Pitfalls to avoid as a Newbie- The Benefits of Downtime.

Here is a novel idea - stop being BUSY with your Internet Business, yes, give it a break. OK, so you think this is another strange scam or hype note, wrong!

Think about it - how many hours and hours in a day do you spend working on building your list, reading emails, learning new ‘stuff', search engine optimization, writing articles, tweaking websites and being ‘focused'? Do you realize that you are in fact being your own worst enemy? Do you realize that you are not making things happen any faster (really) by spending hours and hours in front of your PC?

Here is what I suggest - take a break. Don't close up shop, but rather have a look at your priorities and how you are doing things. I took a long look at what I was accomplishing in any given week and it gave me a real wake-up call. Yes, I was getting a lot of ‘busy-work' done - you know, reading emails, fiddling here and there, stressing about what I had to do but was not getting done, checking every 5 minutes to see if my stats had changed etc. - sound familiar? I found that I was spending far too much time online, to the point that when my wife and children asked about me joining them on an outing or whatever, I felt under pressure because I wasn't ‘working'.

What I did was take a good look at the actual actions taken each day and made a rough list with approximate time for each task (not a detailed task list, a sort of ‘overview' of my day) - I was shocked - wasted time is never retrieved and I was sending mine against the wall! I realized that I needed to fine-tune my ‘stuff' a bit. Yes, I have done Simpleology 101 and 102, I am in Success University etc, but still find that I was too concerned with ‘checking up' and this was wasting time.

I made a rule, and it is absolutely incredible the results I have seen. The rule is really simple, but if you apply it you will be amazed at how much more productive you are, and that feeling of being ‘in-at-the-deep-end', starts to go away or is at least manageable.

The RULE is: Weekends are family time - only 1 hour per day ‘online' on Saturday and Sunday (I use this to check emails and post to forums and blogs), if there is some fantastic idea or something I want to check up on - I write a note on the pad alongside my PC and tackle this list on Monday. Every weeknight I only go online and start to work after the children are in bed - then I can work to my heart's content.

Simple, isn't it? This is working INCREDIBLY well for me - comes Monday, I am raring to go and all of the built up stress of the previous week is gone. Clear mind, focused attention, happy family - I find that my creativity is higher as well. For instance, writing articles now happens on a Monday - I feel like doing it, website design modifications are also mainly done on a Monday and I get through the work quickly and without a hassle.

Previously I have written on budget (time and money) and also on organising your email routine. I touched on basic tools needed and would like to share a little on browsing. I see you sit up and take notice - this is not on how to surf the net....;-) but rather how to organize your various programs and activities into one ‘dashboard' for lack of a better descriptor.

If I can leave you with one thought for today: Time lost to senseless scrabbling is wasted and can never be retrieved. Make the most of what you have and most importantly, ENJOY the experience as much as possible - remember that you are working towards YOUR goal or dream, but ensure that you have a healthy balance in the process.