The truth is however I’ve been spreading myself over many different projects and it’s not fair to any one of them. There comes a time when you have to take a step back and look at what you are doing, which parts you enjoy and where you plan on going with everything.

I’m at a stage now, that when a friend asked the name of all of my websites, I could not list every one. I understand that it is good to spread your bets and have a varied portfolio of “online real estate” but it’s also important to have focus. It’s all too easy to have another great idea and throw something up to get started with a new website as the barrier of entry is so low. The truth that I have come to realise however is there are hidden costs. These are the costs associated with things like your time and energy.

The Internet Marketing Plug-Hole Plan

1. Have a great idea
2. Register Website
3. Create product/service
4. Reach Profitability
5. Have another great idea
6. Forget previous project
7. Start the process all over

It’s like trying to build a castle but every time you build the gate you decide to create another. It was never the plan to end up with a collection of gates, but if you don’t have the process in place for things to carry on growing without you, once you move on to the next, that’s all you’re going to get.

In the next period of weeks I will be phasing out a few of my websites, mainly old reports etc, working to bring others together and ultimately create a better experience for the both of us. As I go through this process I thought I would share story with you in hopes that some of my readers may take note of how they are working and perhaps see some similarities. I couldn’t be speaking about you, could I?

The problem is I started noticing that my day was being filled up with distractions rather than ways to increase efficiency. This is not at all a dig at the 30DC but rather a warning for those of you just getting into social media. Be very careful and selective of your usage, What I had gotten into was quite the opposite and it was seriously taking up my time. To put this in perspective before I go in fully, previous studies have shown It takes 25 minutes for you to regain focus on an activity after an interruption.

You may or may not have heard of Twhirl but essentially it’s just a desktop application that provides you with up to the minute notifications of updates by people you follow on FriendFeed and Twitter. I had this program running the entire time I was on the computer, The Result? Every few minutes that all too familiar update sound would play and a little message would appear in the bottom right of my screen. Sometimes I would read the Tweet, sometimes I’d even end up clicking through to a link and reading an entire blog post.

Learning new things is all well and good but it was happening so often that I’d be getting distracted half the time I was logged on. Couple that with the time to get back into a task properly I was working at full capacity about 0% of the time I spent on the PC. You read that right, even though I was getting some things done and of course I was constantly ‘developing’ through these little snippets of information, I was effectively taking my work rate to that of Sloth. Scary hey?

With so many of these tools to make life easier it’s so easy to get wrapped up and not realise what’s happening right in front of your eyes. So what’s the solution to this information overload? To get the most out of your efforts either, Set yourself a specific time period for it’s use or Only use it for specific tasks at a time. I still like the ease of use and extra functionality that Twhirl can provide. Except now I’ve decided to use it for a specific period each day rather than have it interrupting me at every opportunity.

As to the effectiveness of cutting out the noise just look at this post It’s been a good couple weeks since I got around to adding an update to this blog. I won’t blame that entirely on social media, I have taken on an extra project as well. But it has certainly played it’s part and now it’s time for me to get Super-Efficient payback with my NEW Information Diet, WOW!

Buzz words aside, cut the noise pollution and it’s like being set free. I’ve finally realised another piece of the puzzle that made my recent times spent traveling feel so different, not only was a I light on baggage. Life was light on the mind, I wasn’t being constantly bombarded with information 24/7 and with limited internet usage, every minute counts. If you can take that approach and apply it in your daily life, in most cases I don’t see how it can have a bad effect.