I’m so pleased to welcome Anne Wayman as a guest poster on Get Paid to Write Online, since I’ve been following her writing blog for years. Today she shares her views on must-haves for a successful freelance writing business.

Don't panic about your freelance writing business - show some moxie instead.

Ask a dozen people, or do a search on the ‘net, about what you need to start a freelance writing business and you’re likely to end up with a list as long as someone’s proverbial arm.

Online you’ll be told about something called the entrepreneur’s personality. This type of article almost always offers test purporting to tell you if you have such a mind or not. Everyone who can fill out their email form correctly passes and qualifies for a course on starting a business that costs – well, there’s that arm again, along with a leg.

You’ll also find lists ranging from 10 to 50 things you must have in place before you dare to step out on your own. Ten might make sense, 50 is a stopper as far as I’m concerned.

Friends and family will have another set of suggestions about what you need that is often comes in the form of “What! Are you crazy?” or some variant.

While some of this information can be helpful, particularly if you take it in small bites, it can also be so overwhelming it will make you think starting your business is impossible – it’s not. There’s a huge difference between what you really need to start a freelance writing career and what’s nice to have.

Three Must-Haves for a Freelance Writing Career

Here are the three things you absolutely must have to start a freelance writing business:

Some writing talent. You don’t have to be Pulitzer Prize material or in line for a columnist job at, oh say, The Atlantic. You do need the ability to recognize and write complete sentences, do some basic research and recognize that ideas are everywhere. Chances are if you love to read and you grew up in an English speaking country you write well enough.

A computer and an internet connection and somewhere to use it. You can set it up on a desk in your bedroom or, dare I mention, the kitchen table featured in so many get-rich-quick schemes, or on your lap in your living room. I have at one friend who runs the majority of her writing business from various coffee shops around town with her laptop.

A bit of Moxie.  Moxie is an old fashioned word meaning, among other things, including. “1. The ability to face difficulty with spirit and courage. 2. … initiative… ”

The Most Important Quality for Writers

Of the three I, suspect moxie is the both the most important and perhaps the most difficult to come by. It’s not the skills that are difficult, although there is certainly some of that required. It’s that “ability to face difficulty with spirit and courage” that can be hard to come by, as well as the “initiative.”

Make no mistake about it, starting a writing business or any other for that matter, requires “imitative” and I can guarantee that you will meet difficulties that a bit of bravery will help you solve.

I know from my email that many who say they want to be freelance writers lack the moxie to do what it takes; I’m not sure why.

Some, of course, are just looking for an easier, softer way.

But many suffer from one or both of two fears – rejection and/or not getting it right.

When you have moxie you may have those feelings, but you don’t let them stop you.

That means that although you’re totally panicked at the idea of submitting a query, you do it anyway. Maybe you set a goal of getting it out in the next five days. Even when the fear becomes so strong you can barely type it out, you do it anyway, and you get it in the mail, E or snail.

Or maybe you want to start corporate writing. You determine to contact one local company a day by email for two weeks. As you compose the email you find you’re making typos because of the fear that someone will laugh at you or that that no one will respond. You send the emails anyway and you do it again the next week, making the emails better each week.

And when you get a response from a query or an email you sent regarding corporate writing you open it right away. And you read it until you’re sure you understand what it says.

If it’s a rejection, and in the beginning it usually is, you take a deep breath, and pin it to the wall in celebration because you’ve begun to actually take the steps that will lead you to a successful freelance writing career.

If, as occasionally happens, it’s an acceptance, you celebrate and then get on with the writing so you can do it all over again.

What do you find you need for your freelance writing business?

Anne Wayman is a ghostwriter and writing coach. You can find her at AboutFreelanceWriting and other websites including PowerfullyRecovered! and WhenGrandmotherSpeaks. Her professional site is AnneWayman.com.

Photo credit: Simon_K

By Lori Widmer

It’s tough when you’re first building your writing career to make the right choices. The easy choices aren’t necessarily the best choices, but when you’re fresh at it, how do you know?

When I first started freelancing, I chased the money – meaning I never turned down a client no matter how bad the fit was. The result: lousy working conditions, terrible pay, and referrals from cheap clients that led to even more cheap clients. I was stuck in a rut.

No more. Thanks to lessons learned the hard way, and lessons taught by other freelancers, I can now spot a lousy deal in milliseconds. I’ve now adopted three rules by which I judge all clients and offers.

