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[K34]Key To Your Success

by Cheryl A. Clausen, Che

As a business owner you're directly responsible for all the functions in your business. You may be overwhelmed by all the details. Instead of focusing on what's important you get caught up responding to little emergencies and at the end of the day you may not be sure where the day went. Eventually your time management skills will either make you or break you, so it only makes sense to develop good time management skills before a lack of time causes you real troubles. Firefighting and micro-management are bad habits you don't want to develop. It's easier to respond to all the interruptions than it is to focus on the important things. Break these success killing habits now.

Set aside some time outside of your normal business hours to de-clutter and sort through all the stuff you've allowed to build up. Sort through all the piles of paperwork you have in and under your desk and shoved into drawers and cupboards that needs to be gone through to determine relevance. Quickly sort through this stuff creating piles or boxes for: needs action now, needs action at some point, reference, and throw away.

You don't have poor time management skills because you lack self-discipline. But you do have poor time management skills because you aren't sure what actions you should be taking at any given moment. Sort through the stuff in your needs action now pile and identify all the actions you need to take making one list so you have everything in one place. When you have to search through piles of stuff in several different places to figure out what you're supposed to be doing you forget, and you just don't want to take the time to hunt through everything.

Taking the right actions on the right things enables you to accomplish more than you think possible now. Use your list of actions to prioritize, delegate, or dump each action. The more committed you are to dumping the things you shouldn't be doing the less stress you'll have and the more productive you'll be.

Develop procedures for routine tasks so you can delegate those tasks to someone else and free yourself up to actually run your business. Realize there are a number of opportunities to outsource tasks to virtual assistants, employees, or even volunteers. There are some senior citizen groups that want activities that members can work on together.

There is a lot of stuff left on your list that needs to be prioritized, but you only need to choose the three most important things to do each day. There's no need to prioritize the whole list because you're just committing to taking action one day at a time. As you accomplish tasks and check them off your list you'll find your self-confidence growing and your desired end result becoming a reality. It's a whole lot easier to decide on the individual daily actions when you understand the big picture that you want to accomplish. Choose the actions you'll take each day, based on their alignment with what you're trying to accomplish.

The Newness Wears Off

I remember when I first discovered Internet marketing and first decided I would pursue it. I was extremely excited. I would talk to my wife incessantly about what a great idea it was, how I was going to quit my job soon, how we were going to finally move into that highrise condo she had always dreamed about. I moved my desk out into the other room away from the television. I gathered pens and office supplies together, I was really going to do this!

Well that was great, I was making great strides and learning a ton, for about 2 weeks or so. Then for whatever reason, I still was doing the business, but I just seemed to be browsing the marketing chat sites more than anything, or listening to some business related podcasts instead of actually working on the business when I got home from work. Gradually over the span of the next month, my regular office job started to take over again. I would sit down less and less at night to work on my business. My wife poked fun at me somewhat for not following through, but eventually just dropped it.

What Happened?

What happened was the same old thing that happens to so many people time and time again in their lives. I lost my motivation, and I slipped back into those familiar patterns that I was used to. I realized it was tougher than I thought it was. Within a couple of months I had brand new business idea for creating software instead. I wasn't going anywhere, just repeating the same cycles I had throughout my entire life.

Redemption

For whatever reason, and I still cannot to this day put my finger on it, my attitude started to slowly change. Maybe I had finally reached that certain point of maturity in my life. Maybe I just got sick of others who were far less talented than me, make huge Internet profits and create thriving businesses. If they could do it, why the heck couldn't I do it? Motivation, that's why.

I gradually turned a corner, started sitting down in front of the computer again at night. The first step was the hardest. I sat in front of one of my blogs and stared at it for a good hour at least. Finally I knew I had to sleep eventually, so I just started writing about the headphones sitting in front of me. I eventually modified that into a quite good article about the different types of headsets I wore while I was in the Army. It felt good to follow through and produce something in the end. That one article was my jumping point back into the business, and I haven't look back since!

Think & Grow Rich

You need that motivation! Whatever it takes, if you decide to create an Internet marketing business, then you need to stick with it, no matter what and no matter how long you have to work at it. One resource that you can use to help you is the book Think & Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. This book is one of the all time best when it comes to getting and staying motivated. It's really a groundbreaker, and if you have ever read much of the modern self-improvement material that is out there, you will see that much of the modern stuff actually derives from this amazing book. I want you to read this book. You owe it to yourself. This book is in the public domain, go search for it and read it now if you haven't already, good luck!

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About Author

Both Cheryl A. Clausen & Vincent Theodore are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Cheryl A. Clausen has sinced written about articles on various topics from Investing and Trading, SEO linking and Sales and Negotiation. About the author: Cheryl A. Clausen can help you get unstuck. Effective get her free ecourse. Improve your. Cheryl A. Clausen's top article generates over 49500 views. to your Favourites.

Vincent Theodore has sinced written about articles on various topics from SEO linking, Time Management Skills and Marketing. Have you found this article useful? If so, visit for many more useful marketing strategies.. Vincent Theodore's top article generates over 6600 views. to your Favourites.