Internet Business Guide

Tag: procrastination

  • Discipline For The Work-At-Home Business Person

    Discipline For The Work-At-Home Business Person

    If you are one of the lucky ones who have been able to quit their day jobs and work out of their home, you might find you are spending too much time spinning your wheels. Does this sound familiar? :-)

    It’s great that you are moving forward and getting out of the grind. It’s really good that you work from home, since you’ll find the doors are open to more income and being more in control of your time.

    But that’s the point here. Are you really in control of your time? Or is it in control of you still?

    Does the broken garage door call out to be fixed? Is the movie on television more interesting that the AutoResponder sequence that you’d promised yourself to set up by last night? Do you prefer to spend a couple hours on Facebook to connect with friends over writing up & publishing a few Web pages? Is watching other people’s YouTube videos more attractive than creating and sharing your own (and have others watch yours)?

    You have to be careful not to heed those destructive calls.

    Now that you don’t have to commute to that nine-to-five work place, and you don’t have to listen to your former top dog anymore, well… you might think that sleeping in is a true luxury now.

    You might think you can take a break whenever you want, get outside and maybe go for a run. But then, when the end of the day comes, do you have everything done that needs to be done?

    Those hours go by really fast. The next thing you know… it’s time for bed! And you have to finish some work obligation by early tomorrow. Can you do it in the morning? Maybe. But maybe not. What have you gotten yourself into?

    Of course, you are no stranger to hard work. You’ve been doing it for years. But you had a shotgun to your head, so to speak, and had to be there at a certain time and get certain things done in certain time frames.

    The point?

    Discipline and Deadlines.

    Yours has to be of the highest quality if you want to maintain your home based business. You can’t let those hours slip away.

    The best thing to do in these circumstances is to make yourself a schedule. What will you get done in the morning? What will you get done in the afternoon? Do you have time in the evening to work on a project if you don’t get it done earlier? You have to figure these things out.

    But it isn’t just making a schedule, it’s KEEPING one. You have to stick with what you laid out to get things done in time.

    And if you allow for some personal time in there (like a reward for finishing everything), you will find yourself really sticking to it. You’ll fly through your work and feel like a success when you achieve what you planned to for the day.

    Watch those distractions. Sure, the plants need watering, the refrigerator needs to be cleaned out, and then all those time consuming researches on the Net… But these minor, unproductive tasks are going to have to wait until you make your targeted actions for the day.

    You have a unique opportunity to get more done, work smart and achieve great things when you are self-employed. Don’t blow it by wasting your time doing non-income related, unproductive actions.

    Work smart. Stick to a schedule. Prosper.

    —Marcus Hochstadt

  • The 72-Hour Rule

    Do you make lists of things to do? If so, do you carry over to the next day(s) the things you didn’t accomplish the day(s) before? Most of us have things on our list that carry over… on and on and on it goes.

    Ever heard of The 72-Hour Rule? I had heard of it a couple years ago from the German Money Coach Bodo Schäfer.

    It implies that the longer you postpone something the less likely it is that you’ll actually do it. In other words, when you postpone something for longer than 72 hours, you usually found enough excuses to not do it. Really, it works that way. Sort of a rule of the universe or something… at least you will probably find that it has held true for you in the past.

    Think about it. You’ve decided to do something… maybe replace that broken gate in the yard. You write it on a piece of paper and stick it with a magnet on the refrigerator where you can see it every day.  And you do see it every day.

    But do you get out there and replace the gate? No. In fact that little piece of paper stays there on the door to the fridge for 4 days. It becomes second nature to see the paper there… so second nature that you don’t even “see” it anymore, if you know what I mean.

    It’s a bit funny, but I’ve found that the longer you wait to do the action, the longer it takes to actually get around to it. You’ll find you will create more and more excuses for not getting it done.

    You might even eventually just take it off the list altogether, figuring the gate actually doesn’t look that bad at all really. ;-)

    A friend of mine tells me that she would take all the things that she had been moving forward on her “to-do” list for days and days to a new list of “Things I May Get to Someday if I Think of It” list. Hey, no pressure!

    A way to handle this trait of procrastination is to realize the motivation to act upon the idea or stimulation decreases after each hour that passes by. You then ask yourself, “I have to do it anyway, so let’s do it NOW and it’s done.”

