Planning and focus are the keys to being productive. I hope you enjoyed the video about staying focused on the task at hand. I think that so many of us have that problem, it was worth mentioning.
I looked up the name of the software I use that has all the configurable timers. It's called Action Machine Pro. I forgot to mention that it also tracks the timers you set up and their usage so you can create reports and see how much time you are spending on certain tasks.
What steps do you take to make sure you stay focused? I would like to know. Please take a minute and share by leaving a comment so other readers can benefit from your knowledge.
Some time soon, I will talk a little more about the planning process and give you some good resources to help as well. Planning and goal setting was the first module in Alex Jeffreys coaching program and with good reason.
Now, a little off topic. Below is a picture of Camilo Villega, who won the Honda Classic golf tournament last weekend. That is my son's head in the foreground just before he got his autograph.
Camilo Villegas, winner of the "Honda Classic" signing autographs.
It's good to see celebrities that don't mind taking a little time for the fans. It means so much to the kids. My son couldn't stop talking about it all night. We even bought him a frame so he could put the picture in it along with the autograph.
Filed under Productivity by 
Well, the year has come to an end and I am looking forward to 2010. Not only is this a time for planning the upcoming year, but it's also a time of reflection when we look back at our accomplishments as well as our failures. I mention failures because they are just as important as our accomplishments.
Failures are the way we learn. My mentor, Alex Jeffreys, likes to call it failing forward. The important thing here is that you made the effort and took action. Thomas Edison literally had thousands of failures before he found the correct filament to create a working light bulb.
Determination and tenacity prevailed and the rest is history. But I have found that it's not just enough to to take action. You need to take "intelligent action". This has nothing to do with how smart you are, it's about being focused and sticking to a game plan.
Concentrate on the things that are working for you. Shut out the distractions as much as possible. More than likely you are like me and still work a full time job. Your time is very valuable so must make sure that you are productive with the little time you have.
This was something that I learned this year and it has helped me immensely. I easily tripled my productivity compared to what I was doing before. Have a "to do list" of your most critical action items. Turn off your email, Skype, Messenger, or anything else that might tempt you to deviate from the task at hand.
Then "Get Er Done!"
Of course, this is not easily done if you don't have a clear cut plan of attack. That is why goal setting and planning should be your number one priorities. Not only do you want to plan on a daily level, but you want to plan on a weekly, monthly, and a yearly level.
These will be your New Year's resolutions for 2010. Start big and write down your major goals for 2010 in 4 categories. Personal, Entrepreneurial, Business, and Income. You can later go back and write down what you will need to do to accomplish each goal. Once you do that you will have a huge list of action items that you can begin to add into your weekly and daily schedules.
I am not going to go into detail right now because that could be a novel in itself. I am about to get to the main reason for this post and it's already getting long.
Last year I made a comment on Garry Parkes blog. Garry is a fellow Alex Jeffreys student that has actually gone on to become an employee of Alex's. He was one of the first people in our class to really start taking action and his blog kind of became a gathering place for all the students.
The comment I made was on December 31st, 2008. Garry's post was about setting goals and attaching some kind of accountability to those goals. One of the ways to do this is to publicly announce that you are going to do something. You will then feel compelled to do what you say or you might lose credibility.
So I listed my goals for 2009 for all to see and now it's time to pay the piper and see how well I accomplished my goals. Here is a snippet copied from the comment on Garry's blog. (the annotations in red are the results)
Personal
1. Vacation this year to vist wife’s family in Venezuela. was a great success, I spent 2 weeks there and the wife and kids were there for 6 weeks. I also took a trip to Las Vegas to Alex's work shop and will be returning in 2 weeks to the second one. This time my wife is coming along and we are going to have a couple days set aside just for us.
2. Lose 80lbs. target weight is 250, currently tipping the scales at 330. I have absolutely failed miserably here. I still weigh 330. My wife and I have joined the local gym and I have a good start on this years goal which will remain the same.
Entrepreneurial
1. Create systems for all my tasks and start outsourcing. I don't quite have all the systems created that I want but I have employed the services of a few people and currently have them working on some projects.
2. Find at least 10 serious JV partners. I hosted my own JV Giveaway and created a list of JV partners plus continue to seek out new adswap partners.
Business
1. Build a mailing list of 7300 subscribers. (that’s 20 per day) My list now stands at 6300. I am about 1000 short but that is OK. The last 3 months I have been reserving my weekend adswaps for people just starting out with small lists. If I had not done this, I could have easily surpassed my goal. I just ran the stats for December and I am averaging over 45 new subscribers per day. This number only continues to get bigger so I am very happy with these results.
2. Continue to write for the Profit Pulling Project, re-brand, and distribute. I ended up only writing a couple of articles for Garry's news letter. As much as I would like to, time constraints make it unrealistic for me at this time.
3. Write my ebook series “The Web 2 Whammy” which I will use to build my list and then monetize with a follow up video series. I ended up writing an ebook on JV Giveaways instead. I am giving it away for free to build my list and am monetizing with a OTO and by using integration marketing on my download and thank you pages. I have some big plans for 2010 but will discuss that later.
4. Spend at least 1 hour a day oil rig hopping. 1/2 hour for students and 1/2 hour with Comment Kahuna. Once again I have failed miserably in this respect. I have also been slack when it comes to posting on this blog and my traffic stats reflect this. Time is a big factor but I am not making excuses. This is one thing that I should make time to do.
Income
1. To generate a minimum of $50,000 with my online business this year. I haven't tallied up the exact figures yet but I would say it's between $15,000 and $20,000. Not bad considering I was figuring in a product launch that didn't happen and I only work at this part time. The majority of my income was from affiliate promos and a direct result of my list building efforts. If you build a list, you will make money.
