The Problem Of Internet Marketing Time Management
In The Effective Executive Mr Drucker (one of the world’s most revered management thinkers) says:
“Effective Executives do not start with their tasks. They start with their time.
But I would guess that most Netrepreneurs, certainly until achieving a satisfying income, hardly have any time management process at all…
Doesn’t it go something like this?
- Check email, get tunnel vision on a new software or course ($47 or $1997; who cares it promises you wealth in wheelbarrows!)
- read it, think how cool it is and vow to put it to use,
- open up one of the projects you’re dabbling with, have a fiddle,
- time to check email again,
- get caught up in customer issues, web design issues, autoresponder issues,
- check your stats, you need more traffic,
- write an article, submit to directories,
- you need higher visitor to customer conversion, read some stuff on copywriting, fiddle with your sales copy,
- check your email, phone in to the latest webinar, download some mp3s,
- and so on it goes.
Until what?
Until one day hopefully you make enough money to really turn this into a serious business by having enough time and money to really plan your operations as a real business, hire some people, outsource some tasks, etc.
But wouldn’t a simple time management system specific for us netrepreneurs help us to get to that stage in the first place?
Shouldn’t you be taking your online efforts seriously in terms of project management and time management right from the get-go?
Sure. So how about a helpful way to save you from stress, wasted time, lost opportunity, confusion, to accelerate your progress?
This new report on Time Management for Internet Marketers that you are now reading gives you a powerful process for very efficiently managing your time through 5 core movements that are used daily – that will account for every type of Internet Marketing activity you do.
This is a ground breaking new technique not only for managing your time online, but for organizing and managing your projects, files, learning, etc.
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ORIENTATION
Processing
Question 1: Do you really know exactly what you’re doing and how you’re doing it?
If you can’t describe what you’re doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.
- W E Demming
Power-Approach:
Question 2: Do you have your projects and activities prioritized 100%?
Perhaps the very best question that you can memorize and repeat, over and over, is, “what is the most valuable use of my time right now?”
- Brian Tracy
Insta-Act:
Question 3: Are you fully acting on everything that is planned and prioritized efficiently?
Good ideas and important projects must be acted on right now. Instantly! This turns a person into a doer. – Eric Savage.
The 5 Movements of Internet Marketing Time Management will take you there…
Organization by Movement
First let’s understand the principle behind the 5 Movements.
The Neo-Tech System by Mark Hamilton is a book on universal business principles which taught me how to prioritize and schedule activities for an off-line business.
Most business people schedule their activities to time. This is a HUGE mistake. What we need to do is schedule the TYPES of physical movement to time (not individual activities/tasks).
Mark Hamilton in The Neo-Tech System explained that by identifying and grouping together similar physical movements that we do for a business, we could quantum leap our efficiency.
Applied to Manufacturing
Think of a car production line before robotic automation. The conveyor belt would move the cars shell to each work station as each small team performed just a few tasks.
If they had too many tasks to juggle, time would be lost in picking up and putting down different tools; changing physical location to do each task; mentally re-integrating with each different task every time it came back up, etc.
This is simply inefficient.
Henry Ford created a production line of different work-stations that performed similarly grouped tasks according to location and physical action and tool requirement.
A widgets station, a seats and upholstery station, engine station, exterior fittings (like oil lamps?!), paint work station, etc.
Applied to today’s traditional business
So Mark Hamilton’s book taught me to break down my business into its ‘physical movements’ to gain that production-line efficiency.
After listing all of the specific activities that we might go through over 3 days in our business we can break down those activities into stream lined ‘physical movements’ which may include:
- Phone calls
- Letter writing
- Copy writing
- Accounting
- Meetings / people
- Operations
And from identifying the major categories of Physical Movement Mark Hamilton showed us to group the movements into pockets of time called Mini-Days.
The Mini-Day Concept
Mini-Days: Distinct pockets of time dedicated to a specific type of movement.
The Neo-Tech System taught me to identify the handful of core physical movements that would account for all areas of business, and then to create my weekly schedule according to blocks of time per Movement which are called mini-days.
Sounds great, but I was stumped for how to apply the system to on-line business…
…until one day it occurred to me whilst writing out my thoughts under a hot summers day.
Are you ready to journey down to the essence?
