Posted on June 17, 2008 by Katy

Have you ever sat down and taken a look at what you’re so busy doing when you’re online?

Few people are actually effective enough to sit down and work out exactly what they wanted to do in the time they wanted to do it in.

We get sucked in to more blog posts, stat checking, and opening email more times than required.

Time management skills are needed by bloggers and especially so if you’re maintaining more than one blog. So, let’s talk about how you can evaluate what you’re so busy doing and get done what you set out to do. Perhaps you’ll find that you can accomplish more tasks in a shorter amount of time.

Monitor Tasks

Before you can come up with ways to use your time more effectively, you have to figure out what it is you’re doing. If you find that you’re unable to complete everything you wanted to do in the time period you have to do it in, it’s time to keep track.

Write down every single thing you do while you’re online and how long it takes you. Chances are you’ll end up finding that you checked email 5 to 10 times and spent 10 minutes longer than you expected looking at Twitter.

There’s a time, place, and time frame for all of your tasks but when you’re spending longer doing something than what’s required to complete the task you’re just wasting time. So first, spend a day or two just keeping track of your normal online routine. You might need a couple of days worth of notes to realize patterns that you have in your productivity.

Order Priorities

After you have evaluated what it is you’re so busy doing, you’ll see the common thread of what is important for you to complete on a daily basis. So create a list of your biggest priorities online. You want to write these down first as you’ll want to complete these tasks above all others that you may end up with on your list.

Once your highest priorities are written down, start to list other things you would like to get accomplished on a daily basis. These tasks you should not feel required to do but would like to do to ease the burden of the possibility that you may not reach these tasks on specific days.

Create Time Lines

By looking at how long each task took you those first few days you can plan out how much time you need to complete a simple task. Do you need to spend 10 minutes a day on email or 20 minutes? Maybe you spend more time focusing on networking on StumbleUpon rather than Mixx so you’ll need to factor more time for StumbleUpon than you do Mixx.

Consider that if you feel the need to be up to speed on what comes into your mailbox but you only spend 20 minutes with your mail, then perhaps you should schedule email in two parts of 10 minutes each to give you more time with your mail. Perhaps you can entertain the idea of reading all email in the morning but not spend time replying until the evening. Your schedule and time lines have to work for you or you won’t stick to them.

Finalize Schedule

You’ll have your priorities and time line in place, now compile this information into a schedule that works for the allotted time that you have to spend online. Some of us have the entire day to accomplish tasks while others have only a few short hours per day, if at all. Ensure that your schedule works for you and gives you a way to obtain all of your biggest priorities online.

Test the Schedule

Don’t consider anything set in stone until you know it works for you. Don’t be afraid to add, remove, tweak, and adjust. Some of which you may have to do just based on what is the latest priority or the newest social networking site that you’ve got to spend time checking out.

Free Up Time

When you’ve completed your schedule find ways to free up the time that you do have by making minor adjustments to how you transition from one task to another.

• Turn off instant messages, you should have chat schedules worked out in your schedule.
• Close out email so you’re not tempted to check it when it is not part of the time frame.
• Limit open programs to ensure that you’re running faster and smoother. If your task doesn’t call for a program to be open, close it.
• Monitor interruptions from the phone by turning off the ringer or letting voice mail pick up. (Answer though if it’s your Mom.)

Allow for Wiggle-Room

For those who have a family, or maybe a toddler it’s a good idea to leave wiggle-room in your schedule. While I’d love to have every single part of my day planned out, it’s just not possible when I am first a Mom and Wife. Because of this, my schedule has time padding to allow for the normalcy of constant interruptions I have just by being at home.

Your Schedule

Do you keep a schedule of your tasks online to be more efficient and does your schedule work for you? How do you combat the time it takes to blog, network, socialize, and market and still complete all of your daily, weekly, or monthly tasks?