Organizing...What is your daily schedule

Need help staying on track.

[TammyJo]

I'm just not organized. It is sheer luck my websites are doing so well and know they could probably do much better if I had my head together on what I should be doing.

I find myself spending way too much time reading the forums (no offense), checking stats or following a random click path from one website to another.

What daily tasks do you feel are important? (I'm talking from bookkeeping to web building to analyzing stats.)

If you have a solid 3 hours of time, how would you spend it?

[trillianjedi]

Writing content, promoting, getting links and general tweaking/fixing things that might not work as well as they can. Two hours on content, one hour on the others.

Checking stats can be done once a week effectively. The long term data collation is actually more valuable - small amounts of data can be misleading.

Forums like WebmasterWorld do need reading on a daily basis, but you can get that down to 10 mins a day if you're selective. It's a valuable way to spend time.

TJ

[meg8]

I write a list of things to do and work through them. The advantage is that you never get through it (well, I give it a go on Christmas Eve), so whether you sit down at your desk you have a choice of things to do and spend less time 'getting into it'.

Break things down into smaller task, so write three new pages actually consists of loads of things - keyword analyisis, titles, accompanying images, fact checking.

I don't do bookeeping but the people here who do have a weekly meeting to work out what needs to be done and then a list after that.

Check forums at the end of the day, so you can make yourself do a certain amount of work before you get into them.

[TammyJo]

Thanks...Great suggestions :)

Yesterday, I started tracking what I am actually doing when I sit down at the computer. It usually starts with checking emails (and that is where I find my first tendencies to stray).

Checking the forums at night is a good idea, maybe a quick peek in the morning to make sure I didn't miss some news or announcements.

Taking the content aspect of webdesign and breaking it down even further may help me as well.

Bought a palm and uploaded all my tasks into it (handy little gadget). I think I will create a set time for specific tasks and make the alarm sound until I work myself into a new habit. Should also prevent me from getting side tracked. I am so determined to break this cycle of "wayward webmastering"

If anyone else has suggestions I'm all ears!

[meg8]

I love the idea of setting the alarm.

Don't cut all the meandering out of your day though, I've found some real nuggets just wandering round the web.

I guess its only a problem when you know you should really be doing something else.

[joeduck]

Tammy -

Consider staying disorganized if it's working for you.

I think that for some people there is an inverse relationship between organization and overall productivity, and I certainly think organization often inhibits creativity and innovation.

I'm also wondering if "messy" but content rich Frontpage websites may actually have advantages in ranking all other things equal, since the FP format is rarely used by scraper and other automated sites.

BTW, have you seen my PDA around anywhere?