Today, I want to give you some actionable ideas as to how you can improve the way you work online, by sharing a process that has helped me work faster and more efficiently and lay the foundations for some awesome projects I’ve got boiling.

Recently I spent some important time redefining my priorities: both online and in the real world. Much of this has involved identifying elements that drain my time and focus with little return – the old 80:20 rule.

I’m feeling really positive about this, and I hope I can pass some of that on to you, even if you just apply one tip from below to your work life.

I warn you, it’s a long post. Here’s what I’ve done over the last month…

I LET SOME PROJECTS GO

I let a handful of good domains expire that I’d bought with the best intentions to monetise. I didn’t even sell them!

I no longer have any regular freelance clients on my books – I’m not averse to taking any on, but I have a clearer idea of what is (and isn’t) mutually benficial to both parties.

There was one project that was very difficult to let go: a joint venture with a friend that was starting to make money and had the potential to scale nicely. In the end we decided the full revenue would benefit him far more and I stepped out.

The end result has been a massive weight lifted from my shoulders, and a resolution not to spread myself too thinly again.

I DELETED MY TWITTER ACCOUNT!

Twitter is a double-edged sword: on one hand it’s a direct connection to so many people, and so much information, and on the other hand it’s a direct connection to so many people, and so much information.

You see what I did there ;) Twitter is also as addictive as crack-flavoured Ferrero Rocher.

One morning recently, I woke up with a burning conviction to reclaim some of my productivity and decided to go cold turkey: I completely, and irreversably, deleted my Twitter account.

In short, I realised that the time and effort Twitter required of me was not proportionate to what it gave back.

Now, I realise some people have built a great deal of their industry reputation through consistent Twitter activity, but honestly ask yourself if you’re on Twitter every couple of minutes then what else are you actually doing?

I REASSESSED MY USE OF EMAIL

Remember that childhood excitment on recieving a letter? I’ll bet adult life has replaced that with the knowledge that 99% of letters you recieve are bills or junk mail.

Email has become a very similar medium – 99% of my inbox consisted of newsletters from the myriad of web services I’ve signed up to over the years, or one-sided requests for marketing help.

My ideal inbox is one that contains only these:

• Communications from project teams I’m actively working on
• Purchase Reciepts
• Alerts (e.g. if my server falls over, or if traffic drops below a threshold)
• The odd personal email from friends and family
• Emails from affiliate networks telling me they are increasing my commissions and sending me another Maserati

I UNSUBSCRIBED FROM EMAIL LISTS

In the space of 2 days I have unsubscribed from Amazon, Maplin, Ebay, Confused, Play, Linkedin, Sprouter, Unique Blog Designs, Market Samurai, Liverpool Airport Parking ffs and more, simply because their emails offered absolutely no value to me.

Those that didn’t allow me to unsubscribe easily have been marked as spam (Play and Confused for example) for Gmail to deal with in the background.

EMAIL NOW WORKS FOR ME (not the other way around!)

I now use my unread items as a general to-reply list – type in:unread into Gmail – and when I’ve actioned an email I mark it as read. I now try to respond to emails immediately when possible… my replies are usually one of three things:

• Confirmation that I have done something
• A polite reply that I’m unable/unwilling to do something
  (although I usually offer friendly advice – i.e. pay me, speak to this guy, use a certain tool)
• A quick reply to say I’ve recieved their email, and will get around to actioning it within timeframe X

I avoid this final type of email wherever possible, simply because:

• I hate holding back a project because a bottleneck step rests with me
• I would like other people to complete their bottleneck steps as soon as possible, and I aim to be an example
• My peace of mind is directly linked to the length of my to-do list

I CLEANED MY DESKTOP

I used to use my Windows desktop as a workspace to save documents to, with the best intentions to move them to their rightful folders at some later, unspecified date. As you can imagine this never happened!

Now, I use my desktop as a zen-like starting place that focuses me on the task at hand. It only contains shortcuts for the functions I heavily use:

• Advanced Web Ranking
• My Desktop
• My Network Places
• Recycle Bin

…along with Calvin Coolidge’s wise words on persistence:

“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. “

My browsers (FF, IE8,7,6 and Chrome) are in my Quick Launch bar along with SciTE, the only text-editor you will ever need (except perhaps Darkroom).

