What exactly is my secret to success? I have tried just about every system, program and notebook made for optimizing my day I think over the years I have found that I  plain out just don’t stick to it.

What I have done is boiled down into a system just plain works. The major workhorse for this program is none other than the lowly timer.

Let’s go over the process step by step and I will show you the genius of it.

Step One: Get it all out. Every bit of it.

First thing every morning commit to sit down with your favorite beverage and write out in detail everything you need to get accomplished. Before you start writing make sure you include just today’s tasks. I have found that looking at more than a day at a time leaves me overwhelmed and distracted at all I need to do.

This list needs to have all the leg work done ahead of time. For example if you need to make a call on your handy dandy list write the name, phone number, reason for the call and any other information needed to complete the task. If there is a series of relating tasks break them down as detailed as you can sequentially from the beginning to the end. To finish this list off include any equipment needed as well as the time you are going to allow for completion of this task.

This may at first seem to be sort of overwork. Before you make that judgment let me tell you that I have found that the thing that gets me side tracked is no different than the customer you are trying to keep on your website. Have all the information on your list and you will have better success staying on track as you have all you need in one place when you sit down to execute it.

Make sure you have every item you need completing with the needed information to finish the action before you proceed.

Step 2: The gear for success

Stop! Wait! Before you continue look your list over one more time to ensure you have all the information needed. Do not forget passwords, account number or the like that may lead you down a rabbit hole to no where later on. What you will need next is the equipment that you require to complete all these actions. Again the idea here is to have everything within arms reach if possible so you can sit down and blast the tasks away. This would include any computers, phones, reference material that is to extensive for your list etc. When you have the items powered up and ready to go we are ready! Oh wait..We almost forgot the most important item your timer.

Step 3: Execution

As with any good plan here indeed is where the rubber meets the road. If you did all the other steps you are in a winning position for the last lap here. Grab out your list, setup your timer and start working on the items from top to bottom. As with any of the other steps it is crucial that you stick to the task at hand with as little distraction or pause.

Time has shown me that even getting up to grab a drink can give me an excuse to not finish those items lingering on my list. With that being said also make sure that the time you are to do these actions that is free from any interruptions, calls, or appointments. This is the time you have set aside to battle that list and you are going to prevail this time.

If by chance there is some further actions that spur up from the items completed, take notes and follow them up on a later action list.

As I said this last step is all about making sure that this system really works for you and gets the items done day after day. Be as brutally honest with yourself as you can. After all you will find out anyhow when the fires blaze in the future due to you not finishing the work.

I am sure you will be a great success! I know for me this is by far the best system I have come across for seriously getting tasks done and out of the way so you can move onto more important things. How to grow your business.

I have come out with an entire audio series covering the initial creation of your venture to marketing. Internet Business Mastery readers have been offered this pack of over 5 hours of instruction for a limited time at a special price. Get it now and you will be well on your way to success.

Buy now:

http://homesteadnetwork.com/businesspack

—-

Rob Roath is the former host of the popular Self-Sufficient and Sustainable Podcast and now has started a new venture at homesteadnetwork.com teaching everyone how to become successful in business, life and sustainability.

Thank you for subscribing to Internet Business Mastery feed. For instant access to your free audio gift and a risk-free trial of our proven step-by-step program for starting your own profitable internet business, please visit http://www.freeaudiogift.com.

Thank you for subscribing to Internet Business Mastery feed. For instant access to your free audio gift and a risk-free trial of our proven step-by-step program for starting your own profitable internet business, please visit http://www.freeaudiogift.com.

In this post I’m going to talk about the exact process I got through to be highly effective and end information addiction.

What is the PURPOSE for gaining the knowledge?

I used to just pulling in massive knowledge just to have the knowledge.  I would kid myself to think that the info was for later, for when I needed it, but it wasn’t true.  I was just addicted to pulling in more info and not having to take action on it.  I don’t do that now.

I must know the why, why do I need to read this?  Why should I watch this?  Why should I listen to this?  Personally, I might choose to watch a TV show like Dexter, purely for entertainment value, but I’m very clear on what I am doing.  I not longer get my entertainment out of reading 30 blog posts a day.  I want my business to fulfill the use I have for it and my entertainment to be separate.  As an info junkie there was no distinction.

The purpose of gaining knowledge, for me now, is to be able to make that knowledge actionable and is sure it is needed NOW.

The NOW focus

The first step in my process is to answer the question, “Is this knowledge something I need right now?”.  I try to stay very clear on where I am in my business.  I figure out, at all times, exactly where I am and what I need to know next.

An example as a beginner would be, if I didn’t have a website up, I wouldn’t be learning all I could about link building.  Link building cannot happen UNTIL you have a site up.   So, it would be an waste of time to learn about something like link building, since I couldn’t take action right away.  The next bit of info I would need, in this example, is exactly what hosting I should use and what blog system I should use.  So, I would dump the link building info into a file for LATER and I would focus on hosting and blog systems.

I skipped ahead in learning all the time.  Before I had a site up I was an expert at traffic, because I read about it all the time.  By the time I did have a site up much of the traffic info I had read was obsolete and therefor a total waste of time in learning.

If I start reading something and I realize I don’t need this yet, I quickly stop reading, which is hard as an info addict, and I file it for later.  I follow the GTD system for filing.

If it is something I can use now, I go on the the second process.

Taking Action

Once I have figured out that a bit of information IS what I need next, I then have to ask if it is ACTIONABLE.

Now I want the knowledge if there can be an action attached to it.  If at any time during the search I see that the info cannot be acted upon, I generally ditch the search and move on to the next question in the queue.  Sometimes I realize that my question is 2 steps past the action I might need to take and then I switch my search to a more basic question.

I am no longer interested in having a bunch of info in my head that would just be used for sounding like a ‘know-it-all’, but not have any practical use for me.  Like I said before, I would just search for knowledge for knowledge’s sake, like a junkie.  I just had to have the next info hit.

I’m speaking mostly business here, but I have also taken this process to my personal info gathering as well.  As much fun as it is to know some inane bit of info like, how many movies has Angelina Jolie been in, I’m less likely to gather that type of info personally, let alone in business, (like how many launches has Frank Kern made over 1 million dollars?  Why would I need to know that…).

I want to have the ability to take action the moment I am done reading a new bit of info.  That is the main goal for me now with processing information.  In order to stay highly productive with my time I have to be able to have very specific steps of action to take after reading or watching a video or listening to an audio about info that is the next step in my business growth.

This process has lead to much less overwhelm and very quick gratification, because I can actually put to work the info I just gathered.

So, the process I use to stop being an info junkie is to be clear on my next step of action, find and process info on that next step, and quickly take action on the knowledge I just learned.

QUESTION: What process do you use to be more efficient and cut down on overwhelm in your info gathering?

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(HI STERLING)

It’s been 6 years since I have watched a traditional news program, 5 years since I’ve watched an entertainment gossip show, 4 year since I’ve watched live television and nearly 3 weeks since I have read over 50 blogs a week, listened to all of the 25+ podcasts I was subscribed too, unsubscribed to the 30+ email newsletters, and stopped consuming info like it was going out of style. I have truly been more effective and more happy since this massive info dump.

I wrote the original Info Diet, part 1 post 3 years ago, and I thought it was time for an update and a process you can use to stop information overwhelm.

The original cause for this info dump was ‘The 4 Hour Work Week’ by Tim Ferriss. That book has been the second most influential book I have ever read, the first being the “6 Pillar of Self Esteem” by Nathanial Branden.   ‘The 4 Hour Work Week’ helped me with a lot of mindset shifts, but one of them was how important my time was.  I was working 12 hours per day, minimum, 7 days a week and I started to check on why that was.  I found that the info diet cut that down considerably!  I had been an info addict my entire life, until about 3 years ago.  I talk more about that in the original Info Diet post, but here I wanted to talk about the upsides of that diet.

For the last 3 years I stayed to that info diet pretty much completely.  From time to time I would go crazy with the podcasts or the internet marketing courses I didn’t need yet, but I actually stuck to it on the whole.  What has come from it has been amazing.

Unclogging the Action drain

Before having a specific info diet process, I would start a topic, somehow get distracted by 3 or 10 or 23 other topics and never finish the first topic.

Being so distracted lead to complete lack of focus and of action, which was very frustrating.  Processing information that way was also very overwhelming as the info would just keep coming and coming and I didn’t have any way to process how I was going to take that info in!

Once I decided to cut out the massive clog of information, I was able to make a process for bring in information.  I was able to pick a few topics and completely focus on them from start to finish.

The Process

In the next part of this series I’m going to show you the exact process I go through to find and act on any info I’m looking for.  My hope is that you will be able to use this process to cut down on the overwhelm of information flowing into your mind and then focus on the correct info that can be acted on.

