Here you are. Something drew you in, and you are reading this post. There are literally billions of other things you could be doing with your time.  Stop! Stop reading now, and go do something more productive with your time than read this blog post, unless…

….if you are still here you have some reason that you believe this is the best place to be spending your time. Thanks for that! I am honored. Maybe it is because you think that I will give you some valuable information in a few minutes skimming this post that you will be glad you spent your time here. I am going to talk about prioritizing your time and projects, and get your wheels turning about where your time is, and should be allocated as a PPC manager.

Well, last chance….there are only 10,080 minutes in a week….are you sure this is where you want to spend a few of those minutes?

Ha. Thanks for sticking with me. Gosh, I hope I make this time valuable for you now!

I am a big believer in the late Steven R. Covey’s 4 quadrants.  Most of you are familiar, but in case you aren’t, here’s a chart I found to give you a refresher:

I got this image from: gatorworks.net and they got it from, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey.

I’m not going to cover all 4 quadrants in this post. Your time is too precious, and I assume a lot of you have already seen this before. I want to focus on the “Important/Not Urgent” category.  So if you are still with me, hopefully it is because you feel there is something I can say or do for you in this blog post, that, while it is not urgent, it may be important. It may change how you act as a PPC account manager.

There are plenty of things in a PPC account that are VERY important, but they aren’t urgent. Here are a few examples:

• Setting up your next landing page, A/B test.
• Writing your next A/B test ad.
• Re-assessing the competition to see how they have changed their offers, text ads and landing pages.
• Touching base with your boss or client.
• Checking your overall quality scores for trends up or down.
• Looking for new keyword opportunities. (I like to use Spyfu to see what keywords the competition is advertising on that I am not.)
• Re-designing display ads.

Those are just a few. The list could go on.  These are important things. They can have a huge impact on your PPC account ROI, but they aren’t urgent and they often get put off. Are you spending too much time on the “Important/Urgent” category? Or worse, are you spending too much time working on the “Not Important/Urgent” and the “Not Important/Not Urgent” categories?

Trust me, the money is not being made in the bottom two categories, and I would argue, that the most money is being made by the people focusing on the “Important/Not Urgent” category. That category takes a disciplined person. A hard worker spends all of his time in the important/urgent category because that person gets the most noticeable stuff done. The PPC account manager that I want on my team doesn’t just take care of the urgent and important stuff. He takes care of that as quickly and efficiently as he can, and then rather than go waste time in the bottom two categories, he goes where the money is made. He gets to work on the important things that aren’t urgent. The things where they don’t have a deadline to get it done, but they see the return on time investment.

So, before you get back to work in your PPC accounts today, or with whatever else you do for work, ask yourself:

Click this image to read another great time management article.

If you liked this post, here is another one about Pay Per Click project management.

Did other ideas of things that are “important/not urgent” come to your mind for your PPC accounts? Add them in the comments.