“Time is money,” as the saying goes and that is especially true for affiliate marketers. Efficient time management is crucial for success and is a skill every affiliate marketing representative must have. Below are the best tips and tricks for making the most productive use of your time.
Watch yourself.
Before you can begin to improve your time management, you need to know exactly how you’re currently spending your time. Make a log of your daily activities, and be honest and specific. You might not realize just how much time you’re spending playing Angry Birds until you see it written down in front of you, which brings us to the next step:
Identify time wasters.
Sure checking your email and social media outlets is important, but is it something you need to be spending several hours a day doing? Review your log of activities and eliminate or streamline anything that’s a time waster.
Reduce distractions.
Keep your work area neat and free of clutter. Turn off the ringer on your phone. Hang a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door if you have to. Do whatever it takes to create an environment that allows you to focus on the task at hand.
Plan and prioritize.
Set aside the first half hour of your day to plan exactly what you need to get done. Prioritize your list and determine how much time you’ll need to accomplish each task. Be sure to build in time for breaks and interruptions. No matter how well you plan your day, there are inevitably items that will arise that simply cannot be ignored. Having time to deal with them built into your schedule will help reduce the impact those items have on your productivity.
Identify your peak performance times.
Are you a night owl or do you rise with the morning sun? Or maybe you hit your stride sometime around midday. Everybody has particular points in the day where energy and focus are at their peak. Plan to do your most difficult tasks during the time of day when you’re at your peak performance level and save the less arduous tasks for when your energy is ebbing.
80/20 Approach
Now that you’ve streamlined your schedule, gotten rid of time wasters and distractions, and know when the best times are for you to tackle your toughest tasks, it’s time to get even more specific about time management techniques.
The 80/20 approach means that you get 80 percent of your results from 20 percent of your efforts. If you can determine which of your efforts fall within that 20 percent, you can increase those particular efforts and in turn, increase the profitability of your results. Anything that falls outside that 20 percent is a waste of time and needs to be eliminated.
One Thing at a Time Approach
The affiliate marketing gurus Ralph “Ruck” Ruckman and Ryan Gray at Internet Marketing Grind recommend the one –thing-at-a-time approach. This simply means do not move on to the next thing you need to do until the first thing is completely finished. This helps keep you on track and focused, instead of veering off in a hundred different directions during the day. With this approach, Ruck and Ryan are able to avoid distractions and move through an incredible amount of work in a single day.
Give yourself a break.
Ruck and Ryan also believe in breaks. It’s been proven that our efficiency begins to decrease after a certain amount of time. Be sure to give yourself a break every few hours to recharge and refuel. Drink some water, have some food, take a walk around the block. Get away from the computer for a few. The time you spend taking care of yourself will be more than made up for with increased energy, focus, and productivity during the rest of your working day.
We all have the same 24 hours in a day, the same 8760 hours in a year. What makes a difference is what we do with that time. With the above tips and techniques, your time management skills will easily increase your productivity and your affiliate programs marketing profits.
This post was written and provided by Christian Willis. Christian has been making a living from affiliate marketing for the last 3 years and is a freelance writer for Clickbooth.com.
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I’m so glad that you mentioned the fact that some people are more productive at different times of day. For instance, I work way better at night than I do in the day. It’s important to remember that not everyone is the same, and to figure out what time of day works best for you. Thanks for posting!
I think the best way to be productive is to set a schedule for yourself, especially as a writer. I write for 30 minutes, then take a 5 minute break to think. That way I always have something to write about as I head into the next 30 minute section. Otherwise, I just write and write until I have nothing left, and that could mean I write a lot, or sometimes I get terrible writer’s block.
You cannot afford to ignore time management if you happen tore an affiliate marketer, as youve so many alternative tasks that have to be accomplished each day.Getting every thing achieved can be tough when you couldhave an extended record of responsibilities.
Hey Christian,
Really detailed article on time management and increasing your work efficiency. I think you’re quite correct by suggesting to focus at one task at a time, as you can give full concentration on your work which enhance your efficiency to complete the work quickly.
Plus Social Media and Video Games are one of the biggest distractions, and you must find a way to tackle them.
I like affiliate marketing it is very intrusting way for earn the money so I like your article and I like your The Best Ways for Affiliate Marketers to Manage Time .
Nice Article
thanks
The time wasters are so amplified on the computer, and online. I mean, really, an essentially endless stream of information and entertainment constantly available? Distractions are aplenty on this business. I can’t even count the number of hours I’ve lost taking what I thought was just a few seconds to check something online, which then turns into days and days of looking up cool info and distracting stuff. It’s clearly an issue, but it’s so hard to overcome! Alas…
Hello there Thanks for sharing this great article we all know that once we own any business the only thing that is needed is productivity for your business to sell, many marketer don’t follow some procedure, aside from that when it comes to online business we should put all our efforts and time to our business.
Being and affiliate marketer really need time cause you really do lot of research and find some leads and offers.
I seem to find my motivation and inspiration later in the evenings, which isn’t always doable for me (husband and daughter time) so I have to do what I can to stay focused during the day. Affiliate marketing is definitely time consuming, or so it’s proven to be for me, so it’s only natural that you make the most of your time.
Time is so important! People waste it too easily online, there are just so many distractions. Time management is the holy grail for most people, they dont always realise it though!
I’m guilty of about half of those things jeez, i’ll usually put aside about 2hrs before I take a short break only to be interrupted 20mins with a song or wanted to browse a website that’s been on my mind.This takes up about 30mins of my take before I get back to working hoping it doesn’t strike again. I keep telling myself next time NO DISTRACTIONS but i’m like a cat with a ball of yarn dangling in front of me.