The year has barely begun but all of the overwhelming feelings have settled in once again. Does that sound familiar?
If you have an Etsy shop, 1000markets, blog, twitter, facebook…promoting seems to be a never-ending task. How do you keep up with reading all of the articles on Etsy, or on your favorite blog? You seem to be going around in circles and feeling like you haven’t accomplished anything.
One of the things that I have found is that I need to plan my day so that Etsy or twitter doesn’t devour me. It takes a lot of self-control, but just think of the long-term benefit, your success. You may be saying, What if I miss a perfect promotional opportunity, while I’m doing something else? The chances of missing the next big opportunity is very much reduced in comparison to the success you can achieve by planning your success.
I spend a certain amount of time scanning through Etsy to see if there is anything that is important to me or that I need to take care of. I use twitter to not only promote, but also like office interaction. Since I work from home it’s like taking a few minutes to chat over the cubicle. It can refresh you mentally. But for each of these I have time planned into my day to handle all of that.
Take time to evaluate your day. There may be some areas that are time wasters.
Take out a pencil and paper and write down what you are trying to achieve or what your goals are. Unless you already have a good idea and have written them down, this could take a little while. Really think about it. Don’t try to complete it in an hour. Rather, spend an hour a day for a week or a month. This is the first stepping-stone to your success. This doesn’t mean that you can’t go back and revise, but if you have created a solid foundation to begin with it makes it that much easier to keep moving forward. I know you are anxious to begin and impatient, but this is a very important step. If you don’t do it now you will waste a lot of time in the long run.
Having your goal set will make it easier to plan your time. Really. Get excited about this. Look at your goal and see where you need to spend major amounts of time. Perhaps you need to write a marketing plan. Actually, a marketing plan is not a perhaps you definitely need one. It doesn’t have to be a traditional, take it to the bank, marketing plan. Take out your calendar, be it paper or on the computer and block out time. Don’t fill in every minute because we all know that unexpected things pop up. Look at the amount of time, on a daily basis, that you have to work on your goal. Even if you only have an hour a day, it is better to plan that time then leave it unplanned and feel like your aren’t getting anywhere. Then officially fill in your calendar. At the end of each day check off what you have completed. Remember with large tasks such as a marketing plan to reduce them into smaller chunks so that you have something to check off. Checking things off gives you such a feeling of accomplishment and that you are moving towards your goal. Each morning, look at your daily plan and, once again, get excited about the next “to do.” Each part of a whole gets you that closer to your goal.
In the next article we'll discuss marketing plans. But I would love to hear from you about what your time waster is and how you deal with it.
12 reviews:
Fantastic post! I'm sure everyone identifies with that. I admit that I made a promise I wouldn't do Twitter at all and it's a huge godsend because the Blog keeps me busy enough and emails and phone calls and work... I also don't do Facebook. I have a MySpace, but I only go there if someone left a message which is rare. I just knew if I tweated I'd be sucked into a nonstop beck-and-call and I don't even own a cell phone because I don't want to be on-call for others 24/7. They can leave a message on the machine. I definitely set up limits that way so I can get down to living instead of talking about it. Good attitude! :-)
great post! i was just thinking of re-evaluating my schedule & perspective on time...this helped nudge me in that direction ;)
(ps. love your writing style!)
Your post is very timely, as I've just started writing down my daily goals. I've always had them in my head, but that's not good enough. They need to be written down, and as you said, there's something very satisfying about being able to cross things off!
I'm a "big picture" kind of girl, so one of the most important things I do at the end of the month is compare my sales to that month in the previous years. Luckily, my husband set this up for me almost 5 years ago. It's the singular thing that affects my marketing strategy.
I do the rest of my goals on a planner. And try to remember that my daily to do list is not the same as goals. Thanks,Rose.
Yes, Twitter can be a time sink, but it can also help you reach people. I think you have to be sincere about it's use, or you just look like one of those MLM hawkers.
I haven't thought about my daily goals before. It cross my mind several times already, but just can't to it for some reason. My blogs keep me too preoccupied most of the time, which I admit should not be the case.
Seek No More
Thanks Rose, valuable guidance. Inspired me to take time today to weed out my subscribe/follow blog roll. In evaluating my time, found there are some time sinks there that I read, but do not inspire me or that clog up the #s of unread leading me to just mark all as read and missing some good stuff. so got that patch cleaned up and will see if it helps.
Congrats Glorious....I need to week thru mine as well. I think it's cleaning up all those little areas that also frees our minds to be more creative.
And, Kirhat...I understand. However, if I don't write down my ideas they seem to get lost and never appear anywhere...visited your blog and will be back.
I've had this post opened in my browser since yesterday because I'm all over the place. One of my biggest struggles is balancing my day. The computer, in particular, is like a black hole. If I don't set limits, it can consume my day. Setting a daily goal is definitely a great idea.
Oh I hear you Alamode...I carry urls down into my doc and have about 15 of them to read. Hubby saw them the other day and asked me what they were....
I struggle with this also. If I didn't have to get on the computer I could get all kinds of things done! Although I have my long term goals and the plan to reach them written down, I haven't broken things down into daily goals. I just sort of 'play it by ear' each day and then am frustrated because I didn't accomplish much.
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