I seem to get all my internet marketing ideas when I’m lying in bed at night. It’s funny, because I can be sitting at the computer for 7 hours during the day and feel like I don’t know what to do or where to go next, but get into bed and you can be sure that within 10 minutes of thought I know EXACTLY what to do - and I’ll have 10 business ideas all come to me at once.

I put it down to it being the one place when I can really think straight without distractions. You can become so wrapped up in individual tasks such as posting on your blog, answering emails, etc, that you can lose all sense of perspective. But when you’re in a silent, dark room, it becomes easy for it to all make sense. What are you trying to achieve? What is your target market, and how will you reach them? Where are you going?

Sometimes it’s just a case of needing to switch off. There becomes a point where you’ve simply had enough for the day and it’s impossible to do any more. Wake up the next morning and things take a new perspective.

Which is why I believe the bedroom can actually be more useful than the office.

As I’m writing this, I don’t want to sound like some sad geek, because the bedroom definitely IS for other things too : -)

But ‘being in bed’ with internet marketing is actually helping me greatly right now - just through thinking and reflection.

Ok, so it’s not actually taking action, but clarifying your thoughts is an immensly powerful thing. You need to know WHAT you’re doing in order to be able to actually do it. Kind of obvious I know, but everything you do should be towards an end purpose, and when you can think of that end purpose on it’s own then it becomes much easier to think of what you need to do to get there.

Everything is either short or long term. Ok, so in the short term your goal might be to build a mailing list for example, but what do you want to do with that mailing list once you’ve created it, and is the thing you’re doing right now related to that? Maybe it feels like it at the time, but look back on it after and maybe it doesn’t seem like such a great idea. Internet marketing is a series of jigsaw pieces that all fit together at some point, but sometimes the pieces just don’t fit - but it takes reflection to realise it.

So spend a few minutes at the end of the day (or the beginning) and reflect on your business. I find it really really powerful, and it gives me tons of ideas that I simply can’t think of when I’m wrapped up in the individual pieces and day-to-day tasks. It’s an over-used cliche, but sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees, and spending those few minutes can help to stop you going down a path that leads to nowhere.

More soon - and as ever you’re always welcome to leave me a comment.

Dan