Big MLM Tip - Work or Activity?

Most of us start out as part timers. We work a full time job and work our business in our spare time. Also, most of us are doing this to make more money, so until we start making some, we have limited budgets. 

If you have limited time, and a limited budget, I urge you not to waste either. We will discuss your monetary budget tomorrow, but for today, we want to look at time. 

So, back to the post title, "Work or Activity". Or maybe a better way to word it would be "Productive or Busy?" Are you working your business in a productive manner or are you simply busy with activity?I hear from people all the time that cannot understand why their business is not growing even though they are always busy. The problem usually lies in what they are busy doing. Here is an example of what I mean.

A Wasted Day:

• 6:30 AM - Climb out of bed and get ready for work
• 7:00 AM - Hop in the car, turn on the radio and drive to work. Arrive and start working at 8:00
• 12:00 PM - head to lunch with co-workers, sit and talk about office politics; or, grab your lunch and watch youtube videos for an hour.
• 5:00 PM - Hop back in the car, turn the radio back on, and drive home. 
• 6:00 PM - Arrive home, greet the family, get dinner ready, watch TV while you eat, watch soem more TV while dinner "settles"
• 8:00 PM - Turn on the computer, spend 30 minutes reading useless emails, another hour chatting with a friend on Facebook, and oh yeah, spend 15 minutes posting your blog for the day. Spend another 30 minutes or so doing some back-linking, or surfing traffic exchanges before remembering to check the items you are watching on eBay.
• 10:00 PM - It's been a long day, so you decide you have worked for two hours and now you'll watch some TV for a while before bed time. 
• Some time later - You eventually go take a shower and crawl into the bed, exhausted and wondering how you can go on at this pace.

An Optimized Day:

• 6:30 AM - Say your self talk, climb out of bed and get ready for work. Say your self talk a few more times while getting ready
• 7:00 AM - Hop in the car, say your self talk, turn on the motivational CD or MP3 and drive to work. Arrive and start working at 8:00
•  12:00 PM - Heat your lunch in the microwave, Post your blog post for the day, share it on Facebook and everywhere else, check your facebook groups for activity and reply to the posts directly mentioning you. Back to work at 1:00
• 5:00 PM - Hop back in the car, grab your earpiece and call on some prospects while you drive home. Maybe call your sponsor or listen to the rest of that CD you started this morning.
• 6:00 PM - Arrive home, greet the family, get dinner ready, spend time talking with your family at the dinner table. Excuse yourself after dinner to make another attempt at contacting some prospects you could not catch at home earlier. Spend some more time with your family. If you have kids, this is your time with them. You will have plenty more time later, so make the most of what limited time you have with them now.
• 8:00 PM - Turn on the computer, spend 10-15 minutes deleting useless emails and replying to the critical ones.spend another 30 minutes or so following up with your prospects online. Stop by Facebook to check activity in your groups and on your wall. ONLY respond to items that require your attention or will help foster relationships. Be brief and try to spend no more than 15-30 minutes on this. Spend another solid 30 minutes creating backlinks. Maybe it's social bookmarking, or writing/posting an article (you should be backlinking every day). The next half hour or so you spend researching and writing your blog post for the following day.
• 10:00 PM - You are spent, but it has been productive. Now you go back and read those funny emails, or watch that youtube video of the dog water skiing. You enjoy some time to yourself, then one more quick glance at your email to be sure nothing important came through, and it's off to bed.

 Do you see the difference? You were just as busy in the first example as in the second. The difference is what was accomplished in that same amount of time. So, I'll ask again, "Are you productive or just busy?"