Go to The NEW Information Diet, part 2

Question: Do you find yourself constantly rushing for one bit of knowledge to another without taking action?  How have you found ways to stop that cycle?

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I came up with the time budget when I was tired of feeling like I wasn’t getting the most important things each week.

It’s tricky to balance the recurring tasks of your business week to week – things like content creation – with marketing and other massive actions that will grow your business.

So just like you might create a budget to carefully plan how you spend your money, you should also create a budget for your time.

The Payoff of Time Budgeting

This technique is one reason we’ve been able to reduce the amount of time that we each spend on Internet Business Mastery to twenty hours a week. We have to very deliberate about how that time is used.

Tasks will always expand to take up as much time as they can. Time budgeting helps keep that in check. For example, I can look at my calendar and know that I only have one hour budgeted to put this article together.

When I create a time budget and stick to it, I feel less desperate about my time. At the end of the day I have the peace of mind that I spent my time doing what was most important.

Time Budgeting Tools

There are two tools that I use for time budgeting.

1. Excel: About once each quarter I update an Excel spreadsheet that lays out week to week what my schedule should look like.
2. Google Calendar: The budget in Excel gets transferred to Google Calendar where I can see what I should be working on, when and for how long at any given time.

If you’re a Legacy Academy member, there’s a 50-minute tutorial on how I do this here (log in first before clicking that link).

Planning Your Own Time Budget

If you feel overwhelmed by everything you have to do, if you wander from task to task based on whatever “squeaky wheel” is making the most noise in your psyche at any given moment, the time budget will help alleviate that.

Give it a try this week.

1. Create a chart that represents each week of the month. Decide how much time you can spend each week on your business.
2. Make a list of the recurring (daily, weekly, monthly) tasks that MUST be done in order to maintain your business and keep new leads coming in.
3. Decided as realistically as you can how much time each of these should take.
4. Now you have to start prioritizing. Based on the total hours you want to work each week, decide what is most important to do. Reduce the amount of time allotted to each task as needed. You’ll probably need to plan four budgets, one for every week in a month.
5. NOTE: Every third month you will have a fifth week. This is a great time to schedule catch up time, cleanup tasks and other things that only need to happen once a quarter.
6. Make sure you have time left over for strategy and putting one or two “massive action” big ideas into action each month. I try to have 5 or so hours a week to spend on these things.
7. At the beginning of the week, plug your time budget into a calendar

Again, examples of what this looks are available in a tutorial posted in the Academy.

Invest Your Time Now for a Quick Payoff Later

Maybe you’re thinking, “But I don’t have time to spend two hours creating a time budget!” Think of it as an investment. You’ll “earn” those two hours back within a week’s time.

What other tips do you have for managing your time? Share them in the comments below.

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One way I do this is by using the mouse as little as possible when I process my inbox. Learning a few hotkeys can speed things up greatly and remove friction from what can be a real time waster.

Here are a few hotkeys that save me time every day in GMail.

• ] = archive & next
• j = next
• l = label
• r = reply
  
• a = reply all
• c = compose new

In order for these shortcuts to work, you need to first turn them on by clicking on Settings and selecting Keyboard shortcuts on. Enjoy!

You’ll notice I don’t have delete in there. That’s because I archive EVERYTHING. Having to make decisions about what to delete and what to archive just slows you down. Storage is cheap. You never know what you might want to go back and reference. Archive it all.

What are your favorite time-saving tips for processing your e-mail inbox or using GMail?

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Today Roboform got even more useful because I took the time to look up a few hotkeys. Here they are for your reference and use.

• Alt-] = Fill forms
• Alt 1-9 = Fill identity
• ALT-R = Toggle the Roboform toolbar
• Alt-P = Launch password generator

Even more hotkeys are available by going to View > Options > Keyboard.

What’s a Roboform tip that you’ve discovered?

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First off, I’m an On Time Freak. If I’m 2 minutes late to something I am very hard on myself. I try to be 5 minutes early if not more to anything I’ve committed to ahead of time, but being late is not an option. It’s very hard to be an On Time Freak, because most people are fine being late. It blows me away that this is the case being as I’m a freak about time, but it seems to be the norm to simply be 10 minutes or more late to everything.

