The Eternal Internet Marketing Question: Focus On One Thing or Multitask and Work on Multiple Things at Once?

Here’s a question that I think 95% (or more) of internet marketers have asked themselves at one point in time… Should I put all my efforts into one project/method or should I multitask and work on multiple methods at once.  If you haven’t asked yourself this you are either brilliant or a moron.  This is a question I have asked myself many times over and each time I’ve come to the same conclusion, but I may just be switching in the near future for a while.  If you’ve ever considered this question or you are considering it right now let me give you my two cents on the topic.  You don’t have to agree, we can certainly agree to disagree, but I find by listening to other people’s opinions there is usually at least a point or two I can take away that I may have not considered (or not considered to the same degree).  Here we go…

I myself multitask.  I at any time have 10 different projects I’m working on.  None of them are going to be the scope of the next Facebook, but none of them are as basic as “build 10 backlinks today”.  There are quite a few reasons why I feel like multitasking is right for me…

1.  I don’t put all my eggs in one basket.  If I spent 2 months working on only one project and it doesn’t turn out as planned I have nothing to show for my two months of time.  Time is money, right?  But if I am working on 10 projects and after two months I can fail at 7 projects, but if 3 of them are making money than I just grew my business and it was time well spent.  But if I had only picked one out of those 10 projects to focus on I would have had a 70% chance at picking a loser. 

2.  It helps keep your mind fresh.  Sometimes it can get stale for me if I’m doing the same type of work consistently.  By having different projects it breaks up my work day and keeps me from zoning out or slowing down.

3.  I learn a lot more.  I’m able to write about a lot of different topics on Anticareer because I take on a lot of projects.  I’m able to absorb a lot of information on different areas, and I’m also able to combine different areas or methods into something unique because of the knowledge base I’ve grown. 

4.  Continuous income.  Even if your one project works out and brings in income today who is to say that something won’t change in a few months and that method will die.  Because I have a lot of eggs in my basket, if one or two eggs crack sure I’ll take a little hit on my earnings, but the keyword there is “little”.  I’ll still have a lot of other things going on that are bringing in the cash.

5.  I’m able to cast a wider net to see what works and what doesn’t, how much different methods bring in, and where I need to scale up and where I need to stop investing.  Scaling up is huge, it is one of the smartest things to do, but you need to identify where to scale up.  By having different projects going on at once I can start to see some results and know which ones to scale up immediately.

I’m sure there are more reasons which just aren’t coming to mind right now, but for me this is why I prefer to multitask.  But this is not for everyone.  If you are new to internet marketing I actually recommend that you start out with one project and focus on just that.  Too many people read about 20 different things that they could do and they become too scatterbrained and can’t focus on doing anything.  One you learn how to see a project through from start to completion, you are able to work all facets of the projects, you can get experience in troubleshooting, and you see some success than you can begin to take one 2 projects at a time or 3 projects at a time.  If you find yourself getting flustered, exasperated, accomplishing nothing, and pulling your hair than you have taken too much on and need to work on less projects at once.

One you gain experience you can then begin to scale up by outsourcing the tasks that are simple but mundane to do.  You can use sites like Odesk, Elance, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Fiverr, or another similar site.   You can get people who do a good job at simple things for $1/hour on up.

I did mention that I’m thinking of switching my train of thought in the near future though.  If you are taking on 10 projects at once the projects need to be medium sized at most.  If you want to take on a large scale project than you can’t have other stuff going on.  I’m considering taking on a large scale project because I have a concept that I think could be a big winner.  I already have a lot of sites making me passive income so if I take two months to work on one thing full time and I fail I will be OK financially.  I’m at a point where I can afford that risk of wasted time.  If you need to pay the rent each month and you don’t have passive income yet than you can’t afford to take the risk.  Work hard, build things for the long time, and eventually you’ll get there to.  I’m starving, going to slap some cheese between some slices of bread, butter it up, and have myself about 5 grilled cheese sandwiches.  If you got any tips on why you think focusing on a single project or multitasking is a better way to go feel free to drop a comment below in the comment box and let me know your thoughts.