Famed you and your blog on BTF =)

Keep up the good work!

Realizing right off that there was much to learn and what seemed to be not much time to learn it, I dived in with zeal.

Now after a year and under $1000 worth of info, I have come to the point where I now give out the help in forums vs. me asking all the questions.

There will be a point after much overload where you will say “nope don’t need that” because you have learned an adequate amout about the subject.

Beyond a general understanding or slight proficiency in all the areas of IM, you can go deeper into 1, maybe 2 different areas that you would master.

It is important to know the basics in all areas of IM ….but there comes a time when you have to say thats enough on that subject.

Things aren’t changing on the internet marketing field as fast as the “hype” leads you to believe.

You still need a solid business plan, a focused direction and the ability to know when to hire in areas that are beyond your skills.

To try to know everything about everything is insanity. I was talking to a “guru” the other day that has made millions on the internet and he didn’t have an adwords account yet! Said it was never in his plans so why waste time learning about something he had no use for at the time! Wise words from a true businessman. Don’t waste time on something you don’t need at the moment.

Wish I had talked to him a year ago!

Brian Ankner

For the past couple of blog posts on “information overload” you really clearly defined what most would have difficulty putting into words, but once read they can without a doubt relate. This is great.

I would like to know more about the solution… what you found you needed to master over the past 10 years, why, and how. Rich what is your process.

On the Attention call with Jay interviewing you, you mentioned you had a software designed to assist and enhance your process. I would be really interested to know more about this.

I would like to know what reading techniques are affective for those who are ADD and dyslexic.

I would like to know information gathering and organizing techniques you have developed and mastered. Does this include MindJet and if so how. Can you show use via Camtasia?

I personally relate more to the prior blog where you mentioned…
“We’re trying to prepare for the non-existent test that has EVERYTHING on it and it leads us down a rabbit hole of procrastination that kills productivity.” and “The net effect of the info-overload is that we diminish our ability to discern the great from the good and, in the process, make ourselves mediocre by measure.”

I look forward to solutions for these issues… techniques, software, known exercises that work demoed using videos / camtasia, a live group conversation, and so on.

There is a lot of stuff out there. What really works and how does it work for you?

Thanks Rich for all your thought and care you put into this.

Oskar

You’re right. I consider myself extremely focused. Yet, there are times when I deviate a little but I figure out very soon. Usually it doesn’t take me time to realize that I’m going off the bath. So, I go back to it. You probably don’t know; but my kolbe score was 7-3-7-4. So I’m 7 in in-depth research. How and when I realize I’m deviating from the current task , I don’t know how to answer this. It can be my instincts I guess. I just have some kind of internal alarm that wakes me up when this happens. I don’t know. But anyways, for the rest of your questions, here is what I do:
- I setup a goal
- I set a deadline to that goal.
- I brainstorm ideas on how to achieve that goal.
- I review my brainstormed ideas. I highlight the ones I decide are the ones I’m going to execute.
- I mark the ones that need be researched further to make it more clear to me if I will include them in the execution list or not.
- The “to be researched” ideas, I setup deadline to collect results of this research. By that deadline, all ideas are researched, and the ones that are found to be valuable are added to the execution list. If something is not completed by that deadline, I put it to “to be considered at later phases of the project due to time constraint”.

Now I have an execution list of features. I highlight the ones that need be outsourced vrs the ones that I will be doing. Here is what I do after:

- I work out a project plan: I break the ideas into tasks and subtasks and I associate resources (real names) and deadlines to each (sub)task
- I write specifications to the features to be executed
- I then take the ones that are assigned to names other than myself (outsourced tasks) and I schedule a meeting with the resource leader and I go through the specifications of that particular task or group of tasks.
- they will come up with a detailed execution plan proposal (that’s broken down further into detailed tasks and subtasks each assigned a deadline). I review it with them and we sign up the agreement.
- For the features, in my original project plan, that has my name assigned to it, I come up with a detailed execution plan where theses features are further broken down into subtasks and deadlines.
- Then I just follow that plan which is full of actionable items.
- I also follow up on the outsourced sub-plans.

Result: 1st phase of goal is achieved

- then I revisit the “to be considered in later phase of the project” list and I restart the above mentioned process as phase 2. I also add to it any new idea that come up through the pipe while in phase 1.

Few tips on how to keep focused on deadlines and not distracted by info overload or over-research..etc:

1. I keep agenda of daily to do list. I follow the agenda no matter what. It’s my bible if you want.
2. I check emails between tasks. I just skim them. Only ones requires immediate attention I read. The rest, I have some kind of classified list of folders that I move these emails to: a folder for every group of emails.i.e business newsletters, BGS, clients, ..etc. I read those emails later when I have the time. The rest goes to spam folder.
3. I don’t unsubscribe from any list I originally subscribed to. I found out that even though sometimes I receive irrelevant info. There are times that I receive valuable info. One example to these emails is the BGS course. If I unsubscribed to that thread, I would have missed a major and very important opportunity in my life.
5. when I research, I don’t fully read every page comes up in my face. I skim them and only the ones that grap my attention I read fully.

Just want to highlight the importance of deadline. Even if the deadline, during execution, was tight and you felt you need to extend it. It’s still much better than having no deadline at all.
With deadline, you will achieve your goal by a certain date.
Without deadline, tasks will be dragging and dragging and dragging and your goal will be achieved one day. It can be tomorrow, or it can be in another life:-)

Hope this helped in any way.

Sincerely,
Amal

Excellent articles and great advice/reminders! I can so relate! When my husband Pat and I were building our WTPowers business seven years ago, we were constantly studying the competition. Our project was delayed because we hired a programming team that didn’t deliver and really let s down. Meanwhile, other competitors were popping up and it started to really discourage us. One day my husband said “STOP!” don’t show me anything else. I don’t care what the others are doing! Let’s get our businesses launched. So we put our focus hats on and got the job done. Within 3 months we had 3,000 members and within 6 months we had 5,000. We did over $1.5 million that first year.

You’re absolutely right! We just had to trust our own knowledge and not get crippled by what everyone else was saying or doing.

As far as a tip to getting things done, we love Mark Joyner’s program Simpleology. The methods really work. Start with a Brain Dump every morning and decide to either Do it, Dump it or Delegate it. Choose no more that 5-7 things to do and do the hardest tasks first to free up your energy for the rest of the day. Worry caused by not doing soemthing takes up way more energy than just doing it! Oh, and use your delete key generously on all of that junk email that just contributes to more information overload!

Thanks for all you do!
Power Gal :-)
thepowerline.typepad.com
wtpowers.com

I was having trouble keeping on track and decided to buy a whiteboard, instead of using bits of paper which get lost. I got the cheapest one I could find, and I used it to write down all the steps that needed to be completed to get my project finished. That really enabled me to get my ebook, along with all the sales page setup and so on, finalised.

I also found your idea of keeping a timesheet helpful – and without your regular news I would probably drop back into my old ways, so I just want to say thanks again.

As always you have something profound to say. Your email is one I definitely look forward to opening! You should see the thousands I have unopened!

Thanks to all the information I have downloaded from your site, I am completely focussed to the end of September – and I have put a little green sticker right beside me, as I work – where I wrote the following words on …

What Do I Want
STOP – THINK – then a list of three things I passionately want to have.
(This stops me wasting time and keeps me on track – oh, I also use the timer!!)

I’ve got that sticker in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, car and handbag!

So my distraction level has dropped like a bomb and my focus is lazer sharp.

You truly are one very nice guy for all the support you have given us; who are still on the road to our goals and dreams.

Big thank you
AnneMarie