The attractiveness of creating an independent business and motivating forces for doing so should be positive, but why you may ask is it so attractive to start your own business?

Not wanting to dwell on myself, I must in fairness must give you an indication of where "I am coming from" and why I feel so keenly about helping people who are looking at prospects for going into business on their own account.

I trained as an engineer and worked initially in Research & Development. Gradually realising that there was a lot more to business I acquired additional skills through reading, courses and seminars and progressively gained experience working through line management in Customer Services, Sales and Commercial Departments steadily progressing up Corporate Ladder.

Ultimately as a Company Chairman/CEO I led a Management Buy Out and left a number of companies in a far better condition than I found them. Learned a lot on way.

At this stage I realised that life could be better if I went into business on my own account using my skills and experience.

1990 saw founding of my own Business Consultancy Practice, helping individuals and business owners to achieve their goals. My life got better.

More job satisfaction through meeting and helping others of a like mind, more money and more control over my life and time.

Many others from a corporate background have also proved that opportunities for ambitious individuals to independently succeed are now better than ever. The statistics also confirm it.

External conditions have changed so dramatically in last 20 years that a new entrepreneurial age has dawned. Now is surely time to work in your own business!

Why a new entrepreneurial age? Corporate Institutions have to go Global to compete and survive in ‘Global Economy' There has been and continues to be massive change affecting us all. Have you heard phrase "the only constant is change"?

At same time while development of computers and internet have been helping to fuel globalisation, computer and internet have also been creating opportunities for individuals worldwide to succeed in their own businesses.

Then, of course, there is this sports news that you must read, stock portfolio that you must check constantly, vacation place you need to choose for your next holidays, list goes on and on, and what about those emails? Sounds familiar! You are not alone! Most of Internet users are in same boat.

If you feel trapped and frustrated with your handling of time spent online, you need to stand back, take a break, and look into problem from a different perspective. Actually, what you need is more than a break; you need a balanced approach to your Internet activities. In order to understand where you online time goes, first thing you should do is log everything that you do on Internet for several days.

Log your online activities

If you scrupulously write down everything you do on Internet for a day, you will, truly, be amazed to see how much time you waste on unnecessary things like reading spam, browsing through inconsequential websites, etc.

By thoroughly analyzing your online activities with help of logs you make, you will be able to pinpoint and resolve problems – online activities that are unproductive and time wasters. The idea is to stay focused and do things that you ought to do and stay out of impulsive moves.

To do lists

Like your daily life, you should make a “To Do” list of things you need to do on Internet. First, make a list of all tasks that you have to do online including routine activities like checking emails, etc. A generic activity such as working with your emails should be broken down into small tasks – answering to a specific email, making an online order for office supplies, etc. Add every single job related to Internet to this list. Once you created list, sort it according to priority. This becomes your master list of online tasks. Select tasks you are planning to do in a day. Transfer those tasks to a separate list.

Make sure this list is precise and not too long, so that you can finish most of tasks from list - at least ones with high priority – within chosen day. Armed with this list you will be able to tackle problem of productive use of your online time with confidence.

Resources Many major portals have free personal information management programs that you can be used to create daily schedules and to do lists.