photo credit: moonhouse

It’s the dreaded first business day of the month, which means… invoicing day. Oh, well. As much as I hate the paperwork, invoicing (sometimes) means getting payments, so there you have it.

Had a fun weekend, am feeling much better (and hopefully will be sounding good enough to sing this weekend—it’s our band’s “on” week). Just did one of my new yoga DVDs and am happy I purchased it—I think it will help with labor and delivery (assuming I keep doing it! ).

Never heard back about the pumpkin contest, so that’s an assumed “no.” Was hoping it would pay off, but in the end it was really just a $7 gamble (well, you know, plus the hours and hours of carving but those were fun).

Most Important Tasks

• Invoicing
• Style my small WordPress-based gallery plugin
• Make a couple of small client-requested tweaks

The reward

Play time with colors, themes, and Twitter backgrounds. Or sewing.

photo credit: Sappymoosetree

Had a good weekend, but feel like death warmed over this morning. I’m coming down with either a sinus infection or a head cold, and I’m just glad to be working from home. Too bad self-employment doesn’t provide benefits like sick time.

Going to keep it light today and see if the brain fog dissipates after a while…

Most Important Tasks

• Call the City of L.A. and try to figure out why they’re demanding thousands of dollars in taxes from me (despite the fact that I’m, you know, in Idaho)
• Finish and launch the new theme for TweetStyle
• Pay my outstanding bill to one of my designers and get him started on/prepared for the next project (depending on whether or not the client got me their materials over the weekend)

The reward

A nap.

photo credit: NathanFromDeVryEET

Getting right down to business because I’m excited about my first task.

Most Important Tasks

• Create a new WordPress theme based on book navigation (table of contents, index, etc.)
• Set up my operations manual with said theme, and port the existing content over
• Perform (or write instructions for Leanna to perform) promised upgrades for a client

The reward

Permission to spend as much time as I want reading my feeds (after work is done!).

Had fun getting my hair done on Friday. Call it a Pink for October endeavor. Also enjoyed visiting with friends most of the weekend, and had a good hike yesterday (we’ve been going on Saturday afternoons lately but switched to Sunday this week due to weather and over-crowded schedules).

Most Important Tasks

• Prepare for and participate in a client phone call
• Release a new background for TweetStyle and customize my own profile’s background
• Get files to a client who’s waiting on them

The reward

Another candy mold.

photo credit: tracyhunter

After my post last week, I carefully considered both of the productivity courses I was thinking of taking… and decided to go with “neither.” Why? Because realistically, I already know most of what I need to do and am not doing it, so I think it would be a mistake to spend money on something else at this point.

One of the great things both of those programs offer, though, is daily encouragement. I’m sure the creators of both programs would counter my reasoning for not enrolling with something like, “Everyone struggles with not doing what they know they should do—my program helps you take action with daily motivation!”

So I’m looking to replicate that—on the cheap. Fortunately, I have a few good ideas. They’re a combination of tools, carrot, and stick (though maybe I should say “chocolate” instead of “carrot,” since I don’t actually like carrots… ooh, or “carrot cake”! ).

• The tool: I have a bunch of motivational podcasts that I’m already subscribed to. I enjoy them when I listen to them, and it would be a great start to each day to just hit play on one.
• The carrot cake: Leo (the Zen To Done guy) recommends rewards, and lots of them early on. I will give myself a small reward each day I hit my targets.
• The stick: I’m posting my plan here, and you’ll all know if I don’t do it. I’m also committing to posting a daily update for the next three weeks (sorry, might be boring reading for you, but I know from experience that public commitment motivates me).

A successful day

So the question is, what am I shooting for each day? I’ve made a specific list (because specific = finite = I know when I’m done!).

