Sung to the Tune of Jingle Bells Rock - One Marketer's Task List

Inspired by Rick Beneteau's article, Tackling the Task List,
I pushed everything off my desk and onto the floor and began
making a list of categories of what the important tasks for
each day might be. Limit them to five, I thought, five at
the most. Tackling five tasks is do-able. Going for more
might cause me to break my resolutions before I even wrote
them down.

Yours may be different, but this is what I came up with.

Advertising -- a must. It's important to get the word out
EVERY day. Familiarity, contrary to breeding contempt, makes
people take another look.

I looked, but what I was seeing was the pile of papers that
I had just pushed onto the floor. "I've got to get
organized," I said to myself. "Ah, that's another one. I've
got to get organized."
That went on the list.

Organize -- if EVERY day I did something towards organizing,
I would become organized, right?

What else? Write. I have an ezine. I submit articles to
other ezines. I have to write updates to my website. That's
a lot of writing. And once I write, it doesn't do any good
unless I submit the articles to ezines, mail my subscriber
list or upload my web pages. There, I have another daily
task.

Write/Submit I don't have to write everyday, but I do need
to do some task connected with that writing, so write/submit
seemed apt.

What now?

Track. Tracking one's advertising is equally as important as
doing the advertising. Unless you know what results you're
getting, how can you create an effective advertising
campaign? So tracking is a must.

By that time, I needed to pack off to my class at Diablo
Valley College where I was taking a circuit training class.
No, that's not a computer science course, it's a combination
of weight training and aerobics. After all, the computer
doesn't give me much exercise.

Driving down the road to my PE class, I found my eyes
enjoying the first signs of spring in pink blossoms and
budding trees while my mind bounced out the familiar
Christmas tune "Jingle Bells Rock."

"Advertise, Organize, Write/Submit, Track
Write/Submit, Track, Write Submit, Track

Advertise, Organize, Write/Submit, Track, etc. etc. etc."

You get the sound.

So my four tasks - do one each day - would be my list.

When I got home, I set up my own version of Rick's white
board.
Rather than messing with smeary markers, I opted for white
poster board, with my four topics neatly printed at the top.
Then, I wrote tasks on post-its placing them in a holding
area down the right side of the board. My plan was, that
each morning, I would put one post-it under each task
category and do at least that much that day. Then, when I
finished it, I simply threw it away.

As I thought of more tasks, I would merely put it on a post-
it and add it to the board on the right side.

But wait a minute, I said five. Where was my fifth task?

Where was my fifth? Am I crazy? What would all these tasks
accomplish if I didn't follow-up on any of them.

Following up on leads, article submissions, your downline
need to be on that list. Without follow-up your whole
business could die.

Follow-up. That's got to be there.

But how do I fit it into "Jingle Bells Rock?"

Well, I may not be able to sing it, but I'm doing it and it
works.