Why do I bring this up, you might ask?  Well, in the last week I’ve had nearly every person that had a set time to meet up with me be late! I had a meeting where EVERY other person was late ‘cept me, one guy was even 40 minutes late. That same day I was meeting with a friend and she called me 1 minute before we were supposed to meet and said she would be 30 minutes late! I was supposed to meet 2 business guys for lunch and at 20 minutes after we were supposed to meet, I left. That was just 3 things that have happened, there are more and it’s only Thursday!!

Guess what excuse they all had?

“Oh, sorry I was late, X happened.” The best part about it is that they don’t realize that saying ‘X happened’ means that X was more important then integrity! Yeah, it’s no joke.  Now, most of the time it’s an excuse like there was traffic, a call went late, time got away from me, the dog ate my homework, etc.  That is worse to a On Time Freak, because we made it on time!!!  We were able to understand that things might take longer then expected and so we planned ahead and still got there!

“It is my conviction that a person who cannot keep appointments on time, cannot keep scheduled commitments, or cannot stick to a schedule cannot be trusted in other ways either. Fundamental dishonesty expresses itself in many different ways, but this is definitely one of them!”

-Dan Kennedy, Time Management for Entrepreneurs.

Lack of time honesty is one of the key reasons I ended a profitable partnership just recently. I just couldn’t stand the complete lack of respect for my time. He was late to EVERYTHING. There just seems to be no integrity in that. If someone is willing to lie about one thing, how many other things are they lying about?

I just wanted to give late people the chance to understand how us On Time Freaks think about being late and give us an excuse as to why:

Excuses mean NOTHING! Excuses are heard as, “blah blah blah, I don’t respect you, blah blah blah.” Excuses don’t mean anything to someone who was there on time. If I’m there on time it meant I didn’t do 150,000 other things I could have been doing, including spending time with family, getting some much needed personal time, watching Gilmore Girls, playing with a rock, scratching my fingernails down a chalk board, ANYTHING is better then waiting for a late person and hearing their excuse! I see it as someone stealing my precious time and disrespecting me all wrapped up in a dry, moldy tortilla. Get the picture?

So, let me ask you, would you really trust someone who is always late?

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You can also download a higher resolution version here.

Now we’d love to hear from you. How do you implement your GTD system? What tools do you use?

Items mentioned in this video:

• Freemind
• Mindjet MindManager
• Mindmeister
• Mindomo

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We live in Manhattan with no washer and dryer in our apartment (a common thing here). So doing laundry is always an ordeal. We probably spend at least five hours a month doing our laundry (total between the two of us).

For the first time today, we decided to check into pickup/delivery laundry services. To our surprise it wasn’t that expensive. We had it done for $22. It was beautiful. They picked it up in the morning, a few hours later it was done and everything folded and on hangers.

We figure all in all it will cost us $60/mo to have our laundry done for us. And here’s the kicker. That is only about $25 more than what we spend per month when we do it ourselves!

DUH! For only $25/month, I’ve reclaimed five hours. That’s only $5/hour. Just goes to show how we get tunnel vision and adopt the status quo overlooking simples improvement we could make to our lifestyle and business.

If someone offered to give you five more hours a month at a cost of only $5 per hour, wouldn’t you take it!? I’ll take that deal any day. Especially when I can make many, many times more than that with that time.

At least I was smart enough to have groceries delivered for the past two years.

Has anyone else come up with any ingenious improvements to save them time and improve their lifestyle?

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• Wrote and outline and plan for the eight modules of my upcoming podcasting course
• Planned the launch marketing sequence for my new podcasting course
• Planned the bonuses for my new podcasting course
• Made a list of tasks that need to be done to create the bonuses
• Made a list of tasks to send to three different VAs
• Watched one episode of Law & Order SVU on my iPod

Why was I so focused? I wasn’t sitting at my computer. As an internet entrepreneur, it’s hard sometimes to imagine working WITHOUT your computer in front of you. All I had was a pen and a yellow pad. I was forced to sit and think and plan. There weren’t any internet distractions or temptations to do busy/tech work. Try stepping away from the computer and see what happens.

So now I’m in Salt Lake City at Sterling’s place (he has a great view of the valley). We’re having a meeting today to plan the upcoming course (Codename: The Internet Business Mastery Blueprint). We’re going to sit down for an extensive planning session.