Rule #1: Don’t pay for access to clients. That includes bidding sites, sites that require a fee in exchange for “access” to projects, and clients asking for “processing fees” or any other remuneration in exchange for a job. The idea behind freelancing is to be paid for your work, not the other way around. Worse, these sites often offer “premium” projects the likes of which can be found on Craig’s List – $4 an article? Really?

Rule #2: Don’t bid. Refer to rule #1. Let me qualify this because we do have to provide bids to clients frequently – don’t bid against writers in any open forum. That cheapens both the writer and the fee. Also, don’t bid on any project without contacting the client directly or knowing anything about the project. Instead, set your own rates. Do negotiate with clients so that you come to mutually agreeable terms, but don’t attempt to barter on a job board. You’re a professional. Professionals don’t beg.

Rule #3: Don’t weed through ads. I can’t remember the last time I scored a client gig through an advertised job. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I even looked at the ads. There may be true jewels among the rubble of job listings sites, but each one you find is also being found by thousands of your peers. Instead, choose your own clients and contact them directly offering your services. This does two things – it allows you to reach clients who truly value your skills, and it allows you to control your own earnings. Job listings usually state a rate, and it’s usually not up to what you should be earning.

By following these three rules, you can shed the low-paying gigs and lift yourself and your career out of an ever-deepening rut. It requires a little more work from you, but once you’re earning to your potential, you’ll be glad you put the effort into it.

What rules have you established for yourself and your business?

Lori Widmer is a veteran writer and editor who holds fast to her own rules. Her specialties include business and trade writing, and she teaches marketing and business development skills to freelance writers. Her e-book, The Worthy Writer’s Guide to Building a Better Business, is now available.  She blogs daily at Words on the Page.

Photo credit: Bruno Boutot

I enjoyed this guest post from Victoria Virgo, which shows how she has started the writing year right by booting out procrastination.

The first thing is admitting you have a problem. OK, here goes. Hi my name is Victoria and I am a procrastinator. I will find any excuse not to get things done but this year I am trying to figure out how to achieve my goals while suffering from this unfortunate affliction. The good news is that I have now learned a little secret that is helping to keep me on the straight and narrow and towards the righteous path of achievement and success.

It is the beginning of a brand new year and just like scores of other people all over the world I have prepared a well crafted list of things that I hope to achieve over the next 12 months. The majority of New Year’s Resolutions lists normally comprise of something to do with weight loss, perhaps getting a new job or even finding true love. Actually, to be honest with you I have left that last one off my list for this year and am instead opting for a cosy water bottle to keep me warm on a cold night. Well frankly there’s no room left in my bed what with the pile of self help books and self improvement magazines that have now taken up permanent residence on the left side of to the bed.

Anyhoo back to the point of this post – I am sure that by now you can be in no doubt that I am a procrastinator and will take any opportunity to go off at a tangent. Focus, Victoria, focus.

The Secret To Achieving Your Goals

The little secret that I have discovered is actually not that much of a secret. Everyone knows what it is but we seem to conveniently forget it every time we look failure in the eye. The secret to success comes down to proper planning and execution, plain and simple. If you are serious about hitting your targets you should ask yourself the following questions:

• What is My Goal?
• What Do I Need To Do To Achieve This Goal?
• When Do I want To Achieve This By?

As you can imagine, these questions will send someone like me off to procrastination heaven. I have therefore given myself permission to rest my chin in the palms of my hands and look out into the middle distance as I ponder the what’s and wherefores of these three valid points. Actually I allow myself about 5 minutes then snap back to reality and write out a step by step response to each question.

The Goal Setting Process in Action

Here is how I have used this simple process to achieve one of the goals on my New Year’s Resolutions list.

What is My Goal?

To write an article and get it published as a guest blogger.

What Do I Need To Do To Achieve This Goal?

Make a list of blogs that accept guest posts. Find out about the site owner and the type of articles that they are looking for. Create a suitable article and submit it for publication. I will write a fresh new article and submit it to a blog owner at least once a week.

When Do I Want To Achieve This By?

Within 3 months.

The Results

I happily got to work and lookey here, this is my first guest post. Hurrah! By getting organised and breaking my goal into bite size tasks, I was able to tame the procrastinator within and get the job done.

This process can be applied to almost any goal that you set for yourself. Once you know what you want you can then work out the steps you need to take in order to succeed. I hope this approach works for you too. Good luck fellow procrastinators.

