I agreed to do something this month that is a huge step for me. I’m participating in #NaBloPoMo. This means that I have committed to writing a post each and every day in November. Some bloggers post daily anyway. I commend them! But, for some of us it’s not quite that easy. It is very possible to do. In fact, I think I have done it before by accident, but sometimes the other things that we need to do get in the way. And some of us procrastinate… It is is constant problem.
Deciding to blog everyday this month should help break that bad habit. Hopefully, I can be a good girl and schedule a fair amount of posts so that I’m not tied to my computer all day every day. Finding content will not be hard. I have a number of sponsored posts that i need to get done. The rest is being filled in with reviews, and how to posts that I have wanted to write for quite a while.
The point is that wasting time doesn’t help you at all when trying to succeed. Time is money. The more time you waste throughout the day, and the more you procrastinate, the less money you make. I’m determined to eliminate time-wasting activities throughout my day. Here are some of the things that I know I need to be better about. And they are common time-wasters for many folks.
Stop Procrastinating
Putting things off until later is something that most of us are guilty of from time to time. For some of us, this is our every day. When we think of things that we have to do we add them to our to do list. But then sometimes we put them off. If you can take care of a task quickly on the spot, why leave it until later? This just makes the to do list long and scary. Then we find ourselves rushing to get things done later when you realize that you’re running out of time. And trust me, that time moves fast! So, starting this month I am going to try my best not to put things off until the last minute. Right now this month is off to a rocky start because I am still catching up from last month… heck I’m still catching up from my September move! But, I have a plan.
Stop Answering Every Call
This is a big one, ESPECIALLY if you work from home. Friends and relatives don’t seem to get that when you work from home you are working… so they call…. a lot. Or they ask you to run errands in the middle of the day. If you answer the phone every time it rings, you will get nothing done. And if you work in an office, the phone always seems to be ringing. But there are ways to cut down on the number of calls you get. On your website, make sure that you lay out relevant information. And encourage visitors to contact you via email This is why a great about page and contact page are so important. This way, people and potential customers will not have call you to. This is a pretty big deal. You will have more email, but you won’t spend a huge part of your day on the phone. You should also filter your calls better. Using caller ID allows you to ignore calls if you think that they are nuisance calls.
Stop Responding to Emails All Day
This is a huge one! Checking your email inbox is a classic procrastination technique. It gives you something to do when you don’t want to do real work. But reading and responding to emails several times a day can be counter-productive. If it’s important, then by all means, respond to it right away. I have missed out on a couple of time sensitive opps because I did not respond fast enough. But, it is better to set aside an hour or so each day to do nothing but work on emails. Or, better yet, if you are able, hire a secretary or VA who can filter your work emails and only direct the important ones to you. If you do that, you will be able to avoid sooo much junk mail! You can even create email reply templates that you can use to reply to common emails. Gmail makes this easy. I have a few templates setup to quickly respond to requests.
Stop Multitasking
Ok. We all do it. If your to do list looks like mine you are probably multitasking. But, experts keep telling us that it is not all that effective. And I am really starting to believe it. When I try to work on more than one thing at a time it takes longer to complete both tasks. Or I have a hard time prioritizing which one I should do first. It is much better to pick one thing, stick with it until it is done, and then move on to the next item. This is SOOO hard for me, but I am going to have to give it a try.
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