How to Spend Your Time Wisely on the Activities Aligned With Your Goals [Episode 5]

What are you doing with your time?

Do you need more time to accomplish your tasks?

Are you just continuing to tread the hamster wheel of life, trading time for money while the months and years are flying by?

In 5, 10, 20 or 30 years' time, will you look back at your life with pride that you have accomplished almost everything you wished to?

Or...

Will you be consumed by countless regrets because you didn't do enough to live the life you deserved?...

All because you didn't spend your lifetime wisely.

Think about that for a moment...

It's cliched, but for a reason: "Time is money"...

Your time is valuable and expensive.

No one can afford to buy time, even the richest people in the world!

Every second counts...

So, it's important to spend your time wisely on the activities aligned with your goals.

I was completely baffled when I recently received the message below from one of my subscribers:

"Hi Mavis, I enjoy reading your information and I've been learning a lot from you. I wish I could take you up on your offer but I haven't got the time to do anything right now...

I'm drowning in emails, my inbox gets flooded with emails every single day. I spend most of my time sorting them out - unsubscribing and deleting. It all takes up my time..."

Now, here is the problem with this person (let’s call him Tom)...

Tom is allowing his email inbox to take over his life and stop him from fulfilling his dreams. He is wasting his time on something unimportant when he should be spending it on the things that are aligned with his goals.

(More about Tom's problem later... Keep reading!)

We all have two choices:

To control our time...

Or...

To let it control us.

If the second choice describes you, what are you doing to CHANGE that?

And, you are NOT alone...

A LOT of people are TRAPPED...

They cannot design their own life plan due to someone else's agenda. They're just getting by, making sure that the put food on the table and pay the bills.

"Hi Mavis, I get inspired by your mails, and your beautiful children, i am so busy working for others, and looking forward with high expectation when i will start working from the comfort of my home and children.

I'm looking forward to skyrocket my business, through your mentorship. I have missed a lot of Monday Webinars because of where i work. 

Mavis, time is stealing my devotion to do my MLM Business, please help me figure out the way forward, yet the pay cheque is not enough at the end of the month. Desperately waiting to start working for my self full time.

Have a great day."

If you also find yourself trapped, you need to become the master of your time and design your own life.

I'm ever so grateful for the amazing opportunity to be working from the comfort of my own home, around my kids.

I'm now able to spend quality time with my family and to have the freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want, while my business generates income for me.

See, I made the decision to change my life and become the master of my own time and business.

And you know what? You CAN too!

How to Take Control of Your Time

Nearly all of us are faced with daily pressures and commitments and we find ourselves not able to accomplish everything we would like to.

Do you ever feel like you are rushing through life?

Most people need more time in the day! And, it's possible to create the time you need.

How?

Simply put, if you want to make time for what really matters in your life, then you need to know exactly what those things are.

So, it's important have a clear vision of what you want your life to become and set all the goals that you would like to achieve in life.

Next, you'll need to decide which of these goals are most important to you so you can prioritise when it comes to taking steps to achieve them.

Having a list of activities that would contribute to reaching each goal, will help you to do just that.

Read more:

• Goal Setting Plan That Lays a Solid Foundation For Success

When you carry out this exercise, your life will have some direction.

You'll also find yourself spending more time on what matters to you. That means you'll be in a very good position to identify and turn your back on opportunities that are not aligned with your overall goals.

All good, right?

But WAIT!

After identifying the activities with which you want to fill your hours and days, you'll be faced with a challenge...

To put that into practice...

How do you manage your time to fit everything in?

Time management is something that a lot of  marketers struggle with – being overwhelmed because there’s so much information to take in, so much to learn in the beginning.

You want to do it all and have it all right now!

It’s even more challenging if you have a full-time J.O.B.

It’s really hard to figure out how to balance it all – how to work your business around your job, your family and all your other commitments.

You only have a couple of hours a night and weekends to work on your business.

There are a lot of ways to manage your time and what works for other people may not work for others...

However, I want to share with you some tips that are working for me...

21 Sure Fire Ways to Manage Your Time

1. Create a Daily Planner

Ideal to create one at the end of each day for the following day. Number your tasks according to the order in which you'll handle them.