(Image: By Jorge Barrios (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Victoria Virgo is a freelance writer from London, England. You can visit her personal blog My Daily Cuppa to discover how she is dealing with procrastination. She also owns Two Pretty Things where she writes reviews on whatever takes her fancy. 

by Dahlia Valentine

When I went to bed on September 18, 2011, I pinky swear I wasn’t thinking about starting a press release writing business the next day. I mean I had every intention of doing it… eventually.

You know, as soon as I had the website up and running… as soon as I’d written some killer website copy… as soon as I wrote a special report to convert the tire kickers… as soon as – well you get the point.

But when I woke up on September 19, I just had one of those ‘today’s the day’ feelings. I launched my press release writing service that afternoon and got my first three clients the same day.

The back story behind my impromptu launch

Part of the reason why I felt so apprehensive about launching the service without a website was my obvious lack of experience. You see, I don’t have a public relations degree resting on my mantle. In fact, I’d just written my first press release (ever!) less than 30 days before I decided to launch the service.

My informal education consisted of reading through 10-15 hour’s worth of press releases on PRNewswire and PRWeb. For my at-home-internship, I wrote 7 press releases for my blog and ebook.

My first release took three insanely meticulous hours to write. All the while I wondered if some pedigreed editor at Google News would see my obvious lack of PR-ability.

Apparently not. Google News isn’t curated by humans and the algorithm found my work good enough to rank in the #1 spot for my keywords. I was hooked!

You don’t need a website when you have friends in the right places

By the 7th release I was generating ebook sales through pure press release power. That’s when I started thinking about launching a website to promote my services. Problem was, while I enjoyed writing the press releases I was in no mood to waffle around with another website.

My saving grace came in the form of an Internet marketing forum I’d joined in August. Earn 1K a Day is a $40 a month private forum where Internet marketers talk shop and sometimes sell their products and services.

The site boasts many long-time members. And the fact that they’re constantly shelling out cash to be there means they’re serious about making money and they’re obviously making good connections.

So I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me when I launched my service on Earn 1K a Day and started getting clients within two hours. But it did surprise me. And it taught me a valuable lesson about selling my writing services.

Forums can be a writer’s best ally

It’s not that you need a big portfolio or a degree or even a website to get started. When I posted my ad on the forum I had a link to one of my press releases and a screenshot showing that release ranked in Google. I’m sure those two things helped my case.

But I’m inclined to believe it was my brief spurts of participation on the forum that helped me when I came courting with something to sell. Being a member there gave me credibility by association.

You don’t necessarily have to join Earn 1K a Day to see these types of results. My point is, get involved with a forum sooner rather than later. This way when you’re ready to hang out the “Hire Me” shingle, you’ve already established yourself.

In my next post, I’ll give you a list of forums where you can get started.

———————-

Dahlia Valentine is a blogger, an ebook author and a (happily) working press release writer. You can find out what she’s doing to make money in her writing business by visiting her blog at That IM Thing.  (Photo: kokouu)

by Lori Widmer

Let’s face it – we all feel like our businesses are stagnant sometimes. We market, we network, and at times we net nothing but frustration. It happens. We get bored. And that boredom is rubbing off on our clients.

That’s not to say they’re bored with us exactly, but maybe we’re not capturing their attention and their business in the best way possible. So how do you pump some life into that business of yours and increase the excitement for both you and your clients?

Find a new market. Maybe your current marketing approach is just so … familiar. Creativity comes from challenging yourself. So why not look at an entirely different client base? What market do you draw from currently, and what other markets share similar attributes where your skills fit in? For example, if you do copywriting for technology, perhaps writing for IT security or even Web developers would fit.

Use a new tool. If you’re used to sending out email after email, try snail mail. Or a phone call. Or reach out via social networking. Every point of contact you have with a client is one step closer to being remembered when their writing projects start piling up. Also, mixing it up helps you see more clearly the message you’re putting out.

Train. If you feel stagnant, maybe it’s because you’ve accomplished all you can in that particular concentration. Try something new. Sign up for a course in query writing, resume writing, SEO writing, or book a session with a career coach. Find ways to expand your potential and your skill set, and you’ll boost your business potential and your own excitement level.

Work on your first impression. Whether you’re writing a query, a letter of introduction, or a phone pitch, you may be missing something. Listen to your own words – write it, then read it to yourself, putting you in the buyer’s chair. Would you buy from you? If not, what will that script or note need in order to get your attention? Try framing things not as “I accomplished this and this and this” but as benefits – “I have increased the rate-of-clicks for my clients through targeted email blasts…” Clients buy from a writer who is focused on their goals, not on the writer’s resume.

