Don't let time mismanagement leave you hard-boiled
A while ago in a fit of frustration over the fact that I may need to join Bejeweled Anonymous and that I check my Facebook stream more often than my e-mail, I posted an old school luddite time management tip straight out of the “naughty chair” play book many of us used when raising our children. I suggested setting a cheap kitchen egg timer three times a day for 15 minutes at a time and strictly scheduling your social media activities during those three periods, morning, midday and end of business day. Then I boldly recommended that the rest of your time be devoted to, duh, income producing work.
The upshot is that I had more comments, e-mails and @replies over my various social media sites about that short post than anything I’ve written in a year. Now I’ve been beating the drum about the power of listening on social media as though I were an old-fashioned circuit preacher in the wildwest. So I was able to really hear what people were saying. They are overwhelmed, over worked, under impressed and very, very concerned about how to monetize the enormous effort they’re putting into social media marketing. They need to find ways to utilize the power of the massive network that can be created and still have time to create whatever it is they are selling.
Sometimes old school low-tech Luddite strategies fit well into a shiny new media marketing world.
If you’re spending more time implementing social media and less time creating or delivering your income-producing product, it’s time to take out a big sheet of flip chart paper and a sharpie and write down the following:
1. Income producing idea, product, platform – 40%
2. Manufacturing, developing, creating -20%
3. Marketing, promoting, selling -20%
4. Evaluating, reinventing, reinvesting -20%
5. Repeat
Resolve now to learn to utilize timesaving applications and strategies, so your frustration doesn’t come to a bubble over and leave you with hardboiled eggs and no bacon.