    I think Internet business matters should be at the top of this list, and you should get in the mindset that you really ARE going to get this thing done (or at least to get started), and no later than within the next 72 hours, no matter what. If you can’t get started right away, put the deadline on your calendar in three days time.

    Remember that you may have to do some preparation to actually start on your activity by that date, but determine you are going to do it—for sure—in this 72-hour time frame. Again, the likelihood that you actually do it decreases after each hour as your brain finds more and more excuses and “good reasons” for postponement.

    Longer projects can be divided up into steps and you can schedule that first step in 72 hours. Then once the first step is done, ensure you get the second step started in 72 hours, and so on.

    You really can break the procrastination habit. It just takes a little planning, fortitude, discipline, and the courage to form the opposite habit. ;-)

    —Marcus Hochstadt

  • “Don’t Worry, I’ll Do That Tomorrow”

    \"Don\'t Worry, I\'ll Do That Tomorrow\"Are you reading this article when you should be doing something else? It is very likely that a deadline is looming, but you work better under pressure, right?

    Excuses, excuses, that’s all you hear from the great procrastinators.  A procrastinator, loves a hurdle, welcomes a problem, and takes on any excuse to deny responsibility for their actions.

    When you question a procrastinator, they always have a valid reason for their actions, or inaction, and it’s never their fault.  There are just many opportunities, so many distractions that can keep a procrastinator from doing the job in hand.  Even when they claim they are overwhelmed with work, they will always stop for e-mails, coffee breaks, phone calls, and there’s always the internet—the greatest distraction of them all.

    How do you spot a procrastinator?  More often than not, they are very good at covering up their tracks. And their constant reasoning behind every action means that they do not even recognize the trait in themselves.

    Procrastinators are habitual.

    Avoiders

    Procrastinators are best known for the doctrine that they can always put off until tomorrow what they didn’t do today.  They will always tell you that they work best under pressure, but that’s not the case, it’s only an excuse for rushing the project and quite often missing their deadline, but still they have valid reasons.  Away from the office, they send Christmas cards and birthday presents far too late, buy tickets at the last minute, let the household chores build up, but surprisingly, they will always manage to book a holiday and never miss their favorite TV show, but both of which are also an escape.

    Saboteurs

    Never put your business or your key projects in the hands of a procrastinator.  You will hear countless excuses why things didn’t materialize as planned.  They can also cause mistrust in the work place for never admitting their mistakes and can sabotage the cooperation of a working team.

    They are also the worst managers of their own life and career, which is littered with missed opportunities, hurdles to their success, and all of their own making.

    Perfectionists

    What may sound like an enterprising business trait is seriously flawed when it belongs to a procrastinator, as they are habitual perfectionists, quite often fuelled by a fear of rejection.  From small tasks to undertaking large projects, the fear that they may do something wrong, or may not be able to complete the work as arranged, holds them back.  In fact, they will try to ignore the fact that the project is looming.

    Optimists

    Ignorance is bliss, to the point of delusion where a procrastinator is concerned.  Problems are swept under the carpet, so they don’t really exist, but if you challenge a procrastinator, they are always the optimist.

    “Don’t worry; I will have your project ready on time.”

    Chronic blamers, excuse makers, all of the above make the procrastinator sound like your worst business nightmare. Or worse, you could be reading about yourself! (Frankly, I was one myself some time ago…)

    The answer is to take responsibility for your actions, visualize and enjoy the success of your business or project and don’t look for excuses to qualify its failures.  Accepting responsibility encompasses a whole new range of skills that the procrastinator has to learn and make habit forming.

    The number one skill a procrastinator needs to practice is Time Management.  Using “To Do” lists and prioritizing work means that the important tasks are handled first.  If projects are finished early, there is time remaining to review them, if they are finished at the last minute you may be handing over substandard work.

    Set Rewards And Goals

    To break the habit, procrastinators often need rewards.  If you cannot bear to start work on that impending project which will take several hours or days, break the project down into smaller stages and reward yourself when you reach the end of a certain stage.  Take a break, have a coffee, just don’t do those things before you start!

    Own your work and have pride in what you have achieved and change your thinking from “Have To” to “Want To.”  On those few occasions when you finish a project ahead of time, look back and think how great this made you feel.  How much more could you enjoy your job if you had that same satisfaction all the time, and pride in the fact that you completed your work to the very best of your ability?

