Time management is a skill that is relevant to a lot of people, from parents and college students to CEOs and small business owners. Time management is especially crucial for people who work from home because there are no set hours, there's no boss to supervise your work, and there are a whole lot of television shows waiting to be watched.

When it comes to online marketing, there are a lot of activities that seem like work, but really aren't. For example, you might enjoy interacting with people on Twitter. Sending out your own tweets doesn't take too much time, but if you were to start replying to other people's tweets, the minutes would pile up and turn into an hour or two. Relationship building is important, but if you spend all day on Twitter, then you won't really get anything else done.

Another big mistake is equating the checking of email to being productive. Most online marketers are subscribed to dozens of lists and may be working on projects which involve a lot of email communication with clients or partners. This means that in any given day, you may be getting tens or even hundreds of emails. If you don't regularly clear your inbox, then you could easily spend an entire day just reading and responding to emails. While you can't just start ignoring your emails, you can't turn into a slave to them either. Set aside a reasonable amount of time per day for emails and stick to it so that you don't end up spending valuable time doing something that won't make you any money.

This applies to anyone who is busy or merely forgetful, but creating a to-do list will help you remember what you need to do and when it needs to get done. As online marketers, we have a ton of things that need doing and tons of ideas swishing around in our brains that need to be manifested into action. It's impossible to remember everything, so write it down. One time management tip that has been particularly useful to me is to create a "to do" list every evening before going to bed. This allows you to free your brain of clutter and get a good, relaxing sleep.

There are a lot of things that need to get done in an Internet marketer's business, but a lot of them are tedious, boring, and tremendous wastes of time, especially for people who are already making a decent amount of money. Examples of necessary tasks that aren't a good use of your time are things like graphic design, link building, and customer service. Sure, you could do all this yourself, but if you don't know how to do something like graphic design or if you find your time could be better spent doing something else, then pay someone else to do it. By delegating tasks to other people, you're freeing up yourself to do things which stimulate your brain, things that you enjoy doing, or things that are more profitable. Sure you may be paying quite a bit to outsource, but if you know what you're doing, it'll be a good investment: money for time.