I feel VERY productive, if not for the fact I have a 1-2 heads start over others.

Sean I feel you what you are saying…I been slacking on some of these things like waking up at 6 like I wanted. But I hit the snooze for 15 min which turn into 30 min…and so forth.

I really find that if I don’t have anything ready to do the next day…I just get online and surf with no direction. But when I do I just start crossing those tasks off easily.

So I have to say that having a game plan prepared the day before helps out a ton. Try it!

1) Stop making plans and rules – telling yourself that you have to follow a regimented structure is what has lead me to failing in the past. I have to get up at this time, I have to stop smoking cigs, and I won’t drink anymore. As soon as I decided to stop being a boy and start being a man my life got easier. New simple motto is I can do anything I want but I strive to empower myself by simply making good decisions on a day to day basis. Instead of waking up at 7 cause I have to, I wake up at 7, almost fall back asleep, than remember that I don’t have to do this but I’m going to because it will create the desired results that I want.

2) The dollar you earn is the dollar you spend – you hit of this with you post of a beer or your business. Currently the number one site ranking for my main keyword has 533 domains linking to it. I have 211. I can by either buy 100 blog comments from new domains for have 100 bookmarks placed across social bookmarking sites to build my link profile for $40 outsourced to India. 4 $10 beers = 6-8 of work.

3) If you dominate link acquisition within your niche you will dominate the SERPS – my business is niche ecommerce and providing free traffic to my site and products from the search engines. You can apply this to whatever online money making avenue you choose. This also relates to tropicalmbas post that “my passion is kicking ass”

4) (Learned this one from you) Ask yourself if this is a “revenue focused” activity. Sometimes it is easy for me to tell my friends how to make money online than I find myself straying from my own advice.

5) What can I do today that will get me closer to where I want to be

6) Finally, my favorite line from any song I’ve ever heard. It comes from Madchild of Swollen Members on the song therapy. 54 seconds in, but I recommend the whole song.

“No one is secretly behind or under this, its independent bitch I funded it – this is independent.

Final thoughts: I’ve been reading your blog for a while now and this is my first comment. Me and you are following similar paths in different ways. I can not fail at my business, I 27 and use to sell real estate and I don’t want to go back. So instead for traveling the world building my business I stayed home and work 70 hours between 2 jobs and leverage my income to outsource projects to others using geo-arbitrage. If your business doesn’t get popping the way you want it, go back home live with your folks and work you ass off and use the cash to outsource your tasks. I’m up to 1K per month profit and should be fully retired on 4K by years end.

Best of luck to you.

Marc

Part of my job is that I will have some days with very little going on, followed by days that require 14-16 hours of work. I know those days will come, and when they do, I have to buckle down and do what I got to. On the days where I have less to do, you bet I’ll sleep in a bit later and focus more on social, athletic or personal activities.

I would have to disagree with you for a change.

You ARE getting up when you want to, which is 10 or 11. The reason you can get up early when the alarm goes off is because you are not rested enough to get up, and the reason you are not rested enough is because you are “Pumped up” when going to sleep. Your mind is still going and is not paying attention to the job of relaxing and rejuvenating the body. Next time try to relax before going to bed, and see yourself getting up early in your mind’s eye. And oh, that alarm clock, toss it out the window.

For goodness sake, you are working for yourself, act like it. You’ll get more done in less time, I promise.

Rasheed

However, I disagree with some of your points. I don’t think waking up early is always a good thing. Some people are night people and work better at night. Why does the hour matter?

Be careful not to fall into the job rut: at a job, you typically get paid to be there for a certain number of hours, whether you accomplish anything or not. That’s one of the reasons I never want a job again. it kills your productivity. Much better to work less and do more.

Eric

But trying to get anything productive done when I’m travelling is another matter! There are just so many exciting things to do that knuckling down when you could be down at the beach sipping a cocktail is rather more of a challenge for me.

Because of this I try to go for marathon work bouts for a few months, then take off and switch off work completely apart from the ocassional checkin for stats, emails etc.

For me, this works best. But then again, we’re all different