One of the things affecting all internet marketers is how they manage themselves around required daily activities. If you do not currently outsource any of this you can follow my simple plan. For the benefit of Internet Marketers here are a few things I check once (or twice) on a daily basis. This is called ‘batching’. Doing all related tasks in one go.

Inbox

All my emails run through Gmail (and get forwarded to outlook). Gmail strains the spam and has powerful filters and I have a local backup for my messages. By having a backup I can prune my inbox aggressively without fear of losing information. I am looking to remove or unsubscribe from anything that does not need to be there.

Any marketer or business who sends me useless or overly self serving messages will be nuked. They are trying to steal my time. My goal is to get to the leanest inbox possible. Every email I need to read is taking me away from something important. The trick is to only have the emails you must read and nothing else.

You may want to use RSS feeds to keep this task down to a minimum. If a site has an orange RSS symbol you can use this in a feed reader, browser or outlook. That way you can unsubscribe from the email version.

In gmail I archive things I may want to refer to again. Emails that require no action get filter rules set to go straight into the deleted folder. I action all emails in a batch. if you use outlook, turn off all email alerts and set outlook to retrieve emails every four hours rather than the default setting.

See this article about using Folders in Firefox to open all these things at once.

Twitter

When I log on to Twitter I do it through the standard interface. I used to use the application called Hummingbird to quickly add all new followers and also remove non-followers. Now I only follow people who I want to. I then answer and acknowledge all @ replies. Next, I check direct messages. I update what I am doing in the ‘what are you doing’, reply to a few others in the general time line.

Blog comments

I login to my WordPress blogs and approve comments. Then I reply to them. This will give you great feedback about what you are posting on. If I have something pre-prepared or fresh on my mind I may add a post while I am in there.

My forum

I go and reply to all new messages and visit every new post in my forum. I then add new content. Running a forum requires frequent attendance. If you attend daily it shows you care and also keeps your forum under control. This is one of the best uses of you time for recurring membership income.

Support requests

I have a special place to see all my support requests and bonus product claims. I do them all at once. If I get the same request more than once I will reply with a general post on the blog relating to that site (for others to see). If I get a lot of people ask me I make a training video and that way I can avoid the questions through education or point the person to the video to answer the request. (update – I have now outsourced this entire task).

Sales

I check the affiliate carts and my own sales receipts to make sure all is in order. Then I check advertising accounts (PPC) and key metrics such as site analytics. All of this arrives via email reports. (Use winner alert, Google analytics and merchant / shopping cart notifications)

Industry News

Use RSS feeds and forum topics to keep this easy and perhaps have a site like www.IMnewswatch.com as your homepage. Then you can ditch 90% of the email that clogs your inbox. Use Google alerts to get competitor data emailed directly to you. Author names, full site URL’s and product names are good keywords.

Advanced

I have all these things on a different computer with a large screen. The laptop is only used for these tasks and the PC with dual monitors is for creating stuff. I make videos, reports, ebooks, interviews and MP3′s on the PC. When I am making these products I am not being disturbed by emails or other distractions!

You are only making money when you are adding value, learning, or innovating. You can now do skype calls, interviews, product planning, product creation, market research or whatever you like when you are free to think about it rather than be continually interrupted.

Timer helps

I have a timer. You have to get up from time to time and step away from the computer. The timer helps you work in focused chunks of time and you set your target to achieve a specific thing in each chunk. That way you do not get taken off track.

Performance Tip

Switch your computer to performance mode instead of having pretty graphics. Get a computer with a lot of Gigs so that is can handle heavy tasks. It will be faster. Try using this free tool for optimizing your PC.

Be Disciplined

Doing this once or twice per day in a batched task will eliminate that backlog and keep you remarkably effective! I hate to think about the wasted hours people spend just reading emails! Remember who put yourself there? YOU!

Now, get your self out of there. Here is a quick hack. Make a new folder and call it SORT. Move your entire inbox to that right now and start fresh. Over time you can prune your inbox by unsubscribing and setting filters to go direct to delete.

Process Optimization

Make sure you measure your processes so you can continuously refine your process. Not only that, continue to look for breakthroughs and ways to outsource not just to people but to systems and automation as much as possible.

Question Everything

Everything you do you should ask questions. Asking better questions gets better answers:

- Is this a high value activity?
- Can I get someone else to do this?
- Will this give me a return on investment?
- Is there a better way to do this?
- Can I automate this?
- Is there software that will do this?
- Can I have software designed to do this?

I have more information about this subject in my Free Report.

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