• I will start by listening to a motivational podcast. I’m resisting this one a little because it seems kind of frivolous (”why don’t you just get down to work?!?”), but I know that I am more likely to actually get down to work after I feel motivated.
• My first task will be to decide on two or three “most important tasks” (Leo calls these MITs). These are the tasks that matter most for one reason or another; they might be urgent, or they might relieve some particular stress, or they might further a developing business idea. But absolutely no more than three per day—otherwise it’s just not realistic.
• Accountability kicks in when I post the daily plan on this blog. This will probably be a very short post—just a list of my MITs, my reward for success, and any random thoughts that crop up as part of the process. I’ll put them all in the “Daily Check-In” category so that you can skip them easily if you aren’t interested.
• In addition to doing a few things right, I also need to break some unproductive habits. Consequently, I won’t check email or Twitter until at least one MIT is done. And I won’t check it again until all MITs are done.
• For the next three weeks, my specific “good habit” I’m developing is the “Process” habit. That means that my daily target will be to process all new email that comes in each day, plus five older emails (because I’ve got to get through that backlog somehow!). That doesn’t mean that I’ll complete the tasks contained in every email, just that I’ll process them, get them on the appropriate list, and stop using my inbox as a to-do list.
• Once I complete the previous items on this list, I will update the morning’s blog post with a comment.
• Finally, I will turn off my Mac before going to bed. Besides the benefit to the electric bill + environment, this means I will have to put everything away—save files, bookmark sites, etc. The morning will be much nicer with a clean slate.

Today’s plan

I thought of doing a second post for this but it seemed silly.

Most Important Tasks

• Finish the back-end design for my upcoming blogging course
• Record a video walk-through for a client
• Record my first video for the blogging course

The reward

If I get my day wrapped up by 4pm, I’ll take off early (to the living room!) and give myself some time alone with my new John Grisham novel.

photo credit: timtom.ch

I was up early this morning with heartburn (completely new to me courtesy of pregnancy; I’d never encountered it before last week, so I can only be so whiny ) and decided it was finally time to buy the Zen To Done ebook.

I’ve been wanting it for months and am starting to feel the crunch with the impending arrival of our son, so it seemed like a good way to spend my “bonus” waking hours.

I’ve just finished reading it, and the piece of advice that really caught my attention was the repeated caution to only try to adopt one or maybe two of the 10 recommended habits at one time. Ideally I should focus on just one for at least 30 days.

It’s probably good that Leo repeated it so many times. Maybe it will help me actually do it! Focus is probably my number one challenge in every area of my life. I have diverse interests and love starting things, and then forget about all the things I’m already doing. I think I’m his exact target reader.

So that leaves me with two immediate decisions.

First, which of his habits to start with… I feel like I’m in desperate need of most of them right away, but that’s not realistic. So I’m going to spend the next 30 days focusing on the “Process” habit. Leo sums it up like this:

Habit: make quick decisions on things in your inbox, do not put them off. Letting stuff pile up is procrastinating on making decisions. Process your inboxes (email, physical, voicemail, notebook) at least once a day, and more frequently if needed. When you process, do it from the top down, making a decision on each item: do it (if it takes 2 minutes or less), trash it, delegate it, file it, or put it on your to-do list or calendar to do later.

This seems like a great place to start because one of my worst habits (productivity-wise) is letting everything pile up, particularly in my email.

If I start to deal with everything promptly, I expect that at least a few of the other habits will start to take care of themselves. For instance, if I deal with email immediately and am forced to say “yes” or “no” to new projects, that probably will help with the “Simplify” habit.

The second decision is about two productivity courses launching this week that I really would like to sign up for. One is called the 100 Day Challenge—it starts today and goes until December 31, 100 days away, and costs $97. The other is Wake Up Productive—it starts next Monday and runs for 90 days, so essentially the same time-frame, and costs $297.

Both courses include daily content and assignments. I’ve watched sample content from both and they both look like very high quality programs, which makes it both hard to choose and imperitive that I do—I want to get the most out of them, and I don’t think I can do that if I split my attention between them.

