Six Peeps

April 2, 2008

APRIL PITY THE FOOLS! (the “who cares but me” post - sorry!)

I’m riding on a gravy train with biscuit wheels, man!

It’s APRIL! I have to say, the first three months of this year have been a LOT of work. If any of my peeps remember, I officially declared 2008 as “The Year of Lateral Thinking”.

I’m also determined to make this year one that is founded on organization, a streamlined workflow, bomber efficiency and productivity, and planting the seed for 2009, which I have officially declared, “The Year of Workflow Automation”.

It’s funny actually. Sometimes people email me thinking that I live this great life of drinking Margaritas all day long, traveling the world, never working, just taking it easy. WRONG. Granted, I have done some fun stuff, but I never blog about the hours or work I pour into each day, waking at 5 AM every morning, working out, straight to the studio, sitting in front of a computer until 7PM, breaking only for a few necessary meetings and consultations, home for a quick dinner and back to work. Not an ideal life, if you ask me, but necessary to achieve the plans I have for next year.

So what do I have to report for the first quarter? Lots of great stuff, that’s what! Before I list it out, I had a huge weight lifted off my shoulders this morning. I am reading a new book. (yes, I have been reading a lot lately). The new book is called, “Getting Things Done”. It’s a National Bestseller and I bought it the other day, never hearing about it before. It speaks of many things I am already doing right now, like my famous goalbook that I’ve been using faithfully since 2000, and digital voice recorders, etc. So I was like, “OK, I could have wrote this book”… but now I am reading deeper into it and finding ways to take everything to the next level.

One of the biggies is: EMPTY YOUR INBOX. Yeah I needed to do that, big time. It took almost 45 minutes for me to delete the 12,000+ emails from my inbox. I also deleted all my folders and replaced them with 7 easy folders. But that’s not even the great part. The great part is that it will only fill up throughout the course of the day and will be emptied twice daily… for the rest of my life!

So fresh and so clean! I’m turning into a metrosexual! (uh Maybe not QUITE)

So here’s my quarter 1 report:
1. Took an idea and turned it into a business. In three months, my secret idea is now a legal, official, trademarked business. We have a web site, real clients, and sales. It’s working. We are already designing our second version of the web site. I’ll let the cat out of the bag, one of these days and tell you all about it.

2. Revamped prophotoalliance.com and created ganderproofs.com after hours and hours and hours of hard work. We have new customers and so far they seem to like it a lot. We start advertising… TODAY!

3. Cleaned my office from the ground up, painted the floors, walls and ceiling, and reorganized everything towards a more positive “chi”.

4. Hired Kendra, studio manager, who is taking the bull by the horns and has organized my files, my contracts, is working to get caught up with any lingering 2007 accounts.

5. Dropping 100% of our advertising! Our word-of-mouth is increasing rapidly to where we are going to be able to drop our $10,000 advertising accounts in quarter 2. YAY! Makes me happy.

6. New workflow! We changed our wedding client workflow so that it’s FASTER, MORE EXCITING, and MORE MANAGEABLE!

7. New partner photographers! Robert is still available, but now we have two more super talented, hand-picked photographers who will be shooting very soon. I am so excited about the talent we are getting for this year and my partner photographer program has been completely redesigned. Makes me happy x2.

8. Charts and Graphs, Charts and Graphs! I’m orchestrating my life with visual indicators of the past, present and future (see below). For the first time in my life, I really feel like I am the pilot, and not just a passenger. I have charts for the following:
* Personal Expense and Budgeting
* Business Expense and Budgeting
* Business Net Worth
* Personal Net Worth/Savings/Investing
* Running Progress Chart
* Weight Progress Chart

If I commit to these graphs like I did for my commando diet last summer, then I think tax season next year is going to be a breeze.

9. Health and Fitness: I managed to keep my weight down over the winter. Stayed on my diet and routine with the exception of a couple days in NYC and my recent Switz trip. Gained a few pounds as expected but they are already just about burned off. I plan on racing bikes again if possible in Colorado Springs at the Velodrome. Haven’t done that since High School. Should be interesting.

10. Personal: Looking forward to automating things so that Jenny and I can do way more fun things together this summer! I’d like to climb some of the Italian Alps while in Italy, Learning Italian as we parle. Of course I’ll be planning my annual Colorado backpacking/peak bagging trip with Terence soon.

2008 is becoming just what I have intended since January 01.

I can’t wait to post a Quarter 2 post. Quarter 2 will be quite revealing for me and hopefully proving a testimony to the prep-work done in Qtr.1.

Happy April, it’s almost time for shorts and t-shirts here in CO and BBQ’s, Baseball games, and daylight until 8:00 PM! YES!

April 2, 2008 |