I’ve recently had some time off and a mates Stag do which was such a laugh seeing some old mates and the stag dressed up as Sacha Baron Cohen’s character Brüno. It was nice time off Affiliate Stuff to clear my head and take a break, but it had me thinking of my family lots because I was missing my little kiddies and my wife. It also made me think about my work life balance.

When I came home to see my daughter getting all teary because I came home (she thought I wasn’t coming back) was so emotional and made me think that I don’t want her to get upset and miss her daddy again, so I’ve made up my mind that I never want to work away from home or work long hours. Now I know Affiliate Marketing can involve a lot of hours but at least at the moment these hours are fitted around family life.

With the A4U expo event in London coming up, I was also thinking would it be good to go, but being away from home for another 3 days and also the expense at £399+vat I think I will give it a miss. I’m sure loads of Affiliates will say its well worth it. I’ve got to think about my family first and my children’s inheritance (thanks theo paphitis for this phrase!)

Affiliate Marketing can get addictive and I’ve seen quite a few Affiliate Blogs and Affiliates on A4U up at all hours but I don’t think it has to be like this. Look at Kirsty and John Lamerton going part time and outsourcing work.

Our goal is still the same and we are getting closer every day to where we want to be, which is earning enough money to cover our current full time incomes but allowing the flexibility to spend more time with the family. We’ll face more challengers along the way I’m sure but its all good.

Did you find this article useful? If so share and enjoy:

After Gary’s great post about how he spends his day I am going to do the same so you can get another perspective on how a part time affiliate spends their day. This is how most week days are spent at the moment. It is a busy day, fitting in a full time job, spending time with the family (which is my favourite part of the day) and putting in some quality hours for affiliate project work. Like Gary I have a young family and that is the most important thing for me.

06.00 – Alarm goes off and I try and see if I can get at least 2 snoozes in before getting up and getting ready for work and sneaking out of the house trying not to wake anyone else up.

06.20 – Pickup lunch made the night before, running kit and laptop and head for work.

06:45 – Arrive at work, grab a shower and get ready to start the working day in my full time job at 7am.

07:00 – Start work on full time job and work through to lunchtime taking the occasional break.

13:00 – Break for a lunchtime run and shower. Usually run between 4.5 and 6 miles. I like to keep fit as well and this does help the concentration levels so run most weekdays.

14:00 – Return from lunchtime run and continue work.

15:30 – Leave work and have 25 minute drive home.

16:00 – Walk in the door to be greeted by my wonderful family. Time to catch up on what they have been doing for the day and relax and spend time with them, have dinner and then think about bed time for the kids.

18:30 – My wife and I take it in turns to bath the kids, read them stories and put them to bed. One night it will be my turn to do my 2 boys (twins), the next it will be my turn to do my daughter.

19:30 – Finish bed time routine, now time to clear up the house and make lunches for the next day for myself and my daughter who is at school. I normally clear up while my wife makes lunches.

20:30 – Start-up Laptop and carry on with Affiliate projects. This normally involves checking emails, site design and content writing. Try not to get too distracted with the T.V. that will be on. Try to focus on good quality work rather than checking accounts and other blog posts too much.

22.30 – 23:00 – Shutdown for the night and try and have half hour to chill out. Normally try and read a book but usually only manage a few pages before falling asleep to get some well earned rest.

This is my routine for most weekdays, although there is room for the odd night out and I also spend some evenings away from the project with my wife, maybe having a takeaway or just chilling out. I actually really enjoy the affiliate work and with a long term goal to work towards don’t mind putting in the hours. I also try and have a couple of nights off a week.

Did you find this article useful? If so share and enjoy:

Affiliate Project has been going now since the end of January 2009. We update this blog with stats and updates on our progress, but came across another part time bloggers site and they asked the question – how do you spend your days as an Affiliate? Thanks Joe (howigotrich.net) for the idea

Myself and Paul (partner in crime, purely Internet Marketing) are constantly talking about how busy we are now we are doing Affiliate Marketing stuff.

So here is my answer, I’m sure Paul will post his in the next few days as he’s having a couple of days off to spend with his family.

5:45am alarm goes off, think shite where is my phone and then quickly hit the snooze button.

6:00am get out of bed, jump in shower to wake myself up, regret staying up late the night before and thinking I spent way too long on the laptop and feel bad for neglecting the misses most of the night.

6:10am chuck on clothes if ironed, otherwise head downstairs, iron clothes, make sandwiches for work, get gym gear ready, then rush to work for 7am

7:00am – meant to be at work as a Tech Support Engineer, suppose to be available for any live calls.

7:10am – whoops, arrived at work, check the Queue for any calls, if no calls, check e-mails and my widgets (buy.at and Affiliate Window) to see any earnings from the day/night before.

9:00am – meet up with Paul for a break aka morning meeting to discuss our daily Affiliate tasks, although we mostly end up talking about ‘when we can do this full time, we could just meet up on the golf course, then to the clubhouse every Monday. Pipe dreams I know, but its a nice thought

9:30am – back to desk to do boring support cases

12:00am – lunch time, most often head to the gym

1:00pm – back to my desk, hope there is no Customer’s chasing, if not to busy, try and do any updates to sites, put any new ideas into google docs, check google reader to keep updated with other affiliates blogs

3:30pm – leave work, either head home to play with 18month old daughter or pick her up from nursery then feed her, spend the next few hours with her and my wife

7:00pm – daughter goes down for the night, myself or my wife will cook dinner, eat dinner then tidy up

8:00pm – Sit in front of the TV, trying not to spend too much time away from my wife, although this is probably when I’m least responsive as I’m focused on Affiliate stuff and finding it difficult to work with TV distractions and tiredness from the busy day. I try and spend this time trying to finish off niche sites, trying to improve existing sites, whether it be SEO or how to make them convert better. But I must admit most of the time is done doing research, trying to think of what could be a big earner to help reach the ultimate goal and do this full time earning a full time wage. Also I must check out other affiliate sites to get ideas of how they do things as they are obviously doing ok.

11:00-12:00pm – eventually close the lid on the laptop, think more to do the next day

I’d be very intersted to hear how other part time or even full time Affiliates days are spent whilst doing Affiliate Marteting.

Did you find this article useful? If so share and enjoy: