Success in any aspect of your life is a result of planning
out your goals and utilizing your creativity.
The Kindle Book self-publisher's life is a blessing and perfect personal
growth opportunity that allows you the flexibility of working your professional
life around your personal life instead of having to work your personal life
around your professional life, as it often is when you’re working for someone
else.
Operating and growing as a work-from-home Kindle Book
author and self-publisher takes some serious self-discipline. While any business run from home poses some
challenges, there are unique challenges that face those that are running the
bulk of their business online. Taking
business online is an easy concept for many people to get started with, but not
always seen as regular and devoted business, many online Kindle Book
self-publishers are trying to ‘fit in’ their online business in a busy life and
not making the complete commitment to the business.
Although the ability to work from home provides a great
deal of benefits that effect much more than just your work life, the challenges
that come up can make the ideal of working from home an extremely difficult
endeavor. Business needs to be taken
seriously to succeed. Even if you only
have 10 hours a week to work your business, you need to be consistent, plan out
your progress, stay focused and remember all the other parts of your life that
need attention too!
Gaining the right kind of knowledge and putting that
knowledge into practice will set you up for a happy and productive work life
that will wonderfully mesh with your personal life. Read the following tips and advice with a
determined mind that will see each idea as an opportunity to try new activities
and open the door to a clearer picture of how you can use your time wisely to
run an online business from the comfort of your home.
Planning - 15 Tips to Organize Your Business
Being a productive Kindle Book self-publisher takes a great
deal of planning, but don’t let this discourage you if planning and
organization hasn’t been your strong point.
Most of the planning gets done occasionally to
whenever-you-deem-it-necessary and once you learn some effective methods of
planning then it will become a natural task for the operation of your
business. The following tips will help
in creating goals and implementing strategies to see them realized along with
maintaining the motivation to keep yourself on track.
1. Set short-term and long-term goals
Goal setting is effective in every area of your life. Giving yourself a clear picture of what you
really want in life - in the immediate future and years down the road - is an
excellent way to keep yourself motivated and energized to take action. Start
the process by asking yourself:
“What do I really want to do with my life?”
Don’t allow limitations of time and money distort your
answer. Just assume that there is
nothing that can stop you from eventually achieving and having what you truly
want.
These goals do have to be written down and kept somewhere
you can look at regularly. Put your
goals into concise sentences and refer to them often.
2. Brainstorm strategies to achieve your goals.
Once you’ve defined some short-term and long-term goals
you’ll want a list of possible strategies to achieve the results you’re looking
for. Create a list of strategy options
that encompass various alternatives you could use deliver the results you’re
looking for. Move beyond your comfort
zone and think of any wild idea that comes to mind - you want a large list of
ideas to work with. Keep this whole list
to refer to in the future, but pick a few ideas from the list to schedule in
and add to your To Do list now.
3. Strive for greatness and don’t compromise
I’m sure you’ve heard of many stories about people
achieving great success online. Perhaps
you’ve even thought that they had something you didn’t or were in a better
position to start with than you. Or
maybe you even discredited the story as some marketing ploy and their ‘rags to
riches’ story wasn’t true at all. While
there are a lot of schemers out there, there are also a lot of people that have
genuinely focused on a goal and worked hard and smart to achieve it. You can do it too.
You can achieve whatever great things you put your mind
to. When you’re adding value to other
people’s lives, it’s just a matter of making a plan, getting organized and
never giving up until you can make your mark in whatever area is meant for
you. Don’t just settle for affiliate
sales (although these sales are a nice bonus) and earning money from the
success of others. That’s what being an
employee is all about and if you’re interested in working online than you have
already made the decision to be your own boss.
Find your niche, explore the opportunities and don’t settle for a
mediocre business that doesn’t have a soul.
Don’t compromise on your opportunity for greatness!
4. Counteract procrastination
Procrastination is one very bad habit. It affects most self-employed people from
time-to-time due to the fact that there’s not always someone expecting you to
produce something. It’s fueled by fear,
lack of confidence, and disorganization.
Putting things off is a sure way to produce an ineffective
business. Beat procrastination by
building up new habits that make you get tasks done, like scheduling in time to
do the things you’ve put off. Habit
breaking and making takes about 21 days to take effect, so keep this in mind as
you’re struggling to stop your learned habit of procrastination and creating a
new habit of getting things done.
5. Grow from the accountability effect
Create accountability in your work life by joining or
creating a group of like-minded Kindle Book self-publishers where you share
plans, ideas and goals in weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly meetings. You can also gain this same effect with a
one-on-one accountability relationship.
This type of set-up creates an inner desire to report back the results
of your objectives and gives you that little extra incentive to get your plan
in action. Additional benefits of being
accountable to others are: gaining inspiration from the insights of others,
being in the position to assist others in their business focus, and developing
deep and trusting relationships.
6. Use the power of your mind to your benefit
The human mind is an extremely powerful tool in your
business and we’re not talking about intellect.
The sub-conscience mind is your motivator, your dreamer and your source
of productivity. It can also be your
discouragement, your criticizer, and your source of inactivity. Used properly, the power available in your
mind will have an extraordinary effect on your life and your business. Keep your thoughts positive, keep them
creative and, most importantly, keep away the damaging and defeating thoughts
that are passed on by your environment!
7. Create flexible schedules and adaptable to do lists.
Unless you’re the type of person that loves to stick to a
specific routine and can adhere to a strict schedule, then you’ll really want
to cut yourself a bit of slack and create schedules and to do lists that allow
for shifting of times, and deferring tasks.
