Profit Vs. Time Spent

Right now, one of the bigger problems I am having is juggling everything in work and personal life.

With things such as this blog, my affiliate campaigns, localized lead generation, new social media contest website, wedding planning, church, media buying, etc, etc, etc, it can get a bit busy at times.

The interesting thing to me is that your income bracket (there are always exceptions) doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t be busy. I know people who make millions who are always busy and I know people who are struggling but are always busy.

The difference between the two was recognizing the profit versus time spent and this is what I have been dealing with. What are the areas that I can “invest” my time into that will produce the most fruit so to speak.

This applies to life, including online marketing. At times I have had to cut my more favored marketing projects because the time I was spending on them was not profitable.

A perfect example of this was a forum I used to own called MMOCCForum.com. This forum was a pretty active forum with 5,000 niche users. On average there was 150 users on at any given point from around the world. I enjoyed the community and it was a great site.

I poured years of my life into that site and it never really took off. The niche was too focused and more importantly, the income was very little.

I would spend maybe an hour or two a day moderating this forum for $100-200 bucks in income per month.

Just this last year (2008) I decided to shut it down because it just was not worth the investment of time.

There have also been affiliate marketing campaigns that I have eventually had to cut. I spent a ton of time on them but they simply were not converting or working out and I eventually just had to give up.

It’s always a good reminder on the business side of things to focus on the projects that will make you the most. If there is a small project, put it on the low side of the priority scale.