Wednesday 30 April 2014

Making Money From Blogging



I don't make any money from this blog.  My total revenue since I started it is about a pound.  I don't really aspire to make any cash from it.  It is just a handy place to write down thoughts I might want to refer to again in future.  I did wonder when I started it if it would be a surprise money spinner.  But it has been going long enough that I know now that it won't.  But I have another blog that is producing a steady £100 plus a month from Google ad sense earnings.  It gets hundreds of visits a day and on current trends by some time this summer it will have chalked up a million page views since it started.

Tuesday 29 April 2014

Do you give too much weight to other people's advice?



I have had a lot of advice from a lot of people over the years.  A lot of that advice has been good, most has been okay and some has been truly terrible.  I can look back on many things I have been told with the benefit of hindsight and with the knowledge and experience I have now gained.  So I can confidently dismiss much nonsense I have been told and which I believed at the time.  Getting qualifications is not the most important thing if you want to get on.  Being loyal to a company is not the best way to get promoted.  Real ale does not taste better than the conventional variety.

Monday 28 April 2014

Sacking Customers



So I have been getting enquiries almost daily.  I get repeat business and referrals from existing customers.  I have a full schedule and enough money in the bank to pay myself a salary I am happy with.  But I am working way too many hours and too much of what I am doing is selling time rather than generating a steady income.  I am also finding I can't turn jobs round as quickly as I would like or that my customers would like.  So all in all, 12 months in I could be in a lot worse place, but I have to do some really serious thinking and take some significant actions to get where I want to be.

Sunday 27 April 2014

Work All The Time You Work



In his book Time Power Dick Tracy suggests that you should work all the time you are at work. This has to be one of the hardest principles to comply with when you are an employee.  You are up against your fellow employees, who certainly have no intention of working all the time.  Or any of it in some cases.  They regard you as fair game as a distraction.

Friday 25 April 2014

Getting Up Early



One of the big differences between being self employed and having a job is that I can stay in bed as long as I want to in the morning.  I have always been an early riser, and used to typically get up in plenty of time to go to work.  Normally I set my alarm for 6am and would be out of bed by 7am.

Thursday 24 April 2014

Don't Seek Approval From Others



An old coworker got in touch with me yesterday.  I hadn't spoken to him for about 15 years, but we seemed to slot into exactly the same relationship we had had when worked together.  I had been a bit higher up the food chain than him.  Even though we were no longer in the hierarchy that we used to be, indeed that particular hierarchy no longer exists, I still found myself dispensing advice and instructions to him as if he was my junior.

Wednesday 23 April 2014

How I Use My Calendar As My ToDo List



I'm an inveterate fiddler and am always trying out different ways of doing things in an attempt to find the best one.  Often the search for the optimum approach becomes more important to me than actually getting the job done.  This is sometimes es a good thing, and sometimes not so good.  The worst outcome has been the numerous experiments in keeping well organised, most of which have resulted in reduced levels of productivity.  Although it goes totally against the grain of my being, the conclusion is inevitable.  A simple system that I stick to is preferable to a perfect one.  And I have one now that seems to work pretty well.

Tuesday 22 April 2014

Employee Habits Die Hard - Four Observations



I'll be marking the formal 12 months as an official limited company next month, but I have been actively trying to be self employed for just over a year in reality.  I had a three month handover from my last job, so I don't have a real start date.  But I can look back on my transition away from being an employee with a bit of detachment now.  I think I can begin to draw some conclusions. Four main ones emerge.

Monday 21 April 2014

Keep Screens Out Of Bed



We all have our own distinct pattern of unhelpful behaviours.  One of mine is that my resistance to the temptation of pointless web surfing is lowest when I am horizontal.  This has two effects.  If I take my Kindle or my phone to bed with me I am quite likely to spend what should be sleeping time checking all my e-mails, looking for interesting conversations on Twitter and doing all the other obsessive time wasting things that you can do on the net when you should be dreaming.

Sunday 20 April 2014

Live Life Now



I had planned to get up early this morning to do a couple of hours work, but instead stayed in bed reading a book.  I don't read books anywhere nearly as much as I used to or would like.  I don't know if it was a really a rationalisation, but I decided to stay put. I think any time management system has to be flexible enough to cope with impulses like this.  By the time  I was up, I had to make breakfast for a not very well wife which involved a mammoth washing up session and a trip to the shop.

Saturday 19 April 2014

Make Planning Mean Planning


I have never been very good at planning, and as a consequence have never really wanted to do it and I put it off continually.  When I do do it I find that I am very prone to actually doing work rather than planning work.

It is so tempting to just do stuff. After all if I could just get everything done I would have some time free to do some planning.  That is what my inner voice tells me.

Friday 18 April 2014

Who Knows Where The Time Goes?


Sandy Denny didn't know where the time goes. ( See  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oBMDcLf6WA&feature=kp if you haven't heard of her.)  Up until yesterday, neither did I.

But keeping track of the time I spent with colour codes on a Google calendar made it much easier to keep track.  I am pleased to have it, but it makes grim reading.  I worked from 9.45 to 17.10.  That is hardly stakhanovite, but there were some valid reasons for knocking off fairly early.  (I usually regard working to 6 as standard.)  I have no excuses at all for my late start.

Thursday 17 April 2014

Time Management - Using the Calendar



I am fast approaching the first anniversary of going self employed.  I had always wanted to get away from having a job and to become the master of my own destiny.  I was always planning to do it in about 5 years time from whenever I thought about it.  The thing that always held me back was the fear that I would not find enough work to keep me going over the initial period.