Online Communities | Articles

Building and maintaining websites is a lot of hard work. No doubt you have a mental ‘to-do’ list which you refer to when deciding what area of your site to work on next. Whilst this may work for some people, you will probably find that writing down what needs to done as well as when you will do it will be the most effective motivator possible.

Set yourself targets to motivate yourself

I have a problem when it comes to motivating myself. It certainly helps to set myself targets – these could be daily, weekly or monthly targets for larger projects. I would try not to set your targets too far into the future as you will only find yourself putting them off until nearer the time.

An example of targets

If you run a community website, how about setting yourself targets such as:

• I will have x new members by the end of the month
• I will have x new backlinks by the end of the month
• I will post x new articles on my site each week

If you set yourself targets, give yourself a firm deadline. If you do not reach your goals, figure out why. Use failure as a learning tool – don’t give up, set yourself a new target and work towards that.

Keep your targets challenging but achievable – when you have clear goals to work towards you will have more motivation, and the sense of achievement obtained when you succeed in meeting your goals will spurn you on to even greater success.