Apply Movement/Mini-Days To Internet Marketing
For far too long I was stumped to work out what the ‘physical movements’ of an Internet (computer based) business were…
…because the vast majority of what it entailed is simply sitting at the computer – and physical actions of hand either over keyboard or on mouse; flicking between.
This was not much variety to split different types of physical action into…
So I decided to break down my types of responsibility as best as I could which included:
- Emailing
- Web development
- Marketing
- Writing
- Meetings (I have very few of those for my on-line business)
- Phone calls (very few of these too)
- Operations
- etc.
I ended up with quite a long list.
This did not work as there was too many of them and it included actual projects which should not be included in identifying the physical movements.
It was not the neat and tidy format of Mark Hamilton’s teachings.
Sitting still, eyes wide staring into the space of my streaming thoughts, I then realized that the shift I must make is to find the ‘mental movements’ instead of physical movements which would incorporate all of the basic responsibilities that I must do to run online business.
I would describe mental movements as – activities that one’s mental focus must move to as the prime mover of a task.
Note: Don’t worry about the jargon since I’m simply showing you where this technique came from so that you are fully informed and then I am giving you the practical conclusions in the rest of the report.
Seeing the movements as ‘mental’ relative to the basic responsibilities allowed me to find the answer to Internet Marketing Time Management Movements.
My thoughts at the time: I need to plan things, organizing etc. I need to type stuff up, I need to check if thing are working and what not, I need to…
…and so my brain went to work and after much time and thought I finally (thankfully!) arrived at the following list of 5 crystal clear mental movements by which YOU can now organize YOUR online time and project management to get things done super efficiently and more effectively than by any other approach.
And here they are:
The 5 ‘Mental Movements’ of Internet Marketing
Planning
Dedicated pockets of time thinking of visionary ideas, new projects and organizing nitty-gritty details of next steps for all Movements towards product development and marketing.
Learning
Dedicated pockets of time learning new software, reading Internet Marketing information / newsletters / sites / forums for product development and marketing.
Creating
Dedicated pockets of time developing ad copy, product copy, articles, email, products, videos, etc.
Analyzing
Dedicated pockets of time looking over your hits, conversions, opt-in statistics, etc. Looking at and into the numbers to find the stories that they have within them to guide your Planning.
Operating
Dedicated pockets of time on various tasks, miscellaneous activities such as occasional meetings or phone calls, checking and replying to email, software installations/ setting adjustments, minor edits, tying up loose ends, etc.
Now you have the 5 categories of movement to organize all of your computer based work and can start to achieve optimum balance over those 5 vital areas for moving forward.
I have found this has stood the test of time.
As you begin to organize your business by those movements I look forward to receiving your emails of Aha’s! as lights flick on for you in every direction because as you work with those ‘movements’ you will see it’s huge value.
Pyramid solidity
One of the strongest geometric structures is a pyramid. This gives a metaphorical idea of the lock-tight combination of the 5 Movements.
I you do not spend dedicated pockets of time on each of the 5 Movements of Internet Marketing Time Management (the 5 corners of Internet Marketing Strategy) then there will not be a balanced approach to building an on-line business (this does not mean that equal amounts of time should be given to each movement but that all must have their part in everything you do online).
What If You Have Physical Movements Away From The Computer?
Note: You can identify your core Physical Movements if there is enough of a particular activity to place outside your 5 Computer Movements that we are covering in this report.
Just as a quick example: Perhaps you do a lot of public speaking, or phone conferences, so you might have a mini-day called Events, or 2 mini-days called Phone Events and Person Events.
Movement 1: PLANNING
Every Time? Every Time!
The first thing to do every time you sit down to work at the computer is to Plan what you’re going to do.
Maybe you think you know. And maybe you really do. But do some kind of Planning Mini-Day every time (whether it’s a long planning session or a rapid-fire session simply to launch you into the most important activities to get down right now).
What Are You To Plan?
Your Planning Movement is to direct the other Movements (creating, operations, analyzing, and learning).
Your Planning Movement is the hub, the control center, and you are the ‘fat controller’ sitting atop everything.
Don’t just think it!
My absolute highest recommendation for planning can be given in just 3 words…
Before I tell you those 3 words, ask yourself how you approach Planning up to this moment?
Do you let things plan themselves whilst you just get on with it? Do you wait for inspiration and then write it out? Do you create a dedicated time to plan?
