how to get better at time management

How To Create An Effective Schedule

April 12, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

One of the best ways to effectively manage your time is by creating a powerful schedule. The ideal schedule is an uncomfortable adventure that results in progress in the right areas while not being a burden at the same time. I enforce a strict schedule on myself every summer that ultimately allows me to get a lot of work done but also gives me some time to kick back and relax. I do not schedule anything just to put more work on the table. Everything has a purpose. Just to give everyone an idea, this will be the typical day for me this summer.

Work out for 4 hours. I want to have a very strong Junior year for my track and cross country teams.
Work on a book for 1-2 hour. I want to finish another book during the summer and have it published before the New Year. This will make sure Lead The Stampede is not my only physical book.
Create videos for 1 hour. I will be launching membership sites and training courses in the near future. Summer is going to kickstart that.
Write blog posts for 1 hour. That’s enough time to write at least 5 blog posts every day.
Write video scripts for 15 minutes. Before I start a video, I need to know what I am going to say. Speaking off the cuff was horrible, and those days are over.
Other business activities for 30 minutes (reading or responding to emails). When they come up, they will get done.

I understand that I will not be able to do this every day in the summer, especially on vacation days. Regardless, my goal is to get as close as possible towards accomplishing all of these goals on my schedule. This 9 hour schedule does create some discomfort, but the discomfort is needed in order to get more accomplished. It still beats the 9 to 5 (no traffic),

The key elements of my schedule is that everything has a purpose, it is not an easy schedule to follow, and it promises big rewards for being implemented. The idea of getting big rewards (for me, that would be a bestselling book, a membership site with the potential of making thousands every month, and getting a lot faster) will allow you to push through the work. By giving yourself high standards, you will be able to get more accomplished. I could easily get by with writing two blog posts every day and not doing anything else. However, I would not be able to unlock my potential by limiting my growth.

You will never know how much you can truly accomplish until you raise your standards.

How I Find The Time To Publish 2 Blog Posts Every Day

April 10, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

When I made the change last summer to write two blog posts every day instead of one blog post, I knew it was going to require a lot more work. In addition, I knew that I was encountered with a decision to cross the Rubicon. Once I start something new, and I like the results, I have a need to remain consistent and show gradual improvements.

Writing two blog posts every day was a big step for me. I had 20 blog posts scheduled at the time, but instead of having 20 days of blog posts left, I only had 10 days of blog posts left. Instead of writing three blog posts on some days and then taking a break, I started to write blog posts every day. In fact, I continue writing blog posts every day even now (unless something stops me from getting to my computer).

The biggest factor towards me being able to write two blog posts every day is that I love what I do. If I had forced myself to write a certain number of words per blog post, I would not have liked this as much. When I first started writing two blog posts every day, they were short and filled with mistakes. No one noticed because at the time, my blog was not getting a lot of visitors. I was simply practicing.

Then, I had the realization that I could make it far as an author, blogger, and entrepreneur. My short blog posts started gaining momentum, and now all of the blog posts on my blog combined average out to be 250 words per blog post. This indicates the big increase in words and information I have shared in more recent posts (in the beginning, many of my blog posts had 100 words or less). After the love came, the vision was able to drive me further. Then, I decided to increase the rate that I send out blog posts.

Then there’s time management. My ability to effectively manage my time has been a crucial part towards writing more blog posts. My love for blogging and the vision made me more willing to carve out hours of time to write blog posts. In order to carve out that time, I needed to sacrifice other things. I used to be a couch potato and watch TV for countless hours. Now, I only watch The Big Bang Theory, my Red Sox when they are on the diamond, and some football. Since those are not on every night, I sometimes go for days without watching TV. I decided that in order to become successful, I would have to commit more time to becoming successful. It’s a success model that makes sense, and it’s a success model that I decided to implement.

Ultimately, it comes down to your love for doing something and your vision. Having the love to do something and the vision of great success will make the process of time management a lot easier. We tend to carve out more time to do the things we believe can change our situation (or the world) than we carve out time for washing the dishes.

And that’s how I am able to two blog posts every day. So far, I have never worked a single day in my life, and I plan to have that statement remain true for my entire life.

8 Ways To Increase The Amount Of Time You Have In Your Day

April 6, 2014 by Marc Guberti 12 Comments

If there was one thing we could all wish for, we would all wish that there were 10 extra hours in the day to get everything done. It seems as if our days are getting increasing busy, and there is less time to complete the tasks at hand. With a big pile of work, many people fear adding on to that workload, even if adding on to the workload means getting more opportunities. However, there are simple ways to hack the workload. In this blog post, I am going to reveal 8 of those methods.

Identify any patterns that take up time. If you are scheduling tweets of your blog posts, chances are you search for the blog post on your blog, paste the link into Bitly, write the tweet on HootSuite, paste the link to your blog post in the tweet, and schedule the tweet. I have all of my tweets in a document on my computer which saves me from the first three steps. Joining HootSuite Pro allowed me to save even more time. It is easy to imagine that I save 4 hours every week.
Choose wisely. Not all work is productive. Walking around your neighborhood with a flyer with a link to your blog is not as effective as becoming a guest blogger for a popular blog. Some opportunities are better than others, and it is important to pounce on the good ones when they come.
Wake up earlier. This is an obvious, but easy way to get some extra time in your day. We are at our peak of productivity in the morning. By waking up at 7 am every day instead of 9 am, you will be able to be productive for an extra 60 hours every month. Imagine the things you will be able to do with 60 extra hours every month.
Upgrade to save time. That’s exactly why I upgraded to HootSuite Pro for $9.99 every month. HootSuite Pro allows me to save a lot of time, and it allows me to organize my tweets and lists very effectively. What can you upgrade to save extra time. If you save an hour a day by spending $30 every month, you would have spent $360 for the year on those services, but you would have gained 365 extra hours. That’s enough hours to write a book, run it through an editor, get it copyrighted, and market it to the masses.
Focus on what you are good at instead of trying to be something else. I decided to give coding a try, but it ended up becoming a very bumpy road. After spending a few weeks trying to learn code, I gave up. Now, I focus on what I am good at: my writing and expertise in social media, business, and blogging. I saved a lot of time by giving up on the coding early on so it would not swallow up any more of my time.
Create rubrics. Imagine writing the same email, word for word, over 100 times, and the only thing different was the person’s name. I encountered this problem immediately when I submitted a query on HARO. Instead of creating custom messages, I created a rubric message for the people whose pitches I liked. Creating the rubric message allowed me to email hundreds of people within a week instead of sending out personalized messages which could take months.
Do something incredibly time-consuming for a week while doing everything else at the same time. I will never forget the working curve it took me to send out replies to the people who sent in pitches to my HARO queries in 1 week. It was a time-consuming process. However, when I was done responding to people’s pitches, I had a big slice of time left. While I was responding to pitches, it would take me entire days to do all of my work. When I responded to everyone’s pitch, I was able to get my work done twice as fast and even able to extend my break by another hour. The reason summer is my most productive season is because I gain 8 extra hours since there isn’t any school.
Hire assistants. Once you start to make it big time, have other people send out the HARO queries, respond to the pitches, and answer emails for you. Hiring assistants will be able to give you more time to produce quality products.

What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any other suggestions? Please share your thoughts and advice below.