Greetings affiliate organisation fans. I got a surprising amount of feedback to my previous post about my stress levels and lack of structure, and have had some mails asking me how its been going… so I thought it was only fair to give an honest update on how the system has been working out for me! It was all very well saying how fab it was after just 2 or 3 days in my post… but has it been sustainable in the longer term?
Well Actually…
So far it is going GREAT! I have never been this productive and I can get more done in a day than I ever thought possible. I’m getting what I have defined as a week’s worth of affiliate work done in just 4 days. Even better, I have also imposed my new scheme on my Duncan and he too has never been so productive.
I have always had dreadful concentration and get bored incredibly easily, and in every area of my life requiring organisation I have always struggled with my natural tendency to get distracted and ending up “veering off course” into totally irrelevant nonsense.
By breaking my working day into hour long blocks and defining what should be done in that hour I never get bored and I pull my head back in when the distraction fairy jingles her mystic bells in my direction. The end result has surprised even me… I’ve seen a significant increase in what I can get done in an hour.
For Example…
I used to take 2 hours or more to write 6 x 250 word articles. With my new system I can now write 8 in the same amount of time.
I do hasten to add though, that I’ve not yet found that to be sustainable if I block off two consecutive hours of writing… I get bored and miss my target.
The End Result Is…
I am geniuinely doing a weeks work in 4 days (in fact more than I used to achieve in most weeks). Duncan and I both are as we both suffer from the same easily distracted personality (don’t talk to either of us when we are driving!!!). Also, with the unpredictable nature of merchant performance in these troubled times I’m ummm…. no longer troubled by it. I have my work, I have a plan and slowly but surely I am identifying and acting on new revenue streams and spreading my affiliate eggs into many merchant baskets.
When I am not working, I do not worry about work. I have started to enjoy many new things recently. I have bought a fish tank, I am spending a lot of time gardening. I am proud to announce I re-sowed our back lawn yesterday and pruned several trees (they may even live).
So I will bid all my affiliate friends a zen-like “fare thee well”, for I am off to drink some nice wine perchance read a book.
Affiliate Contentment.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
You’ll have to rename this site to Affiliate Zen!
February 18th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
LOL Nicola, I’ll never last being calm. Something will turn up to wind me up soon!!
February 19th, 2009 at 2:58 am
8 articles in 2 hours – for me it’s more like 2 articles in 8 hours – hence I’m posting this at 1.55am. I can’t wait for my kids to go back to school next week – trying to do deeplinking with a 3 year old on your lap wanting to move your mouse and press every key is the stuff of nightmares! Glad you’re more relaxed anyhow!
February 19th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Sounds like it’s going great for you Kirsty… hopefully you don’t get too wound up by anything and break this new routine!
lol @ Karen – I know how you feel! My 3 year old does the same thing… drives me insane!
February 20th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Hey Chris, I’ll keep my fingers crossed. So far it is going well. It’s quite intense so I’ll probably have to allow myself the odd “research” day in the medium term as I do get my best promo ideas when I just sort of get on the net and let my mind wander. This new system doesn’t allow time for that but does stop me wasting time!
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Kirsty,
Great to hear that you are being more productive.
Have you ever considered outsourcing your article writing? This would mean that you have even more time to spend on “advanced” affiliate tasks, like link building or SEO. I outsource all my writing and it only cost $0.15 per word.