Accountability and community are two of the most sought after aspects that solopreneurs are looking for when working on their start-up. Perhaps that is why I propose by me, myself and I, to start using my weblogs in a most literal way. Keeping a log on the web. A real web Log.
How original is that you would think? I think very few people are doing so. Most write for a short period, and then the blog fades away. Or, the blog is full with interesting and sometimes well categorized content, but there is no chronology.
I tried it before, keeping track of my fishing trips, but as soon as I did not catch a lot, I stopped writing… Not easy, to keep on going, even when things are tough.
So here is this week:
Monday:
First school day of my son. I did some administrative tasks such as submitting insurance claims and moved my desk to another room to make space for a guest staying over.
Tuesday:
Writing the intro for this blogpost, the general idea is to write something about, or for, my business every day, even if it is just a little bit, to get into the rhythm. The last thing I wrote last week, was a text for highlevelstructure.com, a site that has the potential to become a great resource and traffic magnet. Just now checking the statistics, last month it had 2182 unique visitors. Not bad, given the small amount of content. While realizing that monitoring website visitors is not an activity that directly generates income, it helps taking some operational decisions. In the design of my traffic funnel, I have the sign-up process for Backbone Management System at the bottom-line. The site backbone.ms had 1283 visitors in January, the content is much more product specific and logically attract less visitors. Over time this will also develop, but I think making use of channels that have a broader public is necessary, to let the few first people that sign up find my product site. This weblog is -obviously- part of this strategy as well. Now with ten thousand monthly visitors. I am still surprised that a bit of blogging just made that happen, and I wonder how far this could grow naturally. Besides writing down this thought, I worked most of the day on polishing the strategic plan for a client.
Wednesday:
Dad’s day. As parents, we both take responsibility growing our children. Therefore, my wife and I work four days to have each one weekday with the kids. To be able to do this, is just making you feel rich, no matter what the financial conditions are. I am a bit cautious speaking about my kids and posting photos of them, so I’ll put some of our garden below.
Having children made me a logistics expert as well, and a productivity fanatic. Getting more done, in less time. Time is the most precious metal one can buy. It is so hard, you can’t cut anything off.
Double dug part of the plant bed we are preparing as well. A technique to give our vegetables more root space, and a living soil. There are so many similarities with organic gardening and business it is remarkable. Making progress every day to be able to reach high end goals is one of them, that’s is why I made this little time to write on this Wednesday text. At first it seems perhaps more philosophic, or even less relevant, but broadening your perspective, sometimes leads to surprising opportunities.
Thursday:
Had some interactions on LinkedIn and finishing a consultancy. Writing in bursts as inspiration comes and goes. Working on proposals and subscribed for an auditor course to get certified as ISO 9001:2015 auditor. To deeply understand management systems some first-hand practice on implementing quality management systems will help design a better system. So, from now on I am officially looking to help organizations that need support with their quality manual. Planning to pick up the phone (head-set) again to learn more from auditors, QHSE-managers and top management about their management systems. Coming week, I guess.
My wife told me I should listen less to podcasts, and take some more action on building my business. She has a point that it feels like you’re doing something listening and learning, but that does not bring in any cash. I did hear good things about betalist.com though as a source for the first leads. So, this is something I need to check out, and create my momentum when the timing is best.
Friday:
Making some advances with the formation of the Cocoa Standards committee for Costa Rica. The ISO/DIS 34101 series for sustainable and traceable cocoa beans is in development. Part 1 of the series: Requirements for Sustainability Management Systems is particularly interesting for me, because it combines quality, environmental and social aspects.
Also, I started to look for a green hosting provider. I had a look at two B-corps, greenhousedata.com and canvashost.com, but I will need to do some more research. On the one hand, I need server space for my informative sites and clients hosting, and on the other hand hosting for application development. I had AWS in mind for file handling, but last night even that proofed not to be a 100% redundant, so I am reconsidering. Security compliance and up-time are important factors.
At this very moment, I am uploading the recovery files for a site that was corrupted. It never happened to me before, but now two client sites got hacked. I am using the Updraft plus plugin for the recovery. Fingers crossed (edit: all systems up). It happened shortly after I changed the backup system and I did not have tested updraft yet. They say that I back up system that was never tested is not a backup. Be sure it works! I assume it was something automatically triggered by a security flaw at my current hosting provider, because everything was up to date. I guess this happens to the best.
Weekend:
None of your business, ha! Monday morning and I am giving this real web log a finishing tough and prepare it for upload. I noticed that by writing small chunks of text I created over a 1000 of words of content in a swift. I do wonder if not it is worthwhile passing it through the Hemmingway app, or nobody is reading this anyway. How much time should I give this format a try? To compare it, it should be another 4,5 months of weekly blogging. Subscribe and find out!
