April 15, 2008
What Do You Do Under the Guise of Working?
Posted by Alice Seba
We Internet Marketers a busy bunch…or are we?
In our daily routine there are probably huge time-wasters that we continue to do, day in and day out, convincing ourselves we’re “working”.
Whether it’s obsessively checking our various stats, posting to forums, getting lost at Facebook and other social “networking”, we all have something that sucks up our time.
So, come on. Out with it…what do you under the guise of working?
It used to be reading blogs. Then I made a deal with myself that I could only read blogs at night when I’m tired, after the work day is over. It’s working well.
I am the one who gets lost in forums - I need to learn not to spend way too much time in forums. I’m trying hard but it’s hard.
WHy Twitter of course!
Twitter is probably my biggest time sucker right now… but you could add reading blogs, email, etc.
So many things!
But mainly sitting looking at Twitter and waiting for someone to update, or watching music videos on YouTube.
And then there’s Spider Solitaire! (actually that used to be my time waster but not so much anymore).
One of my biggest time wasters is also a time saver - until I do it obsessively! It’s getting organized. I need to have files and papers - everything - in order and I actually find myself wasting time doing it.
There is a fine line between being organized in order to be more productive and being organized to the point of distraction. I’ve crossed that line, and now can’t even see that line anymore in my rear view mirror! OK, I have never even revealed this to my husband, though I suspect he already knows.
I’m thinking of starting a 12-step program, but first let me start a file. . .
Hmmmmmm…Carrie says she’s only reading blogs at night. When did you move to Japan?
LOL. Stephanie, I thought paper shufflers worked for the government, not owned their own businesses.
I participate in time wasters, but don’t really fool myself about them anymore. I’m also someone who works well with some distractions. I like the TV on, Twitter on, etc. As long as I’m finishing what I set out to do in a day, it’s all good.
Reading blogs (your’s especially,
and email… I try really hard to be available for customer support — which sometimes keeps me glued to email.
I tend to spend too much time on supporting my organization. I seem to have an ingrained mothering instinct (at least according to my mentor) so spend an hour helping someone with something that should have taken only 15 minutes. Guess I’m more of a people person than I thought… But I recognize that I will get more efficient as I grow (out of necessity!) - just hope I never lose touch with the people that are making my success a reality! I truly think that focusing on helping other people reach their goals is what is important.
I too can get distracted by organizing…I always feel like I have to have everything in order to get started, which can be a good thing, but then I find myself using it as an excuse to put things off, LOL. I love to listen to conservative talk radio while I am working (shhhh…don’t tell anyone!
AND, organizing can be a huge drain on my time. Like others who have posted, sometimes I find that I don’t want to take action until I have all my ducks in a row.
And it is sooooooooo easy to get wrapped up in lists and schedules and files and spreadsheets for those of us who reward ourselves by checking things off a to do list or building a “system” for retrieving information (sometimes the system becomes the end instead of the results).
One of my favorite places to pay homage to my retentive nature is MyChores.com. Once I got it set up, I found I could focus more on my business activities, and release all those little attention points that kept distracting me. Attention points like treat the dog for heartworm, change the oil in the car, don’t forget to scrub the tub, and the ever popular gee if you’ll wipe down the kitchen cabinet doors when MyChores tells you to you won’t be embarassed when your mother in law trots into your kitchen to have a cup of coffee, etc.
And for you Twitterers, when you check off a task in your MyChores list, it can automatically post that activity to Twitter. How cool is that!
Waste of time to be TOO organized, but there are tools out there to help!
Why I never!
I tended to get lost in researching things that shouldn’t have taken more than one or two pages at wikipedia. I ended up reading whole volumes of references finding forever more stuff I wanted to put into my novel but I never got round to actually write the **** thing.
So Now I own 2 computers. The old one with online-connection (it gets only switched on for 30min in my lunch break and for 1 1/2 hrs at night) and another one just for writing … and guess what, the first draft of my next novel is nearly finished.
ohhh tats bad. i wish i cud delete those 2 previous posts. herez what i wanted to say.
1) read blogs - but i learn a lot from blog posts
writing content - oh no, can’t skip it. no writing, no online business
2) email - i stay in touch with my clients, friends n family
3) twitter - i network, follow, learn a lot
browsing around aimlessly - my source fpr brain waves
4) downloading files / saving files in appropriate folders - keeps my comp organized + i save search time
5) backing up my files on external harddrives - relieves me of tensions abt loosing my files
6) forums - good source for learning & networking
7) blog comments - same as above
9) learning new SEO techs n tips - i will do this only till i a site selling glue to glue googlebots on my sites.
10) looking for gr8 downloads, freebies, products, giveaways … - i love 2 c some smiles on visitor’s faces.
Sleep - my biggest time waster. 6 hrs in a mere 24hr day. :(zzzz .
Aren’t there any tweaks for us net-addicts, to stay away from sleepbots.
/ meta name=sleep content=”no-index, no-follow” /
shri
/meta name=Revisit-After content=”I make my first $1M or get 1M visitors per month, whichever is earlier” /
sorry imsweetie, pl delete the previous posts. sorry 4 the trouble.