How to make money from home in your spare time – Part 2. I hope that you have enjoyed Part 1 and that you have already taken action. If you have missed the first episode, follow this link ~~> How To Make Money From Home In Your Spare Time – Part 1, and even better, join my mailing list so that you will be notified as soon as Part 3 and Part 4 are available for your viewing.

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So far we have covered the following:

• Gain back the control of your smartphone
• Get to bed early and work earlier in the morning
• Do not overload your day

Today we are going to learn how to gain time by improving on our day-to-day actions:

• When asked to help, refuse by all means
• Chuck your TV through the window (or reduce its use)
• Automate repetitive tasks

So, let’s get started shall we? …

How to make money from home in your spare time – Part 2

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When asked to help, refuse by all means

When we were kids, we were told that we had to answer “yes” to everyone, sometimes even strangers.

And most importantly, we were told that the simple act of saying ”no” to someone was very frowned upon. Even rude to some.

As it was frowned upon by society, we quickly learned to say “yes” to everyone; without ever wondering if it was going to do any harm in our lives.

I’m sorry to tell you if you do not know it yet, but saying “yes” to everyone is one of the most ineffective ways to manage your time.

Why?..

• Because just saying “yes” costs you time
• When you agree to help someone, it costs you time
• If you agree to go to an appointment, it costs you time
• When you agree to get involved in a project, it also costs you time

And when you agree to go out with your friends … OK, you understood me. 😉

Just as we need money to buy a home or a car, we need time to accomplish all the tasks and obligations we have accepted from others.

Sometimes when you have agreed to help for a little thing (and it’s not uncommon), you find yourself obliged to spend all your days doing what others have asked you to do.

So much that you end your days by being completely exhausted … 

… without being able to devote time to start your own business!

So, to reassure you, I’m not saying that we have to stop saying ”yes” forever and shut yourselves up in a cave, sometimes it is good to accept to help or to be engaged in a project that thrills us.

But in general, it is never very good to say “yes” to everything, because we do not know in advance how much time this task will take us to complete, if at all it is a one off.

After all, a task can take us 2 minutes as it can take us 2 hours … or 2 weeks in extreme cases.

In short, how to stop saying ”yes” on the fly? To begin with, we must realize that our time is limited and that we can not satisfy everyone.

I hope that you very aware of this chapter? ;-p

Then, you will need to take a sheet of paper and something to write (you can do this exercise on your computer). Then, you will answer this question …

What are your priorities?

I hope you have already done the exercise that I asked you to do in Part 1. 🙂

For example, if launching a blog is part of your priorities, write it down.

If launching a YouTube channel is one of your priorities, you also write it down.

If creating an application is part of your priorities, here too, you put it down.

You can also add your personal priorities, such as sports, social relations, hobbies, etc.

Personally, I advise you not to add more than 3 priorities maximum, because the more you will have, the more you will have trouble achieving them (because you will run out of time) and it’s bad sign.

In case you have more than 3 priorities, I advise you to review your priorities one by one; to ask yourself if such priority is still worth considering as such.

Once you have found your 3 priorities (or less), you will take a new sheet of paper and you will divide it into two columns.

The first column will concern all the tasks and actions that you agree to do and have no negative influence on your priorities.

To give you a concrete example, here is what I agree to do …

• Tasks that take less than 2 minutes
• The tasks that are in my field of competence
• The tasks that are offered to me between 2:00 pm and 5:00 pm
• Lend my gear to others (provided they return it of course)
• Make ONE appointment a week (I’m extremist on this)
• Participate in events related to my project ”business”

Then, the second column will concern everything you refuse to do and that prevents you from moving forward on your business project.

For me, here is everything I refuse to do …

• Tasks that require more than 2 minutes
• The unfinished tasks of others
• Tasks that are out of my field of expertise
• The tasks that are proposed to me in the morning (7:00 to 12:00)
• The tasks that are proposed to me after 17:00
• Not urgent and unimportant tasks
• Participate in boring meetings
• Let others decide on my agenda and appointments
• Engage in projects that I do not like
• Take more than one appointment a week
• Make MLM (I hate MLM, do not bother me for that)
• Go to the bar or pub (yes, really!)
• Go to nightclubs (I’m serious about writing this)

Generally, the longest list is always the second one.