Here’s what we know so far:

• Most people want an A to Z course including a getting started guide.
• Many people wanted us to work with them live to go through the process. We obviously we can’t do this all the time or with too many people, but we’re considering having a live one-time online course that will have a limited enrollment. If you want a chance of getting in on this, sign up for the early notification list now.
• We are trying to keep it to six modules, but there is just to much we want to put it so it might be seven.

Now, time to get down to work. Where’s my yellow pad?

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There are two points I want to make in this final segment.

First, do everything you can to find a credible source.

I a truly amazed at how many books about making money on eBay there are out there. I read many of them and my other business partner Andrew Lock has read most. The thing we found is that most of the authors have never even SOLD on ebay, yet they write books about making money selling on eBay. It’s really criminal if you asked me, as I followed the advice in many of those books only to start my first eBay business and fail miserably after spending thousands of dollars on implementation and months of my life. I followed all the advice! Why didn’t it work?! Well, it’s like asking a 400 pound man how to have a 180 pound fit body.

Then, there are scam artists who may have done some business on eBay, but defrauded people and now teach about eBay business. There is one guy that is very popular right now that has been BANNED by eBay themselves! He can never use eBay again and has even been stopped from speaking at eBay Live. Is that who you would like to learn from?! Sadly, the guy is making a fortune selling ‘how to make money on eBay’ courses.

The point is to do what you can to find out if the source of your info is credible.

Second, it seems so obvious, but I must say it – TAKE ACTION! Really, in the end, the true value of most information is what you DO with it. Knowledge is only POTENTIAL power, action is the key to real power. It’s better to take the WRONG action then NO action at all.

“You will accomplish a lot more with movement then you will with motivation”

-Gary Halbert

So, to end of my Information Diet, I will summarize. I cut out the seemingly endless barrage of information I was bombarding myself with and opted for more precise, strategic knowledge related to what I need NOW. I added some much need mind rest and entertainment. Then, I have set myself to TAKE ACTION on the surgical info I receive, rather then just constantly allow a complete INFLOW of ideas and info.

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I had my cable TV shut off over a year ago. Why? Two reasons.

First, I was crazy for channel surfing. I realized that I could go two hours without watching one single program all the way through. I suddenly realized I was like some lab rat starting at the screen, just fascinated by all the random pictures going by. It had to end.

Second, you can watch most show on the net now OR just get the DVD. I had been just watching the DVDs of most shows for some time, which cuts out commercial watching and gets rid of having to wait an entire week to see how Jack Bauer gets out of each cliffhanger episode ending.

Most shows can be watched online if you cannot wait till they come out on DVD. I watch the likes of Lost and Heroes all from the networks website.

TIP: One way to get a lot of TV show DVDs is to join Blockbuster.com. They had nearly all of the TV shows I wanted to watch and as of now, you can take a DVD you get in the mail to a Blockbuster store and swap it for a store DVD, giving you double the DVDs then the plan you have.

Here is just a snapshot of shows I enjoy:

Lost

Heroes

Battlestar Galactica ß Jay turned me on to this one, I would have never thought it was as good as it is

Boston Legal

Prison Break

HBO and Showtime have my FAVORITE shows. Nearly every original hour drama on those channels I love, though they are Rated R style show, to be warned… The tops are:

Rome

Deadwood

The Sopranos

Penn and Tellers BS!

To name a few…

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This is one area I had to do some house cleaning on. Here was the list of books I was reading… all at the same time:

• The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore – book about memes and the study of mind viruses.

• Virus of the Mind by Richard Brodie – book about memes and the study of mind viruses.

• The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins – fascinating book, a must read…

There was one other Mind Virus book that I cannot remember…

Now I am reading only one non-fiction at a time and adding a FICTION, gulp. I haven’t read a work of fiction for SO long I cannot even remember the last one! When I did read it I actually liked fantasy, so I decided to give that a try. Here are the TWO books I am reading now:

• 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss – I’m on my second read through…

• Temple of the Winds by Terry Goodkind – Highbrow knights and swords and wizard type book.

I have actually found it sort of hard to get into the fiction book. My mind works differently now, it is hard to shut off while reading, but I’m going to keep trying as I used to love reading fiction.

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On we go. I was never really a big magazine reader. Back in my Hollywood days I would read Entertainment Weekly and Premier Magazine. Now, there are only two that I actually read:

Wired Magazine

Business 2.0

I actually scan them cover to cover, stopping to read only if my interest is really peaked.

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So, I just finished doing a bit of ‘spring cleaning’ in my iTunes podcast folder. I had 44 podcasts that I downloaded each week, now I have 12.