My 3 words for my highest recommendation for planning is think on paper. Write down, or somehow capture, EVERY inspirational thought that comes to your mind. Don’t just think it, ink it!
Often I still use pen and paper even in the digital world. I think using actual pen and paper rather than anything digital is an important part of clear planning. There is something extra special about using the movements of your hand to write in reality, rather than the restricted typing movements on computer.
I know you might think you’ve got enough to juggle already and don’t want any more inspiration (perspiration?) right now. Yet you’ll also appreciate that capturing ideas is fun and empowering.
Written goals provide clarity. By documenting your dreams, you must think about the process of achieving them. – Gary Ryan Blair
Planning Tools
There are 2 key tools for your Planning Movement which help you to organize and manage your online efforts.
- Folderarchy
- Planning Scratch Pad
Planning Tool 1: Folderarchy
The name Folderarchy is derived from the 2 words Folder Hierarchy. The process is of creating Folders in a logically structured way to organize whatever you want to organize.
If you want to explore this technique in full, and see how to apply it step-by-step to ALL areas of your life, interests, aspirations, and responsibilities then I invite you to look at www.folderarchy.com.
In this report we will begin Folderarchy for your Strategic Internet Marketing.
Following are the steps you would take to begin setting up your SIM6 Folderarchy.
Step 1
Create a folder on your computer named My SIM6 (which stands for the 6 elements of Strategic Internet Marketing.
Step 2
Inside your My SIM6 folder create the following folders:
- PREPARATION
- RESEARCH
- DEVELOPMENT
- TRAFFIC
- CONVERSION
- TRACKING
Step 3
Trawl through all of your Internet Marketing information you already have on your hard drive, and move it to be housed within the relevant folders of your fledgling My SIM6 Folderarchy.
This will take a while of course. You will not know at first where to put everything. Take your time. This is an important exercise to help you get organized.
Step 4
Create more folders within the folder hierarchy by asking yourself questions of what could/should go in each folder, what is logical to have, what is missing, etc.
Spend time in your Planning Movement on each one collecting your thoughts on what each area already includes for you and what you want it to include, and start expanding these notes for planning each folder area.
Step 5: Use Short-Cuts
Some things will be good to access from different locations in your growing SIM6 Folderarchy.
So decide on it’s predominant location and then create short cuts (right click a folder and the option is in the menu) to that folder and then move the short-cut (by cutting and pasting) to wherever you want to access that information from (you’ll understand this when you are involved in the process).
(If you can’t create shortcuts then add it to your Learning list!)
Step 6: Ongoing Growth
To be clear: Yes we are talking about creating quite a lot of Folders and files and short-cuts.
This will evolve over time into a formidable degree of organization and control, but give it time to grow on you.
I also using Mind-Mapping software as an extension of my Folderarchy planning.
Tip: If you find yourself with lots of folders you don’t use that are getting in your way of clarity, then create obsolete folders to store your old stuff so at least you’ve still got it to refer back to but so it’s out of your way for live work.
Planning Tool 2: Scratch Pad
Included in your bonus zip file is a Planning Scratch Pad.
A simple template to print out and use as a scratch pad for your ideas.
Don’t be concerned with it being neat. Don’t be concerned with it being detailed. Don’t be concerned with it being complete.
Just use it as a damn scratch pad for helping you stay on the ball with what to do next, what’s pressing, and to capture ideas.
Print it out! Lots of them! Use them! You’ll thank me for this simple and effective tool once you’ve experienced how helpful it is.
When a scratch pad get’s too messy, start a fresh one.
Cross off activities as you do them.
By using the above 6 Categories and 5 Movements you will efficiently streamline your entire Internet Marketing projects such that you will soon not be able to imagine doing it any other way.
You will experience a much greater sense of control and achievement when you re-organize your current projects into the above 6 Categories and the specific activities into streamlined mental movements.
You will then pull into your grasp huge projects that seemed distant or daunting and you will swiftly plug them into your time spent on-line to pull in new profit centers.
“As your business increased, each letter and number would receive fresh accessions of meaning for you; and by adopting this orderly arrangement you would be able to have a much more comprehensive grasp of your affairs than would otherwise be the case. By the use of this system the magician is able ultimately to unify the whole of his knowledge — to transmute, even on the Intellectual Plane, the Many into the One.”