They’re both time-based, so I likely will only do one unless they’re repeated. Wake Up Productive seems more likely to be repeated, since the “draw” of the 100 Day Challenge is accomplishing specific goals before the end of 2008.

I’ve never purchased anything from either “guru” so no bias there… My business cash flow is tight, and I definitely need to get things in order before the baby is born, so should I decide strictly based on price? What do you think?

photo credit: Dafydd359

Feeling much more upbeat this week. I think a little legitimate discontent was exactly what I needed to push me in the right direction.

I tend to do life in cycles. Right now, I’m moving into a fitness phase where I care again about being healthy, so I’m going to shift some of my time and activities around to fit that goal. It helps that the weather is getting nicer, making it much more appealing to venture outside.

I’m shifting the format of my plan a little, too, to reflect the areas I’m working on.

Business

The goal

My big business goal is to get on top of it, stay on top of it, and then replace myself.

We’re planning on getting pregnant and having a kidlet (no particular time frame, as these things happen when they happen, but could be sooner rather than later) and I don’t want to be tied to a job at that point.

That’s not to say I won’t work; I’m pretty sure I’ll always work, just because I like it so much and find it interesting. I just don’t want to have to work.

My coach, Marla, helped me a ton last week by proposing a schedule. I’ve been having trouble balancing the big projects (that need regular effort to move forward, but don’t have the same sense of urgency as the little ones) and the quick, “it’s just a little change” jobs.

The path

• Stick with the schedule. Today that means doing the two big projects for two hours each this morning, taking breaks, and doing the small projects in the afternoon.
• Send invoices! (Meant to do this last Thursday…)

Health

The goal

I’m stuck around 150 pounds and 30% body fat, and I want to be at 133 and 19%. This will make me faster on the bike (making it more likely the boy will spring for the mountain tandem idea!) and be more congruent with both the things I want to do and my identity. The current disconnect is slightly stressful.

The path (for today)

• Create a list of goals and rewards. These are very motivating to me. (Done!)
• Move during my breaks (2 walks a day) and during phone calls.
• Find and subscribe to a couple of spiritual podcasts to listen to during walking breaks. (Making them spiritual gets two birds with one stone. )

Extra-curriculars

The goal

Other major initiatives I’m involved in right now include the Black Ink Project and singing every other week for music at my church. I need to make a point to devote sufficient time to each of these.

The path

• Participate in the first Black Ink call (and have my headphones handy so I can walk while I’m listening!).
• Buy the three songs I need to practice today, and set them to play while I’m doing less mental work.

Want to jump in yourself?

Just leave a comment saying what you’re going to do today, or post on your own blog and leave a link.

I’m generally a very positive person, but last week’s demands just about killed my positivity. The Mac issues I mentioned turned out to be a crashed hard drive. There were definitely some things to be thankful for (that I had backups of almost everything; that the software I bought arrived fairly speedily and recovered most of what I didn’t have backed up; that I have my laptop and wasn’t dead in the water); it just added significant stress to an already-stressful week, partially due to the time required to work on the problem, partially because I’m just not as comfortable coding on my laptop, and a lot of it just the mental stress of juggling everything.

Still not quite done with the Mac joys. I have the backup on an external hard drive but still need to replace the dead one to get up and running. Don’t know when I’ll find the time to do that! Feeling overwhelmed by that and all of the other “should do” tasks that are getting trampled by urgent ones.

The title of this posts pretty much sums up my struggles (in a positive way!). I have all of these opportunities that just need a tiny little push to turn into something, and I’m having a hard time pushing.

I’ve bought ad space but not sent in my ads; I have potential clients who are asking me to do work, and haven’t found time to reply yet; I have all the content done for my main site but haven’t put the design up to make it all accessible; I have all the makings in place for several new services I haven’t found time to promote.

Ugh.

What do you do when you feel like this?

