What have you found that improves work flow so you can be more efficient and get more done in less amount of time? This includes anything big or small. It’s all individual, and some tips might work good for some people and not for others. Doesn’t matter, share it!
Some of my tips. It all depends on what works for you, of course.
I use a template for each sponsor when I make a post. It has all the code for the pics and how I usually arrange them. Copy and paste the template into the new post, put in the pic file names, sizes, titles, alts, and adjust to the individual post.
Separating tasks to increase productivity, if it applies. Rather than wasting time repeating the same series of tasks every day, try doing X at one time, Y next, etc. For example, I guess many people just take a quick look at their sponsors and put together a post quickly. For me, that includes several tasks: checking out sponsors’ material, deciding on what material is good to use and for what, getting the pics/videos together (best choices, resized, etc.), and writing the post. Doing this each time I post is repeating the same tasks that really don’t need to be done all over again each post. I’m testing a process where I do each task at one time (a couple of hours, day, or days depending on many things). The goal is to have many posts ready to easily put together, or all set as drafts to publish when ready. This has many advantages, and you can still make post of fresh material anytime you want.
So this post is not longer than is, I’ll post another tip after this.
Did you ever find yourself working harder and longer to be more productive, and find you are being considerably less productive? Sounds illogical, but it isn’t. I’ve heard and seen it in others, and it’s what I am working on now. The fact is that most people cannot take this mentally, emotionally and physically. The longer and harder you do this, your work and health suffer. Not all people like this. Some people don’t take things so seriously and don’t realize they are letting things go, and only might need to understand this. I observe it’s mostly super-conscientious and perfectionist personalities that work themselves into this destructive distortion of the work ethic. The following works for me, and may not be for all people.
It’s one thing to show up and do a good job, to work as well as you can within your means (we all have limitations and personal situations). It another thing to beat yourself up. Often super-conscientious people think they are lazy when some other issue is the case. The tendency for such perfectionists is to be harder when being gentler and non-judgmental towards oneself is the key. People who like to beat themselves up are more likely to do this to others. The worst thing is to work yourself to exhaustion and ill health and have others tell you you’re just lazy or have to work harder. Find people who give the right support because understanding and positive encouragement is no joke. It’s smart, real and powerful. ] need to take more breaks to get more work done, and take things less seriously. If it isn’t perfect, just move forward.
It can be very difficult. Working from home and not in a office or normal work environment doesn’t help either. Difficult to switch off.
Problem is when sales are slowing down I tend to just work twice as hard. My own main problem though is that I work on too many things as the same time and it feels like I never finish anything, just start more new things…
Wow, I thought I was the only one with those feelings running through my head!
The trap I’m finding myself in right now is spending so much time making my sites look “perfect” that at the end of the day I “forget” to do any outreach (i.e. marketing). If nobody looks at, it doesn’t matter if it looks pretty.
I’d like to continue the discussion with suggestions for making the marketing of your sites more efficient.
one huge thing that saves time is limiting forum browsing to once or twice a day. I usually hit the forums first with my coffee, then if I have time I will revisit at the end of the day. I also like to do my “daily” tasks first thing too, get them out of the way so that I can focus on the new (& usually fun) projects in the afternoon.
I recognize a lot of things that have been said. The thing I recognize the most is working twice as hard, when sales are down. Funny thing is that sales usually go up in days I haven’t done that much though.
I work whenever I feel like. If a friend calls me to ask me if I want to go out for a lunch and some shopping, I just go and catch up with my work later. When there’s a good movie on TV, I watch it and do my work later. However, I work every day of the week and I don’t mind working at night either.
I try to work as productive as possible:
From a (good) sponsor update, I make a blogpost, a video for my tube, a gallery and a freesite (or at least two of those).
I do my routine work at first (just like Luke).
I stay away from the boards if I need to get something done.
I keep all programs open (HTML editor / FTP program / Image editing program) and I turn my computer off very rarely.
When I’m updating a lot of blogs and there are other things that I need to do beyond normal, I do all my offline work in passes, for example, select sponsor images/video and put it into folders per-site, then do all the work on image resizing first, then whatever video work needs editing, then do all the online things next, site by site, once I’ve got the content for every updated into its own folder waiting. Makes things go faster.
Glad you found that to be true. I’m trying something similar. Right now can only do a little at a time. But over time I hope to have it built up so I have many posts ready and waiting. This is especially important because of emergencies or days off will not set you back or double your work.
It may depend on the site, too. I don’t think surfers really care too much about my site having what came out just today or yesterday all of the time. On the other hand, large well-known sites like Queerclick are expected to, but I hear they have plenty of people working for them to accomplish this without any trouble.
Efficiency is incredibly important, especially in this economy. Personally, I do the following…
I have a CMS that organizes sponsor content. It’s got over 6,000 scenes in it, and over 100,000 images. It does everything from unzipping the files I get from sponsors, to resizing images, and composing the basic HTML for the blog post and uploading the images I’m using via FTP.
I try to hire people to do things that I don’t feel like doing - tagging, rating and cropping images in the CMS, writing blog posts, etc. I’ve come to the realization that I only have time for managing and doing special projects that move me ahead. I just don’t have time to do all the routine stuff.
I also believe in centralizing certain things and using things like jump scripts so when there’s a change it’s easy to implement.
But all in all, you gotta see what you do as a business and it has to be as streamlined as possible or you’ll fail in this economy.
Truthfully, in my mind I can only see this business working (as a profession and full time income) if its’ done like Rawtop says, in that you need other people. You can’t do it all yourself. I know many people do things by themselves, but I also know they get help sometimes. They also started out and established themselves as webmasters in better times. This and they don’t have the long initial learning curve to go through during these lean times as new webmasters do, I think makes them more better prepared for tight times. Still, I hear some that are thinking about or reaching beyond this field for more income. This is why for people just starting out, not sure being an adult webmaster by yourself will work even with best efforts. Not a job that will earn a decent living. Even for a part time job, it’s demanding. It may work for people who have the personality and high energy that can maintain both a day job and the constant work and and responsibility required of a webmaster.
Not saying I’m calling it quits. Just saying what appears to be reality.