058: The Three-Day Window for Enhanced, Increased, and Amazing Productivity

It's very easy when you first start your internet business, working from home, to fall back into those habits that you have from working for an employer, where you have to fill up 8 hour days one after the other and no "project" really ever has to be done for you to make income.

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Or, some of those very things that led you to develop an internet-based business, such as wanting to dream ‘big', form your own partnerships, etc., but all of those ideas will not make any money if you do not implement them.

It's easy to get pulled into "Scope Creep", where you continue to add more and more features or additional webpages, upsells and bonuses, etc., instead of just focusing on ONE thing and pushing it out there.

These are all productivity killers. Instead, you want to think in "Three Day Window" terms.

Principles of the Three-Day Window

What is it? The 3 day window is the time period from "idea" to "implementation." You have 3 days to get it to a stopping point that if you had to sell it right then you could.

It's okay if it's not perfect. You NEED to make some websites that you will look back on later and be embarrassed by. What IS important is getting in the habit of getting your ideas implemented and out there.

What if it's lacking some features? You still put it up for sale in its "basic version" at a discounted rate. Instead of your end goal of $97, you sell the basic at $7.

Don't sell your first version with multiple features. You can't be sure that your customers want all these "bells and whistles." What's exciting to you is quite probably not exciting to them.

It's better to put the product out there and get feedback of the most wanted features and use that to develop your "deluxe" version. As you continue to refine it, you can roll out "iterations" later and charge the higher price(s).

Iterations: these are releases each time the product is enhanced/improved, i.e. Version 1.0, 2.0., etc. When Robert created Backup Creator, it only took him 3 days from start to finish to get his first version out. In that first 3 day version, it did do the basic backups. Then, in future iterations, they added additional backup capabilities (i.e. to Amazon S3), cloning abilities, and other features.

Why Just 3 Days?

If you don't set yourself an "end" date, you will run into issues such as:

You spend too much time working on it and get burnt out or bored. Or, you end up doing a lot of things that are not productive or they're fun but they don't really increase your sales, such as spending 2 hours to make a 2-minute sales video.

You could have spent that same 2 hours doing at least 2 of your 4 Daily Tasks:

A better choice than a video would be to build a bigger list. Examples: contacting affiliates, running ads for traffic to your site, knocking out a great sales letter

For more information on 4 Daily Tasks, you can check out the Four Daily Tasks book and Facebook group.

You need to think in "milestones" and take a scientific approach. The scientific approach will help you create a framework or "Spec" for your project. Within that framework, you can then be creative.

For example, if you make a video: You need to set up how many segments it's going to be and the length of time for each. Then, within those measured segments, you can be creative about what you're going to feature.

Today's Take-Away's

Don't be the guy (or gal) that has a bunch of stuff on their hard drive without taking any action to put it out there. Use the "4 Daily Tasks" Method to be productive. Do something every day that will result in sales.

There's no point in pulling "all-nighters." You're fooling yourself with a lot of empty time. It's more important to have something imperfect that is functioning and earning you money because a lot of work with no income results in boredom and burn out.

Join Robert's "4 Daily Tasks" group
Get his course on time management: Time Management on Crack

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Filed in: Archive 1: 2012-2016 • Podcast • Productivity