    In taking responsibility for your actions you will also weaken the blame culture that procrastinators are well-known for. Build confidence with your colleagues and customers and achieve those results you probably imagined, but just never got round to doing.

    —Marcus Hochstadt

  • Internet Business — Implementation Comes After Planning

    Internet Business - Implementation Comes After PlanningYes, planning and fine-tuning the “who, what, where, why and how” of your Internet business is vital to its success. But success is unlikely to come knocking on your door anytime soon if you don’t get your feet off the ground and execute that plan of yours.

    There are many people out there who are extremely meticulous planners. You know the kind. They’ll draw up a plan so intricate, that it covers every possible detail imaginable, and probably even contains several best and worst-case scenarios plus an odd back-up plan or two. That’s all swell, until they wake up one day a year later and realize they’re still planning while others who started out with them have an up-and-running Internet business—a few of them even a profitable one.

    So what’s the catch? The catch is a 15-letter word that we are all very familiar with: procrastination. It’s that torturous battle to get things done on time, or done at all. That e-mail you never get down to answering, that e-book you simply “haven’t had time” to write, that potential client you’ve been meaning to contact. It’s that Internet business plan you still haven’t implemented.

    Why do people procrastinate? Is it because they’re lazy or because they lack the will power? Surprisingly, in most cases, it’s neither of those. Procrastination is usually a symptom of being a perfectionist.

    Take our meticulous planner for instance: he gets a brilliant idea, he puts incredible effort into outlining his execution plan, but somehow, the plan just never seems good enough. So he puts his thinking cap back on and continues to plan, hoping to do so until the outcome is perfect. By definition, the perfectionist never achieves perfection.

    The result is, as I call it, a vicious circle of planning-thinking-planning. He rarely actually executes the plan for fear of not doing it right, or for fear of rejection. He’s afraid of feeling helpless, powerless or disappointed if things don’t go smoothly or straight up. He might even be afraid of getting negative feedback from other people.

    To err is human and nobody is perfect. And so, we must learn to forgive ourselves more for our mistakes and learn from them. Get started no matter what—despite those fears. You can always fine-tune at later stages.

    Stand up before everyone else. Jump over a hurdle in lightning speed so a thought of “should I or not” doesn’t have a chance to occur. Kick butt fear of rejection by having confidence front and center in your mind. Confidence beats every fear.

    One beauty of the Internet is that it is an ever-evolving and versatile environment, where many issues can quickly be resolved. It’s learning curve is steep and you will master many obstacles in a short period of time. Every expert started out as a novice at one point in time.

    A good technique to curb procrastination is making a list of your goals and then utilizing The Power Of Deadlines. Also, have a look at Brian Tracy’s short yet powerful video I posted the other Sunday. Giving yourself a pat on the shoulder once in a while would be beneficial too (instead of damaging words and thoughts about yourself.)

    But most of all, be brave, understand your fears, and get over them. If you do that, you’re well on your way to starting your very own successful Internet business. Or…

    How often do you postpone?

    How do you handle perfectionism?

    How about fear?

    What are your plans for overcoming daily hurdles?

    —Marcus Hochstadt

  • How To Overcome Writer’s Block

    How to overcome writer's blockThink you cannot write? Wanna know how to overcome writer’s block? Here’s a test I did just today in order to write this very article here…

    When I was downloading files of a demo video in order to watch it offline at a later time, I took a look at the time that was remaining to have the video fully downloaded on my hard drive. It displayed “35 minutes remaining.” I found myself asking what I could do with those 35 minutes.

    “I could drink a glass of wine.”

    Straight to the kitchen, I grabbed a glass of wine, went back to my desk, and started sipping. Well, that took me only 20 seconds. What the heck am I going to do with the remaining 34 minutes and 40 seconds?

    “I could write an article for my blog.”

    That’s it! Write an article for my blog and show my readers that they can do the same. I could tell my readers there exist people that need 1-2 days to write an article for their site, whereas others need a lot less than an hour (ex., while downloading something ;-).

    I am confident there are people out there that can write a 500 word article in 10 minutes. My mom is one of those high-speed writers. No, that’s even lightning speed, isn’t it!

    OK, back to my writing…

    So I opened up the plain text editor on my machine (NotePad, that is) and started writing.

