One of the main obstacles associated with starting a new business is lack of time. One is so engrossed in the primary job and daily life that, squeezing few hours daily is a daunting task.

Well!

Many have came over the obstacle before us and they stand as great example.

At the moment you might pose as the busiest person with no time for anything new but believe me, people out there have been  a lot busier than you and succeeded in doing what made them independent.

Tom Kavala portrays his own very inspiring  example here and lists very important tips on managing the time.

As an online marketer you always face a lack of time. There is so much to be achieved and done but the hours in a day are numbered.

If you are in a job like me, you would instantly understand what I mean. If you are married and have a family, your time is further limited.

Added to that is the number of chores that you need to do to accomplish your business goals.

Therefore you cannot afford to get distracted.

There are distractions offline and online as well.

Internet is so vast that you get lost every now and then. One click leads t another and then there are so many temptations. Here are the seven distractions and temptations that are commonly faced and should be avoided.

While you struggle with time management or making your business successful, take care of these.

1. Email

How often you check your email. Email is important mode of communication but that should not compel you to check it every now and then.

We often do it without realizing the amount of time spent on it. I am not going to bore you here with stats. But you can on an average save half an hour per day if yo stick to email checking only twice a day.

2. Stats Checking

Checking your website stats to see if your visitors have increased is another activity that takes up time and energy of a marketer. It is an activity that I have done a lot in the beginning and it appears quite thrilling to see number of visitors increased.

Checking your Alexa rank, page rank, predicted page rank, checking your backlinks, calculating your website worth and other similar activities need not be done on daily basis.

Rather they should be planned and analyzed effectively on monthly basis or every two weeks if you are too enthusiastic about the stats.

There is no point wasting your daily time on these.

3. Downloads

The beauty of digital world is absence of tangibility. All you need to do is to click and product is yours, on your disc.

This effortless acquisition of products tempts us to download every other available product.

You may get them free but they do cost on your time. Let us visualize what happen

You download a product, unzip it and then scroll through it only to find that while package was tempting the product actually is not or you take a mental note to read it later.

And t product goes to heap of other products, noted for future opening but never reopened.

So stop downloading unnecessary products. Whenever you come across a product ask yourself – Do I need that. Does it fit my business plans.

If it does not, forget it.

4. Idle Surfing

Have you ever sat in front of TV with an intention to get up after 10 minutes. Just to relax or destress.

You hold the remote and start surfing. You jump the channels and before you realize an hour already passes.

Web is even worse. You can open multiple tabs, there are pictures, text, videos, things to download. You can get lost if you are surfing for fun.

A piece of news may take you to the news site. A picture of semi nude model might interest you at that site and to you also find a link to other pictures of the model. While you look at what your senses perceive as beauty, you get across a nice video of the model.

That brings you to YouTube and you are lost in he videos for the eternity.

5. Lurking In Forums

Forums could be great places to learn, interact, network, post items, get backlinks and build your reputation and your business.

But lurking in the forums just to search for a new thrill or participate in forums at the cost of your own business is a bad idea.

It can result in wasted hours without bringing anything in return.

6. Designing and Redisigning Your Site

You may never get satisfied from look of your site. That in one way is good thing. You think of constantly improving it. But that can also result in increased time being devoted to this aspect and neglecting your main chores.

WordPress and other simple content management systems make it a breeze to update your site themes and designs. That gives you more options and temptation for increased trials.

But there is no perfect theme or design.

Once you have a reasonably good looking site, you should concentrate on building your content rather than worrying about the looks. Once your business grows, you can adopt new things and when the need becomes pressing you might undertake a change.

Decorations do not add a thing to your business.

7. Learning New Skills That You Do Not Need

I am a great fan of learning. But there are so many skills required for conducting an online business that it is impossible to learn them all. There are some basic skills that each of us need to have. These are simple things like typing, using internet and writing. A basic knowledge of HTML is not a necessity but can be helpful.

You tend to get knowledged as you work on your business. But you should not aim to master the skills until you want to excel in that area. Thus leaning HTML can be helpful but if you are not in web designing niche, you are not going to going to be benefited by mastering the art.

