I’m a finisher. I don’t like to leave something until it’s done. I start a book, I finish it. Even the bad ones. I turn on a movie, I will watch it all, even if it takes me days and several attempts to get to the end credits. And if I have a project to do, you can guarantee that I’m going to see it through.
Of course, this mentality makes web marketing a bit of a challenge for me. Why? Because web marketing is never done. There is rarely a time when there is no action left to take or no improvement that can be made. Personally, I like tasks I can check off my list. Unfortunately, “Perform web marketing on site” isn’t one of them, because there is always, always, always, more to do!
But that’s my problem, not yours, right?
What I do like about web marketing is that it’s not like waxing a car. Wax on, wax off. That’s easy. Mindless. I also like to do things that require some brain work–something of a challenge. And that’s my problem too, but probably yours as well. Challenges are always, well, challenging.
Knowing What vs Knowing How
The biggest challenge with web marketing is in knowing which action to take at any given time. Many things web marketers do on a daily basis provide marginal value at best. That doesn’t mean those things shouldn’t be done, it just makes them less of a priority over things that will provide a more immediate impact.
Web marketers often find themselves doing what’s easy over what’s valuable. As a “completer” I like to get all my easy tasks out of the way each day as quickly as possible. That helps me feel like I have less to do and more time to devote to the harder tasks. In fact, I did just that today. I spent most of my morning responding to emails and doing other random tasks, most of which could have easily waited. In doing that, I pushed the writing of this post to later in the day, which is now encroaching into my get-the-day-wrapped-up time.
I recently started reading a book about time management. Being only 20 pages in, I find I’m learning a lot. A key point to effective time management is to focus on the things that matter the most first. I sacrificed my most productive time of my day doing joe-jobs while putting off my most challenging tasks for later when I’m not at my best. Clearly, I like completing things more than I like a good challenge. I have to work on changing this mindset.
And so do you. Especially those of you who want to succeed at online marketing. Since there will always be something else to do to improve our web presence, we have to learn to pick and choose what to do and when. You have to focus on the more meaningful (and likely more difficult) tasks over the easier-to-get-off-your-plate items.
In this industry, its pretty easy to know what to do, but it’s not always easy to know when to do it and how to do it the best way possible. And that right there is the challenge that you’ll never be able to check off your list!