Wow. Now.
Archive for May 2008
You have a process in place in your life. It is a machine that is run entirely by you.
On the left are the inputs. These are time and resources.
On the right are the desired outputs. This includes pleasure and satisfaction.
As it runs, it produces side effects, ranging from tiredness to annoyance to pain.
Like any machine, your Life Process runs in a particular environment. Like any machine, it requires maintenance and adjustments.
In the past, when I thought about building a web application, I had a huge resistance to the idea of outsourcing 100% of the development work. The first fear that pops into my mind: What if I pay for all this work and the application is not a success?
Thinking about that, I started to develop a new question: Why do I worry so much about the payoff when my investment is money, but I worry a lot less about the payoff when the investment is my time and energy?
What have you done for your business in the most recent hour that you put into it? In the last eight hours of work? In the last 40 hours?
Let’s get more specific. Look at the last 10 hours you’ve put into your business. If somebody else had done that for you, how much would you pay them for the results they produced? Is it worth $1,000 to you? $500? $100?
Divide that number by 10 and you have your hourly rate.
How well are you performing at that rate?
In a previous article I discussed making your business modular. Let’s look at one task and see how we can modularize it.
Every week I buy groceries. It’s easy to look at this as one activity but actually it involves a lot of different tasks and roles.
Continue reading ‘Make Your Tasks Modular’ »
Imagine a person who is living his dream life. For him, living the dream means waking up early and exercising, eating a leisurely breakfast with his family, working on his home business for six hours, having dinner with a friend or a client, practicing the piano, and then having several hours of family time.
He also saves money and goes on mini vacations every quarter, and a long overseas trip once per year.
He’s done this successfully for two years now and he’s loving it.
One day he wakes up with a terrible flu. His body aches and he’s dizzy with a fever. He spends the entire day in bed, unable to move.
Suppose that five people approached you right now and volunteered to work on your project. Could you fit them into your process right away?
It’s worth it right now to split your work into processes that can be performed by different roles, even if you don’t have any employees (or volunteers) yet.
Why?
Step #1: Believe in yourself.
You have got what it takes to make this happen. It’s going to take all the skills you have learned over your lifetime. Take everything you’ve got and concentrate it into this one venture.
It’s going to take getting to know yourself. What you love, what you hate, what you can put up with, what you enjoy.
It’s going to take getting to know the difference between yourself and the voices that are telling you to do it otherwise.
Let’s build a lifestyle that is fun to live, that is fruitful, and keep enhancing it day by day.
Continue reading ‘The First Step to a Profitable Web Venture’ »