Prioritise in terms of importance and urgency. Highlight items that are worth spending more time on. 

Spend about 15 - 30 minutes on personal development before you start your day.

Plan your attack and attack your plan!

Start off with the difficult tasks and then finish off with the easy ones. Check off each task when it's completed.

Carry over unfinished tasks to the following day (you can't always have time for everything, stuff happens!).

2. Work in Time Blocks

Run with what you're comfortable with (30 or 45 minutes, 1 or 2 hours).

Take breaks in between: get fresh air, take a walk, have a drink, stretch your legs, clear your mind and get ready for the next time block.

3. Create a Calendar

To diarise meetings, calls, events etc. I use a digital calendar instead of a regular one or diary - it's very easy to access and update on the computer.

If you have a calendar in your computer and another in an electronic organiser, try to synchronise them so you don't miss your appointments.

4. Write an Action Plan

When you're doing a project like creating an info product, you want to put an action plan, listing all the steps involved and put them in the proper sequence. This will save you a lot of time.

5. Avoid Procrastination

This is the biggest trap for many marketers. Don't get caught up in this! Do things TODAY!

Most people on this planet miss opportunity after opportunity because they procrastinate. It could be triggered by fear, by insecurities, by laziness or by not being (feeling) prepared enough to run with it.

Quite frankly, this sort of behaviour will sabotage you throughout life, unless you run with what you’ve got then proceed to improve your business on a continuous basis.

"Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow." ~ Robert Kiyosaki

6. Keep a Time Log

To find out where your time is going, keep a time log for a couple of weeks. Is most of your time lost on unimportant activities?

Do most of your interruptions come from the same things or people? You have to eliminate time-wasting that keep creeping in.

Many people are wasting a LOT of time on social media especially Facebook. Do you find yourself liking and/or commenting on each and every post you stumble upon?

There is nothing wrong with liking other people's stuff. In fact, you should be interacting with people if you want to build strong relationships - Attraction Marketing 101.

The key is to control the time spent doing that. You don't want to be checking Facebook every 15 seconds to see who said what, who liked and/or commented on your status updates. I don't stay logged in on Facebook - I go in to do what I need to do and then get out.

6. Acknowledge That You Will Not Have Time For Everything

You need to focus heavily on the activities that yield the most important results. Allocate as much time as possible to those activities that are related to what you feel is truly worthwhile in light of your goals. Some unimportant tasks can wait if necessary.

I mean, there will be challenges along the way. Emergencies may arise. These can throw your schedule out of balance. Delegate or outsource what you cannot do at any given time. That brings me to my next point...

7. Outsource

By outsourcing some of the tasks, you can spend your time on the things that will move your business in the right direction. Smart marketers outsource less important activities.

Most of their time is spent on lead generation, connecting with the new prospects and coaching their teams. These are the activities that build their empires!

And you know what, you don’t need to be an established business owner or a leader to start looking into outsourcing. In fact, this is even more ideal when you are just starting out as you’ll have a lot to do and need more help.

Should you be spending hours on end trying to create a blog from scratch or learning HTML or trying to design headers and banners?

Should you be spending a lot of time trying to design customised profiles for your social media sites instead of doing more productive things?

I think not!

If you don't know how to do these things, outsource and save yourself time and from pulling your hair out!

If you really don’t have the time to write articles and blog posts, outsourcing is the answer.

Blog Post Writing Service

Article Writing Service

Although I did everything myself in the beginning, I learned quite a lot along the way, however the process took me a long time before I could start marketing my business.

My advice: if you can afford it, start outsourcing the other tasks and really focus on the money making activities of your business. This will help you to grow your business much quicker.

Now, I know what you are probably wondering: “Isn’t it expensive to outsource?”

 I don’t recommend spending too much money on outsourcing. The truth is, you can outsource very inexpensively these days.

You can find a ton of good freelancers at sites like odesk.com, elance.com, guru.com and warriorforum.com.

You obviously need to do your due diligence before hiring someone to take on your project(s).

Don't let the technical and small stuff hold you back and take much of your time.

"Do what you do best and OUTSOURCE the rest".

8. Take Advantage of Technology

If you want to have the time to do the things that really matter to you, then you need to build a leveraged residual business.

