by Ruth Belena

Created on: July 16, 2010   Last Updated: January 01, 2012

It is important when you work online to avoid any distractions that could reduce your earning potential. It is easy to become distracted by personal email messages, or to keep reading social network updates, when you ought to be working. You will make more money when you focus on the important tasks, so you should avoid online distractions by planning ahead, sticking to your routine and separating business from pleasure.

♦ Set yourself a routine

When time is limited it is important to postpone fun activities online until you have completed your tasks for the day.  When you need to login to a website to find your tasks for the day, or to check your account, try to do this at the same time each day. This will reduce the temptation to keep visiting websites at random when you are online.

Business emails and any networking messages connected with your work should be given top priority. Focus first on reading and responding to important messages, posting replies to blog comments and acknowledging new followers who might be prospective clients or new referrals.

♦ Keep your messages separate

You may need to keep checking your email messages several times a day, for your work, and having two or more email accounts will prevent you from being distracted by personal messages. Designate one email address for work related messages, and another one for private use. At the start of each session you should only check for business messages, and leave any fun emails unanswered until you have completed your tasks for the day.

You can also use multiple social network accounts. Keep your friends and family updated in one particular social network, and use the others for marketing, promoting and for business networking.

♦ Create documents offline

When an online job involves writing articles, blog posts or newsletter content, you can open up your word processing program and type your documents without needing to be online.

If you have to keep checking information already published online, you can store web pages on your computer and make them available for viewing offline. Use the offline option when you bookmark anything you need to keep for future reference. Pages you make available to view offline can always be updated next time you visit the website.

It is easy to save your own documents and to store your completed articles, blog posts and other content until you go online. You can plan ahead and publish your own content online as part of your regular routine.

♦ Keep the sound down

When you do have to be online for your work you might think that you perform better with some background music, but you are less likely to be distracted if you turn off your computer speakers or reduce the volume. You waste less time viewing online videos, and you will not notice noisy ads, with the sound down.

Having one or more online jobs does require you to spend time each day, or as often as you can, on your money making activities. When you plan ahead and fix your priorities, you can then focus on important tasks and earn more money online.

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