Planning and focus, along with time management can and will play a massive part in your success online, and I would go as far to say that it will be the difference to you succeeding or failing.


95% of people who try to make an income online fail. Why? Because they don’t have a plan and they lack focus.


Unfortunately, when people first start looking into making an income online, they become bombarded with sales pages and emails telling them how they can make thousands of dollars over night. Of course this is going to catch the eye, and the imagination of those who are just starting out. It is easy for them to get sucked in by the expertly written sales copy and they jump on the payment button, the anticipation of new riches to hard to resist (sound familiar?).


Now I’m not saying that these programs don’t deliver quality information, there are some great products available that can really help people move forward in their business (there is also a lot of rubbish around too).


But the problem comes from people not giving them enough time to work. Expectations of overnight success is a very dangerous mind set, but this is what many people expect unfortunately.


A few days later they will see another product that again promises unrivaled wealth, so they buy this and don’t finish the last product they purchased. This will continue, and in the end they will have spent a fortune on different products, yet not finished any of them, thus making very little, and most of the time no money from their short burst efforts.


So how should people avoid this very common trap that captures 95% of new entrepreneurs?

Answer: Planning and FOCUS


If you’re just starting out online, I would recommend looking through a lot of the free material that is available. You can get your hands on many free eBooks from Giveaway events or by signing up to other marketers mailing lists that will provide you with lots of information on different strategies that you could pursue online. Once you have researched the different strategies and become more familiar with them, then you should be able to make a decision of a strategy that you would like to work on.


Now is the time to start your planning. Without a plan, you will have nothing to focus on!


Let’s say you choose list building as your first online strategy you want to pursue. First you want to set yourself a goal that you want to achieve in your list building in a one month period. Make your goal realistic, but at the same time don’t be too easy on yourself. You will find that once you start achieving your goals it will spur you on to further progress.


Okay, so let’s say you are new to list building, and your one month goal is to get the first 100 subscribers on your list. You now need to work back from that goal and decide how you will achieve it. Make sure you document all of your plans, as once you have them laid out it will help you keep your focus and working to your plan.


So if list building is new to you, these are the type of things you will need to be doing to achieve your first month goal:


- Sign up to an autoresponder service such as AWeber.
- Get yourself a Hosting account if you don’t already have one.
- Get yourself a free product you can use to give away to build your list.
- Learn how to set up a squeeze page.
- Get all of your files and product uploaded to your Hosting account.
- Sign up for as many Giveaway events as you can.


From this list, work out what you think you can do in your first week. Write this down again. Then each night you should write down the tasks that you are going to work on the next day.


How to stay focused on your plan:


To stay focused, you need to first rid yourself of any external distractions such as a television. Try and find a quiet room in the house to work if possible, so you’re not disturbed by family members wanting your attention.


You then need to close of any online distractions…you know the ones…emails, Twitter, Facebook. All of these can take your focus away from the job at hand, so close them down until you have finished your daily tasks.


One technique that I find very effective is to give each task an estimated time limit. Then get yourself a countdown timer (I use my IPod) and try to get that task done in the set time.


Example: If your daily tasks were to:


1. Make a new list in AWeber – 15 minutes
2. Make a new squeeze page – 1 hour
3. Upload your files to your hosting account – 15 minutes


By giving yourself these time frames to work to, you will find it will drastically improve your productivity because it keeps you focused on the job at hand. You’ll be amazed at how much more work you get done if you plan and organize like this.


So just remember, without any goals you will have nothing to plan for. Without a plan you will have nothing to focus on. That is why planning and focus are imperative to your online success.