Your Planning Mini-Day
Every day in your Planning Movement Mini-Day check that all areas of SIM6 are represented in your plans at all times and that you have items from the 6 Categories of strategy represented on your Planning Scratch Pad.
I recommend once per week flicking through your Folderarchy and adding ideas of things to do to your Scratch Pad.
Be efficiently buried in all this so you are spurred on by the tantalizing pressure of active and clearly defined projects to expand your business in all areas.
Of course you will not do all the activities at one time, but you will be able to know with absolute confidence what activities are the key next steps on your priority ladder.
Movement 2: OPERATIONS
The Operations Movement is the catch-all Movement.
The Operations Movement is for Doing, tasks that you know how to do (so not part of your Learning Movement), including updating web design, software use for marketing, etc etc etc.
The Operations Movement is not for thinking per se, (planning), not for learning, writing, or analyzing per se.
Anything that does not for you fit neatly or conveniently into the other Movements will be done as part of your Operations Movement.
The Real World Operations
A few 16 hour days at the computer can leave you (as it often has me) feeling spaced out, alienated, wide eyed, achy, itchy stubble for the guys, meditative (higher brain function comatose?). This is BAAAADDD.
Not only do other areas of your life and happiness suffer, but so do your on-line results. It’s important to keep on good terms with your body, health, and significant others.
Yes often I do see these as Operations dutifully to be cranked out so I can get back into creative mode on my internet projects. This for me is living on my purpose.
I’ve included a little appendix on Physical Health at the end of the report.
Insta-Act
Anything that seems like a hot priority or that will take 2 minutes or less to do I will usually do immediately. I learned that tip from David Allen (Getting Things Done).
Automation
With Internet Marketing you leverage your self through using technologies that do things for you.
At some point in your business growth you will indeed hire others to do work for you, but largely you will enroll technology to act as your Personal Assistant.
Always seeking to make things more efficient, you can create leveraged on-going multiple residual income streams, automating things as you go.
A simple example of automation is using an autoresponder service to manage your newsletter emails etc.
The Operations Movement Bottom Line
Most people have only one movement where everything blurs into one long attempt to get things done.
I know a lot of Netrepreneurs who are so disorganized they just keep ploughing away at a very limited range of activities that do not represent any where near what they need to work on to cover all bases of their business.
The beauty of the 5 Movements of Internet Marketing Time Management through SIM6 Strategies is that through only being mindful of 5 Movements: Plan, Create, Operate, Analyze and Learn, everything can be balanced out efficiently and effectively.
Operations are everything you do for your online efforts that do not neatly come under the other Movements.
Movement 3: LEARNING
Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future. – Brian Tracy
Organize Your Learning
You’ll have a ton of pdf files to learn from. Put it all in your SIM6 Learning folder. And categorize it by whatever makes sense to you.
Locations for Learning
And you don’t just have to learn at your computer. Don’t be chained to your damm computer screen. Learn whilst you go about the real world.
- Computer
- Car
- Home office
- Rest of home
- Public transport
- Somewhere out – anywhere that facilitates your inspiration and concentration; garden, forest, beach, cemetery, mountain, cafe
If you commute or use public transport, then you might have a book or print out of newsletters, articles, etc to read as you travel. If you drive then you may be able to burn mp3 interviews and web casts etc onto CD to listen to in the car or use a portable mp3 player (I use my Pocket PC) with earphones.
Simply being mindful of having a Learning Movement will help you to continue expanding your knowledge to become better in all aspects of your fully integrated on-line business.
Choose a few predominant sources of new information so that you actually do read some newsletters whilst not getting bogged down by too many.
The person that has introduced you to this Internet Marketing Time Management Report is clued up about my teachings on Strategy so pay attention to what they have to say in their emails.
Scratch it
When you see mention of a new technique, software, ebook etc make a note of it in the Learning column of your Scratch Pad.
Then check your learning list when you get to a Learning mini-day to decide what is the most important/appropriate to learn right now.
Perhaps you will need to create a folder for a new area to learn about.
Bottom Line of the Learning Movement
Give yourself permission, space, and time to diligently learn the skills, knowledge, and strategies for Strategic Internet Marketing and create a Learning mini-day in your flexible mini-day type schedule.
