The Affiliate Lifestyle Blog

I track my productivity using a time-management based approach. I use a legal notepad, but you can also download the excel file I’ve created. I use Billing Tracker Pro, which allows me to track time spent on each project, enter my affiliate commissions at the end of the week, and then generate reports which allow me to see where I’m spending my time in comparison to how much I’m making on the project.

If you haven’t read The 80/20 Principle, I highly recommend it. It’s one of the best books I’ve read, and highly recommended by Timothy Ferriss of the 4 Hour Work Week. Basically, 20% of your time results in 80% of the profits. Which means, we are all wasting way too much time doing unproductive things like checking our email or affiliate commissions.

Here’s the system that I’ve developed:

1) Write down each project you want to accomplish during the day.

2) Estimate the number of minutes you think it will take to complete each task.

3) Prioritize each task by putting a number next to it (’1′ means do it first)

4) Open Billing Tracker Pro and create the categories for the day, such as the domain of the website you are working on.

5) When you begin or end a task, make sure to start and stop the timer in Billing Tracker.

6) At the end of the day, review how much time you estimated on each project compared to the time you spent on each project. This helps you understand where you’re spending your time.

7) At the end of the week, enter your commissions for each project. Then generate a Commission Summary report in Billing Tracker. Use this information to allocate your time/resources for the coming week. Focus on the 20% of projects that are bringing in 80% of the profits.

A Few Notes:

- I strive for 6 “productive” hours per day. I count any minutes tracked using Billing Tracker as productive minutes.

- Once I hit my 6 productive hours for the day, I can stop working and feel great about the day.

- I try to ‘beat my time’ - I compete against myself to see if I can beat the time I estimated it would take me to complete a task.

Planning is critical to success. Spend the first 30-45 minutes of each day with planning, and you will accomplish more and work less than before.

On the bottom of my legal notepad, I also keep track of how many times I checked my email and stats during the day. Try to check your email no more than 2 times per day.

Click Here To Learn More About Billing Tracker Pro 3.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 at 2:38 pm and is filed under productivity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.