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6 tips to Increase Productivity as digital entrepreneurs and bloggers!

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In this new article, we are talking about how you as an entrepreneur can be more productive and share with you 6 tips to increase productivity.

Let’s get started.

 

As a digital entrepreneur, how productive are you?

In a busy world, surrounded by distractions at every inch, productivity is threatened.

But every content marketer and businessman has a need to boost the effectiveness of their productive effort.

Whether you are running a blog or taking care of an eCommerce website, we all want to see growing results in what we do.

There is a reason for anything we do online.

Some of us are blogging to generate income.

Others want more leads to increase sales.

It all boils down to wanting to make more money.

But what are the results we get from the time we put in?

Are we able to put in the required amount of time?

There are two problems here:

  1. We are so distracted that a massive portion of our time is diverted to entertainment or irrelevant activities.
  2. We are missing the point so much that we do the right things wrongly.

So how do we increase productivity as digital entrepreneurs?

The truth simply is that there is always so much on your desk every moment and all seems to be very important.

Adding to this is the fact that we only have 24 hours each.

Here are some tips I have for you to be more productive.

1. Know the things you have to do

desktop image in a productive office

The first step at being productive as a digital entrepreneur is to know what you’ve got to do.

Plan ahead of time and be conscious of your responsibilities.

Sometimes you wake up and it happens you are still thinking about what do I do today.

This happened to me today.

I’m just from going through some difficult moments, burying a  loved one.

For the past 2 weeks, I have been off business.

Coming back today was a bit confusing.

I didn’t know what to do.

So it took me some hours to come up with a to-do list.

So my productivity for today has been chopped by the fact that I didn’t know what to do.

My to-do list has covered the rest of the week.

So I know exactly what to do the next day and the next day.

This way, there are chances that my days ahead become more productive than today.

 

2. Have a scale of preference

Knowing what to do isn’t enough to boost your productivity.

If your tasks are mixed up, you may end up grabbing things from the bottom.

You need to know which is more important on your to-do list.

When I established my list of tasks for today, writing this article came third.

The first thing was to go through my mailbox and take care of some crucial emails first.

I knew for the number of days I was away, there were important mails to address first.

And for the past few hours, I was able to respond to important messages, do some quick paid jobs and now turn to this article as the third important thing on the list.

You should re-adjust your to-do list, beginning with the most important and time-sensitive tasks.

When I went through my emails, I read from a client who was ready to pay me immediately if I got his job done.

That to me was a top priority because money was eyeing my Paypal account.

Having finished the job, I’m comfortable with other tasks.

To increase productivity, you need a scale of preference, not just a to-do list.

 

3. Outsource tasks

As your business grows, you will need to hire some skills to help speed up your job.

As a matter of fact, there are two main reasons you should outsource:

  1. To be more efficient: This is important. We have areas we are skilled at. But sometimes, we have to hire more qualified talents. If you are smart at writing, hire a designer to handle your graphics. That way, you won’t be rejected for inefficiency. We have platforms like Upwork, freelancer, etc to hire any qualified talents in any industry.
  2. To meet up with deadlines: Time is a very sensitive business factor. A quick way to kill your business is not to respect deadlines. Sometimes, your hands get so full that you can’t do everything alone. Even if you are the best technician, you will need to partner with someone as good as you want to get some jobs done in order to respect deadlines.

Before you outsource:

Investigate the talent you want to hire.

If you hire the wrong agency or consultant, you will get your business messed up.

If you are hiring from job platforms, pay attention to customer reviews.

Please note that cheap labour equates mediocrity for the most part.

While you may want not to spend too much money on outsourcing tasks, remember that it’s not just about getting the job done.

You need the talent you are hiring to focus and do a good job as well.

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4. Use templates

Oh yes, templates are a big-time saver.

They help you avoid repeating the same things over and over again.

If you have a template for a task, all you need is load it and change a few areas.

I use a free email templates tool for my communications in Gmail.

I have pieces of codes I have done in PHP and simply call methods with parameters to have things done.

Templates are important so you don’t waste time doing the same things over and over again.

You can create a template for every recurring task in your business.

A few years back, I would create and sell eBook Covers on Fiverr.

I could create as many of these daily simply because I used a template for each design.

All I needed were sets of designs, uploaded into the tool, select a template and the eCover would be complete in few seconds.

 

5. Eliminate distractions

A big threat to productivity is distractions.

And these are everywhere.

The first thing is to identify these distractions and come up with a way to avoid or eliminate them completely if possible.

