for you is to use your time online productively. The Internet provides you everything at your finger tips. It in reality can save you so much time. From research to marketing to sales to building your brand to creating a network it can all be done online. The bottom-line is, your success comes down to managing your time productively.
Do you know where you spend most of your time online?
Do you know which are your most productive activities?
Do you know what’s killing your productive time?
There are so many things to do that you can so easily get overcome. You can’t finish anything because you’re wildly skipping between tasks. Until you just can’t take it anymore.
And there often is one activity that you constantly over look. You forget that you’re actually online to build a business. And by definition a business is about sales and making money. So it’s essential you know what your money task is, and that you’re doing it time after time.
It’s essential you forget none of your important tasks.
Time blocks have changed my productivity immensely. I use blocks of sixty minutes at a time, and do this 6 times a day. My first block of time begins in the morning, around nine o’clock. I typically write my 2 or 3 blog posts during this time. Then I take a thirty minute break to perhaps walk the dog. The next 60 minute block I’ll check whether any of my team need my support so I sign in to skype and deal with their queries as well as respond to any important emails and forms sent to my blog. You get the picture of how I structure my day. I know my 6 important areas: content, team support, marketing, site management, coaching, relationship building. I make sure I have time to spend on each, every day as a priority. (my original copy had a typo that read ‘rach, every day as a priority’ – with Rachel being my partner, do you think a higher power is reminding me of something).
Tell me how do you spend time while working online? Do you have any more tips to work productively?
