Robert Plank

Quick question: how the heck are you going to send an e-mail every day to your list, if you don't already?

Inside "Time Management on Crack" I show you the five different types of e-mails I regularly send to my list... and six more types of blog posts I write.  Guess what, every time you send a blog post is a chance to e-mail your list three more times per blog post.

Oh yeah, plus I have a formula to launch a product in five-step e-mail sequence.

Guess what all that gives you?

• Five follow-ups (per thing you are offering)...
• Six times three blog post notification e-mails (that's 18 more)...
• Plus five e-mails to launch the product... even if you're only promoting as an affiliate.

Five plus eighteen plus five is 28 e-mails. So yes, you can promote one thing for a month, or even one week at a time for four months.

You Just Gotta Follow a Formula!

That and remember e-mails should be short and only have one call to action.

Never broadcast an autoresponder email with signature links.  Or with 3 SEPARATE URLs.  It's ok to mention the same URL multiple times.

But you might say, Robert, I've got 10 different URLs.  People need to see them all.

Fine.  Just space them out over 10 weeks.  Week 1, all you're doing is giving different reasons, and on some days just reminding them, to visit URL #1... every day of the week.

During week 2 you transition into URL #2 and keep promoting that all week.

And so on.  So now you don't have to give people a 10-step process (because they WILL get confused)... just commitment and consistency them.

Just one call to action, simple steps, and follow a formula... please.

If you think daily emails will "annoy, overload or confuse" your subscribers... the internet marketer known for unsubscribing from lists that mail too often, is still on my list after years and years.  And I mail every single day!  Here's what he had to say when I asked him:

"You're right. I don't usually stay on lists that email me every day. Your stuff is short, useful and interesting enough to keep me reading. Doesn't hurt that your products rock, either."

-- Paul Myers

There you have it.  How often you mail is irrelevant. What does matter is: short length, interesting messages, and good offers.

Do you disagree, or do you think I'm awesome?

If you are in business for yourself, you need to have good time management habits. You no longer have a boss looking over your shoulder, making sure you get things done. You can no longer get paid by the hour and run out the clock and make money doing nothing.

You need to do something to make money. That means you need to get the most out of every single day. You need to be busy and not just productive. Take a look at these 8 time management habits, figure out which one you're not applying and apply it to yourself right now.

Habit #1: One Project At a Time

Many people fight with me or don't trust me when I tell them they need to have one project going at a time and yet they wonder why I get so much accomplished. Don't have a big long to-do list. Instead, decide what is your focus this week – are you writing articles, are you writing a sales letter, are you making a new product? And this week is only for completing that project.

You will wear yourself out if you try to write an article in the morning, build an AdSense site at noon, make a product in the afternoon, and post on forums in the evening.

If your focus today or this week is to write articles, have a goal such as 30 articles... write a handful of articles everyday until you're done and then that project is finished forever and you will never have to go back and worry about it.

Habit #2: Finish What You Start

If something is 99% complete, it's not complete. Write that report or finish that sales letter and launch it, even if it's only version 1.0.

Habit #3: Stop Doing What Loses Money

I have known far too many marketers who had a successful information product business working for them but then they abandoned it all to move towards a new niche or to move towards membership sites. If you have something that is making you money and you want to try something new, add it to your business.  Don't simply drop one thing and get a new thing.

The (basic) definition of insanity is to continually attempt an action and expect a different result to happen. If something is not making you money, if building AdSense sites are not making you money, if pay-per-click is not making you money, try something new.

Habit #4: Repeat What Makes Money

Once you find that one thing that works for you and it might be freelancing for the moment, repeat it but in a bigger scale. If you're freelancing, that might mean to charge more for your hourly rate. If you have a low ticket info-product, that might mean to get more traffic or make new joint venture connections.

Find one thing that makes money that's been proven to convert and to sell and course-correct. For example, if you find that writing 10 articles on a certain subject gets you lots of traffic, opt-ins, and sales, then write 100 articles on that same subject.

Habit #5: Simplify It

Although many gurus get money from you by selling their complicated system or by throwing out fancy terms for you, the things that work and the things that you are able to wrap your head around are the simple things.

Most of the systems I use for writing sales copy, making articles, writing blog posts are only around 4 or 5 steps long. Think about Steve Jobs and Apple's product line. What do they sell? Desktops, laptops, Mp3 players, and phones. When in doubt, if you can't fit it on a napkin, it's too complicated.

Habit #6: Be Fast

It's one thing to say you're going to write 100 articles but if it takes you a whole year to do it, that's no fun. You want instant gratification and instant results, that way, you know that what you're doing is working.

