Weekly review: Week ending March 16, 2012

| review, weekly

One-month anniversary of leaving employment and starting on my own. It was a good week, and I helped out a lot in terms of consulting. Milestone: First deposit into my account! This is great. The business is now in the black. If I manage my costs well, this will reduce the risk of other projects quite a bit.

I also managed to exercise enough self-control to spend some time on planning the visual book reviews and summaries aspect instead of getting wrapped up in all the useful things I could do with my current clients. I’m working on getting better at living in the moment, focusing on what’s at hand. This is easy to do when consulting – clear tasks, great progress. I need to get better at pulling my mind away from that and focusing on, say, learning more about drawing or looking for ways to get started with business. I’m like that: if I’ve got a presentation or a programming project, it rattles around in my brain even during the “off” moments. The better I get at mentally wrapping things up and resuming them later, the better I’ll be able to handle more complex challenges. Ideas still sneak in, but that’s okay – I’ve got a good capture system (pen! paper! phone!).

Next week, I’m planning to spend Monday to Wednesday focused on learning skills, adding to my site, and experimenting with ideas. That will help. I’ll try drawing and planning at home.

I’m also tempted by the idea of hanging out in the Art Gallery of Ontario, surrounded by all those colourful canvases. Maybe I’ll go on Wednesday evenings when admission is free, and see if I build enough of it into my schedule that a membership becomes worthwhile. I want to draw with more colour, and part of that means getting more used to it.

I also want to get back into the swing of writing more. There’s something odd about the timing of my evenings – it’s not quite as smooth as my usual writing routine. Maybe it’s just getting used to new rhythms of work. I’ll save up some posts over the next few days, and I’ll figure out new routines for writing and sharing.

From last week’s plans

  • Business
    • Active
      • [X] Project E1: File time
      • [X] Project E1: Do more consulting
    • Connecting
      • [X] Attend WordPress meetup
      • [-] Plan site landing page and about page
      • [X] Participate in U of T panel (Kelly Lyons)
      • [-] Write testimonials for former colleagues
      • [X] Attend small business networking get-together at TPL on March 13
      • Planned get-together with the Hattoris
    • Misc
      • [-] Look into project O issue with confirmations
      • [-] Draw more book notes and share them
      • [X] Set up business credit card
  • Relationships
    • [-] Go on bike ride with W-
    • [-] Cook batch of food
  • Life
    • [X] Go for good long walk – maybe Friday? Two hours? (indeed!)
    • Initiated RRSP transfer

Plans for next week

  • Business
    • [ ] Earn: Project E1: More consulting
    • [ ] Plan: Share my ideas behind visual summaries / reviews
    • [ ] Build: Build blog area for visual summaries
    • [ ] Build: Draw more book reviews
    • [ ] Connect: Reach out to more potential mentors (illustrators?)
    • [ ] Plan:
  • Relationships
    • [X] Host the Hattoris and Maira for lunch
    • [X] Practise photography with W-
    • [ ] Get ready for tea party
  • Life
    • [ ] Long walk
    • [ ] Photography practice

Time analysis

Activity Last week This week Notes
Business 46.2 51.6 34 hours consulting, the rest for planning
Discretionary 29.9 22.9
Personal 20.0 16.2
Sleep 57.4 62.5 Yay more sleep!
Unpaid work 14.5 13.9 Commuting to work, one VPN day

I was trying to figure out why my weekly time summary showed only 167 hours. What happened? Where was the missing hour? I reviewed the logs, and all the timestamps matched up. Then I realized that the Daylight Savings Time switch was this week. =)

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