Tag Archives: Time

How to Manage Your Time More Effectively

Manage Your Time and Change Your Life

We all have the same twenty-four hours each day, so why do some people manage time more effectively than others? Let’s explore this concept more fully to understand how it works and to make a plan of action that will work. Once you are able to manage your time it will change your life forever.

I find that as I get older I have become much more patient when it comes to my time. If I have to wait in line I use that time to check email on my phone, to email someone waiting to hear back from me, or to engage in conversation with another person waiting in line with me. I might even use those minutes to daydream about some aspect of my life I have been pondering.

In the mornings, I begin writing as early as possible, which is typically around six-thirty or seven. I maintain what I have always referred to as a “dynamic” to-do list, which means that on an ongoing basis I am completing, deleting, or delegating tasks that I have decided to work on. There may even be more personal items on this to-do list than one associated with my business because it works best if I keep everything together. As an item on the list is completed I make a check mark next to it, when it is delegated to someone else I draw an arrow, and if I change my mind about a task or it no longer is needed I simply draw a line through it. All of this is kept on a mini legal pad, about five by seven inches. When I finish a page I tear it off and add it to the back of the notepad so that I may look back at any date and see what I was doing.

I also keep a wall calendar with my most important appointments written in red, blue, or green. I won’t explain too much about the need for color coding, but I do like to manage time by planning out activities with family and friends before I add any business appointments. You will find that you can better manage your time when you get your priorities straight first. This also adds joy to my life and that is always an excellent thing.

In the late afternoon and evening my energy level is much lower than it is during the morning hours, so that’s the time I schedule activities and tasks that require less alertness and brain power on my part. Medical appointments, seeing movies and play, shopping, and time relaxing with family and friends all take precedence during these hours.

After maintaining this type of time management schedule for several years I am confident that it is the most effective way for you to manage your time. I’ve said for a long time that I always feel like I have plenty of time to exactly what I want and need to do both personally and professionally, and I would love for you to feel this way as well.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, online marketing strategist, bestselling author, and international speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and inner game mind shifts. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future. Be sure to take a look at my Really Simple Content Marketing training course to help get you started on how to think like a publisher.

Making the Most of Your Biological Prime Time Hours

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Figuring Out Your Biological Prime Time

During the twenty years that I worked as a classroom teacher people would regularly comment to me about my being a “morning” person. To them it was obvious that I was enthusiastic and energetic first thing in the morning, (I don’t usually drink coffee or other caffeinated beverages, so this was all natural) but I did not see it that way. Instead, I believed that I was simply a person who had chosen a career that required me to be alert and on task by seven or even earlier each weekday morning. I dreamed of sleeping in until nine or ten, but even on the weekends I had to be up bright and early to do my real estate work.

Fast forward to 2006, when I left my teaching position and gave away my real estate clients. Now I was an entrepreneur and could choose the hours I worked each day. But guess what? To my surprise I found it almost impossible to sleep past eight in the mornings unless I had been up late the night before or wasn’t feeling well. Since both of those scenarios are rare for me, it’s up with the chickens for me each day for eleven years now.

For a period of about three hours, somewhere between about six thirty or seven and ten or eleven I accomplish more than I used to by working eight to ten hours in my previous life. I believe these morning work hours are my “prime time” and that my brain is ready to conquer the world with my writing, ideas, and creations. I took this phrase from the world of “prime time” television, where the regularly occurring time at which a television or radio audience is expected to be greatest is typically the hours between eight and eleven in the evenings. And it turns out that the study of “biological prime time hours” is a fascinating one with lots of case studies that make sense.

Also, I absolutely love the work I am involved in as an online entrepreneur, and that makes a huge difference as well. Whether I am writing articles, blog posts, and short reports, or creating information products, I’m anxious to get started and enthusiastic about completing each task or project.

Have you thought about your biological “prime time” hours each day? Sam Carpenter coined this phrase in 2009 in his popular and well-received book, Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less. It is my sincere belief that knowing which hours of the day are your best can be crucial to your success. I recommend that you give this some serious thought to figure out what works best for you in terms of writing and creating for your business. If you have a job or career that precludes you from working on your business during these hours, like I did when I was a classroom teacher, then take full advantage of your days off to make up for it.

