Well as most of you know that my life had turned upside down on me and without some effective time management skills, I would not have been able to get back caught up as quickly.  Before I got my routine down and also learned to put things into perspective, without that, I would still be overwhelmed right now.  Life does throw you some curves and that is why I can’t stress enough to get a routine down.

Each person will have their own routine depending on what they are doing and the avenues that you are pursuing with your online businesses.  The key is to get that routine figured out so that when one of life’s bumps in the road comes along-  you can quickly pick back up and keep going.  Just think of it as picking up a fumble and run with it till you reach your goal line – that is what you have to do here.

Don’t beat yourself up when you can’t get all done that your were doing but stick with your routine – maybe if you were writing 5 posts at a time – then just write 2 – if you were answering 10 questions on yahoo answers, answer just 3, – you get the idea – stay focused – just cut back till you can build back up to where you were – stay consistent with your routine and in no time you will be back to where you were.

Another effective time management tip that I use is when I have been gone for awhile is that I use the buddy system and that is why it’s very important to build those relationships with people.  There will be time that you will need some favors and this could be one of the times – like you have always been there to lend a hand to others – don’t be afraid to ask a friend when you need some help.

Maybe you know someone that you can swap some things with – I love the barter system – I’ll do this for you and in exchange you do this for me.  I have used this several times when I had been sick and it worked great – I would exchange some free advertising on some of my sites in exchange for something that would help me get back to where I was on my daily routine faster.

And if you have hard task that take long or ones that you dread – depending on what they are – and yes we all have them – I find that breaking them up into smaller projects help – don’t try and do them all at the same time or the same day.   I’ll use writing articles for an example as that is my weakness – so what I try to do is break it up into my keyword research, the another time work on an outline, then another time write the actual article.

Do you plan your tasks daily, weekly and monthly?  Do you know how to say no to non-essential tasks? (like sitting in a chat room all day – ouch that one hurt huh – yea I was guilty of that also)  Do you limit distractions? (another one that I battle with as when that Skype light blinked I had to see what was being said – oops another ouch) Do you take the time to do a quality job vs quantity?  (yea I was guilty of this one also – write as many posts, articles, and even comments on others blogs as I could and focused on how many and not was seeing if I was really writing good info)  Do you get the rest that you need and let your brain refresh?  (Ouch again as most of you know that I am so guilty of not sleeping enough)  Do you take a break when you need it?  (Again, guilty as I know I have been here for days straight and didn’t even leave the house – working.  At the time I didn’t see it but as I look back on things that I thought I was doing so well – there were so many mistakes that were made and had to be corrected.)

Effective Time Management is attainable – you just have to keep working at it – these are a few questions to keep in mind when assessing yourself.  Do you or have you had some of the same issues???????