Why? Because in any project (and especially when starting a business), there will always be more things that we have to refuse than things to accept.

When you have finished filling up your 2 columns (and for that, I advise you to reserve a good half-hour), you will be able to use it as a reminding tool to help you say NO.

This is a spreadsheet to have present, with you, all the time, because it will help you to instantly know what you have to agree to do and especially, what you must refuse to do.

Moreover, it may be that you cannot find everything you want to refuse to do and to be honest with you, it’s perfectly normal.

Because it is something that you have to continue to add to as time goes by.

Chuck your TV through the window (or reduce its consumption)

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Okay, we all grew up with a TV in our living room, and perhaps also in out kitchen and bedroom we learned to live with it, to watch movies, series, shows, mystery stories, documentaries, news, football matches, etc.

So of course, we had more or less some good times with our television, even if we did not all watch the world cup in 2018.

But I will be frank (and radical) with you. If today you are still watching TV like everyone else, then you are tying a rope to your neck.

Don’t worry, I will tell you why …

The reason I tell you this is because TV is a huge waste of time.

According to various studies, we (not me though) spend an average of 3:42 hours a day watching television. The time spent on watching TV differs within the age groups. Obviously, the older the person, the more time they spend on watching TV, that is understandable.

But, the age group for which this article is intended for, are those that really need to spend time finding ways to make some extra money (retirees, low income earners, single parents, at home mums, etc.). Indeed, according to a study made by “The New York Times” these people are spend an incredible amount of time watching television. Yes, as much as 5.5 hours a day watching their television set! Can you believe it?

And between us, spending 5.5 hours of our time watching a TV is far too much!

Because they could have used at least part of these same 5.5 hours to write an article; make a podcast; a video; a training; etc., and they could have moved much faster on their business project.

That’s the first reason.

The second reason why it is bad to watch TV is because it has a bad influence on your mental energy.

Notably because of the information, the broadcasts and other events where one sees murders, attacks, financial crises, etc. non stop.

By consuming this type of information every day, it’s as if you had breathed the air of an exhaust of an old DeSoto 1960 model. By doing so, you will not be in a great shape all through the day.

So, if you are not in shape when you try to work on your activity in parallel, then you will have a lot of trouble to move forward.

And your plan to start an online business may not be ready.

Well, I know that for some people, television is very important in their lives … and for them it is very hard to part with it.

I can understand because I’ve been there.

But honestly, what is more valuable to you? Watching TV for hours or to get your business started? To supplement your actual retirement income, or to prepare for your upcoming retirement?

If for you, television is more important than to make a change for the better in your lifestyle, then (do not take it badly) …

… you are not made to take on a project.

And I prefer to tell you this right now, so that you avoid wasting more time reading this article.

On the other hand, if you think that bringing value to your future and that of your loved ones is more interesting than watching soaps all day long, then it is essential for you to detach yourself from your television (or at least reduce its consumption).

In short, how to fight addiction on TV? The first thing to do is to start by identifying how much time you spend each day watching television.

For that, you just have to take another sheet of paper, a pen and to take note the hours when you watch TV. I advise you to do this for a whole week.

Then, once you know how long you watch TV, you will start watching less and less TV … naturally!

For example, if you usually spend 3 hours a day watching TV, I advise you to switch to 2:45 hours a day during the first week, then to 2:30 hours the following week, etc.

So that you can free yourself an hour of TV time and gain an hour of free time.

For those who want to go further and get rid of TV altogether (that’s what I recommend you do), just continue to follow the same method until you do not touch the remote for a month .

If you succeed to not touch your TV for a month, then you can sell it on eBay without feeling any regrets.

Or, you can give it to one of your relatives if you want (that’s exactly what I did with my TV, I gave it to my parents).

Since I no longer watch TV (since 2013), I feel even more free of my time. 🙂

Automate repetitive tasks

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If like me, you aim to launch your activity on the internet, but you do not have all day to do it, then you will meet 2 kinds of tasks as you progress.

First, there are creative tasks. These are tasks where you have to use your creativity to be able to do them.

For example, writing an article, creating a video, recording a podcast, etc.

These tasks are usually very difficult to automate because the creative process is never the same.

