“Getting Things Done” Applied to Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing can drive a person crazy, if you handle a lot of the details yourself. There can be an overwhelming amount of things to keep moving forward, lots of different projects and tasks involved with those projects.
It gets crazy for me and I’m sure it gets crazy for you. Even if outsourcing much of the work, there are still a lot of things to keep an eye on from day to day. And if you don’t have a good system to work through it all, you might freeze up or get stuck from time to time.
There’s so many things to keep track of:
- Websites to build
- Websites to upgrade
- Ideas to research
- People to contact
- Links to build
- Graphics to make
- Articles to write
… and so on and so forth.
I like to handle a lot of my operation myself, I mostly only outsource the writing.
This results in a lot of things to keep track of, it can be very overwhelming at times.
To get over that “overwhelming” hump, I read and adopted the “Getting Things Done” system, outlined in a book titled Getting Things Done by David Allen.
The basic premise is this:
- Constantly “collect” tasks and ideas for things that need to be done in lists
- “Process” those lists into projects and workable task lists for yourself
- Then just “do” what’s on your lists
This is a super-basic breakdown of how it works. But what has it done for me?
I’m not constantly trying to remember what I have to be doing any more.
As soon as something comes to mind, such as:
- An idea for a new website
- An idea to improve a website
- Remembering something I need from the store
- Identifying the need to place a phone call to somebody
- and so on and so forth
… I add the idea to a general “Inbox” list. This can be a notepad, a smartphone app, or anything really. Just someplace to “collect” the things that need to be done.
Once these items are in my “inbox”, I don’t need to try to remember it all the time.
Once a week, I “process” my “inbox”. The inbox can be any number of things:
- Stuff I’ve written on paper
- Email inbox
- Task lists on my phone
- etc.
While “processing”, I do this:
- Review every item in my “inboxes”
- Either do it (if it only takes a few minutes)
- Or add it to a list of stuff I need to get done (my “Get it Done List”)
- Or file it somewhere if I only need it for reference
After “processing” each week, I have a clear list of stuff that I need to get done, based on the ideas and tasks that I have previously been “collecting” the previous week.
This allows me to:
- Not have to think all the time about “what am I forgetting?” (this is really huge for me)
- Focus on the “Get it Done” list and actually get stuff done (FOCUS!)
There’s a lot more to it than this, but basically it allows me to get a large amount of things done without having to think very hard about any of it. It just takes patience and discipline. I had to actually do the system myself for a couple weeks to realize the power of it all.
Learn more about “Getting Things Done” by David Allen
If you are feeling overwhelmed by all the stuff you are trying to tackle in your life and business, I can highly recommend reading this book and at least giving the system a try. It has totally changed how I approach my daily operation and I feel so much less stressed out than before I adopted this way of working.
Related posts: