One thing that fascinates me about web entrepreneurs and marketers like Joe Vitale, Yanik Silver and Terry Dean is how incredibly productive they are. They seem to create a near constant stream of information products like e-books, special reports, courses, software and compact discs.

On top of that, they juggle all daily activities required by anyone running a small business.

If you have resources, you can hire employees or contract workers. But I think most web entrepreneurs prefer to keep their businesses as “solo operations.”

But handling everything yourself requires maximum efficiency.

I certainly have my own techniques for time management, but I asked for feedback from other entrepreneurs. Here’s some of their solutions.

”I always take about 30 minutes to an hour to look at my emails at beginning of day” says Stephanie Hetu (http://www.stephaniehetu.com) “Then, after that, I try to look at my emails again only every 2 hours or so.

“When I started online I used to look at my emails every 10 minutes, this was very time consuming and counter-productive because you end up spending more time reading than actually BUILDING your business.”

However, not everybody thinks checking email first thing is a good idea.

“I always devote first hour of day to revenue producing activities,” says Bill Hibbler of RudlReport (http://www.rudlreport.com) “I never check email or voice mail until after that hour is completed.

“If you open your email first and find a refund request or a customer with a big tech support problem, it tends to stay on your mind and distract you from task at hand.”

DETERMINE YOUR PEAK ENERGY PERIOD

One technique I used to help to me reach maximum efficiency was to figure out when my brain was most creative.

For me, that’s morning. During hours of 9 am to noon, I do most of my creative tasks, such as writing my articles, editing my ezine, working on sales copy, or coming up with new marketing ideas for my website.

My energy sags between noon and about 2:30pm. I use this time to do less mentally taxing activities. Answering email, fixing a typo on a web page or uploading pictures.

By Denise Hall (c) 2003

We all know scams abound on internet. The types we're probably most familiar with are "get rich quick" schemes and "Nigerian scam" letters. If you're smart and you've done your homework you'll steer clear of both.

But other types of fraudulent activity take place that we don't think about as often. In fact, we might not think about them at all until it happens to us or someone we know.

Do you know how easy it is for someone to steal your credit or debit card number and buy things that *you'll* be charged for?

True Story:

A friend of mine recently found a purchase on her debit card that neither she, nor her husband, had made. $75 was *stolen* from their bank account!

True Story:

Another friend discovered two $38 charges on her credit card statement that she hadn't made. The purchases had been made over internet, but she had never bought anything online. Actually, only thing she *ever* used that particular credit card for was to put gas in her car!

Did you know that customers can order a product or service from you, receive what they paid for, then tell their bank, credit card company or third party internet payment processor that they *never* made that purchase?

True Story:

*Two* of my friends, who own ad co-ops, received orders from customers for ezine advertising. The ads went out to ezine readers, then customers claimed they hadn't made purchases!