3 Tricks for Streamlining Your Professional Life

The life of a digital entrepreneur is seldom ever boring, which is another way of saying seldom ever peaceful. As the sole person responsible for the success of your business, and as the shot-caller who has to make every important decision, while also putting in the legwork, it can be easy to find yourself feeling overwhelmed by the constant onslaught of tasks and responsibilities.
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For the sake of your continuing productivity, not to mention your work-life balance and sense of overall well-being, it’s well worth dedicating some time to implementing processes that can streamline your professional life, whether you’re primarily focused on CMC markets, or website coding.

Here are some tips to get you started.

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Consider a virtual assistant

via GIPHY

A virtual assistant can do a lot of things that would otherwise keep you preoccupied during your working day (and likely during your free time as well). Among other things, virtual assistants can act as receptionists and take important calls from prospects and clients while you’re busy focusing on the nuts and bolts elements of optimizing your business.

This alone grants you a bit of space to breath, without worrying that you’re going to have to mentally recall a series of spreadsheets over the phone at a moment’s notice.

That’s not all, however. Virtual assistants can also handle some of the busy-work involved in maintaining your business. They can prepare presentations for you, fill in expense reports, and carry out research that you need for a big project.

Some, such as author Tim Ferris, have even used virtual assistants to manage elements of their personal lives that would otherwise be time-consuming. For example, researching holiday destinations.

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Look into ways of generating passive income

The phrase “passive income” has been thrown around a lot over the years, and a lot of people have become rightly jaded and suspicious of the idea that they can ever expect to sit around at home doing nothing while getting rich.

While you shouldn’t expect money for nothing, however, there are ways of monetizing elements of your business that can result in you growing your income at the cost of very little effort.

If you run a successful blog or high-traffic website, for example, advertising affiliate links for products you find useful can mean you draw in some commission from curious visitors who feel inclined to make a purchase.

If your company involves a lot of direct B2C marketing, you might also find it useful to create a YouTube channel with occasional informative vlogs, and eventually monetize these videos through ads.

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Apply a proven project management system

Being as organized as possible, and always being mindful of what the most important next-action for any project is, is one of the best ways of streamlining your business by far.

While even a checklist on a sheet of paper is better than nothing, there are serious benefits to using tried and tested project management systems such as David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” method, in order to properly identify, categorize, and prioritize your tasks and obligations.