At the end of each day's work on your online business, jot down your plan for the next day's work.
It's much easier to do this while you're still in the groove of working and you're squaring things away at the end of the day (or night).
Now you can start the next day with a definite task to work on, and knowing what you intend to accomplish that day.
Otherwise it's too easy to waste an entire work session by clicking aimlessly around in an endless cycle of checking email > visiting forums > checking your stats > checking movie reviews > back to your email > another forum ….
Some people also find it easier to start out a work session by picking up a project they've already started the previous day, than to begin a new project. By the time they've completed that already-started project, they're warmed up and in the groove, ready to take on the next task.
Whatever system you use, just be sure you sit down at your computer knowing exactly what you're going to work on.
Professional publications decide in advance what type of content they're going to publish in future issues, and create a schedule for it.
Unless a new story takes precedence over their planned content, they stick to their established schedule as much as possible.
This schedule is called an “editorial calendar” or “publishing schedule”. It's used not only to chart the major features planned for particular issues of a magazine or other publication, but it's also used to coordinate advertising related to the main content of the issue.
Now that you're a professional publisher, you'll need to plan your content in advance too.
Learn how to Set Up a Publishing Schedule for your Authority Site, and see how much easier and less stressful it makes your business!
You could use it to map out seasonal or holiday related content; your weekly Linkbait Post; content related to an upcoming affiliate product release; content related to your own new product launch; etc.
Or you might cover a certain aspect of your niche on Mondays, a different aspect on Tuesdays, etc. Daily publications often use that content scheduling strategy.
Scheduling your content makes your Authority Site a much higher quality publication than if you post content randomly. It also makes it easy to outsource some or all of your content, and to see what you need to work on next.
While you're in the groove of a particular task, work assembly-line style.
For example, write several blog posts at once (and save to post one per day). Or several articles to use for article marketing. Or edit dozens of images in one session. Or answer all of your email.
Whatever your task is, you can most likely bang out several of it in the same session - which saves time and increases accuracy.
Each day you probably spend time waiting for something. For example, you may wait for:
Why not turn all this waiting time into productive time? Instead of wasting away minutes or hours waiting, you could:
Make a point of always bringing with you something to study, plus a notebook and pen (or some other way of recording your ideas).
You'll be amazed at how fast your online business advances when you spend some time studying and brainstorming every day.
Write down the steps for the tasks you do on software that you use only occasionally - or any other task you do periodically but always forget exactly how to do it.
Don't re-invent the wheel each time you have to do one of these tasks. Instead, you can whip right through them in no time when you have your own easy “cheat sheet” to follow.
Keep your cheat sheets in one of your 3-ring binders we talked about in Set Up Your Workspace for Efficiency so you can find them quickly.
Work toward automating as much of your business as you can, so you'll have more time for marketing and promoting, product development, joint ventures, etc.
Every month, take a moment to step back from your online business and analyze how things are going.
Examine all the projects you have going on, what you've accomplished, and the things on your to-do list (the tasks you've finished as well as the ones that aren't getting done).
What isn't working for you? Where is your progress being held up? Where is your time being wasted? Eliminate, fix, or change what's not profitable or effective in your business.
What is working for you? What's your most popular, successful content? Where are the majority of your traffic and profits coming from? Dedicate more of your time, effort, and resources into what is profitable and working well for you.
Next month, step back and re-adjust again.
Know your strengths, and design your online business around them.
Consider outsourcing or hiring someone to handle the areas of your weaknesses.