Building an audience is not the easiest thing to do.
First you have to deal with the technical side of building your online business.
You’re also responsible for creating massive amounts of content that will attract and convert people into subscribers and customers.
Whether you’re writing, recording audio or video, the process is time consuming and difficult at times.
Today I’d like to share with you a few ideas from some people you might’ve heard of before. These ideas will help you get more stuff done in less time.
It’s a known fact that we waste a lot of time, hopefully after reading this article you’ll be motivated to take more action. So let’s get going…
6 Smart Productivity Ideas
1. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
— Voltaire
Voltaire was right on the money with this one. Trying to get everything perfect will stop you from accomplishing anything at all. When you’re writing an article, don’t write and edit at the same time. Leave the editing for later.
Get all of your ideas on the text editor so you can finish the post; focus on editing and polishing it up after you have the entire post written. Clean it up as much as you like, but remember that the point of the article is to get people to read it.
It will never be perfect, so don’t be afraid to press publish.
2. An empty desk is an efficient desk.
— Mr Warrenn
I keep my desk clean. Not because I’m a neat freak, but because it helps me write. It helps get my creative juices flowing. Too much clutter and mess on your desk might be causing you to get distracted and not finish the things you start.
Mr. Warrenn recommends keeping an empty desk if you want to be efficient and get more stuff done. If you think this is B.S, try it and let me know how it goes.
3. If there are nine rabbits on the ground, if you want to catch one, just focus on one.
— Jack Ma
Don’t try to catch all the rabbits; you’ll drive yourself mad and you won’t catch any. The same goes with taking on tasks. If you want to be efficient and get more things done faster, you need to focus on one thing at a time.
I know there are a ton of “multi-taskers” out there that will disagree with me on this one, but studies show that multitasking does impair task performance. Even though you’ll “feel” better about “doing” more things at once, the quality of that work will suffer.
So, be efficient. Don’t multitask.
4. Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.
— Napoleon Hill
Life is not just a sequence of getting ready to get things done. Preparation is good, but don’t let it consume you. Getting ready is just another way of procrastinating. Mr. Hill was right in saying that the time will never be perfect, so just start.
5. The value of an idea lies in the using of it.
– Thomas A. Edison
Contrary to popular belief, we have an enormous wealth of ideas between our ears. They come and go throughout the day. They might come up while reading a book, or listening to the radio, or watching a video on YouTube.
The ideas won’t stop coming, but they’re not worth anything if they stay in your head. Ideas are valued the most when they are shared and made real. They are valued when they’re out of your head and transformed into action.
Mr. Edison wants you to take all of your great ideas and act on them.
6. Never confuse motion with action.
– Benjamin Franklin
We’re always busy. We’re busy with emails, comments, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, traffic stats, affiliate stats… and on and on and on. This stuff isn’t important. These are what Mr. Franklin calls motion. We’re moving, but we’re not moving forward.
If you want to build an audience then you need to work on the things that will help you do that. Create more compelling content. Build your email list. Collaborate with other bloggers. Produce and launch products.
If you seem busy, stop and ask yourself, is this an important task? If not, move on to something else.
How Do You Get Stuff Done?
Great post Hector. The first quote is an office favorite – I work full time in the engineering and cartography field. You get diminishing returns the longer your work on something. If working for 1 hour can make a 20% accurate projection, working for 8 hours can make a 90% accurate projection, but to get a 95% accurate projection you need 100 hours. Is it worth 82 hours of extra work when 8 hours puts your over federal guidelines and is more than adequate for your purpose?
Number 2 and 3 are spot on. The only problem that I have with getting stuff done is maintaining my focus. The problem is that the internet is a huge place with tons of ideas floating around and you pick up stuff from here and there, all the darn time. If we can’t learn to ignore (momentarily) the ideas that come to us, it becomes even more difficult to get the previous idea into the execution phase..
Hey Hector,
I really don’t know how you do this but you always put me on the spot here LOL
I have been trying to organize myself, put some planning in each thing I do but I think I have that damn attention deficit thing going on in which you get easily distracted.
It is a constant struggle but I honestly think that some day I will actually learn how to be productive and keep my distractions to a minimum.
Great tips man, didn’t talk about them because I would be writing a post within a post here.
Sergio
Oooh, you touched a nerve here with your third point ~ have just realised that, according to your analogy, my problem is I’m forever bouncing between bunnies instead of just cuddling up with one of them!
Don’t you find that working on line means that one needs extra resistance, because the distractions are huge ~ the minute you publish a post and then move off to tweet about it, you just read a couple of tweets whilst you’re there, retweet something valuable or follow up looking at a blog post you’ve just been tweeted about and then if that post offers a “call to action” off you go … miles away from your own post publishing. Note to self: must try harder, cuddle one bunny at a time! Thought provoking post, thank you
Run away from rabbit holes! Great content as usual Hector!
That is an awesome post. You have really layed out your points in great detail. Very easy to follow with good content. We should take get hold of this post, read and impliment the points outlined.
I plead guilty to 5 out of 6. Not confusing motion with action is the only one that I seem to have naturally inherited. Great post Hector, and I hope the quotes will pop up in my brain every time I am indulging in the other five
Always a real eye openr reading your posts here buddy.
Well am I getting enough done? Probably not and this is a great reminder that I have to refine what the hell I am doing and more importantly ‘why’?
Thanks again
Greg
Thanks for the wonderful tips Hector. I guess we all are guilty of indulging in one or many of the distractions mentioned here. Note to myself, ” Stop being a Perfectionist and settle with being Good”
Such a helpful reminder as I sick here surfing Facebook instead of working… thanks!
I think I need to clean up my desk right away for it is the one thing that really pulls be back from writing. This is what i call great insight and as a blogger I really needed to read this. Thank you for sharing.