Time Invested – August
Getting Hostwell off the ground has been a much bigger task than I had anticipated. So far I’ve spent about 33+ hours on it. Here is a break down by task:
- Design – 1.4 hours
- Website Development – 11.6 hours (includes both site and blog setup/coding)
- Writing Content – 14.3 hours (writing, editing, having my wife edit, etc.)
- Hosting – .6 hours (setting up hosting account, email, etc.)
- Email Newsletter Announcement – 5 hours
- Social Media – .5 hours
Why did I spend so much time on my newsletter?
While I enjoy writing, I do struggle with it at times. I start writing something only to erase it, then start with something else. I’ll finish it, read through it and decide it doesn’t send the message I want to get across. So I start over. Then I have my wife edit it and offer suggestions. After a few test sends and with an increased heart rate I push the “Send” button as it goes out to my contacts…hoping for the best.
Room for Improvement
There are a number of things I can improve upon:
- I write my website content in Coda so that I can see it on the website. Being visual, it really helps me develop the copy (at least I think it does). As you can imagine, writing it in Coda and constantly going to my FTP client to refresh and upload the file adds lots of time. It’s a bad habit and one I really need to correct. My goal is to write the content in something like Evernote and then add it to the site once it has been fully edited. I imagine I’d spend 20% less going this route.
- When I started designing this site I had a few ideas. Most of which came from Jason’s mockup of Basecamp, Freshbooks, Mail Chimp, 37 Signals, and a few other websites. Why did I “borrow” from these fine websites? Because I look up to them and because I borrowed Seth Godin’s philosophy that there is no reason to try and come up with something entirely new – he basically says, “don’t start from scratch.” If I had started from scratch, I would have spent far more hours designing something and it wouldn’t have added any value.
- I didn’t do much “marketing” before hand. I’m more of “gotta have all my ducks in a row” kinda guy. Plus I’m better off focusing on one task than figuring out how to generate some interest and do it effectively. Throughout this process I wished I had a partner to help with things like this.
Rescue Time is Watching Me Like a Hound Dog
Sometimes I wish I had more hours in the day, but I don’t. Which means I only have one option – to watch my time very closely and cut out the hours minutes that aren’t helping me:
- Develop my business.
- Grow closer to God, my wife, and family.
The best and easiest way I know how to track my time is to use Rescue Time. I used it from December through March, but uninstalled it because I wasn’t quite ready for it. The data was interesting to look at, but I wasn’t using it to take actionable steps. However, this morning I installed it with the purpose that:
- It will be a source of accountability to me.
- I can visually see (and graphically – they have some cool charts) where I’m spending my time.
- I can evaluate and realize just how much time I am spending on activities that aren’t part of my business strategy and goals.
