Business Focus | The Internet Business Authority

How To Focus And Avoid Distractions

August 5th, 2009

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: Image by ToniVC via Flickr

Building an internet business is difficult enough without having to deal with all of the distractions you will face on your quest for success. Over time, I have learned that I can be my own worst enemy when it comes to procrastination, and time and again, the people I mentor and work with experience similar challenges. Once you realize you are sabotaging your own success however, you will certainly see positive results.

So what are some things that can distract us? Well, they come from both offline and online sources. The biggest offline distraction most people I speak to have is the television. Now avoiding this is really as simple as just turning it off. If your success is important enough to you, this is not much to ask. For those truly addicted, at very minimum you must schedule certain time periods daily that will solely be dedicated to building your internet business, and at those times, there can be absolutely no distractions allowed, tv included. Another offline distraction is your cell phone. Non-business calls, texting and checking your emails every minute with your blackberries and iphones aren’t going to build an internet business.

Now having set aside a specific time daily for your business, you must realize that simply being on the computer does not mean that you are doing business building activities. As I’m sure you know, most distraction come online. It is really easy to avoid these obstacles once you realize they are happening. Checking emails constantly will not help you build your business. Yes, you need to respond to those asking questions of you, but for the most part, if something is urgent, a prospective customer will call you. You can check your email twice daily and be fine. Constantly checking your stats isn’t productive either. While it is imperative to see your stats, like if you are making sales, or where traffic is coming is necessary, doing this more than once on any given day can be counter productive. Online chat conversations that aren’t business related should also be avoided during this block of time. Between skype, yahoo, facebook, twitter and the rest, your time can easily be wasted while your competitors continue to catch up, or worse yet, beat you in your efforts.

Now don’t get me wrong, if set up correctly, social media can prove to be quite a profitable activity, but you have to determine whether or not your customers are coming from this source. How do you do this? Simple. Take a log of your daily business building activities and track them. After a few weeks you should see where your largest amount of leads and paying customers are coming from. Is it from videos? Articles? Press releases? Your blog? Social media? Offline advertising? Reverse marketing? Tracking your activities and results over a short time period will not only tell you what is working, but will tell you where you should be focusing your time online. Start eliminating distractions and increasing productive business building activities, and your internet business will flourish.