Thinking back to what’s worked before (because I think that’s my best bet), I do better when I have a concrete list of steps; I don’t do well with ambiguity. So here’s what I’ll do today, before 5:20pm when I am leaving for music practice:

• Close all tabs and reboot my computer (if you think this sounds trivial, you don’t know how I use tabs…)
• Write a list of all known outstanding projects (both client and business development) and break them down into tasks
• Schedule those tasks
• Create my ads and send to Wendy
• Send out promised review copies of ebook
• Process all emails in my inbox (only 42!)

Looking at this list, it seems kind of pathetic, but my gut tells me to stop while it’s still manageable. No doubt this short and unimpressive list will keep me hopping!

Want to jump in yourself? Just leave a comment saying what you’re going to do today, or post on your own blog and leave a link.

It didn’t respond to any of the happy “kill program” commands, so I finally hard-rebooted it and now it’s not coming back. I’m no Mac guru, but I’ve tried a whole bunch of remedies found via Google, and no luck yet. Computers are finicky beasts, though, so I’m hopeful that something will work. I’m going to call my local Apple-friendly computer store when they open and see what they suggest.

In the meantime, I’m incredibly glad I installed FolderShare last week, so most everything is backed up on my laptop (where I’m typing now) as well as my JungleDisk. If I need to work on my laptop, I can, it’s just not as nice for coding.

My big priority for this week (other than getting the misbehaving Mac working) is to finish up some outstanding projects that are really stressing me out. I have new projects lined up for next week and am going to have a nervous breakdown if I have to do them all at once, so the obvious answer is to finish up the current ones first.

One of the projects is a client’s web application and the other is the ebook.

For today…

I’m going to focus on the client project and make as much progress as I can there. I have about seven other obligations for the day, but this is going to be my core task.

For the week…

I’m going to keep working on the client project, and do the following for my ebook:

• Decide on a final name
• Get a cover and site designed (starting the process today)
• Set up sales and affiliate program
• Format the book
• Do an interview to promote the book

Want to jump in yourself? Just leave a comment saying what you’re going to do today, or post on your own blog and leave a link.

Right now I have three major client projects in the works, I’m writing an ebook (due to my editor on Wednesday), and I’ve signed up for Jimmy D. Brown’s Six Figure Formula coaching, which starts today. I’m also helping some friends organize and promote a 300-mile, 5-day bike ride (meeting today) and am in the middle of about six smaller client projects. Oh, yeah, and I’m supposed to be launching my new site and doing some business development work that will make my life easier down the road.

Aaaaauughh!

Today I am going to focus on doing just a small list of (big) things:

• Finish writing, entering, and first-draft-editing ebook chapters three and four, and send to my editor
• Read and follow the first lesson of the S.F.F. course
• Attend bike ride meeting
• Clear inbox (48 messages, most of which require some action or response)

I really want to add more items to that list, because I have so much more to do, but I think that’s realistically all I can handle in the next eight or nine hours. If I get it all done, I can always do more! Part of dealing with email will be communicating my slipping schedule to affected clients.

The big challenge will be not getting distracted. My inbox alone contains enough distractions to suck up the whole day, so I’m going to take Mark Forster’s approach and create a backlog of non-essential items that I can do later (like reading other e-courses), just to get them out of my immediate view.

I’m also going to turn chat off for today. I’ve just started following some ladies on Twitter that I’d really like to get to know, but I’m going to have to save that for another day when I can give it my full attention.

When I complete my tasks for today, I will reward myself with… um… man, I’m so mentally busy I can’t think of anything non-food-related that I want right now. Okay, I will reward myself with permission to read all of my neglected blog feeds, and check my blog stats.

Furthermore, when I get my finished draft of my ebook to my editor on Wednesday, I will get my hair cut on Thursday or Friday.

On the upside, I’ve already succeeded in clearing my clogged kitchen sink. That’s got to count for something!

Want to jump in yourself? Just leave a comment saying what you’re going to do today, or post on your own blog and leave a link.