Time to Make Time

I am often asked…  ”Where do you find the time to do all you do?”.  I respond… “I try to be hyper organized and I try to rate the usefulness or necessity of activities from 1-10.  Doing work that I get paid for is a 10.  I will let you imagine what could be a 1!  Oh Yeah…  working late and lack of sleep helps also!  Factor in that I have DDA (that’s severe ADD) and you can imagine the challenge.

It’s quite the balancing act.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull Boy!  All work frankly is impossible…  You have to mix in so many things (especially as a soloprenure) like learning, teaching, marketing, meetings, networking, billing, accounting, proposals, tech support, and more.

I was at a meeting with a guy who was looking to get back in the saddle of soloprenuership and asked “How do you know what to charge?”.  It a fairly basic formula…  ”What do you need to make?”.  There are 2000 working hours in a year (50 weeks at 40 hours).  If you are like most, you can only hope to bill 1/2 of that so. So if you charge $50 an hour you most likely will gross $50,000.  Now factor in 30-50% for expenses (phone, milage, internet, & more) leaves you with $25 to $35 an hour net.

So what do you do with those other 1000 billable hours?  Aside for the basic day to day operations I have a list I try to accomplish each week.

1) Learn

Last week I spent hours trying to learn new stuff. Here’s a few activities: I learned about tracking Social Networking Effectiveness, attended a webinar on Search Engine Optimization tips, started to explore new web programming platforms,  learned about using Community Access TV for marketing, went to an Owners Issues group, and read countless on-line articles on Social Networking, Marketing, Design, and more.

Things change so fast, you have to spend time keeping up to speed on what’s new and up and coming.  You have to learn to evolve or be left behind.

2) Teach

I am part of a group called Free Speech.  This is a group that promotes your topics to groups in exchange for not charging for presentations.  Last week it was the Oakbrook Sunrise Rotary.  I also taught a class at Waubonsee CC on “Marketing in the 21st Century”.  The class was held spellbound as I tried to explain 8 hours of material in 2 hours (a broad brush overview).

By teaching I learn what topics are hot and how to better communicate to customers.  I also tweak my speeches each time to reflect new things that I have learned when appropriate.

3) Give Back

I try to spend at least 10% of my time giving back to the community, that includes volunteering, sitting on boards and committees, and such.  Last week it was helping with the ‘Souper Bowl of Caring’. Although my store did pretty well, giving overall was down and the need continues to grow.  I have two unemployed people in my house so I can only imagine what it’s like choosing between keeping the heat on and having to go to a food pantry to feed your family.

It’s very easy to write a check to help…  but just like a $1 to a food pantry can buy $6 of food from the Northern Illinois Food Bank… an hour of your time can have a huge impact on helping those trying to help others.  They are short on people, time and resources so every little bit helps!

Rock My World.

Last Tuesday/Wednesday was just freaky…  It started out with a snow storm.  In the morning I broke out Ol’ Bess (the snowblower) and had to dig out the driveway to clear a path so Timmy could make it to his first job interview since graduating from Western Illinois U in December.  My neighbor Mark and I have a pact of working together to snowblow not only our driveways but clearing the street.  This is to avoid getting snow drifts from the plows piled up in our way out and making a path for the mail lady in front of our mail boxes.

I headed out for a quick client meeting only to return to a 3 foot drift in my driveway and another right in front of my mailbox (accidentally on purpose?).  I had to dig that out by hand just to get my car back in the driveway!  It’s a good thing Mark’s wife was not home…  she has been known to chase those jerks down the street screaming at them in tongues…  scares me!

Later that night, Timmy and I were working to clear the additional snow from the day.  Ol’ Bess was starting to get cranky and then started spewing parts past Tim’s head.  Her blades were disintegrating and she had seen the end on a short but illustrious career!

Finally at exactly 4:00 am that night we were all awoken by a LOUD BOOM.  A snowplow hit the house? A plane crash? Fermilab crashed two particles again?

Tim, Kim and I all woke up and met in the hallway.  We look at each other and say at the same time “What was that?”.  Then we proceeded to search the house looking for stranger danger and head to the basement to make sure the furnace or water heaters had not exploded.

It was not until that morning that we heard it was an Earthquake (Tim called it).  I jumped onto Facebook and posted a link to a Beacon News story  It started out by saying “Breaking News”…  a buddy commented “Breaking News?” (it was 5 hours later)  to which I commented… “Something had to ‘Break’ somewhere?  A Plate?  A Mirror?  : )

Then another friend posted to her husband “Honey… You make my earth quake everyday.”  which opened up a tsunami of funny comments.  I know how she feels since earlier that week I had posted “Off to another meeting at Panera… Stimulating the Economy and Myself… 1 Meeting at a Time : )”  I was talking coffee…  but the minds of my friends found a way to spin that in a slightly different direction!

Oh Well!

Bonus Video of the Week!

On this Valentines Day Weekend…  Nothing says” I love you” like hand written letters!  Or does it?  Enjoy…