Building a website is much different than building other parts of your business. You may not even have a physical location surrounding you forcing you to be focused — when you’re home, or in a cafe, the distractions of social media or email can be a constant nag pulling you away from your studies. To help you build the best website possible, follow these five tips to stay focused on your end goal.
Identify your most productive time of day
Effective work requires finding when you are the most productive. This is the period of the day when your mind is the most alert, and you have an easy time getting into the zone with your material. This may be first thing in the morning, when you’re fresh and haven’t had an entire day’s worth of Slack messages and Zoom calls clouding your mind.
For others, this might be in the evening — after the typical work day is done and you can settle in without worry about a new email or message coming in every few minutes.
Whatever time of day is for you, the most important thing is to stick to it. If you work great in the early afternoons but only manage to block off one day per week during that time period, you’re going to be hardpressed to see any real progress. If you need to study three days per week, block off the same time period during the three days, and hold yourself to it.
Set SMART Work Goals
When I build Live Lingua, I set actionable goals that I could measure each day. This helped me continue with the process, no matter how slow the coding or developing seemed at times.
This common acronym can be used for yiur goal-setting on a daily basis:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-based
So, what does this mean for you as a business owner who needs a website?
You need to set yourself attainable goals that won’t discourage you from making a bit of progress each day.
Before beginning work on the site, jot down what you plan to accomplish that day. If it is multi-faceted, b
Identify similar websites that inspire you
There are billions of webpages on the internet. You might be an incredibly talented business owner and maybe even a decent developer, but odds are someone else has a similar website — and there’s no need to reinvent the wheel.
Before you begin building your site, look up similar websites in your niche or business and figure out who is doing it well. Identify the themes you like, anything you want to emulate on your site, and make some notes on how to go about doing so. You will approach your own development more focused and motivated because you already know that what you want to do is possible.
Hire a coder or developer
If all of this is too much for you, consider outsourcing the work. The web is full of talented coders, developers, designers, and UIUX professionals who can build you a great looking website quickly. You’ll have to pay a couple grand — but will have the keys delivered with the engine running.
Or if that price point is too high, you can always use a template provided by WordPress. That way, building your themed website will be easy and can be done in a matter of hours, rather than a matter of weeks.
Don’t forget to relax!
We’re all familiar with the term ‘burn out.’ When it comes to studying, particularly online, this refers to an inability to see progress or to focus because your mind has simply had enough — and it isn’t able to operate effectively on the task at hand.
You need time to rest the mind and relax, what we call ‘downtime,’ which leaves the brain free from direct and extended focus on complex tasks and gives it time to recharge.