So you see that you will not always reach your goals. That's OK. I do think that you need to make your goals realistic but yet at the same time you have to challenge yourself. Don't be afraid to set your goals high. Make your self accountable!
I would like to help you do that right now. I am challenging you to go out on a limb and post your goals for 2010 right here on my blog. Put them out there for God and everybody to see. If that doesn't motivate you to take action then I don't know what will.
Here are mine for 2010:
Personal
1. Lose 80lbs. target weight is 250, currently tipping the scales at 330.
2. Take family on week long vacation to Disney World
3. Go golfing at least twice a month. (driving range once a week minimum)
Entrepreneurial
1. Put together a team to handle all technical functions of my online business.
2. Become part of a master mind group. (or create one)
3. Begin investing in other income vehicles (stocks, real estate, etc..)
4. Continue to expand my JV base by attending live events.
Business
1. Continue giving list building #1 priority. New target is 30K by end of 2010.
2. Use PLR products to set up an affiliate program designed to build my list.
3. Post on the blog at least once a week. Start incorporating more videos.
4. Start a corporation for tax purposes and to insulate my personal assets.
5. Launch a product.
Income
1. To generate a minimum of $100,000 with my online business this year. This is what I need to do to be able to walk away from my current job and become a full time internet marketer.
Ok there you have it. Now it's your turn! Leave a comment and list your goals for 2010. Let the world be your "accountability buddy".
Filed under Ramblings by
I dedicated the better part of yesterday visiting the blogs of everyone in Alex Jeffreys coaching program. Of course I didn't make it to everyone's blog and the sad truth is that only about one half of the 500 students have even put up a blog. My guess is that if they haven't put forth the effort to get their blog online that they aren't going to do it.
There seemed to be 2 main themes that prevailed in all of the New Years posts that I read. New Years is typically a time for reflection but mostly for looking ahead at the upcoming year and making plans and resolutions. In other words, "Setting Goals". This was the most prevalent theme that I ran across. The second was "Encouragement and Motivation".
Alex has been pushing the importance of goal setting and planning ever since module 1. My productivity has increased 2 fold since I started using the Daily Did Sheets and always make tomorrows To do List before I go to bed. Fellow student Garry Parkes had a great idea and posted his goals for 2009 on his blog. Making his goals public is his way to motivate himself to be accountable and stay on track to make sure he achieves those goals.
I think that is a fantastic idea and I posted mine (not a complete list but the majors) in his comments. "Mr. Motivation", Gary Simpson, also went out on a limb and posted his goals for 2009. I would recommend this to everyone. This is not the time to be shy, this is the time to SHINE. Make yourself accountable because no one else is.
From what I have seen so far, you will have the support of your fellow students. All you have to do is ask. The list of students that are actively helping others is too big to list here. If you are making the rounds to the other blogs you can see evidence of this everywhere.
Nobody said this was going to be easy and its going to get harder before it gets easier. The next few modules are going to act like a big filter. We have already lost about half of the students. I am not saying that they have quit, but they are not taking action which dooms them to failure. I can only hope that they will get off their duffs and do something, but I am a realist and fairly good judge of human nature.
The next few weeks are probably going to weed out even more of the students as the realization hits them that this is hard work. I will be surprised if 25% of the students remain at the end of the program. I hope I am wrong and I hope that if you are one of those that might be wavering, you will take this as a challenge and do it, if nothing else, to prove me wrong.
Here is something to think about. When this coaching program is over, Alex is going to start another one. He has already said that he is going to charge at least $2000 a head for 500 positions which will give him a $1,000,000 payday or week, depending on how long it takes to sell the 500 spots.
He is going to let us be his affiliates and make 50% of the sale. We have the potential to get a piece of $500,000. If there are 250 of us left, we could each make $2000 by selling 2 spots each. Are you going to be positioned to sell 2 of those spots? The truth of the matter is that there will probably only be 100 or so of us selling the spots. Also, there will be a handful of students that will sell more than 10 spots and some that don't sell any.
Alex is preparing all of us to be ready to make the most of this opportunity but the affiliate sales will only be icing on the cake. The students that are taking action have already started publishing ebooks, creating partnerships, and just plain kicking ass in general. I am proud to be part of this group and I see big things coming in 2009 for all of my fellow students who take action.
Taking action is the most important step but you want to make sure your focused and have your goals written down. I have mine printed out and tacked to the wall in my office so I see them everyday. I am also going to post them here for the world to see which will help motivate me to accomplish them.
Here are my goals for 2009:
Personal
1. Vacation this year to visit wife’s family in Venezuela.
2. Lose 80lbs. target weight is 250, currently tipping the scales at 330.
Entrepreneurial
1. Create systems for all my tasks and start outsourcing.
2. Find at least 10 serious JV partners.
Business
1. Build a mailing list of 7300 subscribers. (that’s 20 per day)
2. Continue to write for the Profit Pulling Project, re-brand, and distribute.
3. Write my ebook series “The Web 2 Whammy” which I will use to build my list and then monetize with a follow up video series.
4. Spend at least 1 hour a day oil rig hopping. 1/2 hour for students and 1/2 hour with Comment Kahuna.
Income
1. To generate a minimum of $50,000 with my online business this year.
Some of them may seem lofty but you have to aim high. Actually, if I achieve all of my business goals, I think the income goal will be the easiest to make.
So here's a cyber toast to everyone. "To our success in 2009"
Filed under Building A Business by
