It is very difficult to really achieve true balance in your life. Stuff always happens and you may find that that your perfect plan is being bent out of shape constantly. While your home business should be a top priority, obviously your family or any unexpected emergency would take precedence. As well if you are still also working at a day job that would be very important in the scheme of things.
If you have created a real schedule or plan that indicates what hours it is your intention to devote to your home business, then you should try very hard not to procrastinate or push it forward because it is the only one of your top priorities that you really control and can consider ‘flexible’. Ironically the time you spend online can be some of the hardest time to remain focused.
There are a million and one things that vie for your attention online, the minute you logon. So this is the place where you have to be really rigid about what you will spend your time on and what you will need to ignore. This is because you can really waste your time and start spinning your wheels. You don’t really get anything accomplished that will help you develop your business.
One of the worst enemies of keeping focused online is your email. The best thing you can do is make folders for the companies you do use and know; just push the emails into the folders without doing more than glancing at them to see if there is anything time-sensitive.
Companies you don’t know you can either push to the spam folder (wise) or if you see something you may want to read then have a folder for that named ‘Miscellaneous’ or something. However it is a real good idea not to do business with spammers and if you believe that it makes it simpler to get rid of much of the chaos in your inbox.
Honest to God, everything that comes in is not the latest, greatest thing that will save the world. Don’t be afraid to ‘miss opportunities’ by just putting them in the spam folder. What you need to worry about is missing the opportunities you already have because you are wasting time chasing after smoke and mirrors.
Strictly limit your time for email. Of course you want to respond to any customers or prospects as a priority, and be sure you have paid bills or renewed things on time. Maybe take some time to give the folders some brief attention. ‘Take care of business’ and then move on to something more productive.
Reading the jokes people send you, reading the news online, reading social networks and forums that are not directly business related must be seen as entertainment time. That’s fine but don’t include that in the time you commit to spend on your business.
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