Yesterday was the hottest day of the year here in the UK (32C / 89F) and the news was all about the arrival of the new royal baby.
Naturally, I’m happy for the Kate and William and of course it is an event that so many people around the world are interested in.
This said, it did make me wonder if our lives are really enhanced that much since the arrival of the many 24-hour news channels…
Are we that much more enlightened than we were before they existed? Or has maybe the extra coverage they serve up just polarised public information and opinion on a more narrower set of issues?
In general, more information (especially if it’s the same information regurgitated) is not necessarily better.
In fact, too much information almost always mean we make worse decisions.
And this is definitely true in online business.
I used to suffer from this a lot when I started out. Specifically, in 2 ways:
1) I subscribed to too many email lists so I was blasted by huge quantities of information all advising me I should do different things.
2) I was far too over analytical in my approach and thinking on particular ideas that I wanted to follow.
Here are the solutions that worked for me:
Information Overload: Unsubscribe from email lists that aren’t providing value to you and that just promote products.
Only follow people that you know are advising you of strategies that they use themselves to make money from. You can’t always be totally certain of course but just thinking about this every day will make a massive improvement!
Being Over-Analytical: This is a little more subtle in nature but basically if you think too much about ANY idea then you’ll come up with a list of reasons as long as your arm which scream out, “Don’t do it – it’ll never work!”
So instead I just look at the opportunity and ask firstly whether money is really being made here (or is it a mythical pot of gold that doesn’t really exist?) and secondly, what is *really* stopping me from doing the same?
Of course, we ALL suffer from these issues and I still do today.
But I can tell you implementing the solutions above has helped enormously. If you are not thinking about these every day, you should be – it won’t cost you anything, probably save you a lot of money and you’ll get the success you deserve easier and faster!
I also recommend reining in your consumption of 24-hour TV “news” as well 😉
How do you approach emails, offers and new information? Do you have a work schedule or system or is it just random? I’d love to hear 🙂 Please Like/Tweet if you enjoyed this and drop a quick comment below…
Its blinking hot… Your weather forecast temperature was wrong for yesterday, according to 5 Live this morning, London hit 33C – now that is hot! Down in the south, we have not had the predicted thunder storms and boy, its hot again today.
Kind regards
John
Yes, that’s pretty up there in terms of temperature John! Hope you enjoyed the blog post too and thanks for commenting 🙂 Cheers, Rob
I went through a phase of being seduced by many ‘experts’ who all seemed to have great ideas at first, but there were many who seemed to be all adverts and no content – there was no value to me. They don’t visit any more.
Those who really engaged with me as a person rather than me as a potential cash cow I have stuck with; I enjoy their company and I am much more likely to consider an offer from them in the future. That seems to be good business (and common) sense.
Right now I am avoiding all distractions as I concentrate on my current project, I believe that, like any business online or offline, you cannot flourish if you are pulled in too many directions at once.
Mindset is probably the single most important factor for success for me right now. Dealing with self-doubt and an internal dialogue that asks if I really believe I can earn a reasonable sum of money in the online business world is something I deal with by working and taking steps to replicate, in a small way, what other people are doing very successfully. Taking consistent action is the only weapon I have until my products are launched and my bank account starts recognising my success.
As we said in the Royal Air Force: “Per Ardua Ad Astra” (through hardship to the stars).
Great comment Mark, thanks for sharing your thoughts! I’m sure you’ll have stuck a chord with many others who will recognize a lot of what you say in themselves.
Cheers, Rob.
I always had a problem with effectively managing my time, made worse with the advent of smartphones. I couldn’t resist reading emails every time my phone went ‘ding’. Fortunately I had a very well organised friend who made me build some structure into my day, allocating a time for all of the daily ‘must do’s’.
This included diarising a time to read emails, and if necessary respond to them -8.00 am for any overnight issues, 12.00 noon and 4.00 pm. He reckoned that if anything was really urgent the phone would ring. Before they joy of emails we would respond when it was practical, not instantly – few events are really that time critical for most of us, the press even had to wait for the royal junior to arrive when it suited him!!
Hi John, Yes instant email notifications are definitely one of the worst time killers of all time! That is a very structured approach there – it reminds me of The 4 Hour Work Week too 🙂 Cheers, Rob
Hi Rob, hope you are well, I really like your approach on dealing with things.
Thank you Carl, I am very well and hope the same for you! Cheers, Rob
Yes Rob – not only does too much ‘dross’ do your head in (I am not all interested in royal babies) but also too much choice is bad for the soul too.