This tip has to go hand-in-hand with a new resolution to file your documents with discipline and logic so you can find them again. I use a 1.5TB external hard drive for all my documents – whilst my installed programs which live on my internal hard drive – this allows me to move to another computer and take my familar folder structure with me.

I REGAINED CONTROL OF INSTANT MESSAGING

I used to get bombarded with frequent requests to Digg this or Stumble that. This, along with my friends being only a click away to chat, simply had to go.

Skype and Digsby (probably Adium or Pidgin for you Ubuntu or Mac-boys) are now tools I boot up only when I’ve pre-arranged to chat with someone; they don’t stay open in the system tray, pinging me relentlessly.

I ORGANISED MY START MENU

My Start Menu looks like this now – it’s logical, short and a pleasure to use. My Start Menu has now almost totally replaced my desktop icons.

I UNINSTALLED MY VIDEO GAMES

I’ve always been a PC gamer as opposed to consoles, but this has meant having my games installed on the computer that I work from… Peggle was the first to go! I also uninstalled Steam, which is just too much of a temptation to re-install old games.

The only game I’ve kept is the Witcher; and only because I’m close to finishing it!

I IMPROVED MY PASSWORD MANAGEMENT

Anyone who aims to make money online will have built up a daunting collection of login details for the websites they use. You can’t be an SEO, affiliate, adsenser, dropshipper or article marketer without juggling accounts and passwords. This creates two problems:

1. Security

If you’re simply remembering your passwords, then chances are you have between 4 and 8 combinations that you use consistently; you know this is an accident waiting to happen but you risk it every time you sign up to a new service with the same details.

2. Recollection

Or lack of it. Being productive is all about getting into the flow of something and having to find your passwords is a sure-fire way to break that focus. Even worse is when you can’t access a critical service because you hit the 3-try lockout!

I now use Roboform to encrypt and store all my passwords, as well as share them across all my computers. I can only imagine the time and frustration this program has saved me. There’s a free ten-password version if you fancy trying it out. I’m sure there’s Mac/Linux alternatives too if you’re a doting fanboy of either ;)

I FOUND A TO-DO LIST THAT MATCHES MY PERSONALITY

My day is too short to aimlessly meander with the hope I’ll achieve an objective. To-do lists are essential for me, but badly implemented they can errode my focus rather than sharpen it.

I recently discovered and fell in love with TeuxDeux – an intuitive web-based to-do list that beats everything else I’ve tried. Now I add all my tasks, and whichever ones are not completed today will be automatically moved onto tomorrow’s list. This is awesome for me, because I was well-known for finding forgotten to-do lists in my jeans pockets on washday.

Also, it’s an awesome to see all the completed tasks stacking up: in fact, it actually encourages more produtivity.

I RUTHLESSLY PRUNED MY RSS SUBSCRIPTIONS

I’m a big fan of RSS in Google Reader – I log in every morning and quickly scan down the list of new posts from bloggers I respect. But in reality, very few of these posts offer anything new and even fewer offer real, actionable insights into making money or achieving goals. Most offer nothing except appeal to my fear of missing some important tip, only to be fed some re-packaged best-practice guide on optimising my dog for Wordpress and attracting more comments from Twitter.

Some resources are just too good to lose however, so I cut my RSS reader down to just these:

• Viperchill
• Smart Passive Income
• Problogger
• Copyblogger
• Sugarrae
  (I’m in two minds about keeping this one, but I appreciate brutal honesty)
• Duct Tape Marketing
• SEO Book

From this point on, every website is going to have to invest in me before it will earn a place in my RSS reader.

CONCLUSION

This whole process has taken quite a lot of time, and has ironically distracted me from getting things done, BUT I consider it a worthwhile investment. This has been my stitch-in-time that will hopefully save nine, or something equally cliche. Already I feel I can think far clearer, work more efficiently and rest easier.

The process is far from finished, and here are a few things I’m still looking to achieve:

• Avoid any and all Flash games
• Stop visiting Reddit – There is no greater time-suck than this.
• Learning to say no more… read The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey
• Further developing a mindset of prioritisation

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this, and that you can find something valuable to add to your own approach.

I also hope you’ll leave a comment with your thoughts/additions/criticisms :)