Many new online entrepreneurs mistakenly feel that they have far too much to learn and do to be thinking about getting organized at work.  It is true that there is a great deal to learn, and many tasks to get done to set up a successful internet business. These tasks and the learning are important, but you will find that if you do not have organizational systems in place, you will struggle to get all your work tasks done anyway.  

When you take the time to organize your online business you will take back control of your work, be able to stay more focused and get things done in a way that will increase your productivity.

As you start out setting up an internet business, it is so easy to get excited at all the information you find.  I found that I just wanted to absorb as much as I could believing that it would help me succeed.  So I downloaded reports, ebooks, audios and videos to my hard drive.  At that time, I was still learning how to use the computer – so did not have much knowledge of where my reports were being saved when I clicked the download button.

What happened was that I had all these bits of information saved on my hard drive but no idea where to find them!  Each day when I sat down at my computer to start my work, I would become so frustrated as I could not quickly and easily locate the information I needed.  It became so annoying when I knew the clock was ticking, and I was wasting that time searching all over my hard drive just to find what I needed.  Nothing productive was getting down!

This continued until I discovered a free software system that I downloaded and installed in a few minutes.  It came with a guide which explained how to manage your internet marketing information by organizing  your computer files.  The organizational skills I learned from this free system enabled me to take control back over my hard drive.  Reading it and investing some time in moving my internet marketing information into the correct folders has enabled me to spend less time locating and accessing what I need from my computer.

Just by using this one computer filing system, I have been able to take control back over my internet marketing information.  At any time, I know where I can find the information I need – quickly and easily – and where to file new stuff too.  As I am finding what I need more easily, I don’t get frustrated any more….  This in turn means I am able to stay more focused.  By concentrating on what I am doing more easily, I can therefore get things done to build my internet business.   Isn’t it time you invested time to organize your online business?  Start by downloading your computer file organizational system.

Setting up an internet business

When you read the book you’ll find out that Douglas Merrill became interested in organising concepts because of his deep desire to succeed despite having dyslexia.  He worked very hard to discover and develop ways that he could learn, despite his affliction with this condition.  With all the information that he had to assimilate he found it was better if he could narrow down his focus and concentrate only on those things that would help him to learn.  What happened was that he developed techniques to organize information in a way that made everything easier for him.

If you are into online marketing, there is a  load of information to assimilate there too – and without a system to organize it all – you will struggle to get ahead and achieve.  This book explains that we need to take into account how our brains function and then develop system to get organized around that.

Multi Tasking Is A Myth & Does Not Work

Research has found that we can only store up to nine bits of information in our memory.  If you continue to add extras – the previous ones are lost.  This is the reason why multi tasking is really a myth.  When multi tasking you are pushing quite a bit of information into your short term memory – too much – and some of it will be lost!  When switching between tasks – say for example – if you are listening, watching a webinar while reading or putting up status updates on  Facebook, sending tweets and reading your email – you will find out that you miss some important points mentioned on the webinar because you were not concentrating solely on it.  Chances are that you heard what was said with one ear, if you like, but the other was focusing on another task.  This means that the information from the webinar was  not transmitted to your short term memory.  What happens next is that you did not really gain much from that webinar and so will have to watch the replay to get more out of it.  When you have to do this it does not increase productivity or efficiency.

In conclusion then, the solution, when setting up an internet business, is to learn how to focus better on what you are doing, by concentrating on one task at a time.  Set aside a chunk of time to do one item on your daily tasks list at a time.  Set yourself a challenge – decide when and what you are going to get done .  Set a deadline for its completion.  The Pomodoro technique is a useful system to use to get into practice while doing this.

How To Focus Better When Setting Up An Internet Business – Follow A System

I thought I would share the gist of what Marlon Sanders was recommending in this email.  One thing I have noticed about Marlon is that he comes across as being really keen to help other online marketer to succeed in building up an income from the internet.  Anyway, he sent out one of those surveys to his list, and found that many people were struggling with being overwhelmed with information.

As the internet presents such a wide range of options to earn an income, and there is so much information swirling around the place, often people get stuck and don’t know what to do next.  

