The other day I was blogging about 18 tips to become a productive blogger. This is a follow up post pointing out ways we use to waste away a perfect day.
Don’t worry, it happens to all of us and I’m sure you are also guilty of having wasted a whole day doing … nothing of importance!
So what defines waste:
Waste in the context of wasting your day is simply doing nothing of value that helps to move your business ahead. For example I’m a pro-blogger as defined by Darren Rowse in his post “how to market your blog in 2007” under content content content (part 4). I’m also a freelance writer and therefore my main aim is to make sure that I apply for writing and blogging gigs on the various sites that float around the Internet. I also need to focus on writing for my regular clients. This pretty much keeps me busy all the time. Between pro-blogging and freelance writing I haven’t really got a lot of time to waste.
If I don’t take this part very serious my chances of getting regular work diminish. This would be a fatal mistake only for the sake of spending some time looking at other websites or blogs.
But let’s not get into this right now…
If you are an affiliate marketer or a niche marketer, the same principles apply to your business too. That is of course if you see yourself as a business person.
I know I do and without this “knowledge” it will be very hard for anybody to make money on the Internet.
Waste not:
We are given an opportunity here. All of us have the same chances at success, no matter where you are from as long as you have Internet access and a half intelligent mind.
It’s what you make of your gifts that determine whether you become a procrastinator, a nay sayer or simply a time waster ho hum.
You will need to evaluate specifically where you are wasting the most time on a regular basis. This step is essential to help you gain more hours. Suddenly a 24 hour day becomes a 36 hour day and others will frequently start asking you on how the heck you manage to get so much done.
Remember, that habits take 21 days to change!
So, it will take some effort on your behalf to monitor yourself. But it will be time well spent.
Popular time wasters for bloggers:
The following are some places where I tend to get caught up if I indulge into the time wasting bug. If you see something familiar it might help you to stop next time and re-evaluate what needs to be done instead.
- starting my day by reading my RSS feeds. I can guarantee that this will get me nowhere. RSS feeds should be read at the end of the day, kind of like a deserved present for the hard work done.
- logging into my email inbox every half hour for fear of missing an important expected message. Oh boy, lets not go there shall we!
- becoming an addicted stats whore. I admit I am addicted to checking my stats which is not a pretty sight. Hehe…anyway, stats should be analyzed in peace at the end of the day and then used to make the following posts even better.
- social networking sites crawl before your real work is done
- looking at useless and meaningless video sites having a laugh. I agree that we need fun every day. After all, kids laugh some 300 times/day and adults maybe 30. Well, don’t pull me up on those stats please. But it is clear that we shouldn’t spend hours on YouTube while there is work to be done
- TV, gossip mags, games you name it. They are a huge time waster in regards to getting work done first. We get sucked into the vortex of these lures only to be spat out at the end of the day somewhere between midnight and 3 AM having done nothing of value.
- shuffling papers around our office and rearranging the desk without a concept. Sometimes we can get so busy by being busy that in the end we don’t know how busy we really were.
Conclusion:
If you are half way serious about your business, your online success and what you are doing right now with your blog/website, then stop kidding yourself into false beliefs about your real productivity.
Instead, work with your weaknesses and make them your strength!
After all, all it takes is 21 days.
Monika
Technorati Tags: blogging , time wasting , time wasters , wasting time
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS Feed. Thanks for visiting! And please feel free to comment. Top commenter's will go into my weekly Link Love Pot
Haha… so true. We do have to cut down on wasted time.
You are making me feel guilty. I am sitting here drinking my coffee and reading my RSS feeds.
Thomas: Hey, welcome to my “home”, its nice to see you here and I hope you found the blog interesting enough to come back.
Fred: LOL, maybe it is midnight and you have done all the work already.
I have to admit, reading RSS feeds is not one of the things I do, thankfully!
I also manage to stay clear away from newspapers and similar online media mainly because all news is generally depressing, which makes you angry or sad and there’s nothing you can do about it so why bother reading it?
You see, I don’t waste time frivolously - I waste it by going round in circles doing real work haphazardly and therefore inefficiantly!
Now that’s productive unproductiveness!!!!
…which is not a word, but who cares?
Terry
[…] 7 Guaranteed Ways to Waste Your Day from TheWritersManifesto […]
Nice list… I think we can all be guilty on at least a few of those. Chasing rabbits is a big time waster of mine as well. It helps to make a list and stick by it. Scott
Terry: what is wrong with reading RSS feeds?
Love your new word BTW
chipseo: Hey Scott, you should see how I chased Santa Claus. It was worse than rabbits.
Ha! Nothing wrong with reading RSS feeds - it’s just something I don’t do because I prefer just singling out a few blogs to read for the day and stick to that.
The good and bad thing I see with RSS feeds is that if you’re subscribed to a lot of them, then chances are you’re going to read them all - and as you said yourself, three and a half hours spent just reading blog posts is a lot of time out of your day.
Ok, it’s not wasted, because you’re learning all the time and getting to know your circle of bloggers. But it can take over a bit, like keeping one eye on the email for new stuff coming in all the time.
Anyway, that leaves me more time to waste looking at my site stats… hehe!
By the way, have you noticed how out of sync Google analytics is with Webalizer? Like way out - the other day Webalizer reported I got 843 visits but Google said only 23! Now that’s more than a slight deviation!
Congrats on your cool Alexa rank, by the way!
Terry