To be successful in the battle against procrastination, you must establish priorities and stick to them. Successful people have learned that they must do the hard jobs whether they’re in the mood or not.

Take this quiz to find out if you need to get more serious about procrastination:

• Do you set priorities?
• Do you get the hard jobs done whether you’re in the mood or not?
• Do you spend most of your time working on tasks that you need to finish this week?
• Do you spend time each day working on your long-term goals?
• Do you have a system for measuring your progress?
• Do you have a filing system for each of your long-range projects?

If you answered “no” to any of the above questions, you need to get more serious about procrastination. Ask yourself if you’re happy living with the consequences of procrastination. Do you have justifiable reasons for postponing tasks, or have you simply developed the habit of putting things off?

• Establish your priorities. If you don’t make a list of your priorities every day, why don’t you? And if you do make a list, ask yourself how you rank items in order of importance.
• Force yourself to act. Set deadlines for yourself, even when you don’t have to. You need to spend most of your time on this week’s projects, but try to spend a little time every day on long-term goals.
• Spend 75% of your time on the things you need to finish this week. Dedicate the rest of your time to projects that need to be finished in the next six months. If you don’t have a list of deadlines for the next six months, make one now. What have you done so far on each of these projects? How are you measuring your progress on each one?
• Keep a file for each long-range project. This can be a folder with the deadline date in big letters on the outside. Write down target milestones for each big project. (A milestone is a deadline for finishing one part of a project.)

Wasting time on tasks that don’t contribute to the success of our projects is one of the most insidious forms of procrastination. When you decide to rush into something on the spur of the moment, always ask yourself if it’s the best way to spend your time. Could I accomplish more with the time I have by doing a different task? Which of these two tasks will make a greater contribution to getting the job done?

Don’t put yourself in the position of Shakespeare’s King Richard II, who was forced to say: “I wasted time, and now time doth wasted me.” Get serious about procrastination today.

So, you’ve decided to start a home based business. Congratulations! and welcome to the fast-paced world of entrepreneurship. While there is a lot to learn, your effort will be well worth it. The thrill of growing your business, the freedom and flexibility to set your own hours, and the possibilities of ever-increasing financial rewards are all wonderful reasons to start your very own home based business.

Now that you’ve decided to start your business, you might be wondering “How can I get it off to the strongest possible start?”

These seven quick strategies will help:

1) Set up a separate working space in your home. It doesn’t matter if this is a small bedroom, one part of the garage, or a corner of the living room. The important thing is to have some space that you can designate as your working area. This will give you the space and room you need to craft your dream.

2) Stock your working space with materials. This sounds basic, perhaps, but one underlying element of success is that you have easy access to the tools, materials, and other resources you need. Gathering everything close by also keeps you from wasting time searching for it, so this step can be considered a time management strategy, too.

3) Speaking of time management, your third step is to define the parameters of your business. What days and hours will you work? When will you market? When will you provide services or products to clients? How will you keep all of this straight?

4) Balance action with planning. One of the most common pitfalls to successful entrepreneurship is getting too caught up in action without enough planning. Stated another way, this means that you confuse “being busy” with “working on important projects.” The best approach is to plan your next couple of goals and then work backwards to create step by step action plans to reach them. Once you have the plan, then it’s time to take the action.

5) Network like crazy. One of the fastest ways to grow any business is to make connections with other people. Be sure to share your passion and enthusiasm with others at every opportunity. Let people know who you are and what you offer. Remember, people can’t buy if they don’t know you’re selling.

6) Present a professional image. If you want to be treated professionally, present a professional image. Set up a separate bank account for your business. Install a separate phone and fax line. Create professional marketing materials. Be courteous and pleasant in all your customer facing interactions. Basically, be someone people want to do business with.

7) Automate your business as much as possible. Granted, you are just one person (right now) and might have a lot of extra time to take care of all the details. This might work for now, but won’t work into the future as you get busier and busier. It’s best to set up automatic systems and processes right from the start to free up your time to concentrate on the most profitable activities.

These seven quick strategies will get your home business started (and growing) in the right direction.

Twitter has become quite a phenomenon. Everyone is using it – even big business. You know that Fortune500 companies would not be wasting time with Twitter if it wasn’t effective. But how do you manage Twitter and “tweeting” while still spending the time you need on other aspects of your business?

So how do you use Twitter effectively for YOUR business without wasting time? How do you focus on the most important aspects of your business, but still capitalize on the benefit of Twitter?

….Find out how to use Twitter to YOUR business advantage on the
next Works Team Monday Night Training Webinar!

Date: 11/16/09
Day And Time: Monday Night 9pm Eastern Time
The Topic is: Time-saving Twitter Tools to Promote YOU and Your Business

Get your free Business Building Tour Now!