Rather it is wastage of time.

Most of the marketers tend to learn almost everything because they do not consider outsourcing as solution. But it is more important to move forward with effective utilization of resources.

What distractions do you face in your daily work and how do you manage them?

As an internet marketer your work alone, especially in early part of your business. When you work alone, you need to do everything yourself. Your work profile varies from reading and answering emails to creating and publishing your new articles reports, launching new products.

The there new things to learn. Naturally most of new entrepreneurs work on adhoc basis. I used to this way I would do things which were absolutely necessary for the day and kept postponing others.

There were things I could not do for weeks because I was never free from urgent and pressing things.

It took me long time to understand why my businesses was not moving a single centimeter.

I was working hard but force of my actions was not directed well.

To grow your business, you need to build a consistent system that work everyday towards building your business. A system is nothing but list of daily chores that you need to do for example a list could be as follow:

• Write an article for blog.
• Publish an article in article directories
• Respond to at least 5 questions in forum
• Comment on other blogs in the same niche.
• Write 500 words for your ebook
• Read 10 pages of a new book
• Analyse your web stats
• Email your list
• Add an article to autoresponder

You can build your own checklist that suits your needs.

Number of choices in your checklist would be determined by amount of time you would be spending.

Next thing is to prioritize the list. I prefer to write an article in the morning because I am fresh and full of enthusiasm.

I keep posting in forums for the night as that I can do while I am half asleep.

When creating a checklist there would be a core group of tasks that you would be doing everyday. Plus there would be tasks that would vary on weekly or monthly basis.

You must plan your checklist in a way that your core tasks are never compromised. You would need some time devoted to adjustments though.

Plan your checklist a day before. When planning a checklist just don’t write the stiff to do. Put a subnote for expected time to be taken and part of the day you would be doing it.

This mental exercise and subnotes would enable you to do things faster.

For example if you are writing about creating an article your can write it like

The checklist, 3 May 2008.

Task 1

• Create an article
• Time devotion – 30 mintues
• Topic – How to create an effective checklist
• Points covered- time management, efficiency and so on.

When you do this you know what to write & at what speed?

You would do the work.

If done effectively, it creates an efficient system.

Some people prefer to create a checklist on computer while other do it in traditional style.

I find it more attractive to write an paper. The sense of accomplishment you get when you strike off the tasks that you do cannot come on any other media.

Look! I just struck another task

If you are in business, information is vital. Though there are search engines and websites full of information, searching for information could be a daunting task itself. Every time you want to look for something, you need to go to search engine and then sieve through multiple results on search engine page.

If you have done the search you can understand how frustrating it can be at times.

One way to save time while conducting research is to get information to come to you. There are various ways in which you can be provided with relevant information on a regular basis without having to return to a Web site.

Here are some of them:

Join mailing lists

By subscribing to relevant mailing lists you will receive a regular flow of useful information via your e-mail box. All you need to do is search the newsletters on relevant topics once, join them and information would be regularly provided in your inbox

Subscribe RSS Feeds

RSS feeds are so convenient to subscribe and use that they are really a modern day boon for marketers. They provide good way to make subscribers and they are excellent way to get information.

Use Personalized News providers

Services such as Infobeat and Ananova enable you to create your own customized newspaper that can then be sent to your e-mail address. Once you specify the information you are interested in, and prioritize that information, the service will provide you with updates as and when relevant stories emerge.

Important Information sites on Internet Marketing

eMarketer

eMarketer site provides detailed reports and internet statstics that carry “aggregated data, key stats, original analysis on online advertising and marketing, users demographics and trends, and the world-wide e-commerce market place”.

Search Engines Watch

Search Engine Watch is full of useful advice on how to get the most out of search engines. It also provides search engine news, reviews and comparative analysis.

European Business News

This site provides comprehensive and up-to-date market news with a European slant.

ClickZ

ClickZ is an online marketing magazine providing regular features on market research methods from marketing consultants and journalists.

