Work Smart, Not Hard Do Yourself and Your Business A Favor

When I first began thinking about starting an Internet Marketing business, I didn’t know anything at all about it. In other words, I started just where most everyone else who has a successful online business did, as a green newbie. But I did know one thing for sure. I knew that an Internet Marketing business could give me back my life. I heard all the stories about how I could just put everything on auto pilot and go on vacation for the rest of my life while the checks and automatic bank deposits rolled in. That’s what I wanted, and I wanted it bad.

Of course, the next thing that happens is a sudden crash with reality. It doesn’t really work the way I thought it would. I found it to be a lot of hard work, and long tedious hours at the keyboard, especially in the beginning.

Even now, I’ve got the auto responders, the web page forms, the order pages and the rest; mostly all on automatic, but it’s still a lot of work. And if you aren’t careful, you can be working a lot harder than is good for you OR your business.

No matter how much “automation” you have incorporated, you will still be able to think of a thousand and one things you can do to improve your business, and it will be nearly impossible to resist putting in ‘just two more hours’ to work on improving your sites. But resist you must.

Burn out can creep up on you like a thief in the night. One minute all is well, and the next, you are typing the same sentence over and over and beginning to drool on your keyboard. In some extreme cases, your family will consider having you committed.

Do yourself and your business a big favor. Resist the urge to do ‘just one more thing’. There is a big difference between being busy and being effective and effective is much better. You must take the time to live life and refresh yourself.

The easiest way I have found to do this is to schedule regular work hours. I know what you are thinking right now. You are thinking that you started an online business to get away from the rigid schedule that your boss had you following not so you could become your own taskmaster.

I’m not talking about setting a schedule set in stone that you can never vary. In fact, I find it easy to set a new schedule each day. Just make sure it’s got plenty of free time included in it.

I like to work a couple of hours in the morning, then maybe an hour or two mid afternoon, then maybe an hour in the evening, although I usually skip the evening session. Mornings are best for me, but everyone is different, so you need to decide what is best for you and maybe experiment a little. The worst thing you can do is to try to sit down and do an eight or ten hour marathon to get something done. Your effectiveness will slip quickly. Also, I find that’s it’s good for me to take at least two consecutive days a week off nearly completely, where all I do is check my email and handle only the things that are extremely urgent, and that’s a rare occurrence. Really rare.

Find what works best for you and make sure you have plenty of time to relax and enjoy life. After all, that’s what having your own business is all about.