Stop Making Excuses For Yourself, Just Do It

I often hear people say, “If I had more time, I’d do this.” or “I’ve got so many other things going on, there is no way I can do that.”

These are all just excuses to make yourself feel better about not getting something done.

How many of you will make time to watch television every night? How many will make the time to go out to the bar or club at night to party with your friends?

These are the same people who will always say, “I just don’t have enough time.”

Work In Short Bursts

If you have a desk job, we both know you don’t work every minute of the day. In fact, you’re probably taking a short break from work to read this post right now. And that’s okay.

Studies have shown that changing up what you do during your work day will actually make you more productive.

If every hour or two, you take a 10 minute break, open Twitter,  Facebook, or any other social networking application, or even read and comment on blogs, you’ll find you that you can get alot done.

You might even want to try typing a blog post in the same way. Instead of sitting down for an hour or two to write, do it in short bursts. Write a paragraph, save it, then leave and come back to add more later.

Get Healthy

Instead of taking that hour lunch and going to Taco Bell for all of those burritos you love so much, bring your lunch to work, and while eating, spend time on social networking.  You’ll be surprised at how fast you can build your social network with an hour a day.

And when you go home to your spouse after a month or two of this, you’ll be happy to find that they now want to spend more alone time with you.

Way to kill two birds with one stone.

Brainstorm All Day

If you’re really serious about doing well with what you’re doing, then instead of thinking all morning about what you want to eat for lunch or who will win the next football game, keep your mind focused on thinking about great blog topics, or ideas around a specific topic.

As you think of something jot it down on a piece of paper.  It doesn’t matter if you’re in the grocery store, or watching your kid’s school play.  If you have an idea, don’t rely on being able to remember it later.  Write it down!  You’ll find that at the end of the day, you’ll have a piece of paper with all kinds of ideas written on it.

Crafting ideas in this way cuts down on the time it takes to write a blog post.  By the time you actually sit down to type, you already have all of your ideas organized, and a general feel for your post mapped out.

Write Posts In Advance

I’m married with one kid and another on the way.  On the weekends, and after work, I want to spend my time with my family.  So I like to write a couple of posts in advance, then if I’m busy, I’ll choose one and publish it.  This helps because on the weekends, I usually don’t get on my computer until late at night.

If it’s difficult for you to write a couple of posts and save them, then at least write one post in advance.

Here’s a scenario:

• You wake up in the morning, have your coffee, get ready, and go to work.
• You spend all day at work, forgetting cover sheets for your TPS reports (or whatever it is you do).  Remembering to brainstorm and write ideas as they come to you, you fill up half a sheet of paper.
• You get home from work, eat dinner, and spend time with your family.  The kid goes to bed at 8 or 9, you spend some alone time with your spouse, then he/she is off to bed.
• When your spouse lays down to sleep, you stay up, open up your computer, and use that half-page of notes you’ve got to quickly write a post, and schedule it for tomorrow at 8am.
• You get up and go to work the next day, and repeat the process.  This time, every hour or two, you take a break and check up on your online social network, promoting that great post you wrote the night before.

Before you know it, you’ve managed to find time to do what you love, and to really get started in the direction you never thought you had the time for.

Create A Schedule

If you’re the type of person that has to be organized and has a shedule mapped out for everything, then use the above tips and work them into your daily routine.

Print your schedule off and carry it with you everywhere.  As you complete each item, check it off and move on to the next.

You can make the time if you’ll just commit to it.

Gary Vaynerchuk spoke at conference earlier this year and he touched on this topic.  To listen to his point-of-view, go here.

What do you do to make time for blogging and social networking?