You can do that through proven online business tools and a marketing system. What I love about using a system is that you use other people's efforts (capture pages, tools and training) to leverage the internet, create more time and money.

PRICELESS!

Bottom line: head over to the beach, go shopping or on holiday, take a couple of days off work and still have your business running, generating leads and sales.

That is called leveraging time and energy while having fun and creating success!

Isn't it what you want?

9. Do NOT Kill Yourself

I want to believe that many people got into online or network marketing because they wanted to have more TIME and FREEDOM, right?

But why are most people OVERWORKING themselves? Working more hours than they do/did at a J.O.B.? Well, I have been there too. There was so much to do and learn...

I just didn't have enough hours to do everything.

And, I know of two online friends who ended up in hospital due overdoing things. They were doing 16 hour days.

Guess what?... They had NO results to show for their CRAZY working hours. Their horrific experience was a HUGE wake up call...

Something that you need to learn from. If you overwork yourself, you will not enjoy what you're doing and you'll burn out, or even worse, get hospitalised!

Don't be like my friends... Schedule less, work less and make more money.

How?

By leveraging systems and tools to run your business even if you're not there. (see #8)

I went from working looooong hours a day, with no time and freedom to do what I love doing to "living" on the leader boards, overtaking industry leaders there and on the search engines, winning an all-inclusive holiday with my company and more, while working only 1-2 hours a day! And I can show you exactly how I do it if you let me :)

I'm a wife and a busy mum of two active kids... If I can do it, so can you!

10. Apply the 80/20 Rule of Thumb

Are approximately 2 out 10 items on your to-do-list the most important? Which activities bring you more income?

You need to focus heavily on the activities that yield the most important results. Allocate as much time as possible to those activities that are related to what you feel is truly worthwhile in light of your goals.

Stop wasting your time on the things that don't make you money. If you focus on those that do, you'll make a lot more money in your business.

Don't just say: "I'm focused on building my business". You need to evaluate your productivity and what you are spending your time doing... It's time to get honest!

Don’t just be busy with little or no results to show for your activities... Be productive!

Read more:

• The 4-Hour Workweek

10. Schedule the Most Challenging or

Difficult work when you're most energetic and alert. I do that in the mornings, I don't know about you.

11. Do the Most Unpleasant Task

As soon as possible. Once it's out of the way, you'll feel more energised and motivated to work through the less-challenging activities.

12. When You Feel Overwhelmed

With work, write each task down, then divide the tasks into two categories: "Action Today" and "Action Tomorrow". Keep scheduling less activities to ease off your overwhelm.

13. Think on Paper

I do this a lot. Write down your ideas and how you plan to implement them. Write down a problem or challenge, describe why it's disturbing you and list as many solutions as you can think of.

The idea is to have a clear action-plan, so you don't waste time messing about, with no sense of direction.

14. Kill Two Birds With One Stone

Listen to a personal development or training audio while jogging or at the gym. Read while in a waiting room or something. Of course, you can use that time to relax and do nothing, but don't fret later when it's lost.

15. Don't Be a Perfectionist

Perfectionism stops a lot of people from moving their businesses forward. A lot of people worry about getting everything absolutely “right”, about knowing everything or learning ALL the skills required before they dive in and get going with their businesses.

If you work on everything to perfection you’re wasting a lot of time while you should be "getting on with it" and making money!

Nobody is perfect. I have a friend who says “it’s OK to be perfectly imperfect,” and you know what? It is! Nobody will condemn you because your blog doesn’t look flash enough if the blog content is valuable to your readers.

Nobody will scream “blue murder” if you launch a product that contains some faults. Sure it is important to assure that everything is in place before you go public, but to delay a launch or an action because of your fear to make a mistake is madness. Just do it!

And that’s my mode of operation!

Every leader you ever read about has become one because of the mistakes and failures they experienced beforehand. The more mistakes you make, the further ahead in life you get – provided you learn from these mistakes and apply the new wisdom into action 

Let go of perfectionism and move on to the next important activity on your list!

16. Be a Professional

Focus on your goals and start working. Don't wait for the right mood. It's your business, treat it like one. Don't work when you feel like it. Have a proper schedule and follow it.