Movement 4: CREATION
This is the Movement where you will actually create your product and marketing content.
I think of these factors for my creation movement.
- The words
- The design/layout/formatting
- The graphics/pictures
- The content / value
They each represent a significant category of creating for Internet Marketing.
Things you may include in your Creation Movement include:
- Ads
- Article
- Autoresponders
- Books
- Customer service
- Endorsements
- Ebooks
- Email replies
- Email invite
- Graphics
- Headlines
- Interviews
- Mini-course
- Newsletter
- News release
- Public event presentation
- Page, Title, Descriptions
- Q&A for Teleseminar
- Questionnaires / surveys
- Squeeze page – short webpages designed to entice the person to opt-in
- Sales page
- Testimonial
- Video
- Webinar
- Etc.
Movement 5: ANALYZING
Here’s for all the tracking, assessing, reviewing, etc that you should do but many netrepreneurs seem to find overwhelming or boring to do properly or regularly.
Having an Analyze Movement gives you the chance to at least dabble with it regularly and gradually build up a methodology for analyzing the various aspects of your business.
Obviously one activity for your Analyze Movement will be tracking your web site hits statistics. Another area would be your autoresponder open rate and click through rate. Various other conversion rates.
Build up a little list of things to analyze, and add to it gradually, and do them regularly as part of your Analyze Movement.
The Analyze Movement will become more valuable to you over time.
For successful entrepreneurs their numbers become very telling of where to direct their projects.
It gets complicated: Counting number of unique visitors, click-throughs, conversions, opt-ins, profit margins, refund requests, repeat orders, unitive orders, volume orders, etc.
General Project Analysis
Another important area of Analysis is general project analysis.
This is done after Planning. When a project has already had initial planning and you are active with it. You will want to review your plan and tweak, edit and adjust things.
Maintain Your Movements
Anything that you want to do or try to do and get stuck or find yourself having to fiddle too much or check help files. Stop. Unless the task is urgent, list it on your Planning Scratch Pad under your Learning Movement column, and leave it until you get to your Learning Mini-Day.
Then continue with whatever other items are in the Movement that you are working in.
Whenever you get into a stuckness with your online developments, go back to the Planning Movement and apply the principles of thinking on paper to re-analyze where you’re at with your plan and strategy. I guarantee that you will soon enough come through the stuckness.
Don’t become trapped by frustrating fiddly operations. Keep things in their correct Movement Mini-Days and you’ll find yourself being far more efficient.
For instance, I found that trying to learn new software while actually expecting to make good use of it at the same time was a source of great frustration; they didn’t seem to mix well.
Trying to install server side scripts is easy enough providing you know the exact nuances of each script, and it can take several hours to get there. So you can either pay the software provider to install it for you if they give that option, or make a specific game of it and dedicate a pocket of time for yourself to just simply learn how such things work.
It’s important to recognize that often we will not be able to apply something well until we’ve allowed the necessary time to learn.
This applies to any software such as keyword software. When I get new software often the guidelines are not clear so I ask a few questions and accept the dedicated time to simply learn what all those functions are for, without great expectation or purpose of deriving useful value from the software just yet.
Regular Mini-Days For All Movements
Stay mindful that you need a regular Mini-Day for each of the 5 Movements.
Ask yourself:
- What % of my available time do I currently think should be spent in Learning, Writing, Analyzing, Operating and Planning mini-days?
- What % would be ideal?
- Do I have a list of things that I would like to Learn, Plan, Create, Operate, and Analyze?
- Do I have projects for all 5 areas of Internet Marketing Strategy?
Summary:
- Dig in to building your SIM6 Folderarchy and print copies of the SIM6 Scratch Pad, and use them liberally for everything you do online.
- Be mindful of using the 5 Movements as distinct Mini-Days as you go about building your online projects through the new time management system for us cyberspace addicts, the digerati generation.
[/private_SIM6]Consider that the more organized you are the more effect you’ll have, the more you’ll profit, and the more you’ll become, and the larger-than-life exhilarations you will experience.
I know you will use what I have given you to grow your Internet money-machines. And I love to receive email from people applying these timeless principles. Perhaps soon our paths will cross and we can Joint Venture together.
I hope to see you one day at a seminar somewhere, sipping cocktails and spooning chocolate gateaux.
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