Working from Home and Managing Your Time

Managing your time is always an important skill to have but, when you work from home, this becomes even more crucial while also being more difficult to accomplish. Some of the very reasons that working from home is attractive are the very things that can make it harder to maintain productivity and focus. Many people like the idea of running a home-based business because they like the flexibility in scheduling, not having to report to a boss and because they want to spend more time with their children. While these are great benefits, without proper time management those benefits can become hindrances.

Working from home often gives you tremendous flexibility when it comes to scheduling your work hours. You can easily adjust your hours around appointments or the children's school activities. You also have the opportunity to work when you are naturally the most productive such as early morning or late nights. The key thing to remember is that a schedule is still important to maintain even while remaining flexible. It's far too easy to get off track and miss deadlines if you don't set aside specific blocks of time to work on your business.

Time management means more than just setting aside a certain amount of time to work. It also includes knowing what tasks need to be done, how to prioritize those tasks and having specific goals with what you are trying to accomplish. You can schedule yourself to work for a four hour block of time but if you spend the first hour figuring out what you need to do, you've just cut your productivity by 25%. You need to start with an overall plan that includes very specific, detailed goals including time frames to keep you on the fast track towards success.

In order to set your detailed goals, you first need to evaluate where you are at right now and outline where you would like your business to go. When you plan your tasks, each one should be a step along that path. For example, say you want to be at a certain point within 30 days from now. You would write down each task that will get you from where you are now to where you want to be at the end of that month. Those tasks are going to be what you focus on during your work hours. When listing these tasks, make sure you also write down how much time each one will take on average. This list will help you plan what you do during the time you have scheduled each day.

If you develop good time management skills, you can avoid the extremes that many new home business owners end up doing. There are two common scenarios that we see all the time. The first is the person who hasn't scheduled her time or written any goals. She works very hard all day but gets sidetracked with distractions and at the end of the day realizes that very little actual work was accomplished. The other scenario that can be just as destructive to the home business is the person who works 90 hours a week, from early in the morning until late at night. They may accomplish more of their goals but it makes for a high burnout rate, not to mention a very unhappy family.

Internet Marketing for Beginners - Author Unknown

Internet marketing for beginners is somewhat of an oxymoron. This is because while in theory the concepts behind Internet marketing might be quite simple, executing effective strategies can be extremely difficult. This can even be tough for those who are quite experienced in the world of Internet marketing. With this in mind, this article will attempt to explain the concept of Internet marketing for beginners and will outline some basic strategies which can help a business owner to launch his own Internet marketing campaign. We will cover concepts such as creating a website, placing banner ads, sending out e-newsletters, orchestrating an email marketing campaign and optimizing your website for search engines.

One of the most basic steps for starting an Internet marketing campaign is to create a website. If you don’t have a website or have a poorly designed website you should consider creating or re-designing a website to adequately market your products. If you do not have experience in web design, there are a number of software packages which make it simple for those with no design experience to create a functional website. However, hiring a web designer is worthwhile because he can work to create a website which is attractive, functional and suitable to your products and series. He can also help you include more advanced features on your website.

Banner ads are another popular option for advertising your business on the Internet. Banner ads are advertisements which typically appear along the top of a website but it may also include smaller ads in other locations. Banner ads typically include graphics and text which entice Internet users to click on the advertisement. Once a user clicks on the ad, they are directed to your website. This type of advertising can be very effective when care is taken to place the advertisements on high traffic websites which attract an audience who may have an interest in your products.

Sending out e-newsletters can also be a part of an effective Internet marketing strategy. E-newsletters are essentially emails which may contain a variety of information including informative articles, useful quizzes, relevant advertising or any other information which is deemed worthwhile for the recipients of the e-newsletter. The importance of these newsletters is that they can be used as marketing tools which are not viewed by the recipients as an advertisement. One way to do this is to incorporate links or other soft sale approaches into the copy of the e-newsletters. However, care should be taken to keep these references minimal so the e-newsletter is not viewed as spam.

Email marketing campaigns can be another successful aspect of an Internet marketing campaign. Email marketing essentially involves sending out emails to a group of individuals who may be interested in your products and services. Care should be taken in sending out these emails to avoid sending emails which are unsolicited and will be viewed as spam. One way to do this is to only send out the emails to users who have requested inclusion on an email mailing list. Another way to do this is to provide value in the emails as opposed to just including advertisements. This can be done by offering relevant advice in your emails and other useful information which may be of interest to the recipients of the email.

Finally, optimizing your website for search engines is a critical aspect of an Internet marketing campaign. Search engines rank websites according to quality and relevance for particular search terms. Many Internet users appreciate the effort by search engines and use these search engines to find the best websites on a particular subject. This means the Internet users are likely to only visit websites which rank well with search engines. Therefore if your website is not high ranking, you are not likely to generate a great deal of traffic from Internet users who use search engines to find relevant websites. Top ranking websites are likely to obtain the most traffic from search engines and all websites falling on the first page of the search engine results will likely enjoy some degree of success in improving their traffic.