Here’s A FREE Secret Online Tool That Will Help Your Online Business
There’s an online tool that can kill your procrastination. It’ll also help you optimise your business in countless ways. This tool is a modern update of something that has been used for centuries to help with scientific discoveries, building new technology and breaking world records.
I hope you’re interested in this tool. Especially when I tell you how to access it for free. I’m also going to spend the rest of the article showing you how I’ve used this simple tool to improve my life and business in countless ways.
What’s The Secret, Free and Easy To Use Tool That Will Change Your World?
It’s an online stopwatch and egg timer.
Here’s the link.
I hope none of you are upset or let down by the above revelation.
I have used this website (and then I got an app when I got a smart phone,) for probably ten years. I’ve found all kinds of uses for it. I’ll mention some of them below.
Before I do though, let’s rewind to this previous article.
In that article, I talk about how you can make unique material and lower the risk of buying stuff by finding new and unique uses for products you buy. This article is an example of the sort of experiments you can run, even when you’re not spending any money.
A simple stop-watch app can be used for a wide variety of things. Let’s talk about them.
Habit Building
Building a habit is a case of creating a single conscious process which you do every single day without fail. It’s really that simple.
You don’t need a stopwatch, but it can help. Simply set the timer and when it buzzes, do the activity that you want to engrain as a habit. Like Pavlov’s dogs, after a while you’ll start to anticipate the buzzer and you’ll feel very strange if you don’t do what you’ve agreed to do.
This works with everything from push-ups to not-checking your emails for periods of time. Try it.
Freelance Writing Optimisation
There’s a tendency among freelance writers to assume that deadlines are guidelines and that they’re paid for their magical thoughts and not their time.
Needless to say, that’s a romantic look at the profession, but it’s not one that’ll put food on your table.
I started using a stopwatch back when the majority of my writing income came from a single Fiverr gig. When you get paid $4 per article, you don’t want to spend two hours writing each one.
Set the stopwatch to run. See how long it takes you to write 500 words. Improve upon it every time.
I did this, and then when the time came where I had high-pressure deadlines, I was fine.
Also, this is a way to gamify writing on freelance sites, which can get a little routine at times.
Meditation
A bit off-topic for this site, but meditation is an incredibly important life skill. It’s one of the few “spiritual” practices that have a wealth of science behind them.
Thought control is the first step towards good meditation practices. Set the timer for ten minutes. Either choose to think about one thing, avoid thinking about one thing or try and clear your mind totally for the duration.
Doing this for ten minutes a day will help you in all manner of life experiences.
Working Out The Cost Of Providing A Service
I was getting a bit spooky in the section above. Let’s put our feet firmly on the ground.
A lot of people have asked me how to price their freelance writing service. I’ve always maintained that this is down to several things, most notably:
- How much does it cost to provide your service in terms of tangible materials?
- How long does it take you to complete the service?
- What value does the service have to the buyer?
There are other components to pricing, but those are the major ones. Obviously, the time factor is huge for a service business.
Use the stopwatch to work out how long it takes you to provide a service. Also, monitor your stress levels.
For instance, you might be able to write a 500 word article in fifteen minutes if you really work hard. It might take you thirty minutes if you’re relaxing and an hour if you’re being totally lazy.
These are all things that matter. On some days, I’ve written five articles per hour for the whole day. This is not sustainable. Your pricing should absolutely reflect that sort of issue.
Killing Procrastination
Procrastination is often due to losing a sense of time. You think, “I’d like to see a funny cat picture” or “I wonder if those funny guys have put out a new YouTube video this week?” and before you know it, six hours have gone by. You’ve read every blog ever, you’ve caught up with every girlfriend you ever had on Facebook (and their boyfriends,) and you’ve learned about Ulaanbaatar on Wikipedia.
Set a timer. Not so you can give yourself guilt-free procrastination time, but because simple awareness of how time is passing will make you concentrate more. There’s nothing like a buzzer going off to make you aware that you’ve only written fifty words in the past twenty minutes.
Complete Project Optimisation
This is something I do regularly. In fact, I’m going to do it either tomorrow or Friday for the Niche Site Challenge.
Let’s say you have a website to set up, or you want to write a short e-book.
Put the stopwatch on and time yourself. Turn building your next website into a time trial. Create new laps every time you achieve an objective.
- Keyword research
- Site set up
- Five articles at 800 words each
- Make a cute logo in Photoshop
- Upload everything
How long does each step take you, and how long will the whole thing take?
Next time, you might be able to do it faster. You might not, but you’ll certainly find out where you can improve the process.
Killing Writer’s Block
I won’t elaborate too much, because I’ve written about how to kill writer’s block before.
Essentially though, if you’re suffering from writer’s block, set a twenty minute timer. Load up your word processor, click the timer to run, and write for that twenty minute session. No excuses.
It doesn’t matter what you write even if it’s “All Work and No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy” over and over again. Unlike in The Shining, this will kill your writer’s block. Try it and see.
Final Thoughts
A guilty secret of mine is that I love the idea of “life-hacking.” Using a free stopwatch for tons of things is a perfect life hack, and this is the sort of weird behaviour I engage in on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, I find it hard to talk about life hacking for fear of being lumped in with the 4HWW crowd. You start off by providing simple solutions to people’s problems, and before you know it, you’re creating a shady self-help cult where you interview yourself or sell overpriced coffee to wantrepreneurs who want to outsource their life to third-world freelancers.
I’m going to avoid that for the foreseeable future, and I recommend you do too. However, you can still use the stopwatch ideas.
Let me know how it goes.