By I really enjoy the company of other people. Which makes it kind of strange that I run an online business. However, I get out and go to meet friends and partners as often as possible, as well as networking events.
It was at an event where I met somebody who runs a mutli-million dollar online business. And what made him particularly special was that…
…he ran it in just two hours a day!
That’s pretty awesome.
I pestered him all day until he told me how he managed to make this work.
And I’m going to share what he did with you in just a moment.
But first, I want to look at the results of some research that’s been done on the brain.
It’s impossible to multi-task.
Although we may think we’re multi-tasking, in fact we’re not. What our brain is doing is known as context-switching.
It’s switching backwards and forwards between different tasks rather than doing them simultaneously.
When we perform multiple tasks at the same time then we’re splitting our brains resources and performing worse on them.
In fact, research has shown that errors increase by 50% when you perform two tasks at the same time and it takes twice as long to complete the tasks.
What this tells us, is that if we want to be as efficient as possible then we should focus on one thing at a time.
Research has shown that the time your brain is most active is just after you’ve woken up after it’s resting period. By the time most people get into work they’ve already wasted their brains most active hours.
But as onlinepreneurs we don’t have to!
With both these things in mind, this is how he ran his business in two hours a day:
He woke up at 8am and started working immediately, from bed. He works solidly for two hours and then packs up for the day.
That’s it!
It’s not rocket science.
But is it effective?
Well… I decided to put it into practice.
In order to do that I had to make a few adjustments. The first takes place the night before.
I need to know exactly what needs to be done each day if I’m going to be efficient. To do that I take a piece of A4 paper and fold it in half three times. Starting with the most important thing, I write down a list of everything that needs to be done that day. When I reach the bottom of one side of the folded paper I stop. That’s the most that I can effectively get done in a day.
I do this every evening as my last job before finishing work. This gives me my job list for the next day
The second change I made is that I can’t work from bed. Apart from the fact that it hurts my back, I just don’t like working in bed.
So here’s what I do…
- 7:50am – Wake Up and get dressed
- 8:00am – Go into the study (with a cup of tea) and check out my job list
- 8:05am – Start going through the jobs on the list starting at the top and doing one at a time
- 10:00am – Finish Work
Did this work?
Yes, insanely well.
In fact I can get through more in those two hours than I used to get through in an entire day.
What I’m doing is working at the time when my brain is most active and efficient, the moment I wake up.
I’m putting together a job list of things that are most important and I’m focusing on just one at a time to make sure I get them done in the shortest time possible.
And then…
…I’m implementing my secret trick.
I have every form of communication turned off.
And I don’t mean on silent, I mean off.
My wife also knows not to disturb me until 10am!
By turning off all forms of communications I’m not getting distracted by emails, text messages, facebook messages, Skype and phone calls.
With all the possible forms of communications we have, and as internet marketers most of us use most of them, it’s a constant barrage of communications. That means every few minutes you lose your focus as another message pings in. This means your brain switches from what you’re doing to acknowledge the message before switching back.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t read them, the notification is enough to drastically slow down your work output.
So, turn everything off, plan your jobs for the next day and work for two hours the moment you wake up.
Start doing this and you’ll discover how you can get all your work done in just two hours a day!
What do you think?