He mentioned that he spends $35 000 on information products annually to keep himself up to speed with what is going on in the internet marketing world.  That has to be a lot of information!  Enough to be overwhelming?  You would have thought so …
However, Marlon says that the CAUSE of the overwhelm is not the information – or the ideas that come from it – but more the fact that most of us don’t have a system to process that information. We become overwhelmed because we think all that information has the same degree of importance.

“So the cause of Overwhelm is assigning the SAME priority to everything and not having a process to sort things out”  - Marlon Sanders

It makes sense that if we think everything is as important as the next bit of information or task – then you will have a problem deciding what to do next?

So, what was his solution?

1.  Make a list of all the tasks you feel you should be doing for your internet business.
2.  Then collect similar tasks together into these categories

•     Traffic tasks
•     Tasks associated with finding/creating your own products or affiliate ones, or anything related to it like keyword research
•     Operational tasks – such as outsourcing, doing your taxes, or expenses

Choose one of the above categories to work on for two weeks.

Of those to do tasks that are under the category you have chosen, find the ones that are related to one thing, and focus on those first.

Set yourself a target to do only those things until you have finished them.  Should some other work come up, that has to be done, schedule some time to do it around you current work.

What this exercise has done is to create some order and organization from the jumbled up variety of tasks you originally had on your list of stuff to do.

So often we know what we have to do, we have a list of things that need to get done, but the list is so large and muddled that we really have no idea of where to begin.  So by getting organized with a system like this, as simple as it sounds – you can overcome that feeling of overwhelm.  That is why I believe in developing organizational skills – as boring as they may sound – it helps when you need to get things done – without which setting up an internet business could be quite hard going.

For example, you are less likely to want to get on with writing a blog post, article or creating some content for the forum that you belong to, if your desk and working area is a mess.  You will procrastinate on reviewing some training you purchased if you are not too sure where on your hard drive you saved it.  You know that you should be promoting a product that you have used, but you put it off because you know that before you can promote it, you’ll have to find the log in details for the affiliate program.  You know that will take time to find and frustrate you too.  So after all these thoughts go round in your mind, what do you end up doing ? It will be probably be something that is perhaps easier to do like surfing the internet or reading status updates on your social media sites.  The problem is those activities are not the most important ones that will build your online business are they?

Starting Your Own Online Business

The simple little system that I use is to get myself cleared for lift off, is to get organized for work.  When starting your own online business, you can set yourself up for success by getting organized.  What this does is to clear your runway of any obstacles that might cause you to procrastinate.

Imagine if you had all your internet marketing information filed and stored in an organized computer filing system.  Would n’t that make it easier to find stuff?  Would n’t you be more likely to want to get on with marketing your business, knowing that all you needed could be quickly and easily found on your hard drive?

By the way, if you need such an organized filing system sign up for your free copy here

The trick to clearing yourself for lift off, and success, is to organize your online business.  Set up systems and tools that will help manage it all, and so keep your finger on the pulse at all times.  Make sure that your working area is neat and tidy, and that at the end of each working period you leave everything in such a way that there will be no hurdles to get over for the next work session.

Do you think that when starting your own online business, you would have more chance of success online if you had systems to manage your:

• Domains, hosting and registrars
• Products, articles, audios videos podcasts
• Affiliate programs and affiliate products, logins
• Autoresponders
• Projects
• Publications

You would …  !

To find out more, visit Organize Your Online Business Guide where you can sign up for a complimentary mini workshop and a handout that will get you started.

I think of my email inbox as being rather similar to doing my daily household chores and cleaning.  They both have to be done.  Both of them do however, have the capability of distracting me from my most important work – that of building my internet business.

As I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to cleaning around our home, I tend to go on and on – and have to remind myself that I am wasting time that would be better spent doing work on my computer.  It is kind of addictive with me – but I am now aware of what I do, and so I try to get it done and out of the way.  

Processing emails can be a bit like that too, if you feel you need to read every one and deal with it then and there.  This activity has a vast potential to distract and derail all your best laid plans for the day.   You open one of them up, decide to click on the link to see what it’s all about and whoosh ….. your focus is gone!    Most online entrepreneurs have an email inbox that is full of bright shiny objects just waiting to lure them to follow some other online marketer’s agenda.

