If there’s ever a time to show up for work, that time is Monday morning.

Whilst most of the world is happy to celebrate Thank God It’s Friday, anybody with a role in project management or self-employment is likely to be thinking the opposite, “Where did my week go?”

For that reason, I love Mondays. It’s another chance to deliver a flying clothesline to nagging targets, making sure they don’t live on to become 2017’s New Year’s Resolutions.

Monday mornings are doubly important because they set the tone for the rest of the week.

Start Monday badly and momentum is a bitch.

I’m ashamed to admit that lazy Mondays have cost me entire weeks in the past. If I start the week drifting aimlessly between tasks of equal importance but little long-term value, morning turns to lunch, and lunch turns to dinner. Before you know it, I’ve wasted an entire Monday with nothing but a headache and a sense of underachievement to show. It’s easy to spend the rest of the week playing catch-up.

Fortunately, if you start Monday well and make good progress before lunch, momentum conspires to help your cause. Productivity is contagious, but so is flicking from Facebook to YouTube and back again. Momentum can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

In affiliate marketing terms, Monday is the day that I launch my new campaigns for the week ahead. It’s wheels in motion day.

There’s nothing worse than launching on a Friday, waiting an entire weekend for your ads to get approved, then drifting in to a state of nonchalance with new ideas and brainfarts dominating your thoughts by the time they go live.

Get campaigns launched on Monday with the view to having them optimised and profitable by Friday.

I know a lot of affiliates ponder how long they should continue optimising before scrapping a campaign. Well, Monday to Friday is a nice time-frame. Assuming the ads are live by Tuesday, you have 3 days to accumulate data that should tell you whether you’re striking out on a terrible idea, or getting ready to smash a home-run.

Simply launching a campaign and getting your paws on some data provides an excellent momentum boost on Monday morning. You’re committing to positive action. It doesn’t stop there though.

Creating new ads does not constitute a launched campaign. A campaign is launched when the ads are approved and collecting data. Another guilty trait of mine has been to spend forever researching, eventually launch my ads, and then get declined for whatever reason. Instead of taking another hack at the submission process, I’d let the campaign rot in the planning stages forevermore. With no data, every idea is a fail.

So what’s the opposite of a Monday morning well spent?

In my opinion, that award goes to replying to emails. For the love of the anti-Christ, why do people wreck their morning coffee with this awful practice? Okay, admittedly, some people are in the business of servicing customers. But the majority of affiliates have no excuses.

It’s a damaging trait that many of us picked up in day jobs where we didn’t have the luxury (or Hell) of using Sunday evenings to clear out our inboxes.

I can guarantee that if you make replying to emails your number one priority, you will spend the rest of the day chasing tails and batting off distractions. It’s impossible to make any progress that could be deemed worthwhile if you’re wedged firmly up your Gmail’s arse.

More importantly, dealing with emails scrambles your ability to focus on one particular goal, which should always be your intention on Monday morning.

Successful affiliates are excellent at spotlighting their biggest goals and putting the most effort in to the most rewarding work. If that means being impossible to reach on the phone, through email and by instant messenger… then so be it. Most of us are pretty skilled at living like hermits. Celebrate it.

Monday morning is the perfect time to batten down the hatchets, leechblock Facebook, and unleash Father Zen on your most important project. Don’t take your lunch break until you’ve achieved something significant. It’s not an exaggeration to say that failing to do so may cost you the rest of your week.

Recommended This Week

• So, Premium Posts Volume 4 was released last week and the reception has been excellent with many saying that it’s the best volume yet – something I’m extremely happy to hear, because it was by far the toughest to write. It’s called Outside the Box Marketing and you can get your paws on it for $34.95. Grab your copy here.

• Any Facebook advertisers still out there? Check out Lots of Ads. Spy on the best performing ads in international markets, save money on your translations and learn from affiliates who are already making money (or perhaps wasting it recklessly?). The tool now supports 21 countries, which should be plenty to keep you busy.

• If you’re a new reader here, please add me to your RSS. Also follow me on Twitter. Thanks for reading.