Also, over the years I have made an effort to get a “second wind” and work for another three or four hours later in the day. Sometimes I am successful with this, but the work I do at this time is never quite as good as what I can accomplish early in the morning. I thought that by napping for sixty or ninety minutes in the early afternoon or evening I might wake up refreshed and ready to work, but if anything this works against me. So I went back to the drawing board and figured out that if I go for a walk or do some other exercise for about thirty minutes I am able to have a second round of prime time. Perhaps it’s the blood rushing to my brain that makes this so. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences on this topic of discovering and maximizing your biological prime time.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, online marketing strategist, bestselling author, and international speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and inner game mind shifts. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future. And be sure to check out my popular training course, the Internet Marketing Six Pack.

Time Management and Productivity for Optimal Success

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Time Management and Productivity

If we all have the same twenty-four hours each day, why then are some people able to accomplish so much more than others? That is the eternal question, and I believe each of us has the ability to answer it on our terms when it comes to time management and productivity.

When I set out to write a book on this topic (Time Management Strategies for Entrepreneurs), I took a hard look at my own life experience around these concepts of time management and productivity. After careful examination it seemed to me that I only became expert in these areas after coming online to start my business in 2006. Up until that time in my life I struggled with finding the time to do what I needed, being as productive as I wanted, and being able to honestly say that I had the time to do some of the things that would bring me joy in my life.

Perhaps the responsibility of becoming an entrepreneur later in life was part of the story in my case. After floundering for my first couple of months online, I created a strict schedule for myself and developed the discipline necessary to stay on task each day. This schedule called for working seven days a week, with two of the days – Wednesday and Sunday – being more like half days. Before I went to sleep each night I had already written out my tasks and goals for the next day on a mini legal pad I kept next to my computer. This was where I wrote out what needed to be done and who should do it as a “dynamic to-do list”. This enabled me to hit the ground running when I began each morning.

Will this strategy work for you? You won’t know until you try. I suggest that you first make a list of everything you need to do over the next several days. Then prioritize your list. Now look to see which items on your list can be better accomplished by someone else, at least this time. Then decide what actually doesn’t need to be done this week at all. The items you are left with are the ones that only you can do and must become your primary focus for the day until they are completed.

Over time you will learn how to keep this dynamic list rolling right along without as much effort. Experience and consistency with this system will turn you into something of an expert on time management and productivity. You will also be able to accomplish tasks more quickly if you are organized in this way. For example, it used to take me an hour and a half to write an article or a blog post. These days I can easily do this every single day in less than half of that amount of time. I’m also more skilled at delegating tasks and activities I simply do not need to be a part of, such as shopping for dog food or going to the post office. Learn to manage your time and work more efficiently and anything is possible in your life and business.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, bestselling author, international speaker, and online marketing strategist. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future.

How to Write an eBook: Now Is The Time!

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How To Write An eBook

The question I am most often asked is on the topic of how to write an eBook. There is not a definitive answer to this, but I will tell you that it is extremely worthwhile to write an eBook as a part of your online business. Reasons for this include:

Becoming a published author on your specific topic
Being seen as an authority in your niche or industry
To have something to give away at no cost to attract new prospects
To sell for profit, on your own site of through Amazon’s Kindle program

When you go back less than a decade the idea of publishing your own book was not something most people thought of as a possibility. But the truth is that eBooks have been around for almost twenty years now. My friend Jim Edwards was instrumental in taking this concept mainstream when he began writing, publishing, and marketing his own eBooks back in 1997. Knowing how to write an eBook is life changing!

You may download a Special Report I put together with some of Jim’s guest posts for me on this topic. Please let me know if you are putting this all to work for you as an online entrepreneur.

And as far as publishing your own eBook, whether it be on your own website or for the Amazon Kindle program, it’s not a particularly complicated process. And when you look back after writing and publishing your first eBook you will see that the writing is actually the easy part.

The most important part of this process is building your platform and marketing your eBook before, during, and after it is written. I have done this successfully with more than a dozen books, and you can take a look at them here.

The truth is that it has never been easier to do this, and knowing how to write an eBook and build up a business around it is an excellent way to change your life and become an online entrepreneur. Even if I did not create any other information products, online training courses, live workshops and events, and my Online Marketing Incubator and Platinum Mastermind programs the income generated from my books would replace what I used to earn before coming online. I attribute this to what I have learned over the years and continue to learn from Jim Edwards 7 Day eBook program.

So before you think about having your book published by a traditional publisher or self-publishing it as an eBook, check out Jim’s completely updated training course. The main pdf is over five hundred pages of detailed, step-by-step training, and the course also includes additional webinar replays and more. This course will change your life and give you options as a published author and online entrepreneur.