For entrepreneurs and bloggers working from home, these may come from family members (especially kids), entertainment devices like TV sets, social media and sometimes visitors popping into the house.

Here are things I do each time I’m working from home:

  • I switch off my TV set completely
  • I sometimes turn off my phone to avoid unnecessary calls, SMSs, WhatsApp, etc
  • My kids have been educated on what to do when dad is busy.
  • Visitors may come in anytime but I’m quick to tell them I’m busy. 
  • I avoid social media the best – No Twitter, no Facebook, etc
  • Sometimes when I do offline jobs, I completely turn of the Internet as well.

It’s near impossible to completely eliminate distractions.

However, a bit of effort to reduce them will help increase productivity.

 

6. Get the right tools

productivity tools

Getting the right tools is definitely a massive step towards the effective productive effort.

Earlier, I told you about using a tool for eCovers.

This was just the right tool I needed and the results were impressive.

If you have the wrong or less effective work tools, chances are that your productivity will have a negative impact.

I remember running a PC with Windows XP.

Low performance due to memory and processor capacities took a whole lot of time out of my schedule. 

If you go in for cheap or free tools with limited features, you should expect delays and lack of efficiency in your business.

Of course, some free tools are up to the task, but you will always need to upgrade for improved performance and increased productivity.

 

7. Discipline 

Discipline is the key to success.

Sometimes, I consider it to mean doing what you know needs to be done even if you don’t want to do it.

Discipline is sticking to a decision you took.

It’s about closing your senses to distractions and focusing on the tasks you have set before you.

If you’ve decided to switch off your TV at 8 pm and focus on content creation for the next 3 hours, you should stick to it.

Maybe you made up your mind to drink 3 glasses of warm water every morning for 5 months, discipline demands that you stick to it for that period of time.

If you are not a disciplined entrepreneur, you will find out that your to-do list and scale of preference will just be some more pieces of papers.

You cannot be more productive until you commit yourself to the things outlined for you to achieve your goals.

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Long term and short term goals

According to Albert Einstein, If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.

I will add that if you want to have a successful digital business, tie it to goals, not money.

We need a to-do list and scale of preference to be able to increase productivity.

But we must fix reachable goals.

Achieving short term goals leads you to hit your long term objectives.

That means you have to establish two sets of goals:

  1. Short term
  2. Long term

The problem here is that goals are just the end of a process.

But there is a way to get to that end.

If you do not map out your path to the end, you may end up not meeting your goals.

That’s why we need short term goals.

There are general strategies to help us meet our long term goals.

If your goal this month is to publish 5 guest posts, you should start by:

  • Doing your researching and pitching sites to submit to
  • Coming up with article ideas for the different blogs
  • Researching and developing each article
  • Submitting to those blogs you were approved one after the other

Your short term goal may be to reach out to 10 different websites within the first 5 days of the month.

That means within the next five days, this goal must be achieved, without which, your long term goal (of submitting 5 articles) is near failure.

 

Measuring your productivity

Measuring productivity is as important as wanting to be productive.

Generally, there are different ways to calculate it across different activities.

However, we want to apply the basic formula to our content marketing activity.

If within 5 working days as a blogger, your income is $1500 and you were working 5 hours per day, what would be your productivity?

Productivity = Output / Input

In our example, the most common input is the number of labour hours which is 5×5 = 25 hours.

Your productivity, therefore, is going to be:

$1500/25 = $60/hour

What about working 10 hours a day and making $2000 per week?

That seems like you are making a lot more money right? But are you more productive than earning $1500/week?

Let’s find out.

10 hours a day = 50 hours a week

Productivity: $2000/50 = $40/hour

This simply shows that you are less productive even though you make more money. 

 

How do you spend more time working to be more productive?

Remember the point here is that you’ve spent more time working expecting increase in productivity.

So the issue of distraction is rolled out because that would have meant spending less time on productive work.

But how is it that you spend more time working (focusing on your projects) but getting less income?

And how do you reverse the situation?

Let’s try to figure out how to improve your income while putting in the same amount of time.

1 – Identify the things you did that generated $2000/week

Maybe you wrote 10 paid articles, each paying $200 or you published 10 articles each paying $400 but you ended up paying your writer $200 per article. 

The key point here is to identify your sources of income and how much you spent.

2 – Put in the same efforts on opportunities that pay more

If you were getting paid $200 per article, a good approach would be to look for opportunities that pay you $250+ for the same job or look for cheaper labour.

