It’s always exciting when you find a new course or a new bundle that allows you to learn something new whether for business or personal gain. But don’t let what you buy sit on your hard drive gathering digital dust.

I’m not immune either, and it’s always an easy “yes” to the sales page when my mind is filled with the possibilities of what I can do with what I learn. Unfortunately, too many times, it’s what happens after I hit the buy button that trips me up – I sign in to the course, look at all the information there and think “I’ll get to that later.” And of course, I never do. Or it’s months down the road.

Take Action As Soon As You Buy

The best thing to do when you buy a new course or bundle is to take action as soon as your payment goes through!

Even if it’s something as small as opening up the course material and reading the introduction. Do something with your new course as soon as you get it. Don’t just download it and think you’ll get to it later. Or even worse, don’t let it sit in your members download area and think you’ll go back and download it when you get time.

Once you dig in, you’ll often find that it keeps your enthusiasm for learning the new material going. And there are benefits for your business too. Taking early action on the courses you buy can help you:

• Recover your investment quickly
• Develop new skills for your business
• Make new connections and find new resources
• Build your confidence and boost your enthusiasm

And don’t forget, that often course material can be time sensitive. This is especially true of things like SEO courses and self-publishing courses. Since trends are always changing, some courses should be consumed right away while they are relevant. Waiting too long could mean the information is obsolete or no longer applies.

Have a Plan and Work the Plan

As with anything else, when you’re considering buying a new course, think about whether or not you actually have the time and resources to commit to doing it and implementing what you learn.

The best thing to do is block off time on your calendar for learning and implementing. If you don’t do that, taking a course can become an optional or negotiable part of your day, and that makes it easy to keep putting off taking action.

Instead, make time every day to build your learning habit, so that you get the most out of your investments in the courses you buy.

What About Bundles and Other Purchases?

So, that’s all fine and good for building a learning habit, but what about when you buy bundles and other DFY content that you have great intentions for using? If you don’t have a plan for using the content that you purchase, the potential for creating digital dust gets even higher!

The same principles apply here too. Download your content as soon as you can after purchasing. I get that sometimes with bundles it can be very overwhelming, especially when there are 30,40, or more products to consider and you know you’re not going to use them all.

Most bundles these days include some kind of guide or spreadsheet that lists all of the products so you can go through that and make notes and jot down ideas on how you might want to use the products. That should be your first step.

And the same goes with individual template packs or DFY content packs too. If you don’t already know how you’re going to use the content BEFORE you buy it, then take a minute to open up the package and decide what you’re going to use and what you’re going to toss.

Figure out what you’re going to do with it, and then schedule it on your calendar so that you put it to good use and recoup your investment as soon as possible.

What’s Next?

So, where am I going with all of this?

I have a personal goal to start using up all of the content that I’ve bought and making use of of the courses on my own hard drive that are gathering digital dust. It’s one of the reasons I created the Organize Your Content Challenge. And it’s the driving force behind my new membership site that’s launching on August 1st. Because I know I’m not the only one that has a growing digital dust pile. And if I’m going to use mine, I want to help you use yours too!