1.  Lack of confidence

2.  Everything from here to the moon demanding my time!

We’ve already talked at some length about what not to do when you are working at home in a previous post. Well I let most of those things cause me to lose focus this last month. Very disturbing when the teacher doesn’t even abide by her own rules. Well I tried, really I did. But anyone that works from home or even tries to start working from home will run into this. It is amazing how many things get in the way of your staying productive.

Now the wonderful thing is once you are actually making a living online. You will no longer even have this problem. I promise. It is getting established as a work at home entrepreneur that causes the problem.

Everyone in your life is so much more in need of your time and attention. And if anything can go wrong in your home it will. For instance, my precious dog, that I love with all my heart, out of the blue, developed separation anxiety. One day while I was at the hospital at my JOB, she ate my kitchen door frame. Both sides as high as she could reach. ATE IT! I am not exaggerating! Well for the next few days I was occupied with plaster and sanding and painting. What a mess. But it crunched into my internet time. See what I mean.  Thank goodness I don’t have human children. I can’t imagine the time consumption in that area.

The second thing was Lack of confidence. This one is more difficult to talk about.

I have been approached by so many different people that are well meaning and of course have the solution to my problems. But you simply can not afford to get caught up in that. Everyone is actually trying to make a living online. Just like you. And many many of them are wonderful people that really  do know what they are doing. But…it may not be the thing that you need to include in your online business. But how do you know?

Here’s the thing, it may actually be that whatever is being offered to you could be the best thing to ever come along since sliced bread. But if it is distracting you from moving forward with your business. It’s garbage, at least for today.

See, despite what they say about being your last opportunity and you’ll never see this offer again. So what? Internet marketing is always going to be there and it is recycled from time to time. What works works. It just gets packaged in a new box with a new ribbon ever so often. If you like research, check it out in the history of internet marketing.

That is what happened to me, I became afraid that I was going to miss out on some spectacular something or other. And remember what I told you about information overload?

It is paralyzing.

I was paralyzed. So I listened and read and watched and worried and basically did nothing. Then I read the most amazing Blog entry by one of my mentors that I sort of forgot about or at least pushed to the back burner, and it was like a two by four to the forehead.

Well, I am back. Here is my advice to you.

Please, please, please, choose one or two mentors, people that you just feel good about. People that have steered you right a couple times. And people that do not constantly ask you to open your wallet. Sure they have things to offer but you know it and you’ll take care of that when you can afford it and in your time.

You must decide on your business model. What method are you going to use to get traffic to your site? What is your site? What is your product? When you choose your mentor you will figure all this out. It will make sense to you. Model what you are going to do after someone who is already doing it successfully. That is all there is to it. Why re-invent the wheel? It rolls pretty good already.

Once you decide these things, don’t let ANYTHING distract you from moving forward. One of my mentors actually has a list of things for me to do, in order, and then boom things start happening. When I finally came back to my senses and followed that plan… Well, surprise, surpise…it worked.

Internet marketing is not hard, but it is necessary to be paid attention. You must work it. You must follow the steps. You must NOT be distracted.

I am seriously going to follow my own advise. I hope you do too.

To our success!!

Susan

Technorati Tags: internet marketing, marketing, work at home, work from home

Then you open your email. Wow, you say, I have 79 new e-mails. Yikes. Of course, you did just join that latest giveaway and they had some great free downloads and all you had to do was give them your email address. That’s pretty simple.

So now you are on their lists. And they want you to buy something… anything!  The next greatest and latest, the best must have thing for your new internet business. Well, what are you to do? What if they are right? What if some of the stuff they are selling really would help you in some endeavor you are aspiring to? What if it might save you some time or effort? What if it really would let you become successful? Afterall, you do have a limited budget for growing your business.

So…you start opening and reading and clicking…

what do you mean 4 hours have passed!! I must get dinner, the kids will be home from school, the dog needs to be let out.

How could this have happened. I had a list!

Sound familiar. Well it certainly does to me. This has happened to me over and over. I love those giveaways and I have been around long enough to have gotten on a few lists that keep me informed of the next one coming. It’s free! You have to check it out.

Or do you?

Here is my take on this. There are just a few things you must do to make money on line.

