How often do you check your earnings statistics each day? Once, twice, ten times? Whether it be AdSense, Chitika, eHow, or Clickbank, the temptation for online marketers to continually check up on their earnings is high. After all, you want to make sure all your hard work is paying off in the form of income!
It is understandable to check up on earnings, email, and social networking sites continuously throughout the day. We are living in the information age where media outlets pump us news 24×7. Unfortunately, staying up to date with all the latest information is one of the biggest time wasters in our day and prevents your business from really taking off.
Checking Earnings = Loss of Future Income
Sounds a little backwards – checking your earnings can lower your future income? It is true. Consistently checking up on earnings prevents you from producing more product. Less product means less earnings growth and income.
At a high level, it doesn’t seem like checking up on earnings should waste that much time. Log into your account, see the updates, and move on. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way as there are plenty of distractions that can get in your way. And don’t even think you can try and multitask your way through it either – that is even worse!
Distractions
If you were able to just log into your AdSense account and check your earnings, that would be great. Unfortunately, there are a ton of other distractions to keep you there wasting more time. The time you waste is probably not directly related to checking your earnings. It is the other distractions that cause the problem.
Most of these earnings platforms come with a ton of really cool reporting tools and features. The problem is that they can be a huge distraction. That is not to say that running reports and checking out your stats is not important – it just doesn’t need to be done everyday!
Next time you find yourself checking up on some earnings, ask yourself if it is productive and will help you grow your business? If it is not, get the heck out and start producing something!
Multitasking
Multitasking is one of the biggest cons ever created. Companies tell their employees they need to multitask to get more done. Unfortunately, the human mind doesn’t quite work that way. Trying to handle two or more activities at one time is cause for more errors and uncompleted tasks.
Don’t think you can multitask by checking your earnings while working on other tasks. It is inefficient and will prevent you from getting your more important tasks completed. Focusing on creating more content that will produce higher earnings should be your top priority.
How Much Time Do You Waste?
I sat down and figured out how much time I actually waste each week just by checking my earnings stats. It actually surprised me how much time I did spend checking out various sites.
Just to give you an idea, I find myself checking up on my AdSense stats at least 3 times per day, and eHow at least once per day. Add in a check to Clickbank and Chitika a few times per week and the time really starts to add up.
Here is a breakdown of the number of hours I waste each week just from checking up on my earnings.
- AdSense
- Monday to Friday – 3 times per day @ 5 minutes each time (probably closer to 10 minute) for a total of 75 minutes per week.
- Saturday & Sunday – 1 time per day @ 5 minutes for a total of 10 minutes per week.
- TOTAL – 85 minutes per week
- eHow
- Monday to Friday – 1 time per day @ 10 minutes each time for a total of 50 minutes per week
- Saturday & Sunday – 1 time per day @ 5 minutes for a total of 10 minutes per week.
- TOTAL – 60 minutes per week
- Other Earnings Sites
- TOTAL – 15 minutes per week
I can conservatively estimate that I spend about 160 minutes or 2.7 hours each week checking my earnings. This is a HUGE time waster.
Just think of what I could do with another 2+ hours in my week. I could write an additional 8 eHow articles with that time. I could use that time to grow one of my niche sites or increase my Clickbank earnings. I could also use it to spend time with my family!
The Earnings Diet
I am going on an “earnings diet” effective immediately. No, this diet doesn’t mean I don’t want to earn any online income anymore. It is actually the opposite, I want to earn more – A LOT MORE!
The truth is I need to cut out some fat from my day. I plan to only check my earnings from all the sites I use once per week. For no more than a total of 30 minutes, I will check up on my earnings one day per week. To avoid any distractions to my business, I will plan to complete this task on the weekend, as I tend to take those days off.
Exceptions
There are obviously going to be some exceptions to the diet. For example, if I were to log into eHow to post a new article, it is difficult not to view your monthly earnings. The way the site is configured, your earnings are sitting right in front of you.
The point is that I will not purposely log into one of these sites just to view my current earnings. If I am logged in for other business matters, then it is fine. Otherwise, I will check up on my current earnings only once per week.
Final Thoughts
If I see significant time savings from my earnings diet, I may eventually decide to go to a bi-monthly or even monthly check. I still believe it is important to check up on earnings and statistics. They are important indicators that can help guide your business and maximize your income. It is only when you over consume on the earnings that they become a distraction.
Moving forward, I plan to make additional changes to my daily schedule (i.e. email) that should put more hours back into my week. Cutting back on the wasted time I validate my earnings is just the first step.
How much time do you waste each week on checking your earnings?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
John,
You make a good point. I have also been wasting much of my time checking up on my earnings. I’ll join you in the “earnings diet!”
Rob
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pfincome Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
@Rob – That is great! I hope to start eliminating a lot of these tasks that waste hours of my day. My next goal will be eliminating email to once per day!
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“Multitasking is one of the biggest cons ever created.” <- thank you. Takes too much time for me to get focused on the new task, thus wasting time.
I'd be scared to clock how much time I waste checking earnings, it's really hard not to. But yeah, wouldn't those hours provide us with much more value if we created new articles or enhanced our niche sites? Thanks for bringing this time waster to my attention.
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pfincome Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
@Moon – I am amazed at all the Job Postings I come across with a requirement that you need to know how to multitask. It seems so anti-productive to me.
I have gotten caught up for long periods of time running reports, checking stats, etc. Next thing I know it is an hour later and have not completed any of my important tasks.
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Oh yeah I’d be scared to add up my time too! I know this is a huge time waster for me, I’m really trying to stop. I have recently stopped keeping my email client open all day, and am trying to check it just three times a day (similar principle). I’m not succeeding but I am checking it waaay less, it just takes some time to get used to it but I hope to do the same with checking earnings too.
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pfincome Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
@Ruth – I actually started this daily change today and can already feel a difference in my mood and work behaviors! I would recommend it.
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I check eHow earnings maybe twice a week to see if everything’s on track (or to spot a sudden jump). Adsense I check probably once a day on average, but I keep the page up and just hit refresh the next day so it’s literally a 30-second stop.
cj.com and Clickbank are once a week right now as well, but as they increase I’ll move that to once a day. And of course if I’m on the site getting links I can see earnings stats on my dashboard.
Good post — eliminating time wasters and distractions online is key to maximizing work time!
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pfincome Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 11:02 am
@Maria – Thanks. I have found myself to spend just as much time checking my earnings than I am working to create new content. I think it is still important to check as a motivator and to look for trends, but there is a point when it gets to be too much.
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I totally agree with you. I check my brokerage accounts for the amounts of dividends I have received every single day. I would be much better off to just look at it once a week or once a month. The checking of earnings does not add any value to you, although psychologically I think I do check often because I believe that this somehow helps my income ( which it doesn’t)
I once went to a vacation without any internet for a week and after that I checked all stats. I reaized that checking my stats doesn’t add any value – I hadn’t checked them for a week and yet everything worked out fine
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pfincome Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 11:10 am
@DGI – I use to check my stocks daily, which cost me more time and money. It got so bad that I would refresh the price of my stocks every 10 minutes or so. Then I realize that since I am not a day trader, why should it matter! I check up on my stocks about once per week now, which I believe is a good frequency.
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