Here are some tips I have found that will help you with your email organization.

Get Rid Of Those Unnecessary Emails Coming Into Your Inbox

Do you really need to be notified when some activity or other happens on Facebook?  Probably not?  Click on the gear in the top right hand corner of your profile.  Then click account settings and notifications.  You can then edit your email notifications.

To improve your email organization system, take a good look at the emails you’re receiving and consider unsubscribing from those you

• never open up,
•  are too busy to read
• You have no idea who sent them and why
• You notice multiple copies
• Or you never purchase from

If you are one of those people who do subscribe to a number of email lists to stay abreast of what is happening in your niche, or to see how others carry out their email marketing campaigns – ie for subject lines and so on – then consider moving those ones to a separate email address.  You can do this by clicking on the “manage your subscription” links at the bottom of most emails.

Using this email organization system you can still have those emails sent to you, but they are not cluttering up your inbox and distracting you on a daily basis.

Don’t Check Your Emails At The Start Of Your Day

If you start off your day by checking emails it will most likely be a distraction for you. For example you might see a headline like this one I received today – “Please watch video immediately”  You would have to be very disciplined to resist that one!

It is best to start off doing the most important tasks first.  These will be those activities which will grow your business the most.  Once you have completed these planned tasks then check your email.  I check my email at midday and then again in the afternoon.

Each time that you check your inbox take a set amount of time to organize emails in one go – don’t keep going back to your inbox and processing a few at a time.

Treat Your Email Inbox As A Temporary Placeholder Folder Not A Final Storage Space

When you organize emails are you a piler or filer?  It should be your aim to clear your inbox of all messages by filing them into appropriate folders.  Apply the GTD  two minute rule when you organize emails.  This means that you ask yourself the question “can I respond to this in under two minutes?”  If yes, then do it and either delete the email or file it in an appropriate folder.  If the action required by the email will take longer than two minutes then file it in a folder that you will clear at a later scheduled time.  You can call this folder something like “ Action required”   The idea here is that you will then clear your inbox of those emails but still have them organized in an appropriate way for when you will go in and deal with them.

Organize Emails By Setting Up Filters

There will be some emails you receive that are for information purposes and do not necessarily require any action.  For these you could set up filters to deal with them.  Filters are systems that you can set up in your email that will automatically file away emails in a pre – determined way that you have set up.

To save a lot of words, here is a video that explains how you can do this

Finally, remember to switch off all forms of notifications from your email systems so that you give one hundred per cent attention to your planned tasks while working.

Do you have any other tips to share on email organization?

Increase Productivity – Save Clicks

Right now, as you read this, you may be wondering how can saving clicks increase productivity?  If you are like me you probably spend a large part of your working day on your computer and also logging into and out of various websites.  Until I discovered this little trick, I would open up my browser to my home page.  My home page was set to the BBC news channel in my part of the world.

As I enjoy sports, I would take a quick peep at the latest sports news – see what is going on the golf, cricket or tennis worlds.  I would also check the weather forecast.  As we live right next to a river that has the habit of coming down in flood, I like to keep an eye on the flood warnings.  There would not have been too much of an issue with this if I could have stopped there …but as with all things to do with the internet – before you know it time has passed and you have been burrowing down a deep rabbit hole that has taken you all over those sites … precious time wasted and nothing really to show for it.

Increase Productivity – Design Your Own Browser Homepage

You see the problem was in how I set my homepage.  When I discovered this little strategy it stopped all that and enabled me to get straight to work without the temptations of all the sports news.  I created my very own personalized home page.   What I did was to create a webpage using Kompozer and then upload it to a sub directory on one of my domains.  On this one webpage I placed all the links to the sites that I use regularly.  So now when  I start my browser, it opens up with that personalised homepage, and those distractions are gone.  

At first I tried to set up my personalized home page using a WordPress page but found that the header took up too much space.  This meant that I would have to scroll down the page to see some of the links.   My goal was to have as many links on view without the need to scroll.  This meant that I could open each site with one click and a login from my login assistant software system.

Kompozer is free to download and there are tutorials on how to use it on  the Youtube site.