That way, you earn more doing the same things you did.

You see the solution is not to look for more jobs.

That would only mean taking more time from you and diminishing your productivity. 

 

6 tips to Increase Productivity as digital entrepreneurs and bloggers – Takeaways

You can now see your productivity could be affected negatively by the fact that you are:

  1. Being distracted, not focusing on doing the right things, just confused and wasting time around on entertainment is other useless stuff.
  2. Putting your energy on tasks that pay less or you are wasting money on resources that would have cost less.

In any of this applies to you then I believe this post has helped you with some valuable working tips to increase productivity as a blogger or digital entrepreneur.

While I do appreciate you sharing this on social media, kindly drop a comment and let me know what you think about about this article.

Now it is time to have your say, how do YOU increase productivity? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Regards Enstine

 

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Enstine Muki
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In this new article, we are talking about how you as an entrepreneur can be more productive and share with you 6 tips to increase productivity.
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19 Responses

  1. Lisa Sicard
    | Reply

    Hi Enstine and Dexter, I think discipline is the biggest key to being productive and getting things done. Without it, you are dead in the water!
    I feel most days I am disciplined and the few days I’m not I feel like I waste a lot of time. Having lists is also a great way to keep your focus.
    Spend time on what needs to be done first and the rest comes afterward.
    Thanks for sharing your time saving /productivity tips here with us Enstine.
    Everyone can benefit from these!
    Lisa Sicard recently posted…How to Self Promote Yourself Without Getting Egg on Your FaceMy Profile

  2. SwiftChat Live Chat App
    | Reply

    For me making to-do lists works the best as it keeps me on track about where I am now with today’s set targets.

  3. Joy Healey
    | Reply

    Hi Enstine and Dexter,

    I’m pretty disciplined, BUT prone to distractions from my offline business and family. As my offline business pays the bills for the moment I have to give that priority, and of course family members come before everything else. I guess even if it’s just social I will stop for them. My Dad is 97 so I never know when my conversation with him will be the last one, and if my son rings me it’s often part business and he works so many hours a day I would never turn him away.

    There are many days when I get to bed time and wonder where the day went.

    However, so that I can feel I am making progress I track every day in a free app called Simple Note. I use one note as my To-Do list and then write a note for every day to remind myself what I accomplished and I feel better that way.

    Out-sourcing is a bit of a challenge for me – but my graphic design skills are ZERO so I use an outsourcer for book covers and also to translate to Kindle. It’s a start!

    Joy Healey – Blogging After Dark
    Joy Healey recently posted…Passive Success Follows Active GenerosityMy Profile

  4. Punjab Ads
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    Good Work, I really like your blog. Keep it up Bro!
    Grow your business with Punjab Advertising Agency.

  5. Mysterious Trip
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    Nice Blog You have we are providing travel trips for all over in the world check out our website.

  6. Bitcoin PTC Sites
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    But there are too much points of distraction for people in the digital world when they sit in front of the computer
    how do one can stay away him or her self from other things and keep focused on just one thing?

  7. Emma Marie
    | Reply

    Hi Enstine,

    Great article. Personally I follow the maximum things you have mentioned here. But sometimes I am careless about managing the data. Will follow the “Use Template” idea. Hopefully, it will be beneficial for me.

  8. Shirish Deshpande
    | Reply

    Amazing post,thanks for sharing this information.i am truly motivated by you for blogging
    Shirish Deshpande recently posted…How to Make Money Online By Email MarketingMy Profile

  9. Jilli Rose
    | Reply

    Good article. I think all these things very essential as well as I personall belive time management is the key to everything and all time you need to be up to date about new technique.

  10. SEO limousine marketing
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    Nice tips to Increase Productivity as digital entrepreneurs and bloggers, Im no expert, but I believe IN you just made an excellent point.

  11. rsoft20
    | Reply

    i am a digital marketing specialist this article really very helpful for me. i learned lot of useful information about digital entrepreneurs from this post. article is nicely explained and easy to understand. thanks for sharing this valuable information with us. keep your good work.

  12. Aman Kumar
    | Reply

    Your tips, how to increase productivity is really helpful.

    thanks for sharing.

  13. Digital roy Academy
    | Reply

    great blog !!! very informative.Thank you:):)

  14. Navnit Thapar
    | Reply

    Very Nice blog,to Increase Productively as digital entrepreneurs and blogggers. Thankyou for sharing this useful information for all of us.
    Navnit Thapar recently posted…Marketing Automation PlatformsMy Profile

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