Being doubtful and overly analytical to the point of non-action are bad ‘uns as well.
All of these mental activities are so wearing and time wasting and you fall into the trap of prevarication and non-action.
Mark has revealed what many of us wrestle with as newbies and being disciplined is key. This so much harder when you have to do this for yourself. And some of us are older than Rob and the brain cells don’t talk to each other like they used to!!
I must shut up and ‘get on with it’ or ’round to it’!
Mike
Hey Mike, Great to hear from you here on the blog as always – thanks for taking the time 🙂 Cheers, Rob
Hi everyone,
you are right Rob we are overloaded with information and we should be selective and pick only this which are important. But sometimes it is hard to dos.
And about the TV news I don’t watch it and I’m happy the only tv I watch is sport especailly speedway.
But I must admit I’m overloaded with emails and I must do something about it.
Thanks for this post Rob.
And see you all on top.
Erwin.
🙂
Ah speedway! I’ve always wanted to go and see that live Erwin 🙂 Great to see you here on the blog and good luck with getting that inbox under control soon… Cheers, Rob
I totally agree with everything that Mark Byrne and Mark Hardy say. My emails are always dealt with when I have finished more important things.
Discipline is key.
Henry, I think you summed it up. Discipline. Not a particularly friendly word but a very rewarding practice! Thanks for taking the time to share your input on this one 🙂 Kind regards, Rob
Hey Rob,
You may recall, one of the 4 stages of successful outsourcing we teach is ‘Eliminate’ and the same applies to email management.
I went through an aggressive cull a few years back – down from goodness knows how many newsletters and lists (which I ‘monitored to keep abreast of things’ but in reality got lost in), down to about 5 (yes Rob, you’re one of the honoured 5 ;). It creeps up over time, so I cull it again every month or so, fairly sharply assessing if I am getting value and good info from them.
I’m currently down to about 5 at present who bring some kind of valuable info or have such a commanding, respectable history that they are worth listening to.
My view is – chances are, these 5 or so should have enough of an overview on the market, business ideas and any worthy help, advice and tools as appropriate, that I don’t need any other advice.
Combining that with a recurring analysis and asking “is this worth my time?”
One of the 5 is Rich Shefren (I am a client) and he says, there are so many ways to run a business, so many ways to grow traffic, so many tools, so many different strategies and tactics, that if you run after every option, chase every rabbit, you catch none. Pick one strategy, pick one traffic method, go full-tilt in learning it, getting good at it, and ignore all others until you have gotten expert at it and made it profitable.
And I think that is about as focused and effective as one can be.
Now, I’ll be honest here, occasionally, I fall prey to the ‘new shiny tool’. Usually I check myself, stop and reassess – is this in line with my chosen strategy. 9 times out of 10, it’s not, so it sits in the ‘not now’ pile of emails (or gets deleted if its blatantly rubbish).
Then if I ever later want to get any info on that subject, I’ll actively search my email archive or search online for it, and to hell with the fact that the ‘discount launch price’ is no longer available. 2 or 3 products or courses a year chosen this way is much cheaper than wide-eyed grabbing all the shiny new tools and software just because we’re worried that the price will rise.
Sometimes one slips through the net and I just sit there after a few hours and just think “well that was a dumb waste of time!”, mentally kick myself, and move on.
That’s the joy of being human and running my own business and my own time. A minor downside of having that handsome chap in the mirror for my boss 😉
Duncan
Hi Duncan,
Excellent comment! Thank you very much for sharing and I think you may well be right there about the number 5! Very flattered to be one of them and I really appreciate your honesty in the rest of your post too – I know a lot of people will find that very useful 🙂
Cheers, Rob
Hi Rob,
Thanks for the post and as others have commented I also have become a lot stricter with myself regarding opening emails.
I have a small group of Marketers that I respect and feel offer value, whose emails I will open, and am keen to hear what they have to say. (You being one of course!)
I think email marketing has got gone a bit OTT lately, I have received 5 different promotional emails from the same person in one day – needless to say I am done with this one!
I think this is one of the problems with Solo Ad Marketing in that there are quite a few people who are making a lot of money sending out to their lists. This is all very well for them but a ‘pain in the neck’ for those of us receiving them!
As for being Overly Analytical – I can talk myself out of anything and if I don’t one of the family certainly will!!!
Stephanie.
Hi Stephanie, Yes 5 emails from one person in one day does sound a tad much (!) and agree on the Solo Ads – there is a lot of overlap between different people’s lists which lowers their responsiveness and causes some people to hammer them even harder! Cheers, Rob