One Thing All Internet Marketers Do That Wastes Time And Holds You Back

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It happens in any business, but particularly in internet marketing and online businesses.  When you are heavily involved in creating products, websites, designing forms, templates, you could even be creating your invoice and suffer the problem.  You may be a perfectionist and that isn’t going to get you to your goals or reach your freedom target.  It doesn’t have to be perfect and usually, you don’t even know what perfect is.  All you can identify is that you don’t like it, so you tinker with something until you do, wasting more time and procrastinating – putting off other waaaaaay more important tasks that will help you achieve your goals.  So then how do you stop?

Perfectionist Example

Just the other day I caught myself doing this.  I sat and spent a fair amount of time making my invoices perfect, getting the logo the right size, placed properly, checking “print preview” over and over again.   Really?  Was that necessary?  Do the people I send invoices to really care to the extent I do about where it’s located, how big it is, what color it is?   Did that in anyway help me get further in my business?  Was that a good use of my time?  Has this helped me increase my income?

Absolutely not….that was the biggest waste of time and you may say ‘Kevin, that’s obvious.  I wouldn’t do that’.   I beg to differ.   You may not waste your time on that but I’m sure you’ve wasted time on other unimportant things and wasted valuable time just as I did.  You just may not have recognized it.  You are a small business owner perfectionist!

What To Do

The first thing you need to do is be consciously aware of this, and try to always ask yourself throughout the day this very simple yet pertinent question:

Is what I’m doing right now getting me closer to my goals?

If you can’t honestly come up with a valid reason validating that what you are doing is helping you reach your goals – then stop doing it.  Just get it done without ‘perfecting’ it and be done with it.  I could have easily inserted my business name using some typographical font rather than a logo and been done with it letting me move on to more important tasks.

Simply be honest and truthful about what you are spending your time on.   Is it really necessary or are you procrastinating and wasting time?

There are all sorts of theories for the reasons one procrastinates and/or is a perfectionist.  I don’t want to go into those here (you can find plenty of information online).   I just want people to be aware they’re doing it so they can work at avoiding it for now.

From An Expert

James Schramko is a professional internet marketer.  I believe this because anyone who can break the seven (7) figure per year income mark knows what they’re doing.   James repeatedly gives internet marketing tips and one big one is about taking action.   He didn’t do everything perfect.  He said it was better to get a website up imperfect and get some business than it is to have no site and get no business.  Your “perfect” site may be a complete bomb and you wasted how much time on that?  Get momentum on your side.   Sitting and perfecting sucks all the momentum out of you.

Freedom Tip:

Quit wasting your time with minutia and get moving towards your freedom target.

PS. – Speaking of wasting  time, I wonder how much time I’ll spend looking for an image to go with this post.

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Tags: Blogging, featured, Howto, Internet Marketing, Lifestyle, Tips