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Online Time Management: 5 Tips to Help You Get Over Time Management Procrastination

By Adam Bauthues

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 16Jan2012 Word count: 655 Viewed: 376 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

One of the biggest challenges to being self-employed or working for yourself, is your online time management. As a self-employed marketer/advertiser online, I find I suffer frequently from what I call Time Management Procrastination. It's just so easy when you're the boss to let things slide until it's an emergency and you must absolutely get the task done. Here are 5 tips to help you get out of this habit and start being productive today, not tomorrow.

1) Create A Challenge For Yourself

Play a game with yourself that causes you to complete an achievable but challenging project. Sometimes we procrastinate because the task seems too large to manage. For example, you have an information product to create and just don't know where to start. Rather than putting "create information product" on your task list, break the project up into several smaller steps. The first one could be, "Outline information product" or "Choose title for information product." These smaller, more attainable goals are easier to accomplish and won't make you feel as if you have to do it all at once.

2) Utilize A Personal Rewards System

This is so important for self-employed people. You need to make sure to reward yourself. Work hard, play hard is the cliché, right? Well take advantage of it. Make a to-do list at the beginning of the week and promise yourself a day off, where you do something fun, when the list is complete.

It's easier to commit to this reward if you involve other people. For example, if you make an appointment for a massage on Friday, well you had better have your task list done by Thursday night or you're going to have to cancel on your masseuse and she'll never book you an appointment again for cancelling at the last minute. You're making yourself accountable.

3) Discover and Identify Your Personal Distractions

Find out what you personally use to procrastinate online! We all do it, but what we use is different for each person. Do you watch television? Run errands? Surf the net? Determine what distracts you. Spend a day or two working, or procrastinating, like you usually do, and simply take note of your online time management. For example, when I did this I found my 2 main online distractions were reading up on the news of the day, or visiting my favorite advertising/marketing blog, and checking my email too much. Once you find out what your personal distractions are (and we all have them) you can move on to the next step below...

4) Distraction Elimination Campaign

Once you understand your personal online time management scenario, then it's time to get tough. Eliminate the distractions. For example, if you find that you often let household chores deter you from being productive, schedule a time for household chores. Give yourself thirty minutes at lunchtime to get a chore list completed and then go back to work.

5) Tools Are Your Friends

Use tools to help you. Time-tracking tools, both online and off, are great for developing better online time management. You can, for example, use something as simple as an egg timer. Set it for thirty-five minutes. Work for thirty-five minutes and when the timer dings, give yourself ten minutes or so to stretch, walk around the block, put away the clean dishes, or something other than work. Then go back and set the timer again.

Get creative with these tools and ideas and use them to help you stay on task and stop procrastinating. By developing better online time management you will become more efficient. Greater efficiency means your business will be able to provide more value and thus, earn you more money!

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