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Many blogging beginners now have their sites live and I thought it was time to discuss “goal setting” in the context of giving some blogging instructions.

Each of us has a certain amount of time available to allocate to our blogs BUT I’m going to make a bold and outrageous suggestion here…

… part of the time we have available is wasted. I’d go as far as saying a huge percentage of the time available is simply frittered away by most of us.

I talked about dangerous assumptions on my Guru Fodder blog the other day so I’m not going to get into that conversation with you now but let’s just assume for a moment that I’m right.

What I mean is this.

Let’s say we have 2 hours a day to work on our sites.

We turn on the PC. Let’s check our emails before we get started.

There’s one from Buddy with a link to a YouTube video. Without thinking we follow the link and watch it. That was funny – oh look, right next to it there’s another video with the same guy – let’s check that out.

Whoops, 15 minutes have passed that’s 12.5% of the time available. Never mind, time to crack on.

Now, what were we going to do today?

Let’s write a post for the blog. Now, what shall we write about?

While we think we’ll just read that blog post about “How to make a million over night in my pajamas” – that really must be a good use of our time. If the product is any good we won’t have to write another blog post.

Mmm, that sounds like a great product – maybe we should go down that route – but it’s quite expensive. Let’s get a cup of coffee and think about it.

Another 20 minutes has ticked away. We’re now nearly up to 30% of the time available wasted!

Now you may not be like that, and if you’re not please don’t raise your eyebrows at me (see later) – but the vast majority of us are.

But it’s not your fault!

It’s simply because very few of us have ever been taught anything about goal setting. Yes, we’ve all heard the term and we probably know it’s a good idea to have something to aim for but that’s where it ends. We are all bombarded with subliminal messages all of the time that draw us to things that really should wait. Like exciting videos. So instead of doing something that will move us towards our longer term goals we satisfy our short term needs by watching a really funny video.

I’m not talking about some long drawn out mumbo-jumbo goal setting process.

I’m referring to a simple technique to keep us from doing unproductive things.

Drum roll please – Wizzer is about to reveal all  (no, no madam, I’ll rephrase that)

Before, I’ll repeat that loudly, BEFORE you sit down at your computer to work on your business know what you are going to achieve during that session.

If you are going to write a post – think about the content earlier in the day – plan what it is you are writing about and why. Think about the objective of that post – is it just to increase the content on the blog? Is it to encourage people to sign up to your newsletter – buy an affiliate product?

Whatever it is get it straight in your mind BEFORE you sit down during your computer time.

Tell yourself that today the post will be written, proof read, edited and published before you do anything else. Before you read your emails, before you watch anything on YouTube or go to Blip.fm (not a word from anyone thank you!)

I’m going to ask you about this video later, just click the arrow in the centre…

If there are other things you want to achieve; add some plugins, get some backlinks etc etc plan what you are going to do and make a list. Work out how long it will take and build that into the time you have available. Get it done first and then, if you really must, reward yourself with a little blip.fm, YouTube, over-hyped sales letters (don’t buy anything though!) BUT NOT UNTIL you’ve completed the tasks for that day.

Have your list of tasks for the day in front of you. Do what I do and add a phrase at the top of the page – bet you can’t guess what’s on mine…

Do It Now

I promise you – you won’t miss the YouTube video – if you really want to watch it you will anyway but wait until you’ve taken some action in your business.

Goal setting shouldn’t be difficult or complicated – just have a list of targets – what you are going to achieve each day and then do it. Tick it off – it’s a great sense of achievement.

Tomorrow I’ll be giving you some ideas, call them blogging instructions for goal setting, that may help you with this dailytask.

Oh, yes, here’s the question about the video…

When did you watch it – just as you got to it or after you finished you tasks for today?

Should I be resting my case? Take a piece of chocolate if you haven’t watched it yet!

I couldn’t have predicted how good it would make me feel when members at blogging beginners make a breakthrough with their sites.

Today I was looking at the latest post at Denise’s site Backyard Oasis and was struck with a great sense of happiness for her. She really seems to be enjoying herself now the “technical” stuff relating to blogging has been taken care of.

This site is only a few days old and yet it already looks outstanding. Denise is integrating video into the site and where she was previously having diofficulty with images this is no longer the case.

Well done Denise – keep those great posts coming – an inspiration to all blogging beginners Member Sites.

A few Apple Mac users have encountered some difficulties in watching my Fast Start Online Business Video-e-Book. This is because the default Mac pdf reader does not (currently) support embedded video.

To get round this you need to install Adobe Reader 9.0 and then open the video e-book using that program. The first time you open Reader 9.0 you’ll be asked if you want to use it for all pdfs in the future – obviously your choice. Iif you are happy with what you use now answer just NO.

You should now see all of the controls for the video as you mouse over the image of the video.

I created a very short video (I used Jing – the program I mentioned a few days ago)  showing the steps that you can watch here.

Quick Reader 9.0 Download Demonstration

In this series of nine free videos Tom Leung from Google discusses how Google optimizes its own webpages.

He talks about the free Google Website Optimizer tool and how you too can use it to maximise the conversions from your site visitors. Split testing and few tweeks here and there – adding or removing images – can this really have a major impact?

Some of the results and revelations may surprise you.

WATCH ALL NINE VIDEOS HERE