In your Internet Marketing aspirations do you ever feel dispersed? Going off in all different directions in your online income-generating pursuits?
Do you have a folder (or even worse, a desktop) full of downloaded E-books, the ones you paid for as well as a zillion “free bonuses?” Does the “Bookmarks” or “Favorites” menu in your toolbar have dozens of bookmarks, to sites that you “want to get back to one day?” Is your inbox full of newsletters and offers that confuse you and have you spending your time going off in all different directions, to the point where you never seem to have time to actually build your website or create content?
Is your computer or your fall full of Notepad “To Do” lists or sticky notes?
And then I guess I can guess how you feel when you get another email offering you a fantastic deal where you can now receive 60 hours of recorded audio or video training, 500 pages worth of E-books, and a subscription so that you will receive 12 hours of educational materials every three days … you have probably realized by now that you could make a full-time activity of just studying Internet Marketing, reading your emails, and researching the newest greatest way to do something, without every DOING ANYTHING.
Needless to say, you would probably not earn a cent this way. But you might be able to get discounts on train tickets by saying that you are a full-time student!
Do you try to log in to some article directory or website, only to realize you have forgotten your password or user name, and then spend 30 minutes trying to find it? And in the meanwhile do you get another email and go off in a different direction?
When your head is spinning, when you feel like you don’t know what to do next, I have a bit of advice for you.
STOP EVERYTHING. ORGANIZE.
Take a deep breath, and sort out your digital mess.
Here are a few points you can address:
1. Your email.
Go through your inbox. Find which newsletters and subscriptions are actually valuable (but which you probably never have time to read because they are drowned in so much other garbage) and which ones are not really needed. Unsubscribe from the duds. Delete them on put them in a folder of “to read one day if bored.”
Organize your email into folders. For example, I have a folder called “Accounts Logins,” another called “Accounts Financial,” another called “Accounts Webhosting” etc. I have folders for each mentor who I really trust so that I can store all their newsletters in there to read in sequence at the right moment. Organize your mailbox however suits you best.
Delete unnecessary emails. For example, I just deleted a few hundred email notification which informed me when my own blogs were updated.
If you use an email account that has a feature like “flag for follow-up” I really recommend you use it where applicable!
Go through and handle every email you can – try to get your Inbox as close to empty as possible.
2. Your downloads. Organize your E-books, free bonuses, videos, zip files, software downloads, ad infinitum. I have a folder called “Recent Downloads” where every new download goes. Later on, after I have downloaded, I can sort these items into applicable sub-folders, install new software, etc. But all of the latest downloads are in that folder so the folder itself is a kind of a “To Do” list.
I also have a folder called “E-books and References.” I also recommend you sort those into folders. Such as “Read,” “Want to Read,” “Read if bored” “Not Very Good,” etc. You can also go through and clean them up – you might find some you want do delete.
3. Your desktop. Holly Mann had a great idea for organizing your desktop and she supplies a free wallpaper you can use (see her post on Desktop Organization)! I use her wallpaper (I just updated the text in Photoshop so that it is appropriate for my needs) and it makes a big difference. Just a hint: if you use Vista, make sure “align to grid” is not left checked off on your display properties or your icons will continuously rearrange themselves.
4. Your bookmarks (in Firefox) or favorites (In Internet Explorer). Go through these and organize them into folders. Like “Logins,” “Work in Progress,” “Training,” “My Websites and Blogs” “Social Networking Sites,” “Social Bookmarking Sites,” “Outsourcing Tools,” “Keyword Research,” etc.
5. Last but not least, YOUR PROJECTS! I recently realized that I could organize a large section of my “To Do” list into a simple Grid where I could keep track of what had been done on the creation and promotion of each one of my websites and blogs.
You can make such a grid for your websites as well as for your blogs. It can help a lot to keep track of which steps you have already taken in your offsite SEO, onsite SEO, optimizing, building, designing, etc. So when you start up your computer and think, what should I work on now? You can simply look at your grid and get a “birds-eye view” of your projects at a glance. You can also avoid losing time attempting to redo actions you have already done but have forgotten about.
The above are a few examples of how you can clean up your digital mess, clear your head, and probably free some space on your hard drive as well.
Do you have other ideas? Please leave a comment to share your ideas on how we can organize our digital lives and get more done.
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blog, business, blogging, daily, goals, plans, hopes, internet, work at home,
careers, weblog, WordPress, work, computers, organize
Hey! was searching Google for Seo Elite Software and your blog regarding p Your Digital Mess | Residual Streams of Income looks really interesting for me. I will definitely bookmark it and come back for more cool postings to read! Cheers!
Thank you! I’ve got a lot on the line-up for this blog, your input encourages me to continue!
A great post man…off to clean up my emails and notepads files jotted about!
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Awesome Post Anna! THANK YOU. I am always trying to organize and re-organize things. This is great information on how to do it!
Hollys last blog post..State of Emergency Thailand
I’m glad you liked it Holly!
Yes I’ve found that the simplest things are really helpful, even excel grids and notepad documents!
Now I also keep a separate notepad file for every individual mini-camparign or niche, where I write down everything I have to get done on that particular campaign. When I remember something new I just write it down on that or the “misc” list, so I don’t go off in all directions at once but finish what I’m in the middle of. Also this way I can try to focus on one niche at a time and just do everything on my list for that niche.
I downloaded the new eBook organization software as well, from your blog! That should be a lifesaver! (Setting it up is also on my list
)
I am always trying to organize and re-organize things. Thank you very much for sharing it with us all. This is great information.
Thank you for the comment and I’m glad it could help!
Organization is for sure the key to being a successful internet marketer you need to also have a strong focus and not get distracted.
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Being unorganized was something that plagued me in my early days of IM, I seem to have gotten things in a much more proper order lately.
Awesome Post Anna! THANK YOU. I am always trying to organize and re-organize things. This is great information on how to do it!
Hi oyun, very glad I could help
and welcome to my blog. Good luck on you organization project and I hope to see you again!
Well thank you so much. Organization of your work is a very crucial characteristic of a successful internet marketing manager. I frequently keep on organizing and reorganizing my work. Your information will be very helpful to me.
Wow! Totally awesome, Thank you so much for sharing! Organization is seriously so important and almost everyone lacks it with their busy lives.
@Gabrielle – You’re welcome, I hope this is helpful for you.
Well great post! Organizing your computer files is really important. I think it’s important to have backup of your most important files in your flash disk. For me i have everything organized in my computer. I save downloaded setups in a single folder there are sub folders according to the type of setup files & my project & important documents are in separate hard disk partition & i renamed those hard disk partitions so that when i am in need i know where to find it. Like I have separate drive for songs named My Songs. It really helps & thanks for the additional information, I am glad i can use that too.
@Debbie Drummond – Thanks for your input and ideas, you have some good suggestions there. A bit of organization goes a long way in the long run.
Your tips on organising are apt, necessary, and cogent. Some, especially, the need to keep the inbox as close to empty should be de rigueur. However, you do not mention anything about taking back-ups. If the computer crashes, all your “organized” data can be lost in seconds.
@ergo4me – Yes, backups are also very important! Feel free to post your suggestions for software or methods.
Your views on organizing your work reminds me of a quote from Edison : Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
The mess does have the nasty habit of accumulating faster than one can clean it up. One wishes that the organizing bug that struck you become contagious.
You are right but it is hard to control it. Thanks for all the useful advices.
It does require a particular skill in organizing and then adhering to that organized state.
this is very helpful to me. thanks for posting. the purpose of this one is not only to teach how to organize but ALSO TO ORGANIZE.