“44! How on earth did you listen to them all?!” You ask?

Here is what I use to do… I would listen while I made my meals, did mindless business stuff like WordPress changes or eBay auction template changes, while I drove any and everywhere, while I shopped, in line at the post office, riding my bike an hour + per day, during my late night walk, while getting ready to shower (not actually in the shower, thought I had considered looking for a waterproof case and earbuds), and any time I could have a bit of my attention on what I was listening too. I lived that way for the last year or so.

Not any more! Right now I’m on an info fast. 5 days without my normal information overload. I’m also purging my sources of info one at a time. Today is Podcasting.

From 44 podcasts to 12. Many of the 12 are not updated every day or even every week, so I hardly know what I am going to do with all that time to think?!

One key was to add more entertainment based podcast to let my mind rest and relax once and a while. I even added music to my ipod! Imagine that?! Before I never put music on it. The few people I know with iPods have NOTHING but music and I finally added music to it for the first time in 2 years.

The majority of my podcast use to be business and marketing related, now I added some info I need and some entertainment. Here is a quick and partial list just to give an idea of the change.

Couple for Business-

• Podcasting Underground – Having several podcasts now I have to stay up to date with how that world works and Jason really is on the cutting edge of promoting your podcast.

• Podcast Tools – Paul Colligan goes over some useful and simple tips for tweaking your podcast.

• e-auction-air – Michael Donahue talks does a great job being the news around eBay, what is going on in the eBay community and what new eBay tools are out there. I usually look into the tools to see if I would use them in my eBay business or if I would suggest them to my eBay podcast listeners.

Couple for fun –

• Never Not Funny – Jimmy Pardo and friends. This is a fantastic podcast that keeps me connected with the ‘hollywood world’. They talk about a lot of things my comedian friends do, BUT this is R rated so if you get offended easily, DON’T even thing about listening!

• Real Time with Bill Maher – HBO TV show transformed into the podcast version. R-Rated.

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Scrolling through e-mail and punching out text messages fire up the dopamine-reward system, unleashing a pleasure-inducing hit that for an estimated 6% of Internet users has become clinically addictive, says University of Michigan psychology professor David Meyer.

Scary. But it makes sense. Emailers Anonymous anyone?

via The Lazy Business Owner (one blog that made it through my recent information diet cut)

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The cause for this info dump was ‘The 4 Hour Work Week’ by Tim Ferriss. That book has been the second most influential book I have ever read. I have been an info addict my whole life. When I am into something I study it voraciously, to the point of obsession. I have never smoked, gotten drunk or done drugs, but I have been an info junkie nearly my entire life.

This obsessive behavior has an upside and a downside. The upside is that I gain a massive about of knowledge very quickly, the downside is that I have a pitiful lifestyle and very few ‘hobbies’. The other downside to taking in information that quickly is that you have very little chance of putting even half of the info to real use. Knowledge is only POTENTIAL power. Action is where knowledge becomes real power.

The goal for me now is not to consume a piece of information until I need it. I will not read about traffic generation until I am working on my traffic generation again. I will read no more about search engine optimization until, you guessed it, I’m doing more search engine optimization.

I turned on the radio in my car for the first time in… years. Usually I plug my iPod in and listen to various podcast on subjects from eBay to skepticality. It’s been long enough that the music I listened to in high school is now considered ‘adult contemporary’! I also realized that hip hop is not my cup of tea.

I’m going to now balance the info I bring in with the entertainment! I have been doing this for the last couple weeks and I thought I would share with you, in the next few blog posts, the list the information and entertainment I now consume.

Blog-a-mania!

I use google reader to sort through and read my blogs. I have more then 60 blogs in my reader, but I have started a ‘must read’ folder and here is what is in it:

• ProBlogger Blog Tips – Darren Rowse is a top blogger that actually makes a fantastic living by blogging. I met Darren at Yanik Silvers Underground seminar in March. He is a very down to earth, friendly guy that is also very prolific. I get a lot of great tips from his blog.

• Marketing What Works – Dean Hunt talks a lot about traffic and using social media to get lots of it. He also talks about mindset, which is a pet topic of mine. He has a very blunt, no BS style, which I enjoy

• The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss – Tim has a very informative and entertaining blog about entrepreneurial lifestyle and more.

• Jason Van Orden :: Podcast Consultant – Jason is my business partner, but I still read his blog and listen to his podcasts. I really like his writing style and way he delivers information and you will too!