• You need a product, be it yours, an affiliate’s or google’s (adsense)
• You need a way of contacting people, be it a blog, a website, email campaigns
• you need people to sell it to

These are the essentials, albeit extremely oversimplified.

So you know you have an idea of what you need to to do to accomplish this, remember you had a list, but distractions are killing your efforts. Day after Day, and week after week and soon month after month of your precious time away from diner, the kids and the dog keep slipping away and you are no closer to your dream of working from home.

What can you do?

Well there is something you can do. It took awhile, but I finally learned this and it has made a huge difference in my online life.

You must be aware you are being distracted!

That’s it! That’s the big secret! All the internet gurus know this secret, but they will not necessarily share it with you. They figure you’ll probably figure it out but until then they will continue to be part of the distraction.

So are you going to ignore your email. Tape it shut with duct tape so it can’t get you again. No, of course not. But…

Have a plan…a little better than a list. Here’s what I do.

1. I plan my time to do my online work every week just like a real work schedule.
2. I share this plan with my family. I, of course, made the plan with home life in mind so that no one is neglecte, not even the dog,  and everyone in the family can help me be successful by respecting the plan.
3. When I sit down to my block of time to work online, I have a designated 30-45 min of time to look at email. Now this means peruse. If you have 79 new emails. YOU MUST NOT LOOK AT ALL 79! You are going to have to good at glancing through them, prioritizing them and looking at the ones you feel are really important or interesting. You can always come back to this later and continue to clean it up while you are watching TV with the family with your laptop in use.
4. Here is where you list comes in. Nothing feels as good as being able to check things off your list. Let me repeat that. Nothing feels as good as being able to check things off your list. You feel like you are really internet marketing. You feel like this really is important and you are doing something toward your freedom from the JOB. You are really working from home. IT IS GREAT! Try it!
5. Work your allotted time for the day. Check off a thing or two from your list. Stand up feel proud and go cook dinner and oh, let the dog out.

Feel really good about yourself. You did it! You worked at your internet marketing business. You know you can’t help but be successful if you can behave as a professional and take your work seriously.

Give this a real concerted effort. You may not be perfect at it for awhile. It is really hard to get away from the email and distractions and it takes a minute for the family to fall inline. But it will happen. I promise. It did for me. It will for you.

Next time we’ll talk a bit about that next great thing, that must have something or other. Until then, please be good to yourself and keep working to quit your JOB.

Technorati Tags: A Blog for Baby Boomers, blog, blogging, internet marketing, marketing, quit your job, work from home

Well the point of telling you that is that I have only a certain amount of time that I can devote to my online business and that is one of the factors that can really sink you in the water.

You must be able to prioritize your life. You have to clean your house, do the laundry and do the shopping and if you have kids, well is there any end to it? See what I mean? Throw an actually JOB on top of all that and you can become undone.

The problem of working from home is that everything else becomes more important and demands your attention more than you “work”, and if something is going to be cut it is going to be your online work.

It’s a fact! I am living proof of this phenomenon. It doesn’t matter if you are male or female. The fact is you can only do so much with your 24 hours.

People won’t take your work seriously until you do.

Think about this. If we didn’t have our JOB’s and we were dependent on our online work for our income, how would you react then?  Do you see what I mean?

We MUST treat our online work as a business that can and does make us money. Otherwise we will always figure out a way to do something else and maybe fit this in someway or other. But without having a set pattern and an aggreement with ourselves and also our families,  that we will work this many hours on these days, no matter what!, we will find success extremely difficult.

Now of course, later when we are established and doing well, we can afford the luxury of being more relaxed and lenient with ourselves.  But not in the beginning.

I only just learned this in the last few weeks.  I was having serious information overload and reading so much that I felt like I could only chase my own tail.  I was never getting anything accomplished.

Well no more! I have  exercised some discipline in my efforts. I have organized my inbox so that I can look at things of interest when it is the appropriate time. Not when I need to get some things accomplished today. Do you see what I mean?

So make a contract with your self. Set up a schedule. Decide what you want to do and DO IT!

To our success,

Susan

Technorati Tags: internet marketing, make money online, work at home, work from home