Following blogs are quite informative I refer to them quite often

ProBlogger: Blog by Darren Rowse is a giant in the blog promotion and monetization world.

CopyBlogger:A blog oncpywriting by Brian Clark.

Shoemoney: Jeremy Schoemaker shows people how to make money
with their blogs.

StuntDubl: Todd Malicoat blog.

Search Engine Land: Danny Sullivan at his best

SEOBook: Aron Wall on SEO.

Small Business Trends Anita Campbell on small business trends.

Planning, Startup Stories Meet Tim Berry

It is a great thing to plan ahead your day’s work. It allows you to meet your targets and it allows you to become more productive.

If you are working from your computer all day along, you might be tempted to think that you can afford not to plan your day as you are working at leisure.

When we do not plan our work beforehand, we are planning to waste our time in reorganizing our priorities and restructure our schedule mentally to meet the daily challenges.

If you plan your day on prior night, you know what you want to do first and what you want to do the last.

When planning your day, you should plan it to the maximum possible detail and divide the time between subchores.

It would take only few minutes to plan, but it would save many wasted hours.

I like to plan my day with pen and paper after I finish today’s chores.

My Nine to Four are occupied by patient care in the hospital. I work for my websites from 6-12 in the night. After that I take my pen and pad and start scribbling my next day.

I have developed this methodology just 15 days back and it works fantastic.

It would work for you too.

Time is Money-Anonymous

Most of the internet marketers work alone and without any extra help. Quite lot of them work part time and need to strike balance between job demands and business needs. This is more relevant now a internet home becomes more and more competitive. Also there are new technologies that become available for internet marketing as the time advances. One needs to learn them and apply to his business.
Every internet marketer needs to manage his time very well. There is always a lot of scope for improvements. This article suggests few tips for better time management. If you feel like a field horse working the entire day but still lag behind your schedule then you require to organize yourself more.
Time management skills are extremely important if you are on your own but they are also important if you are working for somebody else. Better time management means more productivity and greater accomplishment.
Here are few time management tips that would be of great benefit to you

You Have Only Limited Time Available In A Day:A day consists of 24 hours ?. Thus you have only 24 hours in a day. An average person sleeps for 8 hours and needs another three hours for eating and other daily activities. If you commute add another two hours to this score.

You are left only with 10-11 hours. You can squeeze another 2-3 hours depending upon your sleep requirements and commuting distance.
These are the hours which will be your productive hours. You cannot stretch time, therefore you have to adjust yourself.
Prune Out Time Wasting Activities: We are slaves of our habits. Unknowingly we keepomn doing things that waste our time. If you think you have none , then think again. Email reading, surfing on the net, chatting on web or phone, watching stupid serials on tv. Find out yours and recover your time.

Separate Your Business Hours: You need to be serious when you are working in internet home business. Make a separate roomas your home business office where you should not allow any distraction while you work to build your business. Keep all the distractions out. Tell your family you should not be disturbed.

Organize Yourself, Organize Your Business:You should keep all your referencing material at one place in an organized manner. Arrange your things on computer also. This helps in easy retrieval and save a lot of time.

Create Goals,Priortize Your Work & Develop A System: Make a plan for tomorrow?s work. Priortize your work. Delegate work if possible to other person. Do not make a too rigid time table but an outline of the work should be made.
Similarly evolve a working schedule for the week and adher to it. Slowly you will be creating a system that you can follow.

Avoid Waitings or Queues:Schedule a meeting before hand. Visit the market at non rush hours. Avoid traffic when it is peak time. Avoid waiting in queues. If you have to, then utilize that time. You can read a book or write an article.

Apply Multitasking: Having your lunch! Read that important document along with.
Downloading something? Read your emails side by side. Let your imagination run on this.
Multitasking is an art. When you learn it rewards would be very sweet.

By Shafir Ahmed

• Surfing instead of working
• Lurking in forums just because one is used to
• Getting trapped in information overload
• Watching TV
• Chatting/excessive phone talk
• Not outsourcing when one can

There could be many more. You have to look at your picture. But these are common and know. I just added for a quick reference.