Time Management in Network Marketing

Managing your time is about managing yourself. You don’t have control over time, however you do have control over what activities you do during your time. Some of the biggest challenges Network Marketers face are related to time management. Here are a few powerful strategies you can start using today to help you better manage your time.

Balance Work and Personal Life

As a home based business entrepreneur you will need to mix your personal time with your work time. While working from home the distinctions between work life and home life soon blur. As your business and personal time mesh, it’s more important than ever to structure your day.  3 ways you can keep your balance with your MLM business are:

1. Set up your ideal physical environment. Keep a separate, distinct work area in your home if possible.
2. Set up specific times during the day to work your business
3. Clear your mental desk. Forget about personal matters while you are working and vice versa so you can stay fresh and focused.

Working With Your Natural Cycles

Many times instead of taking a break and let our body recuperate energy, we try to boost our energy level with caffeine, sugar and other substances. These temporary energy boosters work against your natural rhythm can lead to tiredness, fatigue and burnout. A few ways yo work with your natural cycle and avoid burn out are:

1. Take advantage of your natural cycles
2. Do your creative work and important calls when you are more alert during the day
3. Take breaks throughout the day, and meditate if possible

By working within this cycles you can boost your productivity drastically which keeps you from burning your reserves of energy and your time becomes efficient.

Recognize and Limit Distractions and Interruptions

Distractions and interruptions rob us more productivity than anything else. Many times you might find yourself doing no money making activities, like checking your emails, phone calls, chatting online, surfing the net, viewing YouTube videos, and playing games. Minimizing distractions and interruptions is crucial to get things done. Two things you can start doing now to help you in this are:

1. Give priority to money-making activities and start doing them first
2. Schedule your interruptions by setting up a couple times a day where you are available and open to receive incoming calls, e-mails, messenger, etc. You can set up your voicemail and emails to let people know your availability.

   Examples:
   Voicemail message: I am available from 11 to 1 and 4 and 5, please leave me a message and I will get back to you during these times
   Email: I check my emails from 11 to 12 and 4-5 PM if this is urgent please put urgent in the subject line

Adapting the strategies above can help you free your time so you can concentrate on money making activities and educate your prospects, friends and family that you can’t be available all the time.

Avoid of Multitasking When Possible

We multitask because we feel we can get more things done. However, studies have shown this is not the case, here is a list of a few things that happen when we try to multitask:

1. Productivity Goes Down 40% – We don’t actually multitask but instead switch between tasks rapidly, jumping from one thing to another, interrupting ourselves constantly and losing valuable time in the process.
2. Lowers your IQ – Studies show that while working, being distracted by incoming calls or emails lowers a person’s IQ by 10 points.
3. Kills the ability to think creatively – The more tasks you add the less efficient your brain is, causing it to close down energy draining programs such as creativity.
4. Limits the ability to make wise decisions – Overload on your mind inhibits its ability to sort through thoughts and consequences correctly and strains the ability to make wise choices.
5. Decreases memory function – Too many tasks at once clouds the mind’s ability to focus and remember important details.

It is pretty obvious that staying focused on one task at a time is the “smartest” way to go in terms of productivity.  Learn to focus in on one thing at a time to overcome this challenge. Sometimes we do have to multitask, but we should limit multitasking where we can.

Enlightened Multitasking List

1. Schedule your multitasking
2. Sit down and write down the activities you need to multitask on a given time
3. Be proactive: you know that you have a few things to get done, you have a purpose and a goal
4. Don’t react to events (e-mails, phone calls, and answering to all the external demands) focus on your original goal.

Culture of The Instant Result

The idea that there is a quick fix for everything actually hurts us. This is especially true in the network marketing (MLM) industry, where we get bombarded all the time with information about the best next thing. If you want to be successful in terms of productivity, time management and getting results, you have to let go the idea that there is a quick fix for everything.

For best results some things do need to be completed on a daily basis. Follow a simple, proven strategy and stick to it until it produces results. Stop surfing the net looking for some magic strategy or silver bullet and don’t waste your time. Commit to completion.