Have been continuing on the taking action plan. I think know that this is one of the big problems people have is not focusing so this week I have been laying out some of the daily projects I have completed.

Notice I said completed not worked on. This has been a killer for me. 14,587 things partially done. Well, maybe not that many but quite often I find that I do have 10-15 and that just sucks.

It sucks my time and energy and without something getting finished it just weighs my mind down (what little Old Bald Guy’s have.). Finish one new thing and I always feel lighter at least in the mind. Won’t discuss the body

Now I knew today would be a busy day for me. Each Thursday I prepare my Freebie Friday to give away quality information to my Twitter followers and email subscribers but today I started upgrading the blogs to WordPress 2.8. I do upgrades for others so I knew there would be a few extra today.

Those are what I consider regular maintenance tasks. These are the things you need to do like

• Sending my ezine
• Dealing with support
• Posting to the blogs
• Making sure my staff has proper instructions
• And the rest of the ongoing “crap” for lack of a better term

My goal for Monday to Friday each week is to add one new item to my portfolio every day or at least advance a specific item. Today it was to complete a new test site for a concept and Friday Freebie people will get a chance to see it tomorrow as part of the Friday Freebie.

Tomorrow I already have the plan to add a new gift and all the pages for a new giveaway I have signed up for.

Guess the point of all this is to make sure that you are actually accomplishing one thing new each day. Then your business advances and make that the priority each day. Amazing how that has increased my overall production. So today’s question is what did you do new today?

Leave your comments below.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: action plan, blogs, business plan, ezine, wordpress

First and foremost Happy New Year to you and yours. I look forward to helping you make it your most successful so far.

Hopefully you have been following the planning series and are ready to kick of this year in a big way.

Have you checked out the smart planning video from Derek Gehl? You should have if not it is not too late.

The big thing to get you started is to make sure that you are doing something that is moving your business forward each day.

Now let’s define moving your business forward.

It is the things that actually are improving your business. It is not…

• Answering email
• Reviewing your favorite forum
• Spending time on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• Reading the latest ebook on that new technique
• and many more

Now all of those things may be necessary and I do all of them but the things that really help build your business are…

• A new blog post
• Submitting a new article
• Creating a new report for your squeeze page
• Creating a new product
• Improving a sales process in some way
• Improving your email follow up series
• Creating and submitting a video to the various sites
• and many more

Now the first list includes maintenance types of activities and they are important but they maintain or try to your business not increase it.

The key is that each day you spend time on the second list and do something to improve your business and not get wrapped up in the first list.

To take an example from the first list that book you are reading about the latest technique is wasting your time unless…

You apply and test the technique.

That way even if it does not work you did try it and now know that is or is not for your business. They all won’t be but too often we get tied up in the learning curve and ignore the action curve.

So stating today let’s both take at least one action that takes our business forward. I am are you?

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: action plan, business, improving business

If you have already defined your business and reviewed your results from last year you are ready to start your planning.

Look at what worked last year and take some time to figure out why it worked. The reasons could be…

• Picked a good niche
• Generated lots of traffic
• Got great affiliate support
• or many other things depending on your business model

Now once you understand why it worked can any of those things be applied to the projects that did not do well or should they be killed off. (One of the toughest things to do is to kill off a project that does not work after you have a huge investment of time or money in it.)

You now have an idea of what to continue with and what not to continue. Add in new projects that will fit with what you are doing.

Now lay out what needs to be done for each part. This could be any of the following

• List building
• New products
• More affiliates
• More traffic
• and many more items

Create an action plan and write it down for the year. Sort it into a monthly plan and then further into weekly and daily activities. Prioritize these and you now have a plan to increase your business.

One of the things that was asked by quite a few people for this series was specifics on things like

• how many subscribers a day
• how much income a day
• how many new things to add

The problem is that each of these answers will be dependent on where you are at in your business. Adding 20 new subscribers a day may seem like a lot to one person and adding 200 a day may seem low to someone else.

The big thing is to break things into a daily and monthly plan, Measure your results at least monthly and if you are increasing reset your goals to be higher. If you are not increasing then check your plan and what you are actually doing. Make sure that you are actually getting results from what you are doing and that you are doing what you have planned.

It is very easy to get side tracked dealing with email, Twitter, Facebook, your favorite forum and not do the things that actually add to your business.

Finally revise as needed and measure your results against you and not what others are doing.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: action plan, business plan, daily goals, goals, weekly goals