It is essential that you are realistic about how much time you have, both online and offline, about what you can achieve in that time and about how much you can learn at the same time.  It is very easy to get carried away with the ‘next great opportunity’, believe me, I know – I am always interested in a new opportunity!

Make a plan, work out how many spare hours you have in reality, and only take on one online opportunity at a time.  Set the time aside to be online rather than booting up your computer and having it running all day.  It will only encourage you to do a bit more, and it will consume your life before you know it.  Take everything one step at a time and learn each stage thoroughly before moving on to the next.  Prioritise your tasks and work down from the top of the list each time.  And use any software that will make your tasks easier.  For example I use Traffic Sponge to alert me when a blog I watch has a new post.  It saves me flicking through hundreds of sites to see if they have updated their blog.

You will benefit in the long run if you start with a plan and stick to it.  Don’t get carried away with it all because you may well find you become overwhelmed and get stuck in the quicksand!

Enjoy the journey.

Mandy

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This week I reviewed the product of  Ann Martinez who had a piece in her product about time management.  I contstantly get asked by fellow Masterclass students how I manage to complete as much as I do, so I’m going to let you in on the secret.

There isn’t a secret!  It is simply about time management.   I mean, let’s face it, how much do we want to succeed at this?  How much effort are we prepared to put into it to make it work?  All I do is make a daily allocation of time, like having any other job, and stick to it as much as possible.

I used to go to bed at 10pm every night and sit up reading a book or doing a crossword for one and a half to two hours.  Now I spend those hours from 10pm working towards my internet dream.  I don’t often stay up beyond 11.45pm as I seriously recognise the need for  sleep.

Of course there is other time allocated – I always check my emails every morning first thing.  The computer warms up while I put the kettle on, then I flick through the emails with a my first cup of tea.  I delete every one that looks totally boring, I don’t even open them to see what they are!  I organise the emails into files so if I need to find anything I know where it is, and that saves time later (all Masterclass students have their own little file!).

If I have a bit more time in the morning I will visit the forum to see what is going on.  It doesn’t take long, a few seconds really, just to look.  If I need to leave comments or post anything I usually try to do that at this time too.

Of course the great part for me is I work in shops and can read or get on the Internet if I have no customers and no other jobs to do, but basically even if I did there would be key tasks that are much quicker to manage because I have put a system in place to cope with them.

A great idea is to make a list of things you need to do.  Start by prioritising the list and try to set yourself a target to complete every day.  Don’t overstretch yourself.  Say today you will achieve the top 3, or the top 5 items, depending what they are.  When they have gone re-work the list.  The key is to not allow something to stay at the bottom of your list because it has a low priority.  At least once a week those bottom items need to be tackled or they will get left behind.  Give it a try, you might find it works for you.

How much do you want to succeed?  An allocated time regularly will see you through.  Treat it like any other job you have to do.

Enjoy the journey.

Today I decided that has to stop!  One of the things I have been desperately trying to get on top of is posting comments on fellow students blogs.  JT suggested we should try to post to 5 blogs each time.  That’s ok but I was having difficulty remembering which ones I already posted to – then suddenly the list seemed an awful lot longer than it started out as!  I realise these were domains that people had not sent in yet so the list was, in fact, longer!

Now I have oraginsed my list into bookmarked pages that are stored in alphabetical files (it has taken me all afternoon to do this – all 135 of you!).  My intention is to try to take each file in turn and work through it.  It will also make it easier for me to find people I am looking for more quickly.

I have signed up to some sites as I really like the way the blog is coming on and I will continue to post comments on those more frequently.  So now I am more organised about the blogs.  Having read another blog about twitter and making a point of posting there at a set time each day I have decided that I will complete my update tasks inthis way for everything.  Hopefully in time these tasks will become shorter as we get more automated.

There really does seem to be so much to do!

Enjoy the journey!