April Fool’s Day and Time (Manage it Wisely)

Happy April 1st. April Fool’s Day.

It is speculated that April Fool’s Day originated in France in 1582, when it switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as called for by the Council of Trent years before in 1563. Under the Julian calendar, the new year began with the spring equinox around April 1. Under the new Gregorian calendar, the new year began on January 1, divided into 12 equal months. Unfortunately, the French citizens who were slow to get the news or did not recognize the start of the new year was January 1, continued to celebrate new year during the last week of March through April 1. They became the butt of jokes and hoaxes and were called April fools. One of the pranks involved having a paper fish placed on their back and being referred to as an April fish, which symbolizes a young, easily caught fish and gullible person. Credit: history.com – April fool’s Day: Origins, Meaning & Hoaxes.

Fortunately, we are now all on the same calendar and tracking our days and months in synchronicity. We have 24 hours in a day, 30 to 31 days in a month (February being the exception), and 365 days per year. From my last post, you discovered Why you want to be an affiliate marketer. This next step is one of the most important – properly investing your time, especially if you are starting this part-time while still having a full-time job.

I started this Voyage after I retired and thought it would be easy since I had all of this free time. How wrong I was. I still had the obligations of my dogs and visiting mom, plus I spent more time with the volunteer organization I am involved in, and began to travel more. I had much less free time than I imagined and I ended up wasting a lot of it. When I was working, my schedule was basically set, and revolved around work and my dogs. Now I am completely in charge of my time and if I do not control it, I waste it. Life is meant to be lived.

Time is your most precious resource. You can never get it back. Most people overestimate what they can do in a short time, and underestimate what they can do in a long time. Taking your business seriously also means spending quality time on it. The only way you will get good at your business is if you consistently show up and do it over and over again. Did you know the average time is takes to build a habit is 66 days? That means when you start, for the first two months you need to devote some of your time to your business every day. The way to do that is time management, especially if you are working and have family and/or other obligations. The best time management device for me is a calendar.

Your calendar cannot be rigid. It has to take into account life and be flexible to account for your predictable events and unexpected problems. If you are working a full-time job, you already have a regular life with responsibilities and obligations. Now you need to make time for your business. Will it be easy at first? Probably not. Will it be worth it? Yes. If you are retired, time will quickly get away from you if you do not control it, which means you must take charge of your schedule.

If you have a full-time job, approach time management this way. If you didn’t do affiliate marketing but decided to work a second job, you would have to make time in your schedule to show up on time at your job, work and then come home. This is no different except you are now working for yourself at home. Focus on a quality 1-2 hours a day for your business. 10 hours per week may be a lot but remember your Why. You are building a better life. If you can only do 1 hour a day for 5 days, that is a start but you need to be very focused with no distractions. Make that whole hour count. This was much harder than I thought, even retired.

Since creating my calendar, I am more focused, productive and happier with how I spend my time. I chose a weekly calendar and use an Excel spreadsheet to customize it. The challenge is sticking to it and not letting distractions completely sidetrack me. Yes, life happens and we adjust. Understand things in life will happen.

For those who are retired or on disability and not working, like moi, I found it beneficial to have a weekly schedule so I can consistently work on my business. How did I set my schedule? I knew what time I woke up and went to sleep, so that set the parameters of my day. Next I looked at any required appointments or scheduled meals or activities I had. The rest was my available time for my business and self-care activities.

While Dean recommends 2-3 hours per day, I try to devote at least 3 – 4 hours a day on my business, Monday through Friday. This includes working on my blog and continuing to learn the system and process, as well as participating in the live video question and answer sessions, coaching sessions and Certified Partner events. I discovered I am not successful at this alone because there is so much to know and do as a beginner. Participating in the live training sessions and events helped tremendously to understand how to improve my business and provide motivation in the community we have. I also planned a couple hours on the weekend, even though the weekend is when I work on my yard, household chores and go to church, plus doing a fun activity. I want to live life too!

If you want to see how I created my calendar, click here.

If you would like to get my Weekly Calendar Template to use for creating your own schedule, just subscribe to my free newsletter. Click the link to subscribe: Voyager Newsletter.

Of course, this is life and distractions, unexpected situations and emergencies will happen, but having a schedule helped me establish a habit and gave a sense of normalcy and purpose for each day of the week. Especially for someone OCD like me. Remember the 66-day rule to establishing a habit. Frequency and consistency are key. How bad do you want to achieve your dreams and have a better life? Only you can make that decision and find your desire. As Dean said, “Everybody dies, but not everybody lives.” I choose to live and enjoy my life. This is the only life I get and my time left is much shorter than I’d like. I’m very appreciative of the life I have lived and want to enjoy the rest of my life and experience things I’ve only dreamt about.