Check Out Jim Edwards’ 7 Day Ebook Training Now

Save Time and Increase Productivity with Keyboard Shortcuts

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Keyboard Shortcuts to Save Time

I’m all about productivity and time management in my life and my business. Recently I was searching for some information on this topic and came upon an article on the Reader’s Digest site about making web browsing easier using keyboard shortcuts. Before I share some of their tips, let’s discuss what shortcuts are and how they work.

In computer language, a keyboard shortcut is a series of one or several keys that invoke a software or operating system operation (in other words, cause an event) when triggered by the user. The meaning of term “keyboard shortcut” can vary depending on which type of computer you are using (PC or MAC) and which operating system for that type of computer.

The Reader’s Digest shared a number of keyboard shortcuts that make everything you do much easier. Here’s one I wish I had known about long ago:

Type too small on a given web page? CTRL + Plus zooms you in, while CTRL + Minus zooms you out.

Actually, I needed this one recently and it was the amazing Kelly McCausey who helped me out. The text on my other main site, Huge Profits Tiny List somehow shrunk overnight. Knowing about this Control Plus or Minus saved the day.

You’ll also save time with this one:

Don’t be a slave to the scroll wheel: the next time you reach the bottom of the screen while reading a long article, hit the space bar to jump one screen-length down. Hit the space bar by accident? Just press shift + space to scroll back up to where you were.

I’ll admit that I played with this one on several sites before adding it here. This truly makes a difference when you are writing and researching simultaneously.

And if you are a multi-tab browser like I am, this keyboard shortcut will be a lifesaver:

CTRL + shift + t instantly reopens the last tab you closed (the more you press it, the older the tabs you’ll dredge up). If you usually have more than one tab open while you browse, this trick can be a life-saver. Try it now, and never forget it. If you want to open a new tab altogether, just hit CTRL + t.

No more pulling your hair out to find the sites you wanted to read. If you’re a multi-tab browser like I am this will definitely save your time and make you more productive during your workday on the computer.

By now you can see that many keyboard shortcuts are available for both PCs and MAC. Be sure to read through all of the article I referenced above to see what else will save you time and increase your productivity.

When is the Best Time to Publish Blog Posts?

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When is the Best Time to Publish Blog Posts?

When I was a brand new blogger over a decade ago, my primary concern was with what to write. Then I became concerned about what to recommend. It was only after I had been blogging for about a year that I asked the question “when is the best time to publish blog posts?”

It turns out that everyone seems to have an opinion on this topic, so I chose to listen to the people who had been blogging for the longest period of time and enjoying the best results. One of these people is Darren Rouse from ProBlogger, and his post on when you should publish your blog posts makes some excellent points.

Darren says that years back, when people subscribed to blogs through RSS feeds and used something called feed readers to go through them (raise your hand if you remember this) then it was more important to publish your post at a time when the majority of your readership was online.

He goes on to say:

“Today, I’m not sure that the timing of your blogpost being published has as much impact as the timing of your social media post and your emails. They’re probably the big effectors today, but I guess there are a few things that you might want to consider when it comes to the timing of your blog post.”

So now it’s social media that comes into play. I know that most of my readers and subscribers are on the East coast of the United States and that the majority of them are still working at jobs. So I make every effort to hold back on publishing my posts until six or seven in the morning eastern time, and then immediately promote the post using social media sites and channels.

But what about niche topics that appeal to people on a different schedule? Darren writes:

“I know a sporting blogger who finds that Monday mornings is the worst time to publish. He actually finds that Saturday mornings is a great time because it’s just before all the games that he’s writing about are about to be played. He also publishes on Sunday night, at the end of the football round. He publishes about the games that have just been played.”

And remember that people tend to have more time available on the weekends, so a well placed post on Saturday morning can do very well for you. Also, be sure to write something I refer to as a “flagship” post every month or so. This post would be more lengthy – typically five hundred words or more – and would link back to other posts on your site. This serves to position you as an expert in your field and to make sure each of your posts is indexed by the search engines and connected throughout your blog to other posts you have written. This way none of your content falls through the virtual cracks over time.

And to reiterate, I agree with Darren about the importance of promoting your post over publishing it at a specific time. He writes:

“Let me cycle back to something I said earlier and that is that the timing of your blog post being published is probably less of a factor than the timing of the promotion of that blogpost. This is where you probably do need to do some more analysis to really get things right. What’s more important than the publishing of the blogpost is the timing of your social media and the time of your emails.”

Write meaningful blog posts, share as much as you possibly can, and know that the best time to publish blog posts is completely up to you as you do your research and become more experienced as a content creator and publisher.

