The Power of “Someday”
photo credit: David Masters
One of the things David Allen advises in “Getting Things Done” is to have a folder (both physical and virtual, in your Email) for “Someday.” This folder is for anything that you would like to do sometime in the future, but without a definite timetable except … someday. It could be anything, from books you’d like to read, to places you’d like to visit, to projects you’d like to undertake. I never really saw the value of this folder until recently.
Even though I had decided to focus my home business efforts based on my back-of-the-church-flyer plan, I found myself still getting distracted by the many – and tempting – offers of various Internet marketers and copywriting gurus. I had exerted a lot of willpower to unsubscribe from many lists I had joined, but still I was getting quite a few a day. On the other hand, I found these useful to me as I wrote marketing copy for my own clients, as they provided me a swipe file for what’s effective in terms of E-mail marketing, squeeze pages, and sales page.
Filed under Productivity | Tags: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity | Comment (0)Article Marketing Made Easy
Image by pallotron via Flickr
Even though I am a writer I used to have an aversion to article marketing. I always felt like I should be writing articles for my site instead of for article directories. I would spend so much time researching and writing articles. And submitting to various directories also took a lot of time. Unfortunately, article marketing is one of the most powerful ways to increase a website’s traffic and authority.
Fortunately, I learned about a few tools and resources that have made article marketing a breeze.
Filed under Productivity, Resources | Tags: article marketing | Comments (8)Online Business Decluttering
Image by Paul Worthington via Flickr
I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching this past few days. Several things happened that made me realign my business goals.
First, I listened to the Mom Masterminds September resource about time management for work at home Moms. I realized that I had been feeling a lot of frustration and even some anger and resentment because I did not have enough time to work on my home businesses. I had so many ideas that I wanted to implement, but couldn’t do them because my time is at the mercy of a 2-year-old’s nap schedule! In the time management audio, I heard Carrie Lauth say that she simply accepted that, since she had small children, her business would not grow as quickly as other work at home Moms’.
Filed under Motivation, Productivity | Tags: Time management | Comment (1)I Hired a Virtual Assistant
The Whys and Hows of Hiring a Virtual Assistant
Photo by Matti Piiroinen
One of the very first things I did after buying a website was to hire a virtual assistant. A virtual assistant is a person you contract to do administrative and other tasks for you. You never have to meet face to face. Virtual assistants perform tasks in their own home offices using their own equipment.
I hired a virtual assistant because, as a new website owner, I was completely overwhelmed with what needed to be done so I could start earning money from the site. At that point, I was getting very little sleep (for various reasons) and was stressed out. Besides, my virtual assistant knew much more about website maintenance and promotion than I did. One thing I learned from office work is to outsource tasks that you are not good at.
Was it a wise decision to hire a virtual assistant before I even started making any money from the site?
Filed under Productivity | Tags: Hiring a Virtual Assistant, virtual assistants | Comments (3)Focus on Home Office Productivity
Home Office Productivity
Increasing Productivity with “Getting Things Done” and “Zen to Done”
With my home businesses taking off, I found myself pulling out my favorite productivity and organization resources: David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” (aka GTD) and Leo Babauta’s “Zen to Done”.
Both are related. Leo’s Ebook takes off from GTD and makes improvements on it.
I credit GTD for enabling me, in my last few weeks at the office, to clear my physical and Email inboxes and finally organize my cubicle. My colleagues couldn’t believe that my desk and shelves were all clear, with plenty of free space in my cabinets. Too bad I was weeks away from leaving my work. It was good, though, for the person who was to take my place. Imagine, all the necessary files were neatly organized alphabetically within arm’s reach!
Filed under Productivity, Resources | Comments (2)
