When you work for yourself you recognize that there is a lot to do. You also know that it’s a challenge getting it all done, whether you’re full-time or part-time in your business.

That’s why doing things in the most efficient manner possible so important. Here are three tools to help you work faster.

Procedures - You probably thought immediately of a big Procedures Manual. But a procedure can be as simple as 3 steps jotted on a yellow sticky.

Of course, I don’t recommend the yellow sticky approach! Instead take the extra five minutes it will take to type those steps.

Then either file it in a Procedures folder on your hard drive or print it and put it in a notebook on your shelf. It will be ready to use the next time you want to repeat that task.

Checklists - While a procedure is the step-by-step instructions, a checklist gives you a way to track that you completed that task. So where a procedure may have 10 steps, that entire task will be one check box on your checklist.

Checklists are helpful for daily tasks as well as large projects. It’s easiest if you start with an out-of-the-box checklist and adapt it for your use. But you can also build a checklist from scratch, based on the tasks you do.

Templates - When you do the same task over and over, you end up with the same outcome. So why not just start with the end result? That’s exactly what you do with a template.

Just as with a checklist, it’s much easier to modify an existing format than to start from scratch. So use your existing optin pages, sales letters, special reports and articles to create templates that you can modify and reuse.

The important thing with each of these tools is to test it and update it each time you use it. This process of continuous refinement is what makes all the difference in how long it take you to get it all done!

Jeanette shares more tips and a full organization system in her Online Business Organization System.

There are many PLR (Private Label Rights) products available to you. But if you’re like most people you buy them – and they sit idle on your hard drive.

Stop that! You paid good money for content you could use – so use it. Here are three ways to ensure you profit from the next PLR package you buy.

1. Grab a piece of paper before you start to read the sales letter. Then as you read and you think “I could do this…” – write it down. Those bright ideas seem to fade right after you download the product. Having a written plan prevents your losing them.

If you prefer putting your ideas into a word processor, you can save that document in the same folder where you stored the PLR product. That way you can’t tell yourself “I had a great plan but I lost it.”

2. Record your purchase on your Product Tracker. Not only does this give you a written record of your purchase, but it also reminds you of where you stored the product. The only thing worse than not being able to find something you know you purchased is buying it a second time! And your Product Tracker keeps that from happening.

3. Choose the most profitable idea from your list and do it within the first 48 hours of buying the PLR product. You’ll make your money back multiple times over – and you will get into the habit of action.

That idea may be as simple as posting the product for sale on a new domain – or as complex as recording it as a video product. Regardless of what you need to do, take action quickly – or that product will be relegated to the vast store of “great” PLR materials on your hard drive, that are sitting there collecting dust.

By following these three simple steps you’ll be able to profit quickly from the next PLR course you buy. Learn how to set up your own Product Tracker and increase your online productivity to make this just one of the techniques you use to grow your business.

And remember – between now and August 27, you can pick up a GREAT package of PLR Content here.

I was all excited about another trip to Las Vegas next week – when I found out the event had been canceled. Well, not exactly canceled – just moved.

Now if I had had my airline reservations, it could have been an expensive change to go to another city. But this was even easier – it’s going to be online!

That’s right! My good friend and mentor Armand Morin is going to host the annual Brave the Wave Wealth event online!

Now I could tell you that he actually stole my idea – I started offering Get It Done Weekends several years ago – offering hands-on workshops in the comfort of your home. But of course, the idea of an online seminar isn’t new.

Why this one is different is that it is generally a paid seminar. In fact I paid to attend the Authority event in Charlotte just a few months ago.

But this one is absolutely Without Cost! Sign up now!

And that’s where the trend comes in. Could this be the start of a new trend – offering quality webinars that we normally would have traveled to see – but offering them online at no cost to the attendees?

Frankly, I don’t think so. There’s a difference in offering a free webinar and offering a paid event. That’s what makes this so special. I suspect you won’t see it again.

My recommendation is to take advantage of it while it’s available this ONE time. Sign up today!

I’ll see you in the seminar!

Jeanette

P.S. I know every one of the speakers personally. And I can vouch for both their professionalism – and their content. You WILL learn a lot about how to build your wealth, regardless of the type of business you have right now. Join us!

Whether you’re setting a value on your time for a sales letter – or trying to figure out how much a personal project is “costing you” it’s important to know what your time is worth.

Now we’d all like to just plug our name into a magic calculator, along with our related experience and education, and have the machine tell us “Your Time is worth this amount.” But since that’s not going to happen, let’s consider alternatives.

Method 1: What You’re Paid

If you’re still working a job, it’s a fairly easy calculation to see what you’re paid per hour. Just take your annual salary and divide by 2000. That’s the average work hours per year.

Sure, that’s not really what you’re worth, because you’re being underpaid. But it will give you something to work with.

Method 2: Annual Income

If you’re self-employed, take your gross income for the year and divide by 2000. That’s your hourly earnings.

You can also rely on your “billing rate” for consulting. But for every hour you are paid a consulting fee, you also have preparation, marketing, and background hours. So it sounds good, but isn’t realistic, unless you’re paid that rate for 2000 hours per year.

Method 3: Market Comparison

If you’re new to your business and don’t have a track record, look around at your competition. What do they charge for an hour of consulting? What do their sales letters refer to when talking about their time value?

