Part 1 - How To Adapt Your Business To Suit Your Lifestyle

"The best way to predict the future is to create it"

Peter Drucker

The great thing about an Internet-based business is that you can set your own hours.

How many hours a day do you want to work? 2? 4? 8? How many days a week? 1, 3, 6?

One thing to realize about the Internet is that there's absolutely no relationship between how hard you work and how much money you'll make. Working harder doesn't mean earning more income.

Working smarter is what counts.

As I mentioned in The Actual Introduction, I spent fourteen years running a wedding and events video production company. I discovered that the only way for me to make more money at it was to duplicate myself, or at least my efforts, by hiring and training another videographer and then “double booking” weddings. Instead, I was running myself ragged because the only way to make more money was to basically videotape more weddings.

There was only one of me. I decided that to be “smarter” at this would be to raise my price, lose some clients, but end up making more money by doing less.

In the end, I quit doing weddings altogether and got into business on the Internet instead. I have never regretted my decision or looked back since.

So, getting back on track, what's your goal in life?

How do you see yourself living out each day? Do you have a hobby that you'd like to spend, say two hours a day doing?

Or do you want to work when the kids are in school and be "home" when they're home?

The great thing is that you work when YOU want to work.

Of course, like anything, there's going to be times when you just need to get something done regardless of how long it takes. But you decide when. Plus, there are going to be days when you have to work a few fifteen-hour days, burning the midnight oil, but that’s what being in business for yourself is all about.

The scope of this eBook is not to plan out your day for you - only you can do that - but as you develop your business you'll notice certain patterns; like when you tend to work best, when and where you're best at generating ideas for products, when you tend to answer the bulk of your emails, and all those kind of details.

From this, you'll develop what you find to be a comfortable and productive working habit. Check out your bonus eBook on actual time management techniques.

When I'm working on creating a product, like this one, or on a marketing campaign, I tend to spend a lot more hours at the computer than when I'm maintaining my sites, researching new ideas, and generally just keeping my business going.

Here's a tip: When I really need to concentrate on getting ideas down, or fleshed out, or writing a sales letter for my products, I find that I work best away from the computer.

There's always a tendency to want to check your email, or look for a file, or research something that pops into your head, or any host of things on the Internet that can distract you away from being productive.

Here’s a tip: If you have to work at your computer, and you've just got to get something done that doesn't need you to be on the Internet then unplug your computer's Internet connection until you're done.

The reality is that if you don't manage your time properly, the Internet could suck every living second out of you. You could end up spending so much time answering emails, surfing, and a host of other distractions that you never actually seem to get anything done.

Also, set yourself a deadline, or an amount of time, that you must get something completed by.

If you've decided on 4 hours a day then make those hours count.

Shut your phone off if you have to.

If you have younger kids at home and you need to intertwine your work into your other daily activities then get yourself a stopwatch.

Allow yourself that same 4 hours of time. Then, each time you sit down to work, start the watch. When you're pulled away, stop the watch then restart it when you get back.

That way, you can track your time and you'll know when your 4 hours are up.

You need to know roughly how long it takes you to accomplish certain tasks, especially if you've set yourself an hourly rate goal.

As you work, ask yourself this question "Is what I'm doing going to get me closer to my hourly rate or do I need to hire someone else who's cheaper?"

For example, if you work for 4 hours building a website and your goal is to make $150 an hour, it doesn't make sense for you to do it if you can pay someone else $30 an hour to do it for you. You then focus more of your attention on developing products and strategies that will get you closer to your goal.

If a lack of finances is an issue, then building your own websites and doing your own work is a very viable option. It costs you nothing in reality but your time. Of course, business wise, you need to still set an hourly or contract rate and bill that against your business because your time is still valuable. If you are looking for investors later, they may want to know what you have invested into your business in order to assess its value.

As your business grows, unless you decided to already start out by outsourcing your work, you may eventually hire someone to look after certain areas of your business so that you're not tied down to that area. Plus they’re cheaper than you.

If you stay smart with your work habits, then you can spend more time doing those things that you like to do.

Make the business work for YOU not the other way around.

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