Working from home can involve work time getting delayed from the original
plan and projects taking longer than anticipated. Just be aware of not letting work always get
put on the back burner, which is very easy to do in home office. Working from home does allow for a different
approach to planning and scheduling.
When creating a schedule for a day, week, or month in
advance (whatever is the best process for you) don’t schedule the whole day
hour for hour. For example, plan for
marketing tasks Monday morning, website maintenance Tuesday afternoon, social
media tasks Thursday evening, etc.
Whenever you have for time for business block it out for the morning,
afternoon or evening instead of 9-11am.
8. Use online resources to create a schedule.
It only seems appropriate that your online business should
use online resources. This is effective
as you can keep focused on what you need to do with a click into a browser
instead of switching your focus to paper, another program or another
device. This is also great for anybody
that happens to use more than one computer or device for their work as you can
quickly access your schedule, as long as you’ve got an internet connection,
which is necessary for your business anyway.
Google Calendar is a great option for this. You can sync Google Calendar with an iPhone
or Android device and set it up to notify you in different ways of upcoming
entries in your schedule. Create a
strict or casual schedule - whatever you feel is best for you - and if you tend
to like the paper approach you can print off your schedule as well. As with most Google products, it’s quite
customizable to your preferences.
9. Use online resources to create a To Do List.
All the little jobs that you want to do or need to get done
should be written down on a list. This
list will be comprised of thoughts and ideas that pop into your head, tasks to
do to move toward your goals and regular tasks that you need to do in the
operation of your business. Using an
online program for this has the same benefits as using an online calendar
Trello is a flexible and user-friendly option for
organizing your ideas and projects in one area.
You can create many boards and different organizations, which is very
helpful when you want to start a new project in your business. A board consists of a 3 column listing of “To
Do” “Doing” and “Done” (which you can change the names of) and you can add in
comments, checklists, due dates, files and customize to your liking in several
different ways. You can also share a
Board or Organization with other people, so you can collaborate with others on
a project and see what’s been done, who has done it and what needs to be
done. It’s also beneficial to share your
task list with some that can simply check up on your progress to add that bit
of accountability motivation.
10. Make it official and make a business plan
Many home businesses never get the benefit of a well
thought out approach to operations and expectations. Although business plans are especially
popular for those who are in search or financing, every person that would like
to make money with their business should have spent the time creating some type
of business plan. You don’t need to
focus on the financial details as much as a traditional plan would, but you
want to create a plan of how your business will operate and what the products
and/or services are. A business plan
makes you think about various parts of running a business and clarifies its
viability in the marketplace. It may
also force you to think of a more viable business venture if your original idea
does look as good written down as it did in your head. The Internet is full of great resources to
assist you in creating an effective business plan.
11. See each day as a fresh start to your business
Don’t let any set-backs from yesterday or any point in the
past allow you to judge your effectiveness for today. Only focus on what did work and what has been
going well for you so far and leave all the negative stuff behind you. Each day will have a new plan of attack that
you use to your advantage in building your business. Frustration and defeating thoughts are BIG
productivity stealers and have no place in growth of a business.
12. Create a small routine to get you “in the mood” to work
If you were leaving home to go to work, you would have a
transition period of getting ready for work at home and traveling to a location
and then settling into your work space.
When working within your home, you need to create some type of routine
that becomes a sub-conscience signal for your brain to get focused on work. As an example, you might prepare yourself a
drink (coffee, tea, smoothie), bring it into your work area, turn on some
non-vocal music, then read a book on personal and/or professional development
for 15 minutes.
13. Make a Today
List
Similar to a To Do List, a Today List is an informal yet
intentional way of thinking about what you want to accomplish in your day. Get yourself a pad of sticky notes of
whatever size you would like to be able write down daily tasks. You may want to consult a ‘master’ To Do list
or some type of schedule that you have created to be aware of what your overall
tasks are. Write down short, to the
point notes of what you plan to accomplish in your day then stick this
somewhere where you can easily glance at it throughout the day. You can add to this list as the day goes on
as you might think of a phone call you need to make or new task that comes
up. The most important part of this
exercise is the conscience thinking about your day and writing down your
intentions as you begin working. This
little list should get chucked at the end of the day and don’t make any
judgments on yourself about whether you did what you had planned to at the
beginning of the day or not. Start a new
list at the beginning of a new working day.
If there are tasks that you want to remember to do that didn’t get done
from your Today List then just transfer them to your schedule or business To Do
List.
14. Do the small but essential tasks first
Attending to email, making phone calls or updating your
social media accounts may be possible essentials that need daily
attention. They are also things that can
be distracting if you are returning to them throughout your working time so
that is why it is effective to do these jobs to begin with and possibly to
finish off with as well. You will likely
have other responsibilities that fit into this category, depending on the type
of business you run - think of all those little things you do that take focus
away from other jobs.
15. Don’t get caught up on getting everything perfect.
Many precious hours can be wasted on spending too much time
perfecting something. Although you want
to portray a certain level of professionalism, don’t be overly concerned with
getting the perfect look, the perfect words or the perfect plan. You can always add something on your To Do
list if you’re not really satisfied with how it initially worked out. This allows you to at least complete the task
at hand and move on to other productive tasks.
Thank you for
reading these tips. Please visit my website for authors and indie publishers, www.SellMoreKindleBooks.com to uncover more ideas on how to boost your ebook
sales and make more money self-publishing your work.
Cheers!
Steve
Johnson
(You are
free to share this report by linking to this blog page, so long as no changes are made to this content. Copyright 2013 by Steve Johnson and Johnson Publishing Company. All rights
reserved.)
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