Up until about five months ago, I was spinning my wheels and getting nowhere with my on-line business. I spent most of my day surfing Internet marketing forums looking for new ideas and reading about success stories (these stories were comforting and gave me a little hope).

Eventually, I realized that I was wasting most of my day going off on different tangents. You’ll quickly discover that in this business there is no shortage of options. There are so many ways to get set up to make money online that if you’re not careful, you can wind up with information overload – never making any traction as you drift from one idea to another without stopping long enough to focus on any one thing in particular.

I eventually discovered that I was making two critical mistakes:

Number one – I was so fearful of making the wrong choice and wasting my efforts that I kept trying to find the perfect approach. I wanted to find the perfect method. I quickly discovered that it doesn’t exist, and what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another.

Number two – I didn’t have a plan. I had no plan and no schedule. Each day was spent drifting aimlessly and getting very little done. Once I sketched out a rough plan and assigned certain tasks a time limit, I saw a massive improvement. As much as I hate to admit it, I had to adopt a job type strategy to my Internet business. Ironically, this was exactly why I left the corporate world to begin with.

Putting yourself on a schedule isn’t as bad as it sounds. In my case, I divide the day up into two hour chunks. During this time I work steadily without allowing myself any distractions. At the end of the two hours, I take a 15 minute break. I also allow myself one hour for lunch. An average day for me means working between six and eight hours. I don’t burn myself out by working 12 hour days, however, I’m very consistent and I make sure that I accomplish a significant amount each day.

If I started working 12 or 16 hour days, I would probably start hating this and it would affect my productivity. As it is right now, I actually enjoy what I’m doing and that’s what’s important for long-term success.

I work a 40 hour week and I always leave the weekend open to either work or not. It really depends on how I’m feeling at the time. If I want the weekend off, I don’t feel guilty because I’ve already put in a full week. I also reserve this time to surf the webmaster forums and look around for new ideas. There’s no schedule and no pressure.

While this might seem fairly laid-back, I feel that I accomplish more by adopting this attitude. Besides, I can’t work into the night like some people do. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate properly and my work would suffer for it.

If you’re just starting out in the Internet marketing game, you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you. But, by remaining focused, you can chip away a little each day and eventually reach the point where you may not have to work as hard to maintain the same income level. That’s what I’m hoping for.

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