Sometimes you need a shift in perspective. By trying new approaches, you can approach your clients – and your career – from a new angle. It may be the very thing you need to kick-start your business.

Do you switch things up occasionally? If so, what seems to work best for you?

Lori Widmer is a veteran writer and editor who mixes it up quite regularly. Her specialties include business and trade writing, and she teaches marketing and business development skills to freelance writers. Her e-book, The Worthy Writer’s Guide to Building a Better Business, is now available.  She blogs daily at Words on the Page.

(Image credit: BrittneyBush)

Did that question make you stop and think? After getting my about page updated, I got to thinking about the difference between working for clients and working for myself (on my own projects). When I work for clients, I make sure to establish the parameters of the job, communicate regularly, deliver what I promised and meet all deadlines. But what about when doing work for myself?

Like many writers, I have a list of pet projects as long as my arm. I’ve never been short of ideas, and I jot these down using one of my tools of choice so that I don’t forget about them. If you’ve been reading the blog or my newsletter for a while, you’ll know that finding the balance between working for clients and working for myself is a hit and miss affair. (And I’m not the only one, if Dana’s post on procrastination is anything to go by.) Client work always comes first. That’s what makes my clients keep coming back for more.

I wonder, though, if I’m doing myself any favours that way. Whenever I set aside the time to work on my own projects, I get great results (like my blogging and writing ebooks). And those are the projects that will guarantee a sustainable income for my writing business into the future. Working on my own stuff has never been my first priority but, for at least a few hours or a day each week, it should be. If I gave the same dedication to my own projects that I give to client work, I’d soon have a raft of stuff completed – and my to-do list would be a heck of a lot shorter. So, once again, I’ll work on that.

What about you? Are you your own worst client?

(Photo: cheetah100)

by Charles Tran

Tracking finances is an important part of working as a freelancer. It’s much easier to stay on top of your freelance finances if you use a software package designed to track business accounts. The following five free downloads offer all of the features a freelancer should need to keep track of funds without having to be a bookkeeping expert.

1. Grisbi – This free software package is easy to set up and designed so you don’t have to understand accounting to use its tools. As long as you do not need a double entry accounting system, Grisbi offers everything you need to keep track of your business funds. You can create separate accounts for different users and customize all of your reports. The home screen shows your bank information at a glance.

2. Lazy8Ledger – This is a good tool for tracking your business accounts and your personal accounts in one place. It comes with report templates that provide the most common reports most businesses need. It also lets you import reports if you have designed some yourself. The program requires a certain level of bookkeeping skills to keep it organized and running efficiently, but offers more flexibility. If you have a solid understanding of general accounting, this software will be easy for you to understand.

3. FrontAccounting – This software is tied to a web-based program that will help you keep track of your bookkeeping through separate accounts and ledger entries. You can divide your business accounts into groups, which you can manage separately or together through your main ledger. FrontAccounting is particularly handy to have as you close out a fiscal year and open a new one. It takes care of all of the closing details so you are ready to begin your new fiscal year with the ledgers appropriately updated.

4. TurboCash – This free software is loaded with powerful tools for small and medium sized businesses. You can manage the books through the general ledger, and create customized reports. The software also handles invoice creation and other vital banking tools. You can add more than one company to the same software package if you need to do the books for multiple businesses. It also accepts more than one user at a time. TurboCash is easy to use, but it does require that you keep up with your entries on a regular basis.

5. GnuCash – I use this software myself and have to say it’s perfect for tracking all of my business income and spending. It also has the reporting and invoicing features of other free accounting software. There is definitely a learning curve, but once you have it going, it’s not difficult. I was able to import all of my reports from the bank and PayPal to create the entries. I leave it alone and update once a month with transactions. This works for me because I have a small client base and only take in a few individual payments per month.

On the downside, after importing my banking transactions, I had to spend time deleting the entries that were not related to my freelance writing. That taught me the valuable lesson I refused to learn before…keep separate accounts for business!

Charles Tran is a business blogger at CreditDonkey. Freelance writers can visit CreditDonkey.com to compare credit card offers for their freelance business.

