How I Lost $26,000-$39,000 in Online Income Last Year
My New Years blogging resolution is to make more money online. Simple concept? Sure. Easy? Not so much. But, one simple thing I’m changing in my quest to make more money online this year is time management.
With all that I do (writing and promoting my own ebooks, blogging, updating several websites, running an SEO writing and internet marketing firm, affiliate marketing (a new income stream)), time is more important than money to me, in many instances.
And, I do a pretty good job of it, but with the eagle eye of a business coach, I learned that I waste anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half a day. How much does that cost me?
The Figures Behind How I Lost $26,000-$39,000 Last Year
My time is billed out at about $100/hour when you take into account my writing, ebook sales and affiliate marketing income. So if I added up the wasted hours, that means I potentially lost $26,000-$39,000 last year (1-1.5 hours/day x 5/days work/week x $100-$150/hour x 52 weeks).
Time Wasting Activities that Cost Me Money
The following are the main ways it was found that I lost time:
Responding to emails from fellow freelancers;
Surfing (even though I build a half-hour of surf time into my day, I still go over); and
Negotiating with clients.
I was surprised that it wasn’t worse, considering all that I do. But, I was told that I could recoup -1.5 hours/day if I remedied how I handled the above three things. So, this is my game plan moving forward this year:
On responding to emails from fellow freelancers: Save them for the weekend and/or late Friday afternoon. Set aside an hour to get to as many as possible, then delete the rest, or roll them over into the next week.
It’s amazing how much this increased over the last year. I simply don’t have time to get to all of the emails I receive. On the one hand, I feel guilty about not responding; on the other, I just feel overwhelmed.
On surfing: Like a bad habit, this is just something I’m going to have to go cold turkey to break.
On negotiating with clients: My business coach said, “your rates are your rates (which he thinks are too low, but that’s another article).” Don’t haggle.
To be honest, I was pretty pleased with the business coach’s assessment of how I run my businesses. But, when a dollar figure was put on how much money I was losing just by pilfering away 1-1.5 hours a day, my eyes about popped out of my head!
So, to make more money online in 2009, I’m practicing time management with an eagle eye on the bottom line. What are you doing to make more money online this year?
Written by Yuwanda Black from Inkwell EditorialPosted on January 5th, 2009 and filed under Making Money
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10 Responses to “How I Lost $26,000-$39,000 in Online Income Last Year”
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Hello there!
Wow that is a lot of money when you look at it that way.
This year has started with me being mentored so I am hoping to learn even more than I already have. But I want to end this year with ten websites in different niches making money for me, with most of the dirty jobs being outsourced. That would be ideal!
Then I could spend more time with my kids, and pets, and keep everything ticking over.
I actually don’t want to be a millionaire, I just want enough to keep my family comfortably off, able to pay the bills and go on holiday once in a while. Having untold wealth just doesn’t bother me that much.
We have a to-do list and a done list which we should complete every day – I know I am less focused than I should be, which is one thing I am going to work on. Plus I need to be able to shut myself away more – less interruptions, that’s a matter of training the family to leave me alone sometimes!
I hope you manage to reclaim your time this year, and I hope I can organize mine a bit better too!
Best wishes,
Ruth Stewart
Great post Yuwanda, and one to which I can totally relate. The bizarre thing is that, having been a freelance for around 20 years, I have set in place all manner of systems to ensure that my clients pay for every last minute of my time and yet, when it comes to things like networking and surfing, I appear to have had a discipline bypass…..you can probably tell that from the fact that I am responding, at some length, to this post!!
I think we all need to waste little time every once in awhile. It lets us relax and be more productive when we get down to work. As for sometimes a few work was you may still get more done.
Great tips. I find myself falling into all these traps at one time or another. It’s amazing what happens when we see our time for the valuable resource that it is!
great stuff, wish i had that ammount to waste hehe, sounds like your not struggling for money any way. nice tips!
Thank you very much
That was a great lost, I think. I also lost a lot last year, but I think it’s more than money. It’s the opportunity to make more money had I have been wiser. It’s not that I spend too much, but I think I should have planned better. I was excited with my passion, and overlooked many things.
Hopefully, this year will better for me – for all of us that is. Anyway, sometimes we just need to learn the hard way. It’s better than not to learn at all, don’t you think?
That is a lot of lost.. so sad for that. Thank you for sharing.
Great article Yuwanda,
Lot’s of folks, myself included, don’t realize the value of the time they are wasting.They, like you, would have a fit if they were to put actually dollar signs on that portion of their day.
BTW a win-win would be for you to raise your rates just enough to compensate for your surfing time. You win, your business coach wins, and of course we win when you find more inspiration to pass on to us.
Thanks for your great work,
Don
I like how you put it, makes me think I’m wasting too much money and family time. Who’s your coach???