• Social Media Optimization – I love using and learning about social media optimization and here is a place I go to learn more.

BLATENT PLUG:

BTW, if you are into making money using eBay I have a podcast that I do with Andrew Lock called Renegade eBay Sellers, check it out!

I also run a blog called Dan Kennedy Says, with tips and advice from ultra-famous marketing expert Dan Kennedy.

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My goal was to check only twice a day on weekdays and never first thing in the morning. Since writing that post I’ve not once checked my email first thing in the morning. This in of itself has been a great improvement. It was such a compulsive habit, but it really wasn’t a great start to the day. I find I get so much more momentum when I work on a solid business development task for the first hour or two of the day.

Checking only twice a day has worked out well. For the most part I’ve stuck to it. Early on I slipped up a couple times. One other exception is that I check when I am expecting an email from a client/customer or in an active email exchange with them to get an important task done. But the key here is to NOT get sucked into other email coming in if it is not one of your two two times of the day to look at and act on email. I just look for the customer email and read nothing else.
I’ve also been unsubscribing from any email newsletters that don’t have anything to do with what I am working on right now. If you can’t read it and act on it….ditch it. Too many newsletters becomes a distraction. Filing it as “To Read” is no good either. Let’s be honest. It’ll never get read. At most, I suggest you delete/archive it and know that you can use something like Google search later to find it if you need.

This leaves only a few email newsletters in my inbox:

• A couple email newsletter from colleagues and competitors so I can keep tabs on what they are doing
• Alice Seba’s Outsourcing Newsletter
• Krishna De’s Biz Growth Newsletter (she also talks about outsourcing and productivity on occasion)

Can you tell what is on my mind most lately? I also handle RSS reading differently now, too. I’ll talk about that more in another post.

The effects on my mental capacity and productivity have been significant. At the end of the day, I feel better about what I got done. I focus better throughout the day. I get more momentum from the starting line by not checking email first. I typically check for the first time right after noon. I avoid nagging interruptions right before I go to bed by not reading email last thing at the end of the day. I don’t check email after 5PM-ish (6PM at the latest).

If this resonates with you, then I highly recommend reading Cutting the Email Leash Part 1 for the set of goals I set to get started. Here are a few more suggestions:

• Take a serious look at where you get the most email and start cutting liberally (unsubscribe, tell people to handle problems themselves rather than come to you for everything, etc.) For each email, quickly ask yourself: “Do I really need to get this or can I cut this email source out?”
• If you think you can’t do twice a day because you get too much email, then you need to cut down on how much email you get. You wouldn’t let someone reach into your pocket and take your cash, don’t let them reach into your inbox and take your time.
• Apply filters to automatically delete or file emails that you need for later reference (by search) but don’t need to see when you get it
• Install a good search program like Google Desktop search (or use GMail) so you can just delete liberally and know you can always search for something later
• Realize you don’t have to reply to everything (this one is really hard for me and I am still working on it)
• If something can be responded to in under two minutes, just do it and be done. If not, determine the next action that needs to be taken and stick it on a list.

Anyone else working on this? Let me know how it’s going. I can always use more tips.

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…the world didn’t implode.

I can count on one hand the number of emails I received that really were so important that they needed quick attention. And that was out of 550 emails received (not including spam).

The epiphone: I spend to much time on email and give it way more attention than I should.

The goals for implementing a solution:

• I will only check email twice a day now–once in the morning and once in the evening
• I will only check my email once on Saturday and Sunday (working towards never checking on the weekend)
• I will no longer check my email first thing when I wake up. I will only check it after doing a couple hours of productive work.
• I have turned of all automatic email checking and notifications in Outlook. Email will only come in when I open Outlook and hit the Send/Receive button (which will only happen twice a day).

I am going to keep a log of this and I’ll report back next week on the blog to let you know how I am doing. Hold me accountable. I encourage you to join me. Thank goodness I don’t own a “Crack”-Berry. If you own one, I urge you to sell it and get a “run-o-the-mill” cell phone.

On another note, thanks for your patience in waiting for the next episode of the podcast. I’ve been traveling every weekend for speaking gigs or vacation and Sterling has been going to every seminar on the planet it seems and mingling with the likes of Dan Kennedy and other big dogs. We’ll have lots of good stuff to talk about. Stay tuned!