Podcast: Connie Ragen Green on Managing Your Time

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Managing Your Time for Online Entrepreneurs

This most recent podcast is a discussion of managing your time as an online entrepreneur. Here are some of the points I explain in great detail:

So, how do you effectively manage your time as an entrepreneur?

Maintain a dynamic to-do list on a mini legal pad next to your work space.
Decide which items are best delegated to others, which you should take action on, and which can be eliminated altogether.
Discover when your “prime time” hours are and schedule your work accordingly.
Always ask yourself: ‘Is what I am doing right now moving me closer to my goals or further away?’
Protect your time, as it is your most valuable resource.

Think about each of these points, listen to the podcast, and then comment below. I would love to hear your thoughts on these ideas and concepts in regards to how managing your time will enable you to be a more efficient and effective entrepreneur.

Are you ready to be surprised? Recently, I have introduced a new feature during these podcast training calls. I will always have the latest course or program, either one of my own or one offered by someone I highly recommend, at my Surprise! link. Check it out today and see what I am recommending this week. If it’s not my own program, product, course, or live event then it’s always from someone I know, trust, and highly recommend as a great value to you as an online entrepreneur.

I also have a bestselling book on this topic. It’s entitled Time Management Strategies for Entrepreneurs: How to Manage Your Time to Increase Your Bottom Line and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it by way of a review on Amazon.

Are you already a part my list community and receiving my daily email updates and training? If not, please give me your first name and primary email address in the form on the right-hand side of this site. If you are brand new to my podcasts, you will be interested to know that this specific training call, as well as all of the calls in my podcast series is intended to teach you and other new online entrepreneurs how to take your business to the next level quickly and effectively, and as a way for me to share my exact methods, techniques, Case Studies, secrets, and advice on creating a profitable and lucrative online business using the ‘multiple income streams’ approach. People on six continents have now discovered that starting an Internet business is the very fastest way to achieve both time and financial freedom, as well as to great success in all areas of your life, and you need help to get there quickly. That’s why I started this online marketing tips podcast for my community.

You will see that each podcast session is first recorded live as a teleseminar, and then repurposed into a podcast to extend my reach to the world. Please join my list (opt in on the right) to be included on these calls, and be sure to introduce yourself and share your site for optimal exposure for years to come! Also, check out my Podcast Show Notes site to see how you can subscribe at no cost to both of my podcasts, and please leave me a review on one or both of them if you are so inclined.

If you would like to get started earning income online right away then I recommend affiliate marketing as the stream of income that will allow you to “earn while you learn” You may now pick up my popular training on winning affiliate contests and other online marketing tips for only seven dollars at Affiliate Contest Secrets. This training regularly sells for $27. Use the discount code CONTEST to bring the price down to $7. This training has been completely updated for 2016 with the latest information, strategies, and Case Studies for you to use in your own business.

Please be sure to leave your comments below so that I may get to know you better and to serve you as you continue your journey as an online entrepreneur. Getting started with an online business will change your life forever and my reward is your massive success!

Subscribe To My Online Marketing Tips Podcast Today!

Time Effective Content Marketing Strategies

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Time Effective Content Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs

Recently I worked with a small group of entrepreneurs at my Retreat in Santa Barbara. They wanted to know how they could create relevant content for their business websites and blogs without feeling like they were stuck in front of the computer endlessly with the writing process. There are several strategies I teach on this very topic, and we will go into more detail with the top three here. They are original content, curated content, and guest writing.

Writing original content is always going to be one of the best content marketing strategies when it comes to building your business and your brand. You know your topic inside and out and have both an interest and a passion for it that no one else will have. Time management is possible when you schedule out both the topics you wish to write about and the days and times you will sit down and commit to writing. I tend to do this during the early morning several days each week. I keep a small legal pad on my desk so that I always know what I will be writing about. Research time is kept to no more than five minutes for any piece of writing, and the writing is limited to anywhere from three hundred fifty to about eight hundred words in total. Over time you will develop your “voice” so that readers get used to your tone and inflection through your writing.

The second method of content marketing is through something that is referred to as “curated” content. This is content based on someone else’s original writing and then expanded upon by you with your thoughts, opinions, and examples. There are some excellent writers on every topic you can think of whom regularly create content that can be curated. In my business I have used writing from people like Seth Godin and Neil Patel to curate my own articles and posts. They teach and inspire me and I like to put my spin on their work to connect my audience to these new concepts. Everyone wins with curation.

