Posts filed under 'working efficiently'
Working at home is great for moms (or dads) who want to help support the family financially while still being at home with the kids. Unfortunately, it’s not easy and it’s not for everyone. Running your own websites or blogs involves a lot of things, including marketing your site, driving traffic to it, and networking with other site owners, not to mention actually maintaining your site’s content. This all takes time, and for many, it’s a full time job.
If you’re doing this while trying to raise kids at the same time, it can be hectic and stressful. Your time needs to be managed extremely well to be successful. This means you can’t afford to stare at your computer for hours while trying unsuccessfuly to come up with new ideas. You might as well be tapping your head and rubbing your stomach - you’ll get just as much work done.
If I work at the computer for too long, I lose my creativity and momentum. Eventually, I hit a slump and it’s almost impossible to get out of. I guess you could call it temporary writer’s block. After a certain amount of time, I lose my focus and I don’t get any work done.
That’s what happened to me this evening. After awhile, I realized I needed a break from the computer. Because I work at home, I’m allowed the luxury of walking away from my desk and occupying myself with something else to give my head a rest. So I ran myself a nice bubble bath, lit a few candles, and sat in the tub for about an hour. As soon as I relaxed, ideas started popping up in my head. Now I’m back at the computer, smelling better and full of things to write about.
Getting away from the computer and doing something relaxing is a great way to snap out of your slump and get back into the game. You can only sit at the computer for so long before your brain shorts out.
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May 20th, 2006
There’s so many things to get done in a single day, and I can’t realistically get everything done that I’d like to. So I’ve recently started making ‘to do’ lists to make sure that I accomplish at least one thing each day.
Each morning, I spend a few minutes writing down the things I’d like to get done by the end of the day. If I don’t get everything done, I’ll add the unfinished things to the next day’s list. I also make a ‘weekly to do list’. This helps to keep things in check, and it also helps me remember the things I’ve planned to get done. Looking after my kids all day has a way of erasing my memory.
Speaking of my memory, I also keep a pen and pad of paper handy at all times for when a brilliant (or not so brilliant) idea strikes me. Sometimes this happens at three in the morning and by the time I get out of bed, I’ve forgotten how I was going to take over the world.
When I’m feeling writer’s block coming on, I’ll go back through my notes and new ideas will spring up. I’m the type of person who needs visual stimulation because ‘out of sight, out of mind’ completely applies to me. So by keeping my lists and notes, I never forget ideas and I keep myself accountable for getting important tasks done each day.
May 13th, 2006
There are so many things to be done each day along with even more distractions. It’s also nice to have a few minutes of peace and quiet to relax and refresh our brains. So how do we find time to get everything done all in one day? By eliminating the time wasters so we can focus more on our work, that’s how!
Here are a few big time wasters to avoid:
Forums - Forums are great for getting your sites out there, especially if the forum’s theme is similar to your own. However, it’s very easy to get sucked into them and even easier to spend hours reading and posting. If you spend all your time on forums, you won’t be spending time on your own site creating more content or tweaking ads and design. I set aside no more than a half hour for forum posting each day. Don’t get me wrong, many joint ventures are formed through forums. There is also a lot of valuable information on forums that some people try to sell in ebooks. Just make sure you’re spending a reasonable amount of time on them and leave time for other important marketing methods as well.
Email - I’m bad for checking emails countless times throughout the day. Because most of the emails I get are not time sensitive, it really make no sense for me to do this. Lately, I’ve been closing my Outlook Express after I’m done checking emails instead of keeping it open. With it closed, I don’t see or hear everytime I get a new email and spend much less time checking them. I’ve also started checking emails only once in the morning and once in the evening. This has saved a lot of time for me. Another thing I’ve done recently is unsubscribe to anything that’s just fluff and isn’t helpful to me.
Checking Adsense Stats - If you have Google Adsense on your site and you’re like a lot of other people I know, you check your account every hour (some of you even more often) to see how much money you’ve made since you last checked. If not, then good for you. If so, then you need this tool. With Firefox, you can see your Adsense stats displayed in the corner of your screen updated at least every 15 minutes. Now, I only log in to my account once at the end of each day to see which ads performed better than others. I’ve probably saved myself at least a half hour each day with this extension.
Reading Other Blogs or Websites - I like to browse other sites and especially blogs for interesting and sometimes useful information. I’ve been a little slow (alright, really slow) with the RSS thing. But now, If I come across a site or blog I really like, I’ll subscribe to their RSS feed. Now instead of checking all my bookmarks, I just check my feed and click on the headlines that I think might be useful information. I only do this every few days now instead of every day. Most of the blogs I subscribe to only add new content every few days anyway. This is also a huge time saver.
Typing - This one may not seem so obvious, but how fast you type can mean the difference between taking five minutes to write an article and taking 20 minutes to write it. By learning to type properly you can shave off hours in your week if you do a lot of writing. If you ‘hunt and peck’ with each index finger, you’ll be wasting time looking from the keyboard to the monitor, then wasting even more time editing all your typos afterwards. Learn how to type! You’ll thank yourself in the end.
May 5th, 2006
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