Productivity is the name of the game. I don't care what you're doing... creating products, writing sales copy, driving traffic, etc. If you can't do any or all of those tasks efficiently, you will make less money. Period. If it takes you 12 hours to set up a "money getting" site, when it could've taken you 2... you just lost 10 hours of "profit time".
Goals cannot be abstract. They should be measurable, specific, attainable within the set time frame as well as realistic and practical. Goals should help you define the short term and long term targets that are required to be reached in order to get to the final goal.
Just two years ago I was sitting in a meeting with one of the senior managers of Australia Post when he stated If I could ban email from our office I would Now he wasn't saying that because he saw email as being in competition with Australia Post although improving productivity I guess it's possible Rather he was in despair that staff communication was suffering as people continually resorted to email to discuss issues and relay information.
The more precisely defined your goal the easier it is to break down and accomplish step by step. Even if the goal is very simple you will be surprised how defining it completely will improve the quality of the result and the speed of execution.
The second reason is training, or really the lack thereof. Training is the difference in a profitable operation and one that is already bankrupt just more info not realizing it.
Personal Productivity Tip 2: Plan Ahead. Spend 10 to 15 minutes each night looking over your To Do list, appointments and projects and prioritize and schedule the most important items for action the following day. Take this one step further by actually assigning the completion of these priority items as an appointment on your calendar. This is an appointment you must keep with yourself. Make sure you factor in some down time and procrastination time (you know you do it). It is important to make your schedule realistic and achievable. It is also important to have time to recharge your batteries to be able to operate at your optimum productivity. Actually schedule your sleep time on your calendar. Don't assume you can work an 80 hour week without burning yourself out.
In this day and age we're surrounded by constant distractions. Studies have shown that when we get interrupted from a task it takes 18 minutes or more to get back into the rhythm of what we're doing. Add that time together and you might be able to understand why we get nothing done all day.
Time management is a learned skill. We all have the same 24 hours per week and the more effective we are in managing these hours, the more successful and productive our lives and businesses will be. Once you apply these 5 simple techniques for improving your time management, you will be on the way to accomplishing what you thought is not possible because you didn't have the time.