Day in the Life of an Online Business Designer

Karol K.

workSo I get up, do nothing, and go to sleep.

Okay, I don’t.

Anyway, here’s my (Karol’s) usual day. Whether you like it or not, I’m really about to write this post.

So here goes.

When to get up to be effective

I was always a late riser. For no particular reason actually, other than the fact that I simply couldn’t get up in the morning, so I was constantly getting up around 11AM, which isn’t even morning any more.

But as years went by I realized that for some strange reason I’m much more productive in the morning. Each time I got up early I was able to get done significantly more during the day. So in the end, I decided to make it a new habit.

Now I try to get up around 7AM. Get myself going (breakfast, and other morning things), and get to work at around 8AM (not that I have to actually go to an office or anything).

First thing I do – writing

No, it’s not email. I never start with email. Email is just bad for starting your day, and it kills your productivity. For me, writing is a lot better thing to do.

A couple of reasons. First of all, it gets my mind warmed-up and ready for other things the day’s about to bring. And secondly, writing is a very important part of what I do. And if you’re an online business owner then it is for you too.

Each day I start by writing 3-4 pieces (posts, articles, whatever else). Or I write until I hit the 4,000 word mark. Whichever happens first.

That’s a lot of writing you could say. Well, yes it is. But it really is effective to do it first thing in the morning. My mind is fresh, and not cluttered with all the things that happen during the day. At that moment I know that there’s nothing more I have to worry about, so I can get those 4,000 words done relatively quickly.

One more thing I actually do prior to writing is writing some more, but in a truly informal way – I write a journal or a diary, whatever you want to call it. Journals are great for warming up and getting your thoughts together. It can really set you and your goals straight, so you don’t have to worry about all those things for the rest of the day.

(If you want to start writing a journal check Penzu.)

Content creation continues

I’m not done with content creation yet. When I finish writing, I usually shift to other forms of content creation.

That depends on the day, but the things I usually do is write some more articles for SEO, create web 2.0 sites, free blogs, videos, etc. Basically, everything that’s not considered a standard blog post.

This part is important for my SEO efforts and overall brand. Sometimes I outsource this, but not always. Some things can be outsourced, but not everything … at least, that’s my point of view.

Some people don’t like to do all those content SEO tasks because they feel that the posts that appear on their sites is the only thing that matters. Well, it is the most important thing, but not everything that matters. Content is still king for online business, but only content that’s spread around the internet in some strategic places.

Email

This is the moment when I fire up my email software for the first time. And by email software I actually mean Gmail.

So I go through all the important email, write, respond, and so on. Not much to talk about really.

Pitching guest posts

Guest posting is an important element of my overall approach. I try to pitch as many guest posts in a day as possible. Which sometimes ends up to be just one (on a bad day), but anyway.

Guest posting is one of the easiest ways to get yourself exposed to new audiences. It’s you actively reaching out to them. And if they like what you have to say, they’ll come back to your site. Simple. At least in theory.

Whatever your experience is with guest posting I’m sure you can agree that no website popular today has gained its popularity on its own. It’s always due to another website’s popularity. You always find new things by reading about them somewhere, or seeing them being mentioned somewhere. You never input a random URL in your browser’s address bar and see what happens.

In the end, if guest posting is not working for you right now. You simply need to find a way to make it work.

Scheduled things

This is usually the moment when I visit my Google Calendar and see what’s in store there.

I’m using GTD as my time management and productivity methodology, and a calendar is a big part of it. This is probably not the place to explain why calendars are sacred, so let me just say that my calendar doesn’t have entries for every day possible. But when it does, it means that I really have to take care of the specific tasks mentioned there.

marketing

Promotion

No matter if we like it or not, promotion is an important activity in our online lives. Without doing any promotional tasks no one would ever get to know about our existence.

Depending on the project I’m working on, “promotion” may mean a lot of different things. Such as: tweaking advertising campaigns, contacting partners, checking what’s up in social media, link building, other SEO activities, researching new possibilities, etc.

Tweaking and making things better

This is the time when I make the world a better place.

Just kidding.

But what I am making a better place is my blogs, and various things about them. This is where I tweak layouts, ads, pages, plugins, basically everything that can impact a blog’s performance.

This is an important thing to do because, remember, if you’re not growing you’re dying. Keeping the status-quo is not good enough. You need to be constantly improving your game.

Responding to comments

This is something I usually do at the end of the day. There’s not a lot comments on this blog, but I publish many guest posts around the internet so there are quite a lot of comments in total to respond to.

Some people choose to ignore comments completely. Some choose to respond to every comment possible. Well, as of now, my opinion lays somewhere in between. I know that I’m guilty of saying that you should respond to every comment, but now I don’t actually think you should.

A much better strategy is to respond when it makes sense, and don’t respond when it doesn’t. Never respond just for the sake of it. And most importantly, if someone is trolling on you, don’t ever respond. Even if they have some good points in their rant. Nothing angers a troll more than being ignored.

Planning and random thoughts

After the whole work day I usually have some thoughts and ideas for the next days. So I put them in my journal or any other place that seems reasonable.

Essentially this is the last part of my work. At this point I’m usually done for the day.

It seems like a lot of things, but actually, sometimes it takes no longer than 3 hours. Other times it does take 10, though, but it’s not a rule.

Essentially, time is just time. We all have plenty of time. Contrary to one common belief I don’t think that time should be considered as limited. If you see time as limited, you’ll be in a constant hurry and struggle to get some things done.

When it’s unlimited, you don’t have to worry about those things. Why is it unlimited? Because when I go to sleep, and wake up the next day I have a completely new day to use. And then another. And another. Seeing time as unlimited can really make your life easier.

How’s that for a heavy serious life advice at the end of a post, huh? Anyway. I really enjoyed writing this and I hope it will help you to create your own day plan. Take care and tell me what your ideas are.

Related Posts:


Day in the Life of an Online Business Designer | newInternetOrder.com