In addition to avoiding the time sapping distractions, I am able to increase productivity further because in order to open up the sites I use every day, I just need to click once.  This system steals minutes over one day which add up to hours over a month or more.  Besides that it has helped me to focus on my work more quickly.   Again this means that, coupled with the other productivity tools I use, I am able to get things done in less time.

As you build your internet business, set up a computer file organization system that will allow you to go in and find the things you need easily and quickly.  Work out what strategy you will use to record and save your log-in details.  You will need to use these every day so make sure that your system is practical and works.  Create a handbook of your web domains and keep all the information that pertains to them in one central place.

As an online marketer operating your own online home business, you will incur expenses just like any other conventional business.   It is important to have an idea of what you are spending as you go along and set a budget for yourself.  There are many software systems that can help you to manage your finances such as Quickbooks and Sage.  Many online entrepreneurs have bookkeepers who write up their financial statements for them, but most are only generally done at their year ends.  However, as a former bookkeeper myself, I can tell you that you can save your bookkeeper time ( and the size of your bill) by keeping some simple records yourself.  Getting organized at work will enable you to have an idea of your expenses on a monthly basis, rather than wait until the year end to get a shock.

You can  track  your product purchases,  and monthly subscriptions using a simple spreadsheet based system.  Record details such as

• the date you made the purchase,
• details of the item so your bookkeeper knows what they were,
• the price,
• the payment method – how you paid for it –
• where you downloaded it from
• where you filed it on your hard-drive or where you can access the product    
• a column where you can check it once you have downloaded the product
• any other details relating to the purchase

Once you have set up a system like this, you  can then use it to show your bookkeeper what items were bought and what they were.  Bookkeepers need to allocate expenses to various categories and if they are not familiar with your business type it can take time for them to fathom out what an expense was for.  Getting organized at work and helping your bookkeeper in this way will most certainly reduce the number of hours they spends on your books  and that will translate into a lower bill.

Yes, you will have to spend some time setting up this system but once it is set up, it will not take long to go in there and add the details of your new purchase.    You will be able to use the information that you have recorded there to assist you in other ways too.  If you  have set a budget for product expenditure, you can find out very easily through the totalling functions on a spreadsheet, what you have spent at any one time.  Set up a separate sheet for your monthly services like hosting, autoresponders and shopping carts, and any monthly membership site payments you make.   Adding these up will tell you how you are doing versus your budgeted figure.

With a little creativity, you can set these spreadsheets up to give you all sorts of extra useful information that will help you manage your online business more effectively and profitably.  Dr Jeanette Cates’ Organize Your Online Business program has many more systems and ideas to help you do this.  If you are serious about growing your online business , then it will pay you to consider getting organized at work sooner rather than later.

If you are an online entrepreneur setting up an online business, it is crucial to your ultimate success to be able to improve your daily time management skills in order to get the things done that will allow your internet business to grow.   You can do this through using two key documents to manage your time.  The two documents are a daily tasks list and process templates.

The first document is a daily tasks list which is a set of tasks that you must do each day to move your business forward.    As an online entrepreneur you will know that most of your activities should be marketing based.  These online marketing based activities have one goal in mind and that is to drive visitors to an opt-in page where they can enter their details and so be added to a subscriber email list.

From there you will be able to build a relationship with them and eventually promote relevant products to them.  Therefore, the daily action tasks that will be added to your daily tasks list should be those which result in people being added to your list.  There is a part of building an online business that is quite repetitive and those tasks are what should appear on this daily tasks list.  They would be things like writing blog posts, creating and submitting articles to the directories, status updates on the social media sites, affiliate marketing promotions and teleseminar and webinars.  If you have found that other marketing methods are good for traffic generation then you will add these activities to your daily action list.

Open a document and set up the tasks that you want to do for each day that you work on your business.  You may not repeat some of the tasks every day.  For example, you may find that you will only write two articles a week but will post to your blog every day.   Just set up a schedule for what you think you must absolutely do each day.  The crucial point here is to work out what are the most important tasks to build your business, and schedule them out for the week.  Print this sheet out and tick off the items as you complete them.

daily time management

The next document that will help you to manage your time is what I call my process templates.  For a number of the things that you do in building your online business there are several steps to getting them done.  For example, when writing an article to submit to the directories there are several steps we take to get that article written.

