Balance between learning and working

Yeah man, I've been there too. The secret is to find ONE system that has proven results. And then TAKE ACTION on ONLY that one thing.

I spent a year hopping from system to system. Trying to take in all the information, and then acting on everything. A whole waste of time and money. Then I started by creating simple amazon affiliate type websites that made a little money. I then scaled up and created an income that was/is pretty decent.

I've now moved on to bigger and better things. But the knowledge I learned from building amazon sites was really significant to my success. The main takeaway was to stick with one thing UNTIL it's successful.

When I started, I was practically living in forums trying to learn. The problem with this is that you will get a lot of ideas and int he end you will get confuse. I started to earn money the day that I minimize my time in forums and start to try a few things until one of them started to work for me.

This is a good question.

It is very easy for new marketers to get caught up with info gathering. The need to have ALL the info can be paralyzing. While there is definitely a lot to learn on the marketing front as well as managing a website, my suggestion is to just jump in. You will make mistakes. Embrace this because mistakes are how you really learn.

Get the basics, then just DO! You will learn 10 times more when you do things yourself than trying to learn everything before hand. If you get stuck, then search for your answer. Forums and social networking can be extremely helpful but you really have to segment your time and make sure you spend plenty of time DOing.

You will spend more time upfront in learning mode so times will vary for everyone based on knowledge. Those that take action will almost always fare better. As long as you are cognizant of this and focus on balancing your activities you should do great.

I just use the good old 80/20 rule.

I write out my plan for whatever business venture I am working on. Then 80% of my time, money, energy, and effort get spent on things that focus on that plan.

The other 20% of my "work" time is kinda free time. I can work on the core stuff, or I am allowed to explore other ideas.

The key is to have a written plan for how you spend 80% of your time, and stick to that plan until it either works or you know why your plan has failed.

There's literally thousands of ways to make money online. The problem is people get distracted because there are so many. Your best bet is to try out a few. What ever you do that starts generating some money, Scale it up. Like they say, If you can make $1 online, You can make $1000. This is very true. It takes hard work and consistency. Don't expect to succeed your first go. So i say learn something, then put in 100% action. Hard work almost always pays off

I like to spend at least 10% learning or more. But I implement before learning more not just jump to the next shiny object.

The best way to learn is to put it to practice, instead of just reading, go out and do it! You'll feel more accomplished and rewarded when you put the work in. Because i'll let you in on a little secret, most the people in the world who've aquired their wealth via business, didn't do so because they're necessarily more intelligent than anyone else(they'll try and act like it, but don't let that fool you) no, instead they either got lucky, or stuck with whatever it was long enough and finally succeeded, where as others gave up. I'm sure along the road they've had many failures too, but they tend to not like to talk about those, unless they're trying to sell you something. Just go after whatever it is, like warrior, don't give up, and you'll succeed one way or another.

Don't you guys find it kind of ironic that most, if not all of us are hardcore multitaskers at heart but in the end, we must narrow our focus to stay productive?

I can't remember who it was (Seth Godin?), but I've heard it said that you
become an expert at anything in about 6 months by spending 1 hour a day
on it - again, I don't remember where this came from, so the exact
numbers are no doubt off, but the takeaway is even incremental focus leads
to excellence over time, as long as it's consistent.

Applying that concept to Internet Marketing, spend 1 hour each day
reading new material about IM. If you already know your stuff and just
want to keep current, make it 30 minutes per day.

If you have a morning routine, you can knock this out then. For example,
here's what I do (though I must admit I've slacked on it a bit lately). I
wake up and clean the house a little, wherever in the world I'm staying; get
in a workout; groom and bathe, etc; and then eat a healthy breakfast.

Then, before work, I spend about 1/2 hour - 45 minutes reading something
business-related.

Got this from Eben Pagan, by the way.

If an important change occurs online, or if you decide to implement
something new into your business and have to acquire a new skill, simply
ramp up your "study time" for a short period - though you might be able to
just let the new endeavor consume your reading time until you've
incorporated it into your business.

Hope that helps.

In the beginning information overload is a constant. It is so easy to loose focus... If there is one thing that can help you in the beginning is getting a mentor...
I had this exact problem, the thing that you can agree of is the only way to fail is to quit.