Guest writing is the third method of content creation I will address here. This was first brought to my attention when it was taught to me as “guest blogging” more than ten years ago now. The idea is to trade original articles with people in complimentary niches and industries so that you are all exposed to different audiences over time. This was very intimidating to me when I was first online working as an entrepreneur. The others all seemed so experienced and professional in my opinion, and I was just starting out. When I made the decision to jump in and write something I believed to be of interest it was the best decision I could have made.

By now you can see that there are many ways to honor your time and still create enough content to publish on your sites on a regular basis. Spend some time planning out topics you can include as original content, curated content, and guest written content and see how well this serves you in your business. Content truly makes the world go ’round, and these strategies will help you with managing your time as a content marketer.

I am reminded of a quote from Anne Tyler. “If I waited until I felt like writing I’d never write at all.” Once you learn how to get your writing done in a reasonable amount of time this will make even more sense as a business and marketing strategy.

Content marketing is all about positioning yourself as an expert, continuing to create massive visibility, and building credibility for yourself and your business.

Time Management For Entrepreneurs

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Time Management For Entrepreneurs

I had never thought of myself as a time management expert, but when I came online in 2006 it was obvious that I was managing my time in a way that worked well for me as a new online entrepreneur. This led to a book I co-authored with the late Geoff Hoff, entitled Time Management Strategies for Entrepreneurs: Hoe to Manage Your Time to Increase Your Bottom Line. It became a bestseller and continues to rank highly.
It’s amazing how much some people manage to get done, while others seem to be stuck in a rut without enough time in the day to accomplish much of anything. But, here’s the secret. Everyone has the same amount of time in every single day. It’s one way in which we are all created equal. Everyone has the same twenty-four hours in a day. Here are some tips on how to get started with managing your time.

Track Your Activities for a Week

To get a real picture of how you spend your time, try tracking everything you do for at least one week. Use a small recorder to record when you start and stop any task, and include the time. Alternatively, just use an old-fashioned pad and paper. Don’t change anything for now; just live your life as you do.

Evaluate

Now look at how you spent your time. Organize each thing that you did into urgent, important, family, fun, and time suckers. Some things that are fun might fall into the category of time sucking and that’s okay, because you can place limits on some things to still allow yourself to have fun without going overboard into time wasting.

Assign All Important Tasks to a “To-Do” List

Everything that is urgent and important should be scheduled. Some urgent and important things will also be family things. Put it all into the schedule. Give it the amount of time you think it will take, adding a few minutes for padding to avoid run over and missed deadlines.

Schedule Fun and Down Time

Don’t forget to put time for fun into your schedule. Fun often goes with family and friends and it is a very important part of your life. The trick is to schedule the right amount of time and the right amount of fun, without intruding on the important and urgent tasks and activities that you also must do.

Spend Time Each Night and Morning in Planning Mode

Take the time each evening to evaluate how your day went, decide what could have been done better, or what needs longer or shorter times to accomplish. If you do this you will get better at creating a plan. Each morning take the time to look over your schedule to remind yourself what is coming up so you don’t forget anything. Never rely on just memory or you will get off track.

Create a Plan of Action for Each Activity

It doesn’t matter if the plan is for family time, for business, or something else – if you create a plan of attack for each item on your to-do list, you’ll accomplish it faster with fewer problems. One of the biggest time wasters is jumping from item to item. Stick to one thing at a time until it’s done and you’ll feel as if you have a lot more time in your day.

Train Others to Respect Your Time

If you have a business, especially if you work from home, you will often find that other people seem to lack respect for your time. The real issue is that you’ve not taught people to respect your time. As Oprah (or maybe it was Dr. Phil) once said, “You teach people how to treat you.” Are you teaching people to respect your time? If not, it’s time to start doing so.

Delegate, Delegate, Delegate!

Never underestimate the power of delegation for getting more time in your day. A good assistant can almost double your time. So while you can’t actually get more time, remember that everyone has the same 24 hours. You can create a situation where you duplicate yourself by hiring an assistant or outsourcing some mundane tasks such as housework or lawn care. There is no such thing as a successful CEO who doesn’t delegate.

Finally, it’s important to always be realistic about what can really be accomplished in any given amount of time. No matter how much you want to be, you’re not superwoman (or man) – you’re just a human who is doing their best to manage the resources they have. If something doesn’t get done today, move it to tomorrow. As you get better at scheduling, you’ll get it down to a science on how long it really takes you to do any particular task and you’ll have fewer days where you don’t succeed. Developing time management for entrepreneurs is a skill that will serve you well. And pick up my book, Time Management Strategies for Entrepreneurs: Hoe to Manage Your Time to Increase Your Bottom Line to make this a natural part of your daily routine. You’ll thank yourself for doing so, I promise.