Another week goes by and yet I am still dealing with the day to day struggles that we all face as affiliate marketers.
Hours and hours of work each day at the computer with very little to show for it apart from gaining more knowledge as you learn.
And, yes it’s overwhelming.
In life, there’s always a solution to a problem.
Not taking control of the situation and doing nothing will only make your problems worse.
The best way of dealing with business stress is how you manage and build your emotional strength, being in control and having a good social network and adopt a positive attitude will go a long way of helping you.
So, my plan was to go through all the training again over the next couple weeks.
Well, unfortunately I was not able to do very much, just a couple of hours during what was a very busy week outside my business.
The pace and intensity of our lives, both at work and at home, leave several of us feeling like a person riding a frantically galloping horse. Our day-to-day incessant busyness — too much to do and not enough time; something I am very aware of every single day.
Trying to juggle home life, work, trying to run an online business and attended all the coaching calls 5 days a week can and will takes it’s toll on your mindset.
I have the mindset of trying to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible.
This simply will cause you setbacks as well as anxiety.
However, if we approach our days in another way, we can consciously change this out-of-control pattern. It only requires the courage to do less.
This may sound simple, but doing less can actually be very difficult. Too often, we mistakenly believe that doing less makes us lazy and results in a lack of productivity. Rather than, doing less helps us enjoy what we do achieve.
I still have to adapt this mindset as I am always going too fast. My mind sometimes racing before I am out of bed.
Every life has awesome meaning, but the fog of constant activity and plain bad habits can often obscure the meaning of our own.
Acknowledge and change these, and we can again enjoy the ways we contribute to the workplace, enjoy the sweetness of our lives, and share openly and generously with the ones we love.
Less busyness leads to appreciating the sacredness of life.
Doing less leads to more love, more effectiveness and internal calmness, and a greater ability to accomplish more of what matters most to us.
Not everything in life can be a priority.
Many important things will compete for attention over your lifetime, but there are not enough hours in anybody’s lifetime to give attention to everything that could potentially be a priority.
Determining your basic priorities is a key exercise in moving toward more efficient use of your time.
Your basic priorities provide a means for making time choices, helping you decide where it is important to invest yourself and where you are able to let go.
Prioritising
Setting priorities is a matter of deciding what is very important.
In this case, “important” means significant to you.
What activities and roles give your life meaning? These are the components of your life where you would like to succeed the most.
Not everything in your life can be a priority.
Many important things will compete for attention over your lifetime, but there are not enough hours in anybody’s lifetime to give attention to everything that could potentially be a priority.
Determining your basic priorities is a key exercise in moving toward more efficient use of your time.
Your basic priorities provide a means for making time choices, helping you decide where it is important to invest yourself and where you are able to let go.
On a daily basis, you also have to learn to set task priorities. Prioritising tasks includes two steps:
- Recognising what needs to be done
- Deciding on the order in which to do the tasks
How do you determine what work needs to be done?
For the most part, it relates back to your basic priorities.
To be efficient in your time use, you have to weed out the work that does not fit with your basic priorities.
Learn to say “no” to jobs that look interesting and may even provide a secure sense of accomplishment but do not fit with your basic priorities.
You also have to be able to separate out the tasks that require busywork that tends to eat away at your time.
Many tasks that fill your day may not really need doing at all or could be done less frequently.
Task prioritising means working on the most significant tasks first regardless how tempted you are to less significant tasks out of the way.
Certain skills help in using time effectively. Most of these skills are mental. While it is not necessary to develop all of the skills, each contributes to your ability to direct time usage.
Time sense is the skill of estimating how long a task will take to accomplish.
A good sense of time will help you be more realistic in planning your activities.
It helps prevent the frustration of never having quite enough time to accomplish tasks.
To increase your time sense, begin by making a written daily diary of what needs to be done each day of the week and how long these task take you to do.
I allow myself 3 hours in the evening to accomplish my daily tasks, and 6 hours on Sundays as this is my blogging day.
Setting these goals gives direction to your morning, your day, your week and your lifetime. The exercise on deciding your lifetime priorities is a form of goal setting.
Perfectionists have very high, rigid standards, and they have trouble adjusting to the changing demands or circumstances of their life.
Develop the ability to shift standards so you can be satisfied with less than perfect when your time demands are high, instead of feeling as if you are somehow falling short.
At particularly stressful times, the “To Do” list may expand to include a more specific calendar of when tasks will be done.
While a detailed time schedule can be too confining to use all of the time, it is a good way to take the pressure off at exceptionally demanding times.
Tips to Help You Prioritise
Here are some tips to help you prioritise. It is important to use these tips on a regular basis to help remain focused.
Each of these techniques can help you in getting closer to your goal of becoming more effective with your time.
Each of these techniques can help you in getting closer to your goal of becoming more effective with your time:
1. Assume ownership of your time
Take possession of your own time and do not allow other people to make commitments of your time without your permission.