You can create 2 blog posts on the same subject and with the same number of words, but the creative process will be different because there are thousands of ways to talk about a topic.

Suddenly, creative tasks require us to reinvent new ways of doing things, which is not within the reach of a robot as I write these lines.

Then we have non-creative (or technical) tasks …

These are tasks where you do not have to be creative to execute them.

For example, send a welcome e-mail to new subscribers; complete the description of a YouTube video; save the database of your blog, etc.

Or even much better: you could automate many of your household chores basically for free. For example, if you have sold your television set, you could invest in a new robot vacuum cleaner, a robot lawn mower, an electric slow cooker, etc. That, will seriously save you time!

Unlike creative tasks, you can easily automate non-creative tasks with some applications, programs or settings.

We can automate the sending of emails with an autoresponder (a tool that we use to send emails automatically), we can automate the filling of YouTube descriptions via its channel settings and we can also automate the backup of our blog with a WordPress plugin.

By automating all the non-creative tasks that you have in your business, you can easily free one hour in your day.

The problem today is that we tend to never automate these types of tasks.

Why?

Because we do not bother to automate them because of the technical barrier.

Very often, when you want to automate a non-creative task, it is sometimes necessary to know a little bit about the technique.

Unfortunately, the technique is sometimes a block for most people. We are afraid to understand nothing and to do something dangerous.

Like a hacking for example.

So of course, I understand that some of them have technical barriers; I too had these technical barriers when I started on the Internet.

Sometimes I was so scared of doing a technical task that I postponed it to the next day, over and over … till I finally decided to do everything manually. Not a productive move!

To be honest with you, it was not at all a good idea, because not only do you waste time, but you waste a lot of effort for a result that is not up to your expectations.

So, I stopped being afraid of the technology, and I decided to learn little by little to automate my business by starting with e-mail sending, data backup, filing files on my laptop, etc.

Until I get to do only purely creative tasks, like writing this article for example.

Honestly, I’m not a developer; I do not read JavaScript; I’m not the biggest geek in the world; and I’m not a big fan of tech gadgets.

However, I can now automate some non-creative tasks; although I am still a newbie in many areas and I still have a lot to learn.

What you have to understand here is that there is no point in being afraid of the technology. You have a tiny chance to cause a mess on your computer (let alone a global hacking).

And most importantly, you do not have to be a technical expert to automate certain tasks in your business.

In short, now that the barrier is up, how to automate?

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First, I advise you to take a sheet of paper and a pen, to write down all the tasks that you usually do.

Then, once you have noted everything, you will go over your list; you will take each task one by one and you will ask yourself if it is a creative task or not.

If you spot a purely creative task, for example writing an article, take your pen and draw a line across it.

Once you have removed all the purely creative tasks, you will still have all non-creative tasks that can be automated.

To automate welcome e-mails when you have new subscribers, I advise you to use a reputable autoresponder that has a good deliverability record.

For my part, I use AWeber.

To automate the filling of YouTube video descriptions, simply go to the settings of your channel; then in the upload parameters and complete the description and the main tags and hashtags.

Same for the podcast, you can also automate the filling of the descriptions of your podcasts (and many others) with Auphonic (free).

And what else?

After, if you really want to go further in the automation of tasks, I advise you to use Zapier (free).

It is actually an application that will help you synchronize 2 applications without coding to automate a specific task.

Honestly, it’s been a while since I haven’t use it. I still I do not know all the possibilities, but there’s plenty to do … (we can automate dozens of actions with more than 1,000 apps right now).

I tested some stuff to automate, it’s pretty well done, I hope to learn more about it. 🙂

That will be all for today. Stay tuned for Part 3 coming soon. If you missed the first episode if this training, Follow this link ~~> How To Make Money From Home In Your Spare Time – Part 1

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You might also like to read the below articles that I have selected for you:

• How To Create A Niche Website ?
• Where To Find Ideas To Write About In A Blog
• Why Is Self Motivation Important – Believe In Yourself

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Thanks for reading

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I hope that this article will show you how to make money from home in your spare time. If you have any tips on the subject we would love to hear from you. And, if you have any questions, please use the box below and I will respond as soon as possible. If you enjoyed this article please share it socially and leave a comment below, I will highly appreciate it!

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