From this month I've made a change in my monthly schedule: I'm dedicating the first workday of every month to strategy and administration.
This will be the day from now on when I don't do anything else than evaluating the previous month and doing the important-but-not-urgent administration things that I tend to postpone for months if I am not forced to do them...
Why I started this thread?
Currently doing 3 things:
My goals for 2019:
1. Freelancing
Now I have 5 clients, but want to reduce this number to 3 by the end of the year. 2 of these 3 are fastlane businesses, and not only they are the easier to make them pay me, but also I can learn a lot from them while working on their systems.
The rest has to go by the end of the year. I'll finish my project with one of them soon, so it will be no problem and am on the way to convince the other one to choose another freelancer.
2. Book
The goal for this part is to finish it and set up everything that's needed for selling it.
I don't care if I won't sell a single copy of it this year - I just want it to be 100% ready.
3. Software
The idea for it came from a client of mine earlier this year. I developed an early version of it for him as a freelancing project.
Then I told about it to another friend of mine. She said: "wow, it sounds great, I need it, too".
Then I occasionally read in professional forums that people are looking for the functionality my software does and started to think it would be a good idea to make it more universal and sell it with yearly licenses.
The only problem is that it still needs some work to make it market-friendly. I started the work and am closer and closer every day to publish it...
Now I am working on some features my friend requested (which will be useful for others as well). Once these are ready, I'll invoice her (so the second sale is on its way).
While I wrote in this thread that I'd like 20 licenses sold by the end of the year, now I can see that it would be a too big chunk for this year. However, 5 licenses can be a doable goal (as I am expecting lot of customization / dev works in the first times).
Why I want to go fastlane?
I don't want big toys like a Lamborghini (sorry MJ ), living in a castle or travelling around the world. My main motivation is TIME. To have time (and energy!) for all the things and people I love: my hobbies, my family, my friends - without worrying how I'll pay my bills.
To get out of the current situation where I make most of my money by selling my precious hours.
In other words, to become FREE.
I can see that with projects 2.+3. I can achieve it - by automating and later maybe delegating things.
Action plan for August:
This will be the day from now on when I don't do anything else than evaluating the previous month and doing the important-but-not-urgent administration things that I tend to postpone for months if I am not forced to do them...
Why I started this thread?
- I want a place where I can follow my own progress. I am planning to post here once a month and check back where am I compared to the previous month.
- Why publicly? It will give me less space for excuses (as I don't have a boss to report to, I tend not to take my own deadlines seriously enough).
Currently doing 3 things:
- Freelancing: this is how I make 90% of my income. My monthly income is not too big (cca. $2K/mo), but where I live it's enough for a middle-class family. I don't really plan to increase this kind of income significantly - as this is mainly for paying my monthly costs.
- Writing a book about my profession: started writing it in late 2017. It is 90% ready now, however, I didn't really have time to progress with it in the past month due to the 3. point below.
- Writing a software: the target audience of it is 50-70% the same as the book's, so I am planning to sell them on the same website, using the same mailing list, etc.
My goals for 2019:
1. Freelancing
Now I have 5 clients, but want to reduce this number to 3 by the end of the year. 2 of these 3 are fastlane businesses, and not only they are the easier to make them pay me, but also I can learn a lot from them while working on their systems.
The rest has to go by the end of the year. I'll finish my project with one of them soon, so it will be no problem and am on the way to convince the other one to choose another freelancer.
2. Book
The goal for this part is to finish it and set up everything that's needed for selling it.
I don't care if I won't sell a single copy of it this year - I just want it to be 100% ready.
3. Software
The idea for it came from a client of mine earlier this year. I developed an early version of it for him as a freelancing project.
Then I told about it to another friend of mine. She said: "wow, it sounds great, I need it, too".
Then I occasionally read in professional forums that people are looking for the functionality my software does and started to think it would be a good idea to make it more universal and sell it with yearly licenses.
The only problem is that it still needs some work to make it market-friendly. I started the work and am closer and closer every day to publish it...
Now I am working on some features my friend requested (which will be useful for others as well). Once these are ready, I'll invoice her (so the second sale is on its way).
While I wrote in this thread that I'd like 20 licenses sold by the end of the year, now I can see that it would be a too big chunk for this year. However, 5 licenses can be a doable goal (as I am expecting lot of customization / dev works in the first times).
Why I want to go fastlane?
I don't want big toys like a Lamborghini (sorry MJ ), living in a castle or travelling around the world. My main motivation is TIME. To have time (and energy!) for all the things and people I love: my hobbies, my family, my friends - without worrying how I'll pay my bills.
To get out of the current situation where I make most of my money by selling my precious hours.
In other words, to become FREE.
I can see that with projects 2.+3. I can achieve it - by automating and later maybe delegating things.
Action plan for August:
- Freelancing:
- I am finishing the project with one of the clients whom I don't want to work with any longer.
- Also, sent today a message to the other one that I won't have time to work with him in the foreseeable future and I'll help him with the transition to another developer.
- I have plenty to do on Fastalane Client A's project that will launch publicly later this year
- Also have smaller tasks for Fastalane Client B - so lot of things are going on...
- Book:
- Finalize my lead magnet
- Have some final illustrations to add to it
- 4th (and last) check: to make sure all the info in it is consistent
- Software:
- Finish the current development sprint that makes it suitable for my friend
- Invoice my friend once it's ready
- If have some time after finalizing the book, add some functions to it that will help selling my book (just to have some synergy)
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