Not long ago I was listening to an old podcast hosted one of my favorite online marketing gurus, Lynn Terry.
Lynn’s a pretty amazing woman. As a single mom she built a highly successful Internet marketing business from scratch…at home. Unlike many work-at-home professionals Lynn was able to become very successful and create balance between her work and family. Not easy to do when you’re working at home with a 5-year old and 5-month old.
When asked about how she is able to juggle raising a family alone and creating a successful business Lynn said that she learned to identify her “power time… time of the day when focus comes easiest”. She learned to protect it so that she could be certain that she uses it for the most important thing she has to do each day.
Use A Timer to Define Productive Time
Initially when her children were young she used an egg timer to set aside her productive time without putting of her children with “in a minute” that can easily turn into several hours. All of us have periods during the day when we are more focused, more creative and most productive. Lynn realized this early in her entrepreneurial career and began to protect it like money in the bank.
The egg timer or an equivalent is a perfect solution for blocking that high productive time. It forces you to put hard edges around important time blocks to help you use it wisely.
The photo in this post is the Time Timer, a device I use for the same purpose. It is a little higher tech than the egg timer, but not much. During my high productive time I tend to become so locked in that I lose all sense of time. I can be involved for two hours and think only ten minutes went by. I lose my ability to “feel” time (if that makes sense). This device is very useful because it allows me to “see” how much time remains.
Nobody Is At Their Best All Day, Find What Works For You
Lynn says nobody is “on” 24-hours a day. Her best time is in the morning when she’s having her first cup of coffee. She gets up early before the kids, and uses that “first cut” time to catch up on e-mail, social networking and prepares for the day. Then she turns everything off clears her desk and works on the most important thing of the day. When that is finished it’s time for the rest of the stuff.
To read about her philosophy first-hand here’s a link to a recent blog post on her site ClickNewz. Even if you have no interest in the Internet marketing world, I highly recommend you visit her blog. She has a great story to tell.
Enjoy,