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Since then Jay has implemented some of the Getting Things Done system into our Internet business mastery business and I found it very useful. I figured I would just glean the info off Jay and see if it had any place in my current organizational extravaganza. A week ago Jay said he was going to completely follow the GTD system and to do so he needed 2 full days where he wouldn’t be available as he put the system into practice. Two whole days of organization seemed a bit much, but I was still under the idea that the book was simple a system to organize your stuff. Boy was I wrong.

Jay then talked a bit about how the system worked and about doing a mind dump to get out all the thoughts in his head so that you can be more productive. This is where I started to take notice as I have trained myself to be able to think of 10 things at once as well has holding vast “to do” lists in my head all while whistling the catchy opening music from the Penn Radio Podcast. I thought I was just smart because I could do all this, though I was feeling more and more overwhelmed as I added project after project to my business life.

The fact that Jay wanted to dedicate 2 days to GTD and what he said about being able to be more focused and productive because of certain techniques finally made me go out and buy the book. I read it on Saturday and was so fascinated by what it taught I dedicated my 2 days to it on Sunday and Monday of this week.

2 days ended up 3 and some change as I realized how counter productive my way of thinking was. I had problems focusing on the given project I was working on and I was constantly doing multiple projects at the same time, making it much harder to get anything done.

The biggest thing was learning how to empty my mental RAM. I realized my thinking and ability to enjoy my life were severely retarded by always having my mental RAM be working at 120%. Overclocked at all times to say the least. I was so used to the feeling of overwhelm that I didn’t even realize that was the panicked state I was in the majority of the time.

It took me HOURS and HOURS of writing just to get all the info I carry around with me at all times. I actually felt like I was in a new world when I was finished. I was able to enjoy regular activities like I hadn’t in a long time. Just playing a game with my daughters was so fulfilling instead of my normal experience of hoping it would go quickly because I had so many things I had to get finished, or started, or whatever. I feel like I went through some sort of self help seminar rather then the structured, step by step system that teaches the art of stress-free productivity!

When it comes to business I can safely say that I have done more today then I did all of last week, because of what I learned from Getting Things Done! I am so thankful I was able to see through my own ego and just read the book. Okay, before I start sounding like an infomercial I’ll end there…

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If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it. Sterling just read it as well. We’re both in the process of using David Allen’s principles to set up our lives and businesses. Here are some of the basic tenets of the GTD philosophy:

• Get everything out of your brain and into a dependable system to free up your mental RAM
• When everything is out of your brain, you’re free to fully use your energy to get into a “flow” and perform tasks
• For every project requiring your attention, determine the next action to take
• Keep track of next actions by context (e.g. home, phone, work, computer) and not by “to do” lists and priority
• Do not use your inbox to keep track of to dos
• Your inbox is a collection bucket for input into your life
• For every item in your inbox, decide what the next action is associated with that item and then move that into your system.
• The inbox must be “zeroed out” regularly or it will start creeping back into your head
• It’s just as important to feel good about what you are NOT doing as it is to feel good about what you ARE doing
• Have an easy filing system at arm’s reach where you store all reference and support material

And that is just to name a few of the basics. I can’t wait to get started using this system. As Sterling and I get started with GTD, we’ll be posting to the blog with insights and tips that come up along the way.
In the meantime, let us know in the comments what Getting Things Done principle has impacted your business the most.

Thank you for subscribing to Internet Business Mastery feed. For instant access to your free audio gift and a risk-free trial of our proven step-by-step program for starting your own profitable internet business, please visit http://www.freeaudiogift.com.

In this episode of Internet Business Mastery, we take a look into the typical day of an internet entrepreneur and how you can best manage your time in order to find success in your internet business. We offer several tips based on how we schedule our day for maximum productivity including:

• How Sterling ensures that he has the creative energy he needs for making important strategic decisions
• How we start our day to get maximum momentum for the rest of the day
• Sterling’s favorite tools for staying on track with your schedule
• How Sterling makes it work with a home office with a family around
• Our favorite book about Time Management
• A system Jay uses to schedule each day to make sure the most important things get done
• How to control the phone and email

Items mentioned in this episode:

• No B.S. Time Management by Dan Kennedy
• Jay’s Time Log
• Sterling’s Schedule

Thank you for subscribing to Internet Business Mastery feed. For instant access to your free audio gift and a risk-free trial of our proven step-by-step program for starting your own profitable internet business, please visit http://www.freeaudiogift.com.