The Importance of Keeping Organized

When you first start out online you may only have a few passwords to remember.  As you progress, the number of sites you access that require a password will quickly grow beyond your control.  How do you remember the login and passwords of all those sites and programs?

One technique is to use the same login and password everywhere.  This will work fine most of the time, although not the most secure method.  But there are sites that have different password requirements, sometimes your login name may be taken, or there are sites (like Clickbank) that don’t let you choose your password.

A better method is just to keep a record.  Make a spreadsheet with all the information you need to access all your sites, and keep it updated.

The most common and familiar spreadsheet program is Microsoft Excel.  If you don’t have it already, I would not pay money for it.  No, I am not saying get a pirated copy, there is no need.  You can get all the functionality of Microsoft Office, read and save the same files, and do everything you need to do online with Openoffice

Gome are the days of paying hundreds of dollars for Office, or living with the guilt of pirating software.  Openoffice is free.  As an affiliate marketer with a tight budget, we love free.

Spend some time and get to know the parts of a spreadsheet.  If you have know idea what a spreadsheet is, you can get tutorials for openoffice here

Learn as much as you need to to use this handy tool.  As your business grows you can use this same spreadsheet to track income and expenses.  You should get used to doing this early.  If your goal is to make money on the web, you will have to pay taxes eventually.  Keeping good records from the beginning makes things alot easier later.

Some things you may want to track:

1. Program
2. username
3. password
4. affiliate link
5. subscription rate
6. income

There are software packages out there that will remember passwords and other information for you.  Use these if you like.  The important thing is that you keep yourself organized from the beginning.