Probably the most important thing you can do to dramatically increase your productivity is to become a single-tasker. This simply means focusing on only one task at a time and eliminating all possible distractions.

Multi-tasking is impossible for tasks that require your actual attention and instead of focusing on two things at the same time, what actually happens in your brain is that your attention switches from one task to the other, sometimes in rapid succession.

Giving yourself only one single task to focus on, at any given time, greatly increases your productivity, which simply means that you can get more done in less time, by single-tasking.

Another big problem is the availability of so many distractions, online (e.g. e-mail notifications, twitter, facebook, forums etc.). These can take a heavy toll on your ability to focus, which is why eliminating all distractions is an important part of single-tasking.

Clean up your desktop and your physical workspace to help your focus. The more clutter you have in your browser, on your desktop and in your physical surroundings, the more difficult it is to really focus.

The second important factor for all work you do online is that you eliminate notifications. Anything that notifies you of new e-mails, new tweets, new facebook messages etc. is a focus-killer.

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Time Blocking: Create a set amount of time for each major task you want to complete.

The important factors for effective time blocks are: Starting out with a clear intention about the outcome of the task at hand, measuring a fixed amount of time for the task (using a countdown timer) and then doing a very quick review, after the time has run out.

Time blocking can be quite a difficult habit to get into, but it helps with your focus and the “deadline” element in time blocking also helps you work more efficiently, so it’s definitely worth it.

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Here is a A Simple Framework

  1. Long term goals.
  2. Important projects.
  3. Urgent tasks.
  4. Maintenance tasks.

Every day you need to get out there and promote yourself, your blog post, articles or offers, what ever it is that you do. You need to get out ther and promote your business. If you blog like me you definitely includes using Twitter and Facebook to further grow awareness and attention to your posts.

Promotion of your content is crucial because it is the only way you will be seen. Believe me when especially if you are just starting out you need to be developing content almost every day if or better yet 5 times a week. Then you need to do whatever is needed to bring  attention to the content of the day.

If you’ve got tasks due that are deadline-specific and really really REALLY deadline specific, those are third in my day. Why not first? Because I’m going to get them done, but if I work on lead gen and project contributions, then I know that I’ve got air coverage (lead gen) and ground support (project teams working), so I can focus on this very specific sniper-level task.

That’s fairly close to how I manage my family life, though the deadline work (urgent tasks) usually have to get handled on the schedule that imposes itself in the family world. Meaning, if my kids miss the bus, I can’t put that off until the 3rd thing I worry about in a day. But beyond that, even when putting my family first, I look at our long term perspective on things and try to balance them. Time at home is important. Buying a new home that fits the family is even more important in the longer run, so I add it to the balance.

 

P.S. I hope this helps you in developing good habits for improving productivity in your online business. Anyway, let me know your thoughts, comments and questions in the box below.

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