Posted: Tue 7 February, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related |
Over on his site, Gordon’s talking (for some of the post) about how his workload’s about to explode.
It’s interesting, because at the moment I’m in kind of the same boat. In fact, my workload should have already exploded, but I’ve pushed a couple of deadlines back so that I’m not utterly rammed with stuff. One of the new sites I’ve been talking about was going to be going live on 1st March, but what with one thing and another, I’ve decided to push it back to somewhere around Monday 3rd April (what sane site would launch on April 1st?) instead.
If all had been sane in the world of Lyle, I’d have been well able to get the site done by the first deadline. However, what with the office being in a state of decorative flux, and the bathroom work that we’ve been doing, I’ve lost most of the weekends so far this year, which makes for developing to that deadline rather difficult. Also, we’re going to be away for the first week of March, which makes it rather daft to try sending a site live, then sodding off for a week. Talk about recipe for disaster.
Oh, and in there as well I’ve also got to build a new PC. Yes, attempt #2 now that I’ve got a new Shuttle box to replace the one ordered before Christmas that turned out to be a right lemon. (Sorting out the RMA (Return to Manufacturer) may take a bit more time, but at least we’ll have that new PC) Which may or may not be easy, when you also take into account the back-ups, moving across of data, email, bookmarks, music, etc. etc.,
And once I’ve got the first website done, I’ve got two other ideas hovering over the horizon, which I intend to get straight on with once I’ve sorted the first one. And in addition to that, I’ve started lining up some work for myself doing private sites (and in one case, redoing one I did a while back) which’ll keep the money coming in as well. Oh, and my normal job too.
So yes, the workload’s due to grow exponentially in the next couple of months. It’ll be interesting to see what actually comes out of it all, and whether the expectations and predictions I’ve made for them will come to fruition or not. Only time will tell…
Posted: Sat 4 February, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related |
With the way this week has been, I’ve come to a grand policy decision…
If I ever do have my own company again, and if I employ people within it, then I intend to have a policy of having something like five days per year for each employee that are simply called DWT Days. DWT stands for “Don’t Want To”. Say it in a childish and petulant way, and you’ll get the idea. It’s for days where you just don’t want to. Dont Want To get up, Don’t Want To go to work, Don’t Want To deal with people, all that kind of thing.
The only perceptible problem I can come up with for it is that on weeks like this one, five DWT days just simply isn’t enough…
Posted: Thu 26 January, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Work-related |
I’m sure I’ve written about this before (I just can’t be arsed to check right now), but I seem to have a strange talent for finding available domain names. For instance, the one I’m developing from home is such a great domain name I can’t believe it’s not been taken.
At work, they’re panicking (is that spelled right?) because they’ve discovered another company with the same name as the domain they were planning to use. Yeah, sure, it’s just the .de domain, but all the same, they’re a bit “Oh fuck” about it. So Yours Truly starts spodding around coming up with a few name concepts and so on.
Out of the 27 domain names I looked at, 17 were completely available ( by which I mean the .com, .co.uk, .net, .org, .biz and .info domains were available), with another 8 that only had one of the six taken (interestingly, normally the .org, for reasons unknown) Which makes for a pretty good hit-rate, all things considered.
Posted: Sun 22 January, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Own Business, Work-related |
A fairly busy weekend has been had, hence not a lot of updates on here.
The office room has been semi-stripped, with a lot of stuff moved out, and another lot of stuff (mainly bookcases and my old desk) snapped up and taken to the dump. Then we’ve painted half the walls. When that’s done, the remaining half of the office will be moved into the newly-decorated bit, and then we can paint the remaining walls too. In effect we’re doing the work with a minimum of disruption to our worklife, which does involve working from home.
In addition to shopping, dump runs, decorating and dog-walking, the plans for the rest of the house redevelopment have come together, with Herself knocking up a plan of what needs doing in the utility room etc. In addition, we’ve had a plumber round to give us a quote on the work that needs doing on the bathroom and kitchen – and he’s come back with an amount that seems pretty respectable.
Oh, and I’ve been able to knock together the database layouts, requirements, and tables for two sites I’m working on. One’s my own, the other’s more on the “potential” list at the moment, but has given me more of an idea about what I’m letting myself in for. Now I just need to do a bit of research on setting up https pages, which is something I’ve never done before…
Posted: Sat 21 January, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Own Business, Work-related |
At last, it’s Saturday. The end to a working week.
Of course, that doesn’t actually mean I’m not going to be working. It’s just that I won’t be doing my “proper” job. I’ve still got a couple of quotes to send out for some new bits of work, a couple of other letters to do, and a bundle of stuff to do with the new site.
There’s probably some other stuff to get out of the way too – and I think Herself is wanting us to start on redecorating the room that currently holds the role of “home office” too, which might make things a bit more interesting…
All in all, it’ll probably be good to head back to work for a rest!
Posted: Mon 16 January, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Getting Organised, Own Business |
Well, the first few steps of the organisational stuff are beginning to happen.
I’ve actually (finally) sent out the invoices for some stuff I did before Christmas. Yes, see, I’m even disorganised when it comes to money that people owe me. Not for much longer, but yes, it’d got that bad.
All told, it doesn’t come to that much – less than £100 – which is probably why it’s taken me ages to get round to it. But it’s worth doing. After all, money’s money.
We also sat down last night and wrote out a bundle of to-do lists, which was certainly something I needed to do. My worry with these lists is if I forget to add something on to them – in which case the odds are even higher that I’ll forget all about it very quickly. So I need to get myself into the habit of writing stuff down when I agree to it or remember it, and that way the odds are lessened. But it’s a bit of a faff all the same. Still, I’ll get there.
Posted: Mon 16 January, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business |
Well, I’ve got the holding page sorted for the new site. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s an acknowledgement of the basics. There’s still a lot of work to be done – but now at least it’s started.
I’ve decided that I’m going to give myself a latest start-date of 1st March. If I can make it sooner then great, I will do, but 1st March is a realistic goal, I think. There’ll still be a lot to be done after that, but that’s when it’ll all go live, and I can start talking about it, publicising it, that kind of thing.
In the meantime I’ve got to get all the pages written, tested, and some initial stuff in there so it doesn’t look bog-awful. But five weeks should be more than enough to deal with that stuff.
So yes, five weeks to get it done. It’ll be interesting to see how things go.