You need to be fast in order to stay excited... you've been only working on something for a few days, it's fresh, and it's new and it's not some chore you have been forced to keep up for the last several months.

Get used to going from an idea to a finished concept quickly and be used to making snap decisions, whether it's to choose what you'll do today, what your project will be or even how to outline it and what the structure of that project will be.

Habit #7: Do What Makes You Happy

Here's the thing most people won't tell you about working for yourself and working on the internet – it is much harder than any day job. Why deal with that? Because the idea is: even though the thing you are doing is tougher than a day job, it's something that you are excited to wake up and crank out.

You can focus on what excites you, what niche excites you, for example, webinar training, and what activities about that excite you, for example article writing to get traffic. You might work harder and might even work longer hours being self-employed than at a day job, it's something that you're excited to wake up and complete. So that way, it's really not a job.

If you do what makes you happy, even if it's slightly more work, you will be able to sustain it for longer and it will have a much better payoff. When you're happy with what you do, your life has meaning.

Habit #8: Don't Do It Alone

For me and many others, we became much more productive when we had someone making sure we stay on task. I'm not necessarily saying a boss who gives you orders. Just someone who makes sure you stick with your own orders.

Have somebody who will read your task list everyday, have somebody who you can report to and at the beginning of the day, tell them what you will be working on and at the end of the day, you can tell them if you completed those tasks or if you failed. This way, if you fail, you'll feel bad, but if you succeed, you'll feel happy.

You will be a lot more motivated if you're worried about letting someone else down as opposed to letting yourself down.

Those are 8 habits you should be adapting right now to make yourself more successful...

Change of plans today: I will also RESPOND to your comment, if you click the retweet button in the post above, and your Twitter "first and last name" is the same as the name you leave in the comment.

1. Leave a comment.  2. Click the retweet button. 3. I'll respond to your comment.

Out of the 8, which was your favorite? Please let me know in a comment below.

Why are so many other people in the world more successful than you?

As you read this blog post, you are not only going to discover the answer, but you are going to be surprised that most people who get more things done than you don't have MORE stuff to do in their life. They actually have LESS things to do.

Let's figure out what you can REMOVE from your life to become more successful, more productive - and therefore make more money.

Clutter: Paper And Notes

I have told you before many times how much I hate paper. Paper is imperfect. You write on it and you can't really change what is on the paper. It takes up space. You can't always find it. And it distracts you.

I often hear people recommend you do silly things like write the amount of money you want to make per month and put it on your computer monitor. Or write your daily "To Do" list and put it on your wall. Or even (the silliest of them all!) have a whiteboard! Yuck, I hate whiteboards.

Are you kidding me? How often does your whiteboard really change? Chances are, when you first got that whiteboard, you wrote on it every day. But then you let it sit for a month or longer with the same exact stuff written on it.

You can't have all that stuff around your office distracting your attention. If you have got something to write, send it to someone in an email. Or write it as a blog post. Or post it to your Accountability Blog. Or write it in EverNote. But put it down and file it away so it doesn't distract you.

And because it is filed away in a computer system, it is very easy to find, especially if you need to search for it.

Remove paper from your life.

Time Killer: Cable TV

I don't think it is a coincidence that five years ago I stopped getting cable TV, and that was also when I started to get a lot more accomplished.

With TV, it is way too easy to sit down, flip channels, and before you know it, an hour or two has gone by. If we all lived for ever, cable TV would be a great invention. But because you will never get tomorrow back, or last week back, last month, or even last year, back, you shouldn't waste time on cable TV.

I am all for watching a DVD or watching a movie. But having that ability to wander and get distracted, especially by commercials, is not a good thing.

Remove cable TV from your life.

Distractions: Instant Messaging, Email and Pop-Ups

Back when I hosted webinars for people, so many of those webinars were interrupted by someone's chat box appearing. You may have heard the statistic that "Once you get distracted, it takes you at least fifteen minutes to regain focus."

That means that if you were distracted twice, by only a few seconds each time, every hour, you have just lost half of your productivity.

Your computer needs to be a hot seat. When you have a task you need to finish, such as posting on forums, replying to emails, writing articles, scheduling blog posts, finishing that chapter - whatever it is, close your instant messaging, close the browser that is open to your email. Otherwise you will see that "1 New Message" and HAVE to click on it!

Close Tweet deck or any other program that can pop up and distract you with a new message. It's okay - the world will still be there when you turn those programs back on after your pressing matter is finished!

Turn off the instant messages.

And those are the top three things that you should definitely remove from your life if you want to become twice as productive - or even more.

Are you going to remove one of the three from your life? If not, what one thing can you remove from your life RIGHT NOW to eliminate distractions and get more accomplished?

