Another meaning for Timing is Everything

The first issue I’m really running into is time.

While I want to work on this, I need to balance my life so I don’t get overloaded.  I’ve done that before and I know it’s not good.  I read a quote once from …. About how he’d put so much of his life into his projects and that maybe it was time to make a family his next project.

I don’t want to think of family and friends as projects, but as part of my normal life.  So I’m trying to break the entrepreneur mold and fit the work I need to do into my normal hours.  I could easily stay up late or wake up earlier, but I know it will take a toll on other aspects of my life.  And I’m not willing to do that right now.

Even with this issue, I did manage to get a couple hours of time in yesterday.  I decided to concentrate on some more products that I want to feature, instead of the copy for the website that I need to do, or any of the other planning.  I will aim to finish the products tonight and then spend the rest of the week getting the site and my plans together.

And that sounds like a plan.

Where to start?

I should be well on my way to 30 sales right now.

But I'm not.

I have gaps in the website that need to be filled.  Pictures and descriptions are missing.  And while I would be comfortable with advertising the site without descriptions, I need to make sure the pictures and text about the site are correct.  If I want search engines to find me correctly, I need text for them to index.  I need to make sure the pictures are labeled and named correctly so they will come up in searches too.  It will also help me to organize all of my products on my computer when I need to change things.

The rest of this week looks more like housekeeping and other administrative duties.  Nothing that will kick start my journey, but the slow start I need to make sure I get there.

And don't get me started on my incomplete marketing and business plan.

Thirty

The challenges I pose to myself are supposed to push me in some way that results in a benefit, whether it be mental or financial.  For this 9 week challenge, I'll be aiming for both.

I am in the process of launching an apparel site.  I have never done this before, but I have a lot of passion behind my idea.  Since the site is almost finished and I already have many products lined up, the time has come to start selling.  The challenge for me is that I am not a salesman or a marketer.  I have knowledge of both fields, but I do not hold any delusions that I am either.  Nevertheless, over the next 9 weeks I am challenging myself to make 30 sales.  Not 30 items (so it could be more), and not to family members or friends.  I'm going to refrain from even mentioning the site here until I either reach the goal or it's near the end of the quest.

You may be thinking that 30 does not sound like a lot, and you're right.  It is a small number and yet a number so large that it terrifies me.  I have to find 30 strangers and convince them into buying my product.  The product may sell itself, but I still have to present the product into the marketplace, and that is where this becomes a challenge.  And since I have a full time job, this will be done on spare hours.

The real challenge is for me to document what I do and how it does or does not work.  I am not sure how often I will be posting, but I will strive for everyday that I do something with the product or its website.  I'll be working in some social media as well, so I will track that.  Again, I will not be advertising the site until later, so I'll give as many specifics as I can without giving it away.

Amazing how a number can seem so minuscule and so colossal at the same time.

Gearing up

I have an idea for my next 9 week challenge and it will be a good step outside of my box.  I'm hoping to start it in early August, so it will run into October.  I'll have measurable goals, that I'll be able to adjust upwards throughout the challenge.  I will not announce exactly what it is until I start, but I'm excited to have a new goal that will push me in new ways.

More than portals to the world

Panes of glass have allowed humankind a material for physical and philosophical utilization.  We look through them.  We are seen through them.  Some are colored.  Some distort views.  Finding quotes over the past 9 weeks have allowed me windows into different points in time.  So the last theme for this challenge is windows.

“Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.” - Kahlil Gibran

“A house without books is like room without windows.” - Horace Mann

“I need no dictionary of quotations to remind me that the eyes are the windows of the soul.” - Max Beerbohm

 “Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.” - Mark Twain

 How do you use windows?

Eight hours a day

Another week at work is done.  And a busy week it was.  So today we'll look at work.

“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.” - Bertrand Russel

“In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it; they must not do too much of it; and they must have a sense of success in it.” - John Ruskin

How has your work been lately?

Well spoken

I have tried not to use my favorite authors too much.  For the author below, I have already used two quotes, but have not dedicated a post to him.  I started readying him in high school and, good or bad, he taught me to look at life from different angles.  I may not have always agreed with his point of view, but I had to respect it for what he taught.  I dreamed of meeting him one day.  I doubted the conversation would be intellectual, from my side at least, but I was hoping for the chance to see.  So when he passed in 2007 I realized I had met him through his numerous works which I had read, and that would be the part of him I took forward in life.

"Where is home? I've wondered where home is, and I realized, it's not Mars or someplace like that, it's Indianapolis when I was nine years old. I had a brother and a sister, a cat and a dog, and a mother and a father and uncles and aunts. And there's no way I can get there again." - Kurt Vonnegut, "The World according to Kurt" in Globe and Mail [Toronto] (2005)

What point in time is home for you?