How Much Time Does it Take to Start an Online Business?

Time may be one of the biggest obstacles when it comes to people starting their online business. I explore just how much time you need to get started today.

Do I Have The Time to Start an Online Business?

Good question, well let’s take about the great equalizer that is time. Certainly, you have just as much time as anyone else – 24 hours. No matter how much you try you can’t make more of it. You can’t buy more of it and one day without you having any say in the matter, you simply won’t have any left.

This seems almost cruel, but a fact of life nonetheless.

This is why I referred to it as the great equalizer. It really doesn’t make a difference who you are – you’ve got 24 hours in a day.

If You Can’t Control The Time What Can You Control?

You can control the following:

• Your Productivity
• What you do in your time
• The choice to waste it or use it

What we learn is that we can’t control the amount of time, but we can control how we experience it. In doing so we can control what we achieve in that time. If we want we can think of our activities in this time as an investment in ourselves as opposed to simply letting it run through our fingers and never to gain anything from this lost time.

What Do You Have Time For That Doesn’t Serve You?

I bet if you ask yourself this question honestly, you maybe feel just a little bit bad about it.

You’ll find a lot of people don’t have time for things that benefit them, like going to the gym, planning how they eat, doing an online course, and so on. Yet magically these same people do have time for Netflix, YouTube, playing video games, chatting on some social media app and a whole myriad of other mindless activities that we choose to pursue.

If you added up all the time you spent on these activities, I’d imagine you’d be shocked at just how much time you use on them.

Simply by becoming aware of it, you learn almost immediately that you could change your attention from one mindless activity to one mindful activity.

You may be the exception, but the fact you’re reading this article is an indication that you do have some time to choose to spend on things that may benefit you. Am I right?

Don’t Get me Wrong

I’m not for one second suggesting you give up all your mindless use of time. I’m not saying you stop all these activities. In a funny way, a lot of these activities give our life a sense of pleasure and maybe we attribute that to a sense of purpose.

What I am saying however is that if you choose, you can be a little more selective. You can get off the default mode and choose the conscious mode.

How Much Time Does it Take to Start an Online Business?

Now, let’s say you choose to spend your time more consciously. How much of it would you have to spend on starting an online business?

I’ll cut this short and get right to the point.

You will need between 1 to 2 hours per day to start an online business.

If you are like a lot of people out there, you will find that you spend way more than 2 hours doing things that don’t serve you on a daily basis.

Why not cut back on these activities and allow some time for the activities that serve you?

You’ll need two hours dedicated to the simple process that is:

• Learn
• Do
• Teach

If you can just commit to one to two hours per day you’ll find that there are so many resources out there, that will give you the structure you need to ensure that those 1-2 hours are spent effectively.

The Impact of Sustained Effort Over Time

In a short time you’ll feel the fact that these hours are contributing to something bigger. Before you know it in a week you’ve dedicated 14 hours, in a month 60 hours. In a year 720 hours. All dedicated to your online business.

Before you had nothing to show for those 720 hours plus. Now you have something in front of you. You have a website, a mailing list, leads, customers, sales a possibility of a brighter future.

And why? All because you decided to cut back on the amount of time you waste doing activities that you completely forgot about and don’t have anything to show for?

Really that’s why you are preventing yourself from starting an online business because you’d rather watch re-runs of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. on Netflix.

Just remember Ross and Rachel couldn’t care less about your dreams.

That 720 hours is of course not a fixed number, it could be double that, it could be half that. It really doesn’t matter. The fact is, you need to aim for about 1 to 2 hours per day to have enough impact to create your very own online business.

How is Your Relationship to Time?

I know time is a common excuse for not starting things. But the truth is that it rarely is a genuine excuse. The fact is it’s your relationship to time which is the problem.

Your relationship to time has caused you to develop habits, that may have served you at some point in your life. Now they are not serving you so much. Now they are getting in your way. Now it’s time to develop new habits that will enrich your life. Now it’s time to start your online business.