But you have to be careful with this approach. Just because your competitor or your mentor is charging a particular amount does not mean that your time is worth that amount. There’s the experience and education factor you have to consider before you can match their value.

A word of caution: You never want to put a value on your time that is more than you have actually gotten paid. Unless you’ve been paid that amount, you can’t say you charge that amount. This is particularly true in sales letters where you are subject to governmental regulations. It is better to understate, than to over-inflate your rates.

Method 4: Internal Rate

Finally, there is the internal number. This is the amount you pay yourself – in your head. Twenty years ago when I started consulting, I read that if you got paid $50 per hour you would make a hundred thousand per year. That sounded good to me at the time, so I decided to consider my time worth $50 per hour.

So if it took me 30 hours to create a product, it “cost” me $1500. If it took me 5 hours to write a sales letter it cost me $250. And so on.

As my actual worth has increased I’ve also increased my internal number. At the same time I’ve gained expertise and speed. So a product that used to take 30 hours to create can now be finished and ready for sale in 15. It still “costs” me more because my rate has more than doubled – but I can create more of them in the same amount of time.

Start applying your new “time value” to the things you’re doing in your business. For example, if you spend an hour surfing the net, how much did that cost? If you spend an hour playing a game in Facebook – what was that worth to you?

And a final word of caution, from personal experience. I have tried using my real billing rate, currently set at $450 per hour, for personal costs. It doesn’t work. “I’ll fix dinner but it will cost you $450″ doesn’t fly here at our house. Around here my rate is about $5 per hour. It just keeps you humble!

It’s only day 3 but already I’m sensing a different pace in the physical world than I experience in my digital world.

In the physical world, it’s slower. You have more time to think and reflect. I like that. Driving around town, dropping things off, I have time to think – instead of DO.

In the digital world, you can get more done, faster. You can have an idea, do the research and actually get it done – all within minutes. There is no heavy lifting, waiting for businesses to open, driving to get there.

I think the immediacy of the digital world leads to a lot of the “I want it NOW” perspective we see in society. We get so used to being able to think it and see it immediately that impatience sets in when we have to wait a day or two.

It’s no wonder that people who enjoy gardening always seem so calm and centered. They are used to being patient and waiting for plants to grow.

Who knew that taking paint to the hazardous waste disposal would yield so much contemplation!

Clean Up – a new world awaits!

One of the things I’m finding in my Clean Up is that it gets faster as I go. Part of it may be experience and skills. But I think a good part of it is just getting used to getting rid of things.

For example, I had an old gmail account that had a few pieces of information I needed to keep. But it also had thousands of email newsletters I’d never gotten around to reading.

So I figured out how to find all the emails from one person (started with Mike Filsaime, since I knew that would clean out a TON of messages!). Then I saw how to delete them all at once.

Since gmail is not my native email environment (I’m an Outlook user) I’m learning new skills as I go.

The “reason” I have kept all of these messages came back to me – “I might want to review their methods of marketing one day” Yeah RIGHT! If I haven’t gotten around to studying their methods in the past two years (yes TWO years!) then I’m not likely to do it. Besides, I have my OWN methods now!

A few times at the start I agonized over a particular subject line – “Mmm, sounds like something I really want to read” – but I hit the delete key anyway. And the more I hit the delete key, the more excited I got about seeing that clean inbox.

One realization I have had – that the really good marketers (translated – making a lot more money than anyone else) mail frequently and forever! They don’t get discouraged if you don’t buy in six months. They just keep mailing.

And they mail often. Four, five, six times a week.

So what does that tell you? Yes, I don’t always read their messages – but they are there when I DO want to read them. And it only takes one message – because I can assure you, without even opening those message, that every one of them contains a link.

So if someone were cleaning out messages from you over the past two years – how many messages would there be?

I’m up to my ears in my first day of cleaning, but I wanted to share a little bit of the background with you as I start this adventure.

You see, I was raised in the military. As a military child, and later a military wife, we moved every 1, 2 or 3 years. That meant that at least every 3 years, you had to sort through things in order to keep the “move weight” to a minimum.

But times have changed. My husband is no longer in the military – and hasn’t been for 35 years.

We’ve lived in this house for 28 years.

Basically, it’s time for a clean up!

Now add to that a couple of other houses that we’ve inherited from relatives – in another city! – and you begin to see the issue. Not only do I need to clean out MY house, but I have to dispose of two estates, including some estate paperwork.

I’ve tried to do this part-time, in my “spare time” and it just wasn’t happening. So I’ve decided to take the month of August and just dedicate myself to Getting It Done!

Now that doesn’t mean you won’t see me. In fact, you may see even MORE of me. Because I knew I couldn’t just step away from my business cold turkey – I love it too much! So I’ve decided to Clean Up my business, too!

I’ll be getting rid of old domains, old sites, old products, old courses, old books – all sorts of things that I no longer use. Some I may put into an online garage sale. Others I’ll sell on ebay or other sites. Others I’ll update.

Overall, I’ll be sharing my business-related tasks with you, along the way. Why not join me? It’s too hot outside to leave the air-conditioning, so let’s Clean Up YOUR business, too!

Now back to my dust!