Accomplishing Daily Goals

In order to accomplish long term goals, you need to accomplish daily goals. I know, I know, “duh”! But this seems to be a missing piece in many people’s internet marketing progress.

You’ve probably heard this before but I’m going to say it again because it actually took me reading this piece of advice numerous times before I finally caved in and gave it a try.

If you’re serious about your internet marketing efforts, you have much to be accomplished each and every day. And if you’re anything like me, when you get online you can be easily distracted by something – whether it be an article that catches your attention, a new site that looks interesting, the latest gossip, or whatever.

I used to have a serious ADD internet problem. Admittedly, I still sometimes do. Curiosity is human nature and there is SO MUCH information online that we want to check this out or check that out…just ‘real quick’.

I kept seeing people talking about their daily checklist and I finally gave it a try. But it’s also important to set a time limit to many of the tasks on your list, especially when it comes to this “social” stuff because it’s way to easy to spend too much time on one or two things and never get much else accomplished.

If I’m working on social networking or marketing, I have a general list that I go by. It looks something like this:

-check MySpace – 30 minutes
-check FaceBook – 30 minutes
-post new blog entry and bookmark – 1 hour
-submit blog/site to directories – 45 min

Of course, your list and your time limits may vary and they should be set according to your goal but you will seriously see a difference if you make a plan like this and STICK TO IT.

YOU must end your time as soon as your time is up and move on. You’ll feel so much more accomplished when you realize you actually covered everything you wanted to cover instead of realizing you didn’t do half of what you wanted because you let yourself get stuck on one site.

Social marketing and networking takes time, no doubt. So allocate your time wisely and you’ll accomplish much more.

There will be days that vary, that you need to spend more time on a particular task and that’s perfectly fine. Just adjust the rest of the week.

Sometimes, this is what my weekly plan will look like:

Monday
-add MySpace friends and comment friends – 3 hours

Tuesday
-submit site to directories – 2 1/2 hours

Wednesday
-write 2 to 3 blog posts and bookmark- up to 3 hours
(of course to be published on different days)

Thursday
-check MySpace – 30 minutes
-continue directory submissions – 1 hour
-comment on relative blogs – 45 minutes
-check FaceBook – 30 minutes

Friday
-set up profile on xxx site – 1 hour
-bookmark new profile – 1 hour
-write 2 blog posts and bookmark – up to 2 hours

Yes, there are times that I don’t create my little lists and I find that I’m much more productive when I do.

If your work brings you across things that do interest you, which it will, bookmark them and go back to them later.

I have a bookmark folder named “Check this stuff out” that I add things to when I’m trying to get work done but run across something I want to read or look into.

Then when I’m just on my “browsing time”, I go to that folder and take a look at what’s in there. It really helps keep me from surfing when I need to be focusing because I know the information is safe and sound in my handy-dandy folder and it’s not going anywhere. And you’ll probably find that you’re not actually all that interested in some of the stuff and you’ll eliminate a lot of junk that would have held up your goals!

So:

*Figure out what you need to accomplish each week.
*Break it down into achievable daily goals.
*Set a time limit for each goal.
*Create a bookmark folder for stuff you want to check out later.
*Check off each task as you accomplish it so that you can actually see your progress.
*Stick to the plan.
*Watch your long term goals materialize!

Do you create a goal list? Do you find it helps you more than when you don’t create a list?

If you have other ideas or suggestions for plans to accomplish goals, please share with us =)

Karen J. for Online-Marketing-Wizards.com