Time Management
Ever asked yourself, where does the time go?
It seems that this hectic lifestyle in which we live, many in internet business have the complaint, "there's just not enough time in the day" to get all the work required done. This proves especially true with companies running their internet business like a one man band, as many do. This is why time management is an extremely important factor in producing quantitive, yet quality results, day in day out.
Research suggests that more than half of our lives (on average) is a waste of time.
We spend 5 years standing in line.
2 years trying to return telephone calls.
8 months opening direct mail.
6 years eating food.
1 year looking for misplaced objects.
4 years doing general household chores.
25 years sleeping.
Out of an 80 year life span a total of 43 years are consumed with trivial, boring tasks that seem to occupy the majority of our free time. With another 20 years being consumed by work it leaves little time to the imagination if you don't have a daily time management system in place.
So I ask you this.
How many of the 30,000 odd days of our life do you spend on the pursuit of your interests, dreams and self satisfactions?
In a business sense, our only limited resource is time. So how much money we make is a direct reflection of how we use our time.
The clock is ticking, put it to good use.
Memory & Images
The subconscious mind, more commonly referred to in the field of psychology as the unconscious mind, not only stores words and memories of a literal sense, but this generally untapped realm of the mind also has an images folder. Automatically the unconscious mind takes a capture shot and attaches it to the corresponding literal aspect of the moment.
More times than not from an internet marketing perspective, in my research, the memory that a potential client forms of a visit to your website is primarily created by the images they see, the words these images convey are autonomously sucked up by the unconscious mind to form a relevant or not so relevant memory.
This giving some stable meaning to the age old saying "a picture paints a thousand words".
So if you were thinking before reading this article that the look and feel of your website is inconsequential or secondary to the literal content conveyed, think again!
So if you want to instil a relevant memory of your website in your visitors mind don't overlook the power of creative imagery. If you don't make an impression with your imagery then a not so relevant memory will be formed and filed DEEP in the shadow realms of your potential customers unconscious mind, never to be retrieved again.
Focussing The Minds Of Others In The Direction You Want
Here are a couple of quick exercises that prove a point.
Exercise #1 - Close your eyes momentarily and for the period of approximately 1 minute I want you to do try and achieve the following.
Do NOT think of a black dog for 1 minute. Do it now.
Did you have major difficulty NOT thinking of that black dog for a whole minute? No matter how hard you tried that damn black dog just kept running on into your mind right?
Exercise #2 - Close your eyes momentarily and for the period of approximately 1 minute I want you to do try and achieve the following.
I want you to think of a red rose for 1 minute. Do it now.
This task was relatively easy huh? Now to the point of the exercise..
The focusing of the red rose was relatively easy enough, the second exercise also holds the key to the first exercise of NOT focusing on the black dog. The most effective way to NOT think of something is to think of something else.
Most importantly, we need to be aware that not thinking of something actually focuses the goal oriented part of the mind on that very thing, just as effectively as if you had chosen to think of it directly.
One can observe the principle of this exercise at work very effectively when parents walk their children home from school, they tell their children NOT to jump in the puddles right? But almost as if you could set a clock by it, your kids are back doing exactly what you told them NOT to do, yep they are jumping in the puddles.
By the parent saying to their children, don't jump in the puddles, this draws the kids attention directly to the puddles and in they go. Then the parents have the cheek to get upset at the children after they have quite effectively, if somewhat unconsciously directed them straight into the puddles.
So how do you keep your children from jumping in the puddles you ask?
Think about it for a moment. The mind is a goal orientated decision making tool, you want the mind to focus away from the puddles, where do you want the mind to go? On the dry ground of course, so the effective thing to say is "keep on the dry ground", this focuses the mind of the child on the dry ground and not on the puddles.
Have you ever seen a child carrying a full bowl of soup? What is the natural reaction?
You shout "don't spill the bowl of soup" right? But by doing so, what has the child's mind registered?
Yes, you are telling him to spill the soup by focusing his mind on spilling it, then there is insult added to injury when you say "you clumsy kid, why didn't you do what I told you"? So not only does the child feel guilty for making a mess, he or she then gets a negative affirmation as well.
So how do you get the child to NOT spill the soup? Think what do I want the child's mind to do and the answer is "keep the soup bowl level".
Focus the mind towards the required task, invariably this will focus their mind away from the negative result that you instilled in their mind.
This is a very powerful psychological concept that can be effectively implemented into your internet marketing campaigns. If you want your customers to do something, maybe telling them not to do it may be more effective in certain situations, definitely "food for the taught". This approach would also help to instil one of the most powerful action emotions also, curiosity :)
Two very different sides to the same coin, sit and ponder on this theory for a while, think of the many possibilities and how you could make it work for you and your internet marketing campaigns.
About the Author
About The Author – Written by Steven Hands “The Mind Manipulation Marketer”. Come join Steven’s free monthly newsletter @ http://www.hypopticmarketing.com and implement these powerful psychological triggers into your internet marketing game.