I help small business owners with marketing during the day, then write and code at night for fun.
Twitter: @brett_warnerWeb: www.brettkwarner.com Message
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Brett Warner hasn't filled out their bio yet.
I help small business owners with marketing during the day, then write and code at night for fun.
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Oh completely agree. Usually there's a subtle difference in tone between the person who has honest requests or forgot something in a contract compared to someone who's looking to game the agreement. I chalk this up to the fact that most people are incredibly bad actors/liars, even if they are good negotiators.
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Brett Warner hasn't filled out their bio yet.
I help small business owners with marketing during the day, then write and code at night for fun.
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The nibblers/scope creepers being a pain the ass is something that I feel really strongly about. It's gotten to the point now that the second I notice someone trying to do it I cut them off and end it right there. Nearly every time that type of client is more work than they're worth and it's an immediate red flag when someone starts trying to do that.
I'd much rather have a few less clients and work with people that are happy to pay my rates than take on more clients with more stress and a lower rate.
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Brett Warner hasn't filled out their bio yet.
I help small business owners with marketing during the day, then write and code at night for fun.
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I found that I was always playing whack-a-mole with bad habits. If I completely cut off one I'd just find myself doing something else just as unproductive. Turns out I just needed a 10 minute break every now and then so I started structuring them, such as forcing a 20 minute walk everyday around the same time. So now that I was allowing myself to have the bad habits I just needed to make sure I never spent too much time on them. Hence my 60 minute daily cutdown, which even this comment is cutting into.
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Brett Warner hasn't filled out their bio yet.
I help small business owners with marketing during the day, then write and code at night for fun.
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Have you tried using something like rescuetime or stayfocusd? I have a lot of blogs I really enjoy, occasionally get caught up in the news, and lose track of time playing chess online a lot. So I set a daily cap of 60 minutes between all of those. So rather than cutting a few out I'll find that when I want to procrastinate for a few minutes I'm doing a quick judgement call of "Okay I only have so much time, and I'm only allowing myself 60 minutes of downtime online, how do I want to spend those?"
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Brett Warner hasn't filled out their bio yet.
I help small business owners with marketing during the day, then write and code at night for fun.
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I once read a study about how reading fiction causes people to become more empathetic, by forcing someone into a fictional character's thought process it helped bring down judgmental barriers when dealing with real people. I wouldn't be surprised if it had similar effects on improving understanding of history though. Anecdotally I feel like the people I know that are voracious readers are much less judgmental about historical situations.
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Brett Warner hasn't filled out their bio yet.
I help small business owners with marketing during the day, then write and code at night for fun.
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What areas did you visit in the Philippines? If you have the time take a trip to Boracay or Cebu. Both are absolutely beautiful.
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Brett Warner hasn't filled out their bio yet.
I help small business owners with marketing during the day, then write and code at night for fun.
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Definitely and I think this can be applied in a lot more than just projects. For example I find myself constantly juggling trying to keep our marketing funnels full through new lead generation vs closing the leads we have. For us getting someone to opt in and engage with our marketing is the 90% But often rather than focusing on the close we'll spend days trying to simply get more leads to where most of ours already are...
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Brett Warner hasn't filled out their bio yet.
I help small business owners with marketing during the day, then write and code at night for fun.
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I find this really comes down to making sure you put in the time where it's needed. It's really easy to keep spinning your wheels on the day to day work when you don't take the time to take a step back and look at the big picture.
There's certain projects I work on that require almost no upkeep, and every added hour I can put into them increases their total monthly income. However they don't pay the bills quite yet, the clients do. Even worse the client problems are always urgent or have deadlines, where these projects don't so they get pushed down the ladder even though in the longterm, they have the potential to be much more lucrative. So I'll often end up closing out a day and realizing all I did was maintain. I didn't grow.
My fix for this has been to set time caps on anything that doesn't increase efficiency or income. Occasionally it takes me a couple of business days to get back to my clients now, but ultimately I end up putting in more time on the things that grow the bottom line, rather than sustaining it.
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Brett Warner hasn't filled out their bio yet.
I help small business owners with marketing during the day, then write and code at night for fun.
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Yeah I agree. Those "Deathmarch" days are some of my most memorable. The trap is after one of them you occasionally feel like you can keep that pace up forever.
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Brett Warner hasn't filled out their bio yet.
I help small business owners with marketing during the day, then write and code at night for fun.
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Sticking to a project, gym regimen whatever is always nearly impossible when you don't find a way to enjoy it. You need to find ways to enjoy your tasks every day, achieve flow, whatever. Otherwise what you're doing becomes a chore and eventually your willpower depletes and you just don't want to do it anymore.