How do you manage your time online?

Are you one of those people who never seems to have enough time?  Read this post to learn how you can finally fix that.

In this post you’ll learn

  • About a GREAT free tool you can use to track your time
  • How to take control of your time
  • How to manage your time more effectively

The best time management advice I ever got

IF you’re not keeping track of your time you’ve got a problem.  The BEST time management advice I’ve ever gotten was to TRACK my time.  How could I take control of my time if I didn’t know what I was doing with it?

Your time is precious.  It’s the one thing in your life that’s truly limited, don’t give it away cheaply.

A great tool for tracking your time

I’ve tried everything from keeping a notebook, to spreadsheets, to iPhone apps and one tool stands out above the rest.

I’ve been using Klok for a couple of months now and it’s awesome.  It’s flexible, easy to customize, and easy to use.  ***WARNING: When I say it’s easy to use, you gotta be a little techie, or you might not get it***

Taking control of your time

The first step to taking control of your time is knowing exactly what you’re doing with it, that’s why I recommended using Klok.

After getting Klok set up all you have to do is track what you’re doing when you sit down at your computer for the next two weeks.  Some ideas for folders are:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Blogging
  • Marketing

If you wanted to break each activity into sub folders you could add Two folders to Facebook, one for interacting with friends and the other for business networking.

All you want to do in this initial phase is establish tags, or folders for all the activities you do when you’re online.  After the two weeks you’ll be able to see a report that shows you exactly how you’re spending your time.

*Remember, you can make more money, you can’t make more time

Managing your time online

If you’ve done steps one and two you’re ready to analyze the results.  Some of the things you should consider are:

  • Time Blocking:  Looking back at the last two weeks figure out which activities are similar.  Group those activities into time blocks of 1-2 hours to get them done.  This requires some planning, but it will be well worth it in the long run.
  • Outsourcing:  When you look back on what you’re doing, are there any tasks that could easily be systemized and outsourced?  I know, as soon as I say outsource people start thinking about far off countries like India and the Philippines, but that’s not it.  Couldn’t you “outsource” your weekly Craigslist ads to your teenage son or daughter?

Once you start time blocking you’ll find tasks that once took an hour are done in mere minutes.  Heck, I used to spend 8+ hours per week on email, now I do them once per week and I can get through 200 emails in just over an hour.

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  • Jonathan –

    Thanks for the informative post. I'll check out Klok. It would be interesting to find out what you used before Klok.

    Thanks again for sharing!

    Karen

  • Before Klok I used a spreadsheet, and before that I used a pen and paper to track my time. No matter what you do, the most important step is to commit to tracking your time 😉

  • Hey Jonathan,

    Thanks for the interview! I am such a stickler for time management. This is one of the most important things is to not allowing social media to become a time sink in your business. Have a plan and strategy and have boundaries.

  • Klok is an amazing program, I've used it for a long time now. The UI is incredibly friendly, and it only took me a few minutes to figure everything out. I wrote a review on Klok from a self employed game developers perspective, give it a read if you get the time. Glad to see the developers getting the attention they deserve, they've worked hard on giving us a great, free program.