|pros • per • ly|

The invention of the ‘tab’ in Firefox (later to be copied by every other browser, though didn’t Opera have it first…?) was hailed as a great improvement in internet browsers.

I see it as one of the bains of any internet marketer’s existence.

Let me give you a little hint when it comes to your personal effectiveness:

Open only one tab — make small exceptions for a second.  Never open a third.

You are not doing more when you have 45 tabs open simultaneously.  You’re actually doing less and only thinking that something more is being accomplished.  Sure, there can be exceptions where you’re referencing something else, but as I’ve evaluated my own browsing/working habits I’ve discovered that’s rarely the case.

Multi-tasking (or in this case, multi-tabbing) is a time-waster.  It’s distracting.  Consider this:

As people divide their attention between two even seemingly simple tasks—reading their e-mail, for instance, while talking on the phone—comprehension, concentration and short-term memory suffer. Switching from one job to another doesn’t work any better. Research indicates that that eats up more time than waiting to finish one job before beginning the next—an inefficiency that increases as the tasks at hand become more complicated.

You may only have one browser window open at a time, but if it’s littered with tabs you were using two weeks ago, it’s time to clean up and get focused.  You’ll find you accomplish more as you focus on one task at a time.  Take a look at your to-do list and execute with laser-like focus.

As I have worked as an SEO consultant over the last few years it always amazes me how caught up people get with their competitors. It seems that some times they spend more time looking at their competition to see what they are doing than they do building their own business.

What is the benefit of knowing what your competition is doing? Do you just believe that everything they do is the right way to do things and you want to copy them? You have absolutely no control over what they are doing.

Spend time worrying about what YOU are doing. Look at your own site. Ask yourself, what can I be testing to increase conversion? How can I increase traffic? What new product can I create? What article can I write to add good content to my site?

Go back and read my guide to SEO and make sure you are doing everything you need to be doing on your site to increase your rankings.

The focus needs to be on what YOU are doing to YOUR site. Don’t worry about your competitors. Do the right things and you will eventually beat out your competitors, or at least steal a large piece of the pie. Don’t worry, there is enough to go around.

I use a simple method of task management that was taught to me by a multi-millionaire last year:

I grab a piece of paper out of the printer and I write the date in the top-left corner.  At the beginning of each day before I check email or do anything else, I write down what I would like to accomplish.  As I accomplish those tasks, I cross them off.

If the day ends and I haven’t completed a task, I write an arrow to the left of it.

When the next day begins, I write a new date, carry over the tasks I didn’t complete, and write down my new tasks.  I repeat that same process for the next day.  If ever decide not to do a task, I simply write an ‘x’ next to it.

When the paper has three days on it, I flip it over and begin again on the other side.  When the other side is full, I scan it and look for any ‘x’-ed items and decide if I want to do that eventually or forget about it completely.  If it’s something I am interested in doing eventually, I’ll write in on my google doc where I store long-term ideas.  I review that doc whenever the mood strikes.

Why do I do this on paper when we have such wonderful technological tools for managing our to-do lists online?  (Here are a couple if you’re interested: Remember the Milk, Ta Da List,  Toodledo, Voo2do,  Blablalist, Tu Du Lists…and the list goes on and on and on…)  Because it’s easier to do it on paper.  My list sits on my desk to my left, beneath my second monitor.  I have a pen nearby.  I don’t need to log in, I don’t need to switch to a new browser window, and it’s nice to not have to type.

Keep Coming Back to the List

The key is to keep going back to your list.  You’ve made your priorities — now stick to them!  Don’t allow distractions to squash your productivity.  Being online is an invitation to ineffectively multitask until you look back and realize you haven’t done anything of significance for three days.  This is even more dangerous when you actually begin working online full-time.  (Especially if you do it the Prosperly Way, since you won’t have that many incremental things to do in the first place!)

I’ve been using this method with great success for quite a while.  Hopefully it helps a reader or two out.