Like in all other areas of life, success in online business does not come without its share of challenges. From managing life offline, to respecting a schedule, to learning new skills online, the challenges that the online business owner must overcome are many. Without the necessary know-how to overcome those challenges, the online business owner will find it very difficult to succeed.
What are those challenges?
There are many of them. But experience has shown that the most common and subtle ones are all related to the use of time. In this post, I’ll be sharing with you 7 time-related things to avoid if you should have an effective online business. Here we go:
1. Poor time management
The saying “Time is money” can be said in the online context as “Time is success”. And rightly so! There’s no successful online business owner that doesn’t spend time on his business. There are only 24 hours in each day. And it’s within that period that you must handle all of your offline responsibilities, and manage your online activities as well.
Poor time management on the part of any online business owner will see them not receiving the results they desire. Proper time management is key to success online.
To succeed in managing your time properly, your must establish a schedule and do all you can to respect it. Without that, you will hardly achieve anything meaningful in your quest for success online.
2. Spreading yourself too thin
This problem generally comes from inexperience and lack of guidance. When people start an online business, with the so-many platforms and tools available, they subscribe to so many ‘things’, either because they are not seeing results with previous ones and wish to try out as many as possible; or they are in learning mode, and wish to learn everything available.
That is a serious mistake to make as a new onliner. That is not how to succeed online! Signing up to countless platforms never produces the expected result. Instead, it diminishes one’s output. You can’t be effective in many places at the same time.
As such, focus your time and effort on one or a few, and you’ll be surprised at the outcome that will have. That’s the way to have an effective online business.
3. Wasting time on social media
Social media is essential for marketing, but it could be a source of distraction if you are not careful. I’ve already mentioned how scarce time is when you are an online business person.
Spending much time socializing online reduces the already-insufficient time you have, and leaves you with many important things undone. Use social media for marketing purposes, especially. And limit all other activities there to the barest minimum.
To achieve that, establish a minimum duration to spend on extra-marketing social media activities. That time is mainly to be spent on “getting informed” and – if necessary – responding to the most important relationships you have there. Avoid “clicking” to go after details. You could waste valuable hours before you realize it!
4. Spending too much time watching your stats
I’m guilty of this one!
As new online business owners wishing to see results, we’re in the habit of consulting our stats several times a day to see the few cents we’ve made. That’s also valuable time being wasted.
Consulting stats should be done mainly with the goal of observing/analyzing important parameters. And even then, it should be done periodically (preferably on schedule), and not spontaneously or too regularly.
You should have well-defined parameters relating to possibility for growth in your online business you wish to observe – and apply (correct, improve, etc.). This should be the focus of your stats consulting. Outside of that, you will be losing time that could be used for more important things.
The approach to have when it comes to this is like something I recently read. The author was like: “To succeed, just keep working with your head down. And when you finally lift it, you realize that you’re already there”.
I agree with him. That is how success should be approached. And not lifting your head every minute to see the road ahead. It will slow your progress. So keep it down!
5. Just ‘Browsing’
Most times we come to our work station with the intention of working on our online business. But before or after we begin, we come across ‘something interesting’ online, and we desire knowing more.
One click leads to another and before we realize it, the work we actually came to do has not even kicked off or has gone nowhere, but we’re into moving from one website to another. And soon, what was supposed to be our working time is all used on pleasure rather than business.
That is a very common occurrence with online business enthusiasts, and a common reason why many do not have an effective online business.
6. Perfectionist tendencies
It’s great to have things done well. But when wanting to get all things perfect becomes a habit, the result is you don’t get much done. This concerns most new online business owners. They spent so much time on things such as choosing the right theme for their website, seeking for the best tools (by reading dozens of reviews, for example), searching for the best approach to apply; in short, seeking for the best of everything.
Trying to achieve that, you waste hours and hours that could be used for more important activities like training, research, experimenting, etc.
It is better to do things okay and be ahead than to try to do them perfectly and remain in the same position endlessly. Newbies, take note!
7. Procrastination
And then there’s procrastination – something nearly everyone in the world will tell you is counterproductive when it comes to getting things done.
Whenever you have tasks to perform – whatever it be – make sure you do not delay in carrying them out. If you have a scheduled established for different activities, do your best to respect it.
It is true that as humans, we are subject to external forces that could slow down our plans. But as long as it depends on you, make every effort to do what you have planned, and on time.
Online business is a never-ending series of activity. As long as you decide to be actively engaged in it, new tasks will always come up to achieve. If you are in the habit of delaying with your duties, you will end up creating backlogs of tasks that you will find difficult to deal with – all because you postponed them earlier.
Conclusion
The seven time-related factors outlined in this post are the main reasons why most online business owners remain ineffective. To avoid having that same fate in your business, spend less time on everything else online, and more time on your business.
But as you do, remember to make time for relaxation and rest. Don’t work and kill yourself to get things done. Not only will that be counter-productive to your health, it has been proven that rest/pause during work time results in more productivity.
So apply a reasonable balance between work and rest in order to get the best result, all in your best interest!