In order to increase productivity, I have identified what each of those steps are, and made a list of them which I call my  process template for articles.  I first find a keyword I want to target.  To do that I have three options available to me.  So those options are written on my process template list.  I then identify main points I want to mention in the article.  So that goes down as a step too.  I continue to identify each of the steps involved in writing an article right up to the time it is submitted and my work on this task is done.

Yes, you will have invested a bit of time to do this, but only once.  Now when you have article writing on your daily action list, you just remove from your process template file, the required process sheet and get on with doing the work for each step.  When you sit down to work, there is no dithering, no procrastination as you try to identify the next step – it‘s all there in front of you.  These two documents will help you improve your daily time management, and increase productivity to grow your internet business.

Having worked as a bookkeeper previously, I was aware of the benefits of being organised at work but had no experience of how to file my information on the computer.    Eventually I became fed up with wasting time and getting frustrated at not being able to find what I needed, and after some searching found a software system from Alex Goodall – one of the UK’s  foremost experts on knowledge management.   This software gave me the organized folder structure into which I could save my information and be able to find it later when I needed it.   It cost me nothing and was installed in a few minutes.  Each time I use it, which is many times each day, I am reminded of how much time it is saving me.

However,  I found myself wanting to be even more organized at work.  You see, I had subscribed to some monthly trainings and wanted a way to track how much I was paying for them,  when I was using them, and which payment system I had used for them.   I had by now learned how to write articles for the directories, blog posts and created some special reports.  I was creating quite a bit of writing so needed to organize this in a more detailed way than the folder structure would allow.  Also I wanted to be able to manage that information in one central place.  

I had also learned how to recommend the products I was using as an affiliate.  The problem was that now I had those affiliate links to track and manage, and I wanted to be able to do this in one place.  This was so that when I wanted a link to go with my promotions  I was able to go into that one place and find it quickly – copy and paste to my promotion.

Fortunately, I found a  recommendation of  a program, that  to me that was just what  I needed – Organize Your Online Business – and within that sytem was a tool called the Product Tracker.  This single tool solved all my problems that I outlined previously, and managed it all in one workbook.  Just brilliant!   With this single workbook I have a lot of my information at my finger tips.   Besides being more organized I find that I have been able to increase productivity too.

In this blog you will read numerous posts where I bang on about how you should organize your online business.  Most people think organizing is a chore and a boring one at that!  So I have decided to share some examples of times and circumstances in which my organizing systems have paid off for me.  I am hoping that this will show others who read my posts, how taking the time and effort to get organized at work in  your internet business can really benefit you – and that it is not just a theory but a practical system that really does work for me.

This weekend we had some really cold and icy weather here where I live.  To make matters worse our central heating thermostat was playing up with the result that we had very intermittent heating.  Normally we spend part of our week-end watching our son play in golf tournaments, but sadly (he had a long face) the course was closed, so I had more time to concentrate on  what I call my “weekend niche.”

I find I need a break at the weekends from my main online marketing niche and so instead I set up little niche money sites.  I can generally set up a new one each weekend, by cloning an existing  one and then changing out the content to the new topic.  At the weekends, I also add new content to those mini money sites I have already created.  These sites have adsense on them so that is how I monetized them along with recommending Amazon products that are relevant.

When I do this work,  I first need to be able to quickly find which of my domains are the adsense ones, and what the details are to log into the dashboards to upload new content.  As I have organized the information about my domains into one central place, it is very easy for me to find the adsense ones just by using the power of spreadsheet search functions.   When adding new content to these sites, I also need to find my keyword lists for each niche quickly and easily.  Without an organized computer filing system I would not be able to do this.  I used to get quite frustrated doing this work until I discovered Jeanette Cates’ program and learned how to implement her systems and tools.

To further increase productivity when I am doing these sites, I have set up a process checklist for this activity so when it is time to do it, at the weekends, I just remove the list from my file and get on with it.  This way I don’t waste time thinking about what the next step will be.

The bottom line in all this is that because I invested the time to organize my online business with systems and tools, I can work smarter and not harder, and get more stuff done in less time.  This leaves me with time to enjoy with my family, watching golf if the weather would allow.  Don’t you think it is time to organize your online business?