Leave a short comment in the form below.

On almost all of my web sites, I use the same paper looking sales letter template.

On all of my paid membership sites, I use the exact same WordPress theme.

Why the Heck Do I Do That?

Because the layout really doesn't matter.  Which would you buy from, a fancy looking sales letter with no text, or a plain looking sales letter WITH text?  Exactly.

On top of that, I've tested this and I know people who have tested this... the "plain looking" web sites convert better.

Is it because most designs have giant logos that distract people?  Who knows.... all I know is the plain template converts.

So when I launch a new product or write a new sales letter, I don't even worry about the design.

I worry about some stuff like the headline, a TINY logo, and a bunch of other stuff... but the mini-site design, not an issue.

What Decision Can You Remove Today?

What's one thing you can make it so you'll NEVER have to think about it again?

Is it what autoresponder to use?  What shopping cart?  What download page template or sales letter template?  Or even something simple like the name of your next product?

Remove something today so you NEVER have to think about it again. That's how you'll get more stuff finished!

You'll find more about this in Time Management on Crack, when I talk about how you need to be "desperate to reduce clutter"...

Remember: start less, finish more!  Darn, I should trademark that...

If you have been inside any of my training courses you probably see the phrase "I am done" showing up a lot in the comments, especially in the "Challenge" posts.

Whenever you teach somebody something, it is in both your best interests that they go ahead and complete that task - isn't it?  It is one thing to get people to PROMISE to complete something; but it is just as important that they come back and tell you when that has been finished.

And that is why, when I offer membership challenges, I always tell people to come back and post "I am done" in the comments. That way I can easily do a search and figure out who has finished and who hasn't.

So How Do You Know That You Are Done?

And how do you make sure that you finish as many things as possible?  First off, only focus on one project at a time.  You might have to change your thinking.  I know that for a long time I had many different projects going. When I was finished High School, I was taking AP Tests, going to school, working on a long-term programming project, creating products of my own, and writing my own books.  I had about five or six projects going on at the same time - and I had to switch gears so often that I hardly got anything done!

If I had spent just one week finishing the book I was working on, I wouldn't have to think about it ever again.  If I had then turned my efforts to finishing the script I was working on, the program, I'd be done!  If I then focused all my effort on the large project, I'd be done!

So don't leave things unfinished because you underestimate how much effort it takes to switch between tasks.

Also, set a deadline for everything you do. You know yourself; you know how long something is going to take you based on how focused you are on it.  If you have to record a set of five videos, and you know you can only record one video a day, it will take you exactly five days - and that becomes your deadline.

It is important, though, to have not just a DATE-based deadline, but a TIME-based deadline as well. Don't say something is going to be finished "next week"; tell me it is going to be finished "next week, Wednesday, at exactly 4.30pm."

And to make sure that you HIT your headlines, keep what you have shippable, so that you can be done at any time.  This means that when you are recording that video course, if you can get away with only having three videos, and that is Version 1 of your course; and Version 2 contains five videos, then you can meet that deadline without having to stress about it.  You could launch the product with just three videos instead of five, if you had to.

And finally...

Don't Tell People Everything You Know!

Look at the way Apple launches new items versus the way Microsoft does: Microsoft announces things years in advance and always misses their deadline; while Apple keeps their new stuff secret until it is perfected and it's ready to go.

You don't have to announce every single thing you are going to launch because you might not end up launching all of them - and then you appear to be unreliable and a joke!

Those are the ways you are going to get more stuff accomplished in less time:  By only having one project at a time and finishing what you start; having a time-based deadline; keeping it shippable - and don't announce everything you know.

What is your best productivity tip to get your tasks finished? Leave me a comment below telling me right now.

What is wrong?  Why is it that you keep checking your phone for text messages?

Why is it that you keep opening up TweetDeck, checking your email, surfing on forums - and not writing as many articles, getting as much traffic, as many joint ventures, or making as many products as you would like?

There are four categories for this.  And I hope after you have identified which category YOU are in, you will take the next steps and get yourself out of that hole. Read More »

Are you ever middle of helping someone and suddenly it hits you... and you think, "I can't help you anymore?"

That's what happens when I come across someone who is in "demo mode."

Maybe you do this or you've come across someone who does this every now and then.  These are people who always setup web sites called "Test Web Site." Or blogs called "Demo Blog."  Or membership sites called "Temp Membership Site."

Come on man... tests are for students, demos are for little battery-powered keyboards and temps are for offices.  I honestly want you to make an actual product, an actual membership site, and an actual blog.

Lance and I talked about this in one of our private coaching calls but I think a lot of you can benefit from this advice as well... Read More »