Working Smarter - Not Working Harder

When working for yourself, the biggest determining factor in how much income you will have is the quality of your time management skills. When you hang out your shingle and start working for yourself, each and every hour you spend working is a valuable and non-replaceable resource.

When you have a typical 9-5 job working for other people, you often have others around to help when you need it. Also, you likely even have someone who fills-in and does your job for you when you aren't there for some reason.  In many cases, even if you call in sick for the day, you likely still get paid.  When working for yourself, you cannot call in sick and still have the expectation of earning any money that day. (With the exception of passive income streams, of course!)

The key to successfully working for yourself, in whatever you choose for that to be, is managing your time effectively. Routine tasks, such as reading email messages, need a time-frame each day when they are handled.  Once this time period is over, then you need to block out your inbox in favor of other income producing activities.

I typically read my email while I have my coffee each morning. I answer messages as I am waking up and getting ready for the day. Once that is done, then I try to ignore my inbox until the end of the day. When my creative juices stop flowing, and I am feeling that end of the day burnout, then I often sip on a mocha and read and respond to email messages again. After all, unless you are sending out query letters to editors, why waste your top producing hours of the day on email?

Do you notice that you work well under a deadline?  For example, if I told you that you had 15 minutes to write an article and make a hub, could you do it?  Would it be perfect?  Of course not, but I bet you could do it none the less.  It is a proven fact that most people work better when they have urgency to what they are doing.  So, why not create some urgency for yourself to get you moving along?  After all, when you work for yourself you need to be your boss.  You need to drive the working machine forward each day.  Without any urgency the machine gets stalled and quits.

The easiest way to create urgency in what you are doing is to set yourself a goal, or a specific amount of time to accomplish a task.  Perhaps you need to write an eBook.  Schedule one hour each day to write and then make yourself generate quality copy during that hour.  Do this for a couple weeks and bingo you have your eBook written.  Perhaps you need to pretend that your eBook is going to press and you have to have it done and to the printer by two weeks from today?

When working for yourself, your main goal needs to be to create quality time where you can create quality results.  Without urgency in your time, you will fritter it away and then be left wondering why you can't make any money.  Set some goals for yourself, create urgency in what you do, and you will see results!