It is not selfish to keep other people from consuming your time.
Give your time freely when you want but do not make the mistake of undervaluing this resource, or feeling guilty when you do not allow other people to waste it.
Think of a time lately when somebody wasted your time. How could you have dealt with the situation better?
2. Prioritise
Do not think of priorities only as tasks that need doing.
As you remind yourself to direct yourself to the most important tasks first, you will find yourself letting go of tasks that really did not need to be done in the first place.
3. Learn to say “no”
It is not that saying the word is so difficult. It’s more the feeling of guilt.
Try centering on the significant things that will be done because you used that two-letter word to decline something which was not a part of your priorities. Considering you’re past week, what are some things you should have said “no” too?
4. Protect your blocks
Think of your day as numerous large blocks of time with the blocks divided by natural interruptions.
Where you have control, keep your blocks whole, scheduling appointments and meetings, running errands at the beginning or end of a block instead of in the middle.
Having an appointment in the middle of a block leaves little time at either end to tackle a major piece of work.
Keeping your blocks of time as big as possible gives you a feeling of having more time that is available.
5. Delegate
There is that “D” word. Delegating means assigning the responsibility for a task to somebody else.
That signifies you no longer have to do the task, nor do you have to remind somebody else to do it.
Being able to delegate some tasks is a way of freeing up some of your time for the jobs that only you are able to do.
As somebody else learns to do a job, do not be tempted to take over if they are not doing it quite right. You have to learn that “done” may be “good enough.”
6. Think in terms of buying time
There’s an intimate relationship between time and money, where one can often be substituted for the other.
The more hectic your schedule, the more reasonable it is to buy time by selecting goods and services that save you from investing time.
7. Learn to work with your biological clock
People have a peak time of day when their energy is at its highest and concentration at its best. Determine which time of day is your peak performance time and plan your work accordingly. Keep meetings and routine tasks for other parts of the day when you have the choice. What part of the day is best for you to do a task that takes real concentration?
8. Break down big jobs into manageable pieces
One of the sources of procrastination is that some tasks can seem too overwhelming to even begin.
Learn to break down a large task into manageable pieces and then begin with a piece you know you can handle.
The most challenging step on major undertakings is often the first one.
Besides, you will have a greater sense of satisfaction as you complete each individual portion of the task and this can keep you motivated to the end.
Think of a major task you have ahead of you. How could you break it down into manageable pieces?
For example, blogging a single post can take me up to 5 hours to write, check, re-write, change, and publish.
So rather then spend 5 hours in one stretch, why not divide this 5 hour block of time into smaller 1 hour blocks which can be done during the week.
9. Work on overcoming procrastination
Once you recognise that you are procrastinating, the next step is to begin overcoming this time-wasting habit.
In addition, procrastination is a habit, a habitual way of dealing with tasks you find distasteful or that make you fearful of failure.
When you see that you are procrastinating, make an appointment with yourself to take the first step toward completing the task.
Determine exactly what that first step will be and then set a specific time in the near future to begin the work.
10. Reward yourself
Celebrate when a major task is completed or a major challenge is met.
One of the problems with a hectic life is that you can be so busy that you fail to notice the completion of a major piece of work.
You just move on to the next job without celebrating your previous success.
This failure leads to focusing on what is still left undone instead of enjoying what has already been accomplished.
Set up a reward system for yourself that serves as both a motivator to get certain difficult tasks done and an acknowledgment that you are making effective use of your time.
Be it a bubble bath, two chapters in your new book, or a phone call to a friend, acknowledge your accomplishment by rewarding yourself.
Setting yourself goals and challenges, such as learning something new, helps build confidence.
By continuing to learn, you will become more emotionally resilient as a person.
This will are you with knowledge and will make you want to do things rather than be passive, such as watching TV all the time.
Try to be positive in life.
Try to be glass half full instead of glass half empty.
Try writing down 3 things that went well today.
Focus on the things that you can control.
Summary
So some very important issues raised regarding your mental health and dealing with the day to day ups and downs of trying to handle the pressure of the digital world we are all part of.
Hope some of you have found this interesting and helpful. Please leave your comments in the usual way if you wish.
I am sharing you these post with you so you can get an understanding of why it’s so hard to do. But, the good news is many, many, people from all walks of life from around all the corners of the world are doing this just now every single day.
My mentor Dean Holland has written and published his own book. It outlines his highly successful and revolutionary approach to building a sustainable and highly profitable internet business as an affiliate marketer in today’s economy.
Armed with this newfound knowledge, you will become an unstoppable force in creating your dream life as an affiliate online.
The great news for you, right now Dean is giving away free copies with some fantastic bonuses.
All we ask is for you to cover a small shipping and handling charge and your free copy will be sent to you.
To Your Success
David Jones
Affiliate Marketer / Traffic Dominator / Internet Profits Certified Partner / ReThink Social Media Academy Student
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