How I Squeeze 26 Hours Out Of Every Day!

If you're like me, good time management skills and tools
are an absolute necessity. We often have so many "alligators
snapping out our heels" that we don't know where to start.
Here's my "extreme time management system." Adopt it as your
own and you'll feel like you've gained several hours a day.
It's how I squeeze 26 hours out of every day.

The system calls for extreme organization and a lot of
discipline. It's NECESSARY for me. This is the system that
allows me to run an affiliate program, manage 22 websites,
publish a weekly ezine, publish 2 daily niche lists, visit
an average of 15 discussion forums a day (3 of which I help
moderate), write 2 new ezine articles per week, process over
800 emails a day, do off-line consulting, fit in a daily
workout, and still find time to spend with my family and
friends.

The system has 2 parts - organization and discipline.

First the discipline. The discipline is nothing more than
following a few simple, self-imposed rules. These rules are:

1) Whenever opening any email (or snail mail) process it
right then. That simply means replying to the email or adding
it to your "to-do" list (in a specific place) if it will fit
into your schedule better later. Make notes in your organizer
of any correspondence that may need tracking. Add any new contact
to your contact database if appropriate. If the email contains
a gem for an article or post, make a note in your organizer or
even make an online post. If the email contains any data you
will need to refer to later such as website urls or passwords,
enter them into your cross-referenced database.

Every time that you read an email, you have to decide what
needs to be done with the information. Making and acting on
that decision once is an amazing time-saver! If you don't do
this, then you have to go through the exact same decision
process the next time that you examine the email.

2) Whenever presented with any task, ask if it makes sense
for you to do it or if you're better off hiring someone else to
do it. We have to recognize our skills and get others to do
those things that would cost us too much time and energy.
Some things are better done by professionals we can hire or
even family members we can get to pitch in. Learning to
delegate and "farm out" chores is essential to getting any
significant job done.

3) Identify what are the most important tasks you need to get
done FIRST and then do first things first. Balance is also
necessary here because things like exercise and maintaining
personal relationships must be priorities. I schedule these
right into my day. I print out my to-do list and refer to
it often to avoid getting sidetracked.

4) Learn to say no when appropriate. Realize that with this
system you can do much more in the same time but, there is a
limit to what you should obligate yourself to do. Don't
get into the habit of taking on more obligations than you can
possibly accomplish. As you get known online you will soon
discover yourself being asked to review numerous websites,
ebooks, and pieces of software. Politely decline when you
have all you can currently handle. This allows you to
focus and get more tasks actually completed!

After mastering the discipline required, organization is a
MUST. I have one primary tool that keeps me extremely
organized. It's a piece of software called the Internet
Information Manager. If you have ever spent half an hour
sifting through emails looking for a url or password you'll
find this tool an answer to your prayer. If you have ever
searched frantically for an email so that you could
intelligently respond to another email, you will appreciate
this tool. If you have ever tried to remember the name of an
individual, website, or ezine associated with a particular
project, you'll absolutely love this tool.

What is this Internet Information Manager? It's a piece
of software you install on your computer that allows you
to store all of the information you use frequently in one
place. Everything from projects, to articles, to contacts,
to website urls are stored in a cross-referenced database.
It is my big organization and productivity secret. I've
used it for a while - as I tinkered with the beta version.
It's now such a part of my daily system that I wonder how
I ever got along without it. If my computer is turned on,
this tool is open. You need a similar tool. I use it to:

- Keep track of all ongoing projects
- Manage my to do lists
- Store all of my contacts. These contacts are cross
referenced so that with the click of a button I can go
to an associated affiliate program, website, ezine, ad
campaign, searchengine, or project
- Start an email in my default email program with the
click of a button
- Launch my default browser and whisk me to my favorite
discussion forum. This is how I jump from forum to forum
at dizzying speeds. A cable internet connection helps
too :-)

The key to the system being so productive and so easy
to use is that it's all cross-referenced. So as I surf
the boards and come across an idea for an article,
a project, or some research data, I can quickly plug it
into the appropriate place in my database. This keeps
the information always at my fingertips. When I am ready
to write an article or complete a project, all of the
data is in one place (waiting to be processed).

The other productivity tool that is a must is email
filters. Most email clients allow you to easily filter
your incoming email into folders you create. Use this
feature to store emails on a specific topic, or specific
groups of people all in the same folder. Use it to filter
all incoming ezines into one place, all orders into one
place, all personal email into another place. I transfer
data from most of my email to my Internet Information
Manager, but I store the original email in my email program
(Pegasus).

Similar to filters are email aliases. Create special
email addresses for specific purposes. It difficult to
get all of your contacts to use the correct address but
this is a real time saver. For example, if you have an
assistant that handles your mailing list, use an email
alias to send all of those emails directly to them. There
is no need for you to waste time reading emails you don't
need to read if you have properly trained your assistants.
Train them, empower them and then trust them to get it done.

Speaking of training - it is another tool for increasing
your productivity. Learn to really use software you
know you will frequently use as soon as practical. You'll
discover many tasks this software can help with that you
would otherwise miss. Also consider time spent training
an assistant to properly do a task an investment. Avoid
the temptation to just do it yourself. It will save you
much more time in the long-run and frees up your time to
do the things you should be doing.

I've shared with you how I squeeze an inordinate amount
of work into my day (when necessary). I'm also careful
not to overload myself and damage my health. This is also
something you need to watch. Success at the expense of
your health and happiness is not success in my estimation.

Adopt this system today and you'll soon be amazed at
what you can accomplish in very little time. You'll
also be pleasantly surprised at the amount of free time
you find. The Internet Information Manager was created
by my very good friend Gary Knuckles. Grab a copy now
at: http://williecrawford.com/cgi-bin k.cgi?garyk