These next few posts are dedicated to planning your online course. It may seem like a lot of work but you are likely doomed to failure if you do not take the time to plan properly.
Create a Dedicated Journal![planning your online course journal]()
I have to confess that I have not always documented my processes. This has invariably lead to mistakes being repeated and missed opportunities.
Before you do a single thing, designate a physical or online journal to your course. Don’t use a book or journal you are currently using for anything else. You are reading this because either A) you have created courses in the past and they didn’t work out so well, or B) this is your first time building an online course.
In either situation, you should dedicate a journal for all of your thoughts and actions. This will prove invaluable after your course has been completed. You will be able to eliminate steps that lead to failure and focus on successful actions and strategies.
Literally everything you do related to your course should go into this journal. You may find that something you think is not very influential to your success turns out to be one of the major components needed for you to see the results you are looking for. Once you have a journal in your hand, you are ready to record your online course creation journey.
Now it is time to take a long, hard, honest look in the mirror.
Make a Commitment
It is time to create a doable schedule for getting your course completed. This means writing a plan of action that gets the course ready for use in X number of days. You have to be brutally honest here and not give yourself a schedule that is impossible to achieve. On the other hand, you have to challenge yourself each day.
Whipping out that mirror we just talked about and make a commitment to yourself that you are going to do this once and for all.
There is a good chance this is not the first time you thought about creating a course that solves problems and answers big questions in the minds of your target audience. As a blogger, entrepreneur, or online marketer you are more driven than most people. You probably have a lot on your plate already. As a result, you put off making a course that you can sell online.
Stop Procrastinating
There can be no more excuse-making. Break out your day calendar and figure out a reasonable number of hours you can work on your course each and every day. If you have no idea how long it is going to take you to record videos or create 10 text-based course modules, just take a rough guess.
Your schedule is going to be fluid. You’re going to look at it and change it accordingly over time.
You just want to ensure you are making a solid commitment to yourself that you are not going to break … no matter what. Make sure to leave some time every day for your family, your friends and “me time”. You don’t want to stretch yourself so thin between your full-time gig and your online course creation. Doing so could result in a less than wonderful product. Worse yet, you might abandon the project altogether.
Once you have made a commitment and earmarked specific hours, days and weeks for this job, it is time to choose a topic, which is the subject of our next “Planning Your Online Course” series of posts.
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