    The first thing I usually do is decide upon a topic to write about. In most cases, I take a look at a keyword list; either at the one I already have or simply by going to one of the keyword research sites (ex., WordTracker, Google) and perform a quick brainstorm in order to find profitable keyword phrases, topics where people are looking for information and solutions.

    Yes, when you build a Web site, in order to succeed you’re better off providing solutions to problems. Give them what they want and everyone will be happy, win-win all over the place.

    Alright, back to my writing… I opened up my Web browser and went to Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool in order to find a keyword phrase for this very article real quick. I put myself into the visitors shoe… What would *you* be looking for? What would your question be? What would you probably enter into the search box at a Search Engine?

    The topic I’d probably write about is how to overcome a writer’s block. So… When I’d have that sort of obstacle I’d probably enter “Writers block” at the Search Engine. So, that’s what I entered at Google’s Keyword Tool, including checking the “Use synonyms” check box. (Who knows, perhaps Google shows me keywords that are more profitable than the one I’m thinking of?)

    Once I clicked on the “Get Keyword Ideas” button it brought back a list of 12 related keywords plus 30 additional keywords to consider. Wow, I was in business!

    And there it is, my keyword: “writers block” with good demand and supply; even “overcoming writers block” is worth considering.

    Here it was… my today’s topic to write about.

    Since I have knowledge on how to overcome writers block, I was excited. I started writing right away. I wasn’t thinking—I just started writing.

    And this is what I recommend you to do whenever you encounter a writer’s block, whenever you think you don’t know what to write about what. Just start writing! Even if you think it’s just plain stupid, just start writing. The first couple of paragraphs really don’t have to make perfectly sense.

    There are only two things you need to take care of at the beginning…

    #1 – Get started by just writing. The more you write the more you’re going to let the words flow naturally, the more profound knowledge will flow through your fingers. And…

    #2 – Perfectionism paralyzes. There’s a *perfect* example I’m going to share with you here. As you know, English is my second language. So there are quite a few words I don’t know the word in English but in German. When I’m writing and such a word occurs, I put special marks around that word (ex., _word_). Later, I can find or replace that word once I got my draft finished and mentally go into editing mode. So…

    Put those words on (electronic) paper and edit later. (Wow, a rhyme!)

    –

    That’s about it. Let’s take a look at the counter…

    1 minute and 15 seconds remaining at the download timer. OK, that was not writing at lighting speed, but it’s done after all! And I do have an excuse… I sipped that delicious white wine a couple times! ;-)

    My today’s story is finished!

    I wish you all the best and… happy writing! :-)

    —Marcus Hochstadt

    P.S. I did indeed take a couple more minutes (10, perhaps) for editing the article and bringing it in better shape. Again, without perfectionism. Keep your focus on simplicity and basics.

  • How To Kill Your Online Business

    How to kill your business“Nothing happens until something moves.”

    I love this quote by Albert Einstein.

    Were you ever wondering why your online business sucks? Oops, am I too straight? Why else are there so many people complaining they did “everything” but it doesn’t seem to work for “them?” Or why else do they seem to “try so hard” but the money somehow always goes to somebody else? Look…

    The world is full of great people. Many of them consistently show how to reach peak performance in whichever area they are an expert in. The problem though is that most folks nothing but worship to them. All they do is applaud to the accomplishments of these idols. But when you take a close look at these worshiping students they are kind of stuck in a vicious circle of wish-watch-wish-watch. What I mean by that?

    They first wish to reach this or that goal they created for themselves (or someone did it for them, ouch!), but after a certain amount of time (days, hours, or even minutes) they’re back watching that TV show they NEVER missed up to now, or they’re back to that forum, chat room, or messenger talking hours and hours with others about something that doesn’t really bring them any further (in terms of Internet business.)

    Many even state what they’re about to reach “soon” and what great goals they are after now. (Sounds familiar, huh? Now after New Years Day…)

    Instead of shouting out what I plan to do, I’m rather someone who likes to announce something I just created or did; something that is available NOW (rather than “someday”.)

    Bottom line, if you’re one of those wish-watch-wish-watchers you are on the right track of killing your online business (if it’s alive at all.) And more often than not, those people saying what they’re about to do or reach “very soon” seldom get to that point. That’s wishful thinking. Remember…

    “Nothing happens until something moves.”

    —Marcus Hochstadt