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Wow I've been on the go for nearly five hours so far today and it's hard to see that I've achieved anything really. That certainly does bug me because I'm one of those people who likes to be able to tick off everything I complete in a day and so far today I don't think I've actually been able to tick anything off.

We had a meeting with a mainstream client early today about a brochure and he's made the third lot of changes to something that was supposed to be finished and at the printers last week so they've gone off to our graphic artist. I've talked to another client about access to their website so we can organize to update it ... but now I have to wait till Steve has gone in to see what content management system is being used.

I've talked to a guy who is doing some purchasing for us overseas but wasn't able to tie anything up there. And I'm trying to chase down some technical advice for another client but now I'm waiting for someone to get back to me. I'd like to have at least one tick on my list for today but I don't even though I've done a lot of work I don't have any ticks just yet.

Instead I've got a whole heap of half-finished jobs that have thrown me out of my usual work pattern and things that I'd normally have well-finished by now haven't even been started. If you're one of those who likes to have a set structure for your work-day then you'll understand the frustration I feel ... if you don't have any set structure for your day you'll probably think that I've gone totally nuts.

Seriously though, if you do have a lot of work that you need to get through each day then you really should be thinking about developing a framework that you can build into your day. If you have urgent work that has to be done to a deadline then you need to give yourself time early in the day ... when you're least likely to be disturbed or distracted ... to get it done.

Even though that may be some hours before the deadline is looming it's always wise to get work like that out of the way as soon as you can. If you leave it till later in the day you just never know what things can occur that will prevent you from meeting those deadlines.

Another reason why I like to get those important jobs out of the way early is that I can then sit back and enjoy a few distractions without the worry that I might miss a deadline. I can stop and chat to our clients if they come into the office, phone me or hit me up on ICQ. I can stop what I'm doing and follow some interesting links and learn more about things that could be important without feeling that I'm wasting my time and I should get back to more important things.

And that's even happening as I write this. I started it late, I'm on a deadline here and I've got several people talking to me on ICQ, another one on Messenger and Steve has just sent me a link to a site that really does interest me. I'm just going to have to cut those chats short and ignore that link so that I can get on with this column.

If you do have a framework for your day it's times like this that you really can start to panic and maybe that framework may even add to your stress levels too. However the trick is to take a deep breath and just keep working your way through all those tasks that simply MUST be done.

Ask.com is irrelevant?
I've just noticed a report from yesterday that suggests that well-known search engine guru, Danny Sullivan, has suggested that Ask.com is about to become irrelevant as a search engine and, with its increased reliance on Google for data, that certainly does look quite likely.

I have to admit that I haven't seen Ask in any of our logs for many months but things could certainly be different for you especially if you. Of course it's unlikely that any search engine is going to send you more traffic than Google does but that doesn't mean you should disregard the rest.

Some of our mainstream clients are picking up some nice amounts of traffic from the other two major search engines and there are some geographic factors that come into play here. In most places you would expect that MSN/Live would rank about third in the list of the three big engines but here in Australia MSN/Live seems to send a lot more traffic than Yahoo! sends.

The traffic levels from each of the major search engines is something that you need to watch and be aware of because it's so easy to concentrate solely on Google and then miss out on some even more focused traffic from the other two.

And now I've got one tick in place so I'm off to grab a coffee, take a deep breath and get back in tune with the framework I have for my work day. See you all tomorrow.