I’m just back from vacation yesterday.

It was a fun trip but today, my wife, Kerry got sick. Then, my staff is also sick today. I guess it must be the weather.

So I ended up doing A LOT of work today … And these are not money-makers. These are WORK.

Which leads me to share this important

thought that I’ve realized while replying tons of emails …

“How long can you stand?”

How long can you continue to reply emails, read more ebooks, surf the internet, read other marketer’s salesletter, creating your own content, submit articles, generate keywords, etc if you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve?

I mean, can you do that for 7 days a week?

The truth is, it won’t be possible for you to complete everything by your own. If you can, I’ll like to hear how you do that because I will definitely want to learn from you.

If you’re not ’suffering’ from any of these tasks, you won’t know how much time and energy it’ll eat you up. The next thing you know, you’ve become an “employee” to your online business.

I’m not surprise you’ll even win the “employee of the month” award if there’s such an award.

For instance, Kerry’s sick and she won’t be able to do anything today. She definitely needs a good rest and I really hope she’ll get well soon.

But what if … I fall sick as well today?

Then you won’t be reading this post now.

I was reading a book by Michael Gerber

called the e-Myth … teaching business owners about how to build a successful small business and stay happy.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that I’m unhappy or anything. In fact, I’m very happy with all of my online businesses today that are generating more money than I’ve imagined possible.

Read that book. It’s good stuff. He teaches about systemizing a small business so that the business owner won’t be ‘drowned’ in it.

Another marketer who teaches very well about this topic recently is Rich Schefren. Other than that, I did pick up some tips from another marketer, Mike Filsame on how to manage emails. Now, I’m NOT going to give any direct or affiliate links here because I don’t want to sell anything to you.

You see, most gurus teach about creating a “system” for your online business.

Everybody understands that. Ideally, that’s what you should be focusing on — EVERYDAY.

What you need to do now is to stop “doing”

anything related to making money online. Yup, stop writing that darn article that you’re trying to complete for the past few hours.

What I want you to do (for your own good) is to think …

“Am I doing this to help me make money online?”

Stephen Pierce, a close friend and mentor of mine taught me about creating a ‘brand’ for myself. From that one idea, all of my online businesses is just to enhance that brand and resolve around it. Anything that is not directly related will be secondary priority.

So if your goal is to achieve a certain result by the end of your dateline, are you doing what you can today and tomorrow to reach that?

Let’s say you don’t have a website yet …

should you be learning how to get traffic?

Again, this question is very subjective. Some may say yes because it’s going to help them when the time is ‘right’. Great. So if you know when is the ‘right’ time like when your webpage will be up and running, I have no argument that you should start learning about traffic generation this instant. But if you don’t even know how to buy a domain name yet, don’t you think that the a better immediate action item should be focusing on how to set up the website first?

Lesson learned … don’t get distracted too much.

A little bit is fine. No one’s perfect. You and me will get distracted along the way.

Do you get emails requesting for joint ventures?

Here’s how to evaluate the request …

Does your participation in this JV will help you to move closer to achieving your OWN GOAL?

Really, it’s that simple.

(Tip: If you’re sending a JV request to marketers, seek for what goal of theirs that they’re trying to achieve. Supplement your proposal to help them achieve what they want and your JV request conversion will definitely be higher.)

Does that make you a bad person because you’re thinking of your own goal only?

Not really. I want to achieve my own goal first so that I can spend more time with my aging parents . I want to be by Kerry’s side each time she laughs and cheers. I want to waste time watching movies. I want to sit by the beach reading my favorite books. I want to play with my dog. I want to do so many things including offering my time to help those that need my help BUT …

I can’t do any of those if my own goals are not achieved yet. So I think it’s normal for everyone to consider focusing on their own goals.

So here’s the thing I want to share with you –

Your time is very valuable. Spend it wisely to be super effective. Here are a few tips you can start doing to ‘create’ more time for you and your online business:

1. Delegate the tasks that others can do as good as you or better. Like, packaging a product to be shipped out. Now, can others do that? You bet.

Little things like these will save you a lot of time in a long run.

2. Stay focused on what you’re trying to achieve from your business. If your goal is to build a website that will rank #1 in Google for the keywords “frog jumping competition”, I suggest that you start focusing to build that website and learn all you can about search engines. Forget other courses temporarily that are unrelated to it like affiliate marketing, email marketing, copywriting, etc.

3. Think first before you do anything. Are you doing what you’re supposed to do … or you’re just avoiding doing the things you dislike?

4. If possible, follow a proven system to achieve your goal. Anthony Robbins once said, “Success leave clues”. Pick up the clues from courses, people, books, etc.

5. Don’t fall sick. Just kidding. You can’t stop the act of nature. But you can prevent it. Stay healthy by doing healthy stuff. Basically, eat good food, exercise more and if you have some extra budget, buy some health supplements.

I just realized I’ve ’spent’ 37 minutes to write this email!, this email is not helping me to get closer to my goal. But it’s fine if I’ve helped you in anyway to be more successful in your online business.

So you see, you don’t have to be rigid all the time.

It’s fine to do things that your heart tells you. Listen to “him”. Listen to him more and you’ll find out that he’s as smart (Maybe smarter!) than Mr. brain. (Smile)