Being Consistent vs Trying Everything at Once
As a Marketer, it’s easy to try to do everything at once for Marketing. However, that creates something called “Analysis Paralysis,” basically making it where you end up doing nothing because you don’t know what to do or where to start. In the end, nothing gets done, even though you wanted to do everything.
There’s another way to do it, and it’s way more effective (plus, you can still get everything done that you want, essentially). That method is called planning. Yes, it’s a very simple method, but it works. You can’t get everything done in a single day, so plan it all into your week instead. Maybe you can’t write 10 Medium posts in a day every day (I tried, trust me, it’s too high of a goal). Instead, pace it out. Say that you want to do a social media post every other day, a Medium post three times a week, a post on Indie Hackers three times a week, a blog post twice a week, client work every day, etc. Things become much more manageable. You not only feel like you accomplished a lot, you actually do accomplish a lot, and it will show.
Planning what you do each day will also (eventually) become secondhand to you, making your routine even more fruitful. I printed out what I have to accomplish each day for the two organizations I run, and it is making me already more productive.
What Happens If My Routine Changes?
It’s OK if your routine has to change.
All you have to do is make changes to the electronic version of your schedule and then print it out again, replacing that old one. There’s no shame in changing your schedule — the main thing is to just keep doing what you need to do. It keeps you from procrastinating. You may also want to keep it in a project management tool so you can check off everything you’ve already done.
What If I Give Up Certain Parts of the Routine?
That’s OK, as well. Just like if your routine changes, realizing there’s something on your list of things to do that’s not so effective is OK. The big thing is that you tried. If it’s not fruitful, find something else that’s effective to take its place. Maybe a certain social media channel you had been posting to isn’t working anymore, or lost its popularity and effectiveness. The good thing is that you realized it and didn’t waste time by continuously posting to it for no good reason. It’s always a good practice to measure your activities and results to make decisions based on facts not based on opinions (or abstract trends).
