Trouble Staying Focused? Here's What I Developed.

This thread is inspired by Steven Wagenheim's thread on how his day looks. While reading it, I thought that I'm probably not the only one who does not have an effective system to stay focused. Steven has a tight schedule which he details in his thread.

But this thread is about MY plan.

I'm likely the worst person for staying focused and being organized. I start out organized, but it soon goes out the window as papers pile up and to-do lists get buried. It worsens when new projects come up. Then, I have multiple lists that I start, but seldom finish.

A few weeks back, I determined that this disorganized approach has to change, so I came up with a system that is working miraculously. Perhaps you have something similar. If not, maybe this will work for you, too.

When I arrive at my computer every morning, the first question is, "What do I have to do today." Well, it's a little late to be asking, because by the time I figure it out and get organized, half the day is gone and more often than not, I end up doing bits and pieces in an ineffective manner.

I decided that I needed lists, but I also needed something more specific. So I grabbed an old 3-ring binder and set to work building my unique system for staying on task and meeting my deadlines.

Here's an example.

I recently decided to create a book on dog nutrition. It was quite involved - lots of elements, lots of steps, and lots of parts that needed to be done. I decided to take each element and create a checklist for it.

Since I plan to do more than this one package, I knew that I could create master lists that would work across different projects.

Here's what I did.

The work for this package involved creating the sales page, creating the sample chapter page, creating the main product, creating bonuses and putting it all together with all the required ingredients to make the package as complete as possible.

I designed a main Project Work Sheet that details the Product Creation Idea with check boxes for the goals of the idea: Build a list, offer information, offer a free gift, create a one time offer. Pick one.

It also includes the monetary gain expected and the dealine to achieve that income.

The type of product: created, affiliate, public domain or other.

This sheet concludes with an overview of what I have to do to accomplish this goal: production creation, auto responder series, opt-in form, download sites, sales page, payment setup, finding JV partners and affiliates.

The next sheet: Project Check List

In table form (in Word), I created 3 columns: Task, Deadline, Done

This list includes:

• researching hot niche
• choosing 1000 keywords for that niche,
• find or create a gift for opt-in form squeeze page
• create squeeze page
• set up autoresponder for gift download
• put autoresponder code on the page
• locate a One-Time-Offer to add to the funnel from the opt-in sequence
• develop the hot product
• set up OTO page sequence
• set up PayPal
• add 7 autoresponder messages to follow-ups
• locate JV partners
• Set up Clickbank for affiliate sales
• Promote the offer (listing each method, ie: RSS feeds, social media, etc.)
• Upload everything to the server

From this list, I broke each down into their own check sheets. So, take the OTO product and list everything that's involved to get it ready to launch, including creating the web page, setting up the ordering system, researching and writing the product, uploading to server, etc.

As you can see, this gets every single step down so you can proceed in an organized fashion. Since many of these steps are the same for many projects, once you create the check list, you don't need to do it again. Or you can modify it to your new project.

Create the lists before you start. That's the key!

As soon as you decide on a project, take time to go through all the specific steps to completion and create your check lists for each element.

For example, you might have one for Check List: Design Web Page, and under that heading you'd have things like:

• get graphics,
• modify graphics as required,
• write the content,
• add content,
• set up opt-in form,
• put code on page,
• set up PayPal button,
• add code to page,
• put graphics on page.
• Upload page and all graphics to the server.

Break down each step into its own check point, rather than listing one big task. For instance, you could write get graphics but it's better if you specify all the steps to preparing them, too. This is not only easier to follow, but it's also beneficial mentally. The more things you can check off your list, the more progress you feel you're making, and the better you feel. This motivates you to do more.

By setting deadlines for each checkpoint, you can stay goal-oriented.

This method of using checklists is extremely good for keeping you on task. I noticed right at the start that knowing I had these things to do by this date made it easier to stop myself from getting distracted by something else that crossed my path. In fact, I surprised myself when I began to wander and immediately brought myself back to my Checklist.

Now, I just started building this system so I don't have many checklists yet, but as you can see, when you break the entire project down, you can easily end up with some powerful checklists to follow.

Just one word of warning: Don't go overboard with checklists or you'll spend more time creating them than working on them.

I hope this helps you as much as it is helping me.

Sylvia