(Photo: Tax_Rebate)

Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of approaches from people who want me to give them writing jobs. Since the site is called Get Paid to Write Online, I suppose that’s why some people think that this is what I do, though the tagline makes it pretty clear that this site offers advice on your writing career. I do work with other writers sometimes, though right now I’m not hiring. If I were, here’s what I’d say in response to some of the approaches I’ve received (these are all things that actually happened):

Professional Approach

1. If you want to approach someone for a writing job do it in a professional manner. That means a certain level of formality. I don’t want to be addressed as ‘Madam’ but an email that starts ‘Dear Sharon’ rather than diving into what the writer wants from me would be nice. And get a professional email address that includes at least part of your name or surname. If your email comes from kinkylady23, I’ll be less inclined to look at what you have to offer – just sayin’

Who Am I?

2. Find out my gender – it’s not hard. If I get emails that start ‘Dear Sir’, then I discard them because it’s obvious that the writer has done no research – that won’t work for me nor will it work for my clients.

Lose The SMS Speak

3. No text speak – if u rite like this u will nt gt a jb – end of story. If you write a pitch like that, how do I know you can spell, let alone write?

Spell Out The Benefits

4. Tell me WIIFM (what’s in it for me). What do you offer that other writers don’t? Are you a better researcher, a better writer, great with deadlines – show me your assets and if you can, back it up with proof. If you have links to your work published online, great; if not, then send me a couple of relevant samples.

Keep It Relevant

5. Relevant is the keyword here. I write mostly ebooks, articles and other web content, so if I am to outsource to you, I need to know you can do the same. Don’t send me your final year academic essay unless I ask for examples of academic writing. Take the time to craft something that is publishable on the web.

Do Your Research

6. If you’re pitching to write a guest post for my site, then read the guidelines. There is no point in sending me a detailed query on an article about energy when I publish a writing blog (and yes, this actually did happen!).

Clips, Please

7. Make sure the clips you send are published under your name – or explain why they aren’t. Please don’t make me have to ask you. If you’re a ghostwriter and can’t claim credit for your clips, I’ll understand. In that case, craft a custom sample as outlined above.

Why This Is Important

All of these may sound harsh, but look at it from my viewpoint. I have a great reputation with my clients for delivering above expectations and on time. When I outsource work to you and deliver it to my clients, it’s not your reputation that’s on the line; it’s mine. That’s why I have to be sure that you can do the job to the standards that my clients expect. Put that way, it’s pretty reasonable – no?

I’d welcome additions to this list from all the experienced writers out there. What gets your goat when writers ask to work with you?

(Photo: GoTRISI)

What turns a blog post into a winning blog post?

Sometimes when I’m thinking about what to write for my weekly post, the ideas come thick and fast and the actual thinking time is minimal.

Other times I’m not so lucky and whilst I was thinking about what to write this week, I seemed to hit a blank wall.

I always try to write a winning blog post every time – one that’s going to be popular amongst you, the readers – and whilst looking through previous posts on this blog – and others – for inspiration,  it dawned on me that rather than come up with a topic for a winning blog post, I’d do my best to tell you how to write a winning blog post.

As anyone who uses WordPress will know, there are thousands of plugins available that can be installed to enhance the blogging experience for both the blogger and the reader.

One of the plugins that Sharon has installed here on Get Paid To Write Online displays information on the visitor statistics, from how many people visited on any given day right through to which page was read the most during a certain month.

What that plugin can also do is tell you which posts have been the most popular in terms of the number of times that it has been read and therefore it’s a simple equation that the posts which are read the most are the most popular, meaning that they’re prime examples of winning blog posts.

To begin with, looking at the reader statistics from right back to when the first post was published here, the five most popular blog posts are:

1. How To Create A Writing Portfolio
2. 10 Most Common Writing Mistakes
3. 39 Writers You Should Follow On Twitter
4. I, Ghost Blogger
5. How To Write With A British Accent

From this list, you can begin to see just why these posts are so popular and having a read through the posts themselves once again, it becomes apparent that there are four key points you need to stick to which should allow you to create your own winning blog post.

1.  The posts need to offer something that the majority of your audience wants

Every single one of the five posts mentioned is of use to the vast majority of writers. They might not all be directly aimed at the entire market, but every writer should be able to take something away from each post.

For example, the post about common writing mistakes is a fantastic one for beginners to the industry, but it’s also just as useful for seasoned writers who are wanting to ensure that they’re staying at the top of their game.

This also relates to the post regarding writers to follow on Twitter – new writers will be following them all straight away and experienced writers will be checking to make sure they’re all on their follow list.