17. Unplug and Recharge Your Batteries

You cannot function at the same pace all the time. You need to take a break and recharge your batteries every now and then.

I used to work from Monday to Monday, spending very little time with my husband and children. I now put my family first and I also unplug from it all on weekends.

When I'm not working, I usually take my kids out, go out with my friend(s) or shopping or just have a lazy day at home.

The best part is that I still generate traffic, comments, leads and sales without me being in front of my computer. Sweet! :)

I took a month off last summer while my blog was in the good hands of my guest bloggers.

Returning to work with a refreshed mind and body always proves more productive for me.

"Take a Break... Have a Kit Kat!"

18. Be Organised

Keep paperwork to a minimum or nil. Proper filing goes a long way and it saves a lot of time. Get yourself box files and get organised. You'll know exactly where to find your documents when you need to them.

Have a dedicated workstation. You don't need to have a proper office, just an area where you can get your work done.

19. Minimise Interruptions

Block off a portion of time each day during which you are not to be interrupted unless it's absolutely necessary. Turn off email alerts, phone and Skype, log out of the social media sites especially Facebook, during this time so they don't interrupt your work.

Don't fall victim of the biggest "Electronic Income Reducer", Television! Let me tell you, successful entrepreneurs don't waste their time watching TV, it's a great time thief and a massive income reducer!

20. TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR EMAIL INBOX!

This is a BIG, MASSIVE (as my 6 year old daughter would say) problem for many marketers! Remember Fred's story that I shared at the beginning of this post? Well, he is not alone!

"Mavis - you are such a pretty little thing and so young.  Right now I am trying to go thru a 26,000 emails that almost crashed my computer. 

I had an accident and couldn't sit long enough to do any thing on them for 3 months. 

I have been just deleting the ones that I haven't given permission to because before the accident all I was doing was answering  emails and I have been working  around the clock with about 2 hours sleep. 

But I am putting a stop to it. I have been on here for 2 years and never made a cent.  Maybe you could help me? 

Let me get over this hump and then I would appreciate hearing from you and lets see what we can work out.  OK.

Your friend"

Yes, 2 hours of sleep, doing nothing but going through emails. No dime made 2 years later! :(

Are you also BOMBARDED with emails?

How much time do you spend going through your emails, reading and replying to them?

You've got to have a way to manage your emails so you save time and focus on the income-producing activities.

It's time to take back control of your life, business and email inbox!

See, your inbox is bringing you a TON of information from all sorts of people...

Your job is to weed out the rubbish so you have more SPACE and TIME for the information and people who can make the biggest difference in your life!

So, it's very IMPORTANT that you create more SPACE for these people. Let them help you out!

Introducing the Empty Email Inbox Formula!

Created by friend and fellow marketer, Gavin Mountford...

This is a proven formula that all successful entrepreneurs use to eliminate email overload in 10 minutes or less per day, guaranteed...

Having an empty email inbox will help you to increase your focus, double your productivity and income in 90 days or less!

You'll be able to enjoy your life more, and spend time doing the things you LOVE to do, rather than working like a dog 24/7, drowning in emails, making no money!

Can you IMAGINE what it would be like if all the emails that actually came into your inbox, were exactly what you wanted to receive and you knew exactly what to do with them when they arrived?

Good thought? Then...

Get Your FREE Copy of The Empty Email Inbox Formula!

Take control of your time, life, business and INBOX!

21. Take Action!

There you have it. I have just handed you over my highly coveted time-management blueprint on a silver platter.

If you take practical steps to spend more time on the things that matter to you, you'll have more control over how you spend your time, run your business and live your life.

Take action, experiment, find out what works and customise these tips to your circumstances and needs.

You're going to need these tips... So bookmark this page, print it out, do whatever you want to do for easy access and reference in the future.

Be sure to share this with your friends and followers. They NEED it!

"For everything there is an appointed time." ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1

"Every day has many opportunities, but only best opportunity."

"Plan Your Attack. Attack Your Plan!"

P.S. We're not done yet, almost there...

What are the magic traits of successful people?

What makes them successful? What do they do to succeed in life and business?

Find out tomorrow...

Review: Episode 1  Episode 2   Episode 3  Episode 4