2.  You need to write about what you know and are experienced in

When you know and trust someone, it’s easy to get into somewhat of a comfort zone with them, accepting what they say as truthful and valid and taking on board whatever information they’re giving to you.

Take a Doctor as an example. You know they’ve spent years training to get into the position that they’re currently in and so you’re comfortable accepting the information that they tell you.

Most of the readers on this blog know Sharon is a particularly knowledgeable and experienced writer (and if you didn’t when you first came here, chances are you do now – the ‘About’ page is the second most popular after the home page) and therefore whatever information she puts up on this blog, you’re comfortable accepting it as you know that she’s speaking from experience.

I’m not saying that Sharon is omniscient and holds the Holy Grail to becoming a successful freelance writer (although I do wonder sometimes…), but when you’ve been at the top of your game for more than just a few years, you get to know what works and what doesn’t, something that is invaluable to writers of all abilities.

3.  The content needs to do exactly as it says on the tin

I like quirky headlines and headlines that make me think, rather than ones that give you a straightforward explanation or introduction to the piece, but these have their time and place and on a blog where the aim is to help writers succeed, this isn’t one of them.

No writer wants to be going to a blog for advice and wonder whether every post they come across is going to be of use to them because the headline isn’t particularly clear.

With the posts mentioned, four of them clearly spell out what you should be expecting from the post content and the remaining post – I, Ghost Blogger – whilst the title doesn’t spell out exactly what the post is about in a way that everyone would understand, you get an explanation of the content within the first three sentences.

4. The bumf needs to be left behind

When you read each of the five posts, it doesn’t take long until you’re actually at the point where you’re receiving useful information and even when you’re at that point, you’re not having to trawl through a lot of pointless content – bumf (which is one of my favourite colloquial words!) – to get to the useful information.

Creating a winning blog post – one that’s read time and time again and shared by readers – isn’t easy and in some instances, relies more on how your readers are feeling and what they’re wanting at a certain time than anything else.

You can do your utmost to ensure that the posts you do write are as well-received as possible, however and looking at the five most popular posts here on Get Paid To Write Online, it would be strongly advised to revolve your posts around the four points mentioned that link them all together.

by Ivin Viljoen

I use an unusual planning tool for my writing and blogging business – it’s a vision board. This is where I write down all my hopes, dreams and plans. It’s one of my key time management tools. I’d like to tell you more about it.

Have all your projects in panoramic view

I find it helps to have an overview of everything I want to achieve. This is where a note board is useful. One of those big white ones where you write and erase your whiteboard marker scribbles. This is not a calendar or a diary, it’s a brainstorming/scribble board. Here I just put all sorts of ideas, plans and goals onto it to have a panoramic view of what is going on in my mind and my business at that moment. I don’t describe too much. I just want flashes through words. ‘Content Creations Contract’, ‘Forum dev 4 Autho’, ‘Guest Posts for Murray, Sharon & Gail’, ’5 year bus plan are some of things I have written there.

Break up projects, goals and things to do in categorized lists

Once something’s on the board, I break these down into smaller tasks, each of which will help me to achieve the projects and goals on the board.  These get added to my list of daily tasks, which I keep in a desk diary. My diary’s where I write down all the things I need to do everyday, the routine things, for instance:

• Blog Post
• Guest Post
• Ezine article
• 3 x articles for contract.

Those are examples of things I HAVE TO DO everyday. If I don’t, I get behind and lose ground and customers. Added to that would be other things from the board like: ‘research’, ‘time management’ or ‘get blog stats and increase metric goals’. These then become part of my everyday tasks.

Lose some ‘To-Do’ things

I’ve found there are some things on my list that will simply take too much time, time I do not have. Examples of this are configuring a very complicated plug-in for my WP blog, or reading about and starting the process for a membership portion for my site/blog. If it’s not a crisis and won’t affect the bottom line, I move it off the list and back onto the board.

NB! If you try this, don’t remove things from the board unless you aren’t interested in them anymore. Keep them there so you don’t forget them. Loose papers get lost and thrown away, so keep it on the board.  And one last thing. This board contains info on major development plans and goals for your business, so it’s best to take a digital photograph of it. You wouldn’t want all that useful info to be accidentally erased.

What are some of your time management tips and routines?

Ivin Viljoen is a self publishing expert having written his first book in 3 days and publishing it in 2 weeks. He has been blogging since 2006 and launched his self publishing blog in August 2010. Get your free copy of his ‘Work from Home Truth’ book on his blog.