• Home
  • About
  • Now
  • Code Snippets
  • Blog
    • WordPress
    • Genesis Theme Framework
    • Tutorials
    • Web Development
    • Geeking Out
    • Blogging Resources
  • Contact
  • Home
  • My Story
  • Now
  • Code Snippets
  • Blog
  • Contact

The Web Princess

WordPress & Genesis Theme Development

The Web Princess

Freedom Comes from Making the Bed

July 4, 2014 by Dee Teal

There are some times when being in business for yourself is kind of a drag.

Don’t get me wrong, I love what I’m doing, I love the technical aspects of all the code tweaking and messing about with making pretty designs work as amazing, functional websites. I love the freedom that’s inherent with freelance… That’s the cool stuff.

The business side of being in business? For me? Less fun. Less free.

So, while it may seem unconnected to the business of doing business, let me start by showing you this video. It’s a commencement speech by Admiral William H. McRaven that, among other things, outlines the value of making your bed in the morning.

I’ll wait for you to get the gist.. (or watch the whole thing, you should, it’s awesome…)

So, here’s where it applies to me.

I’m not that good at making my bed. I always feel like there are more important things to do… but the thing I’ve noticed is that by NOT making my bed, the whole rest of my bedroom starts to look messy, it seems less important to pick up clothes that missed the laundry hamper off the floor … but if I make the bed? The rest happens easier… with the bed all neat and tidy, it just sets a much brighter tone for the whole room…

Which by extension, really does start to set the tone for the whole house.

SO I took the Admiral’s advice… I started making my bed. I started making a few other changes too… I started doing the dishes before I settled down in front of the tv for the evening… Sometimes I’d put the kettle on, and instead of going back to the computer to tweak sites while I waited for it to boil I’d do little kitchen jobs like wiping down the stove, putting away the groceries, or sweeping the floor. Tiny little things that have meant my house has stayed that little bit neater just because of a couple of simple changes. The bonus? With my house that tiny bit neater? I just felt a whole lot more in control… which for me is kind of a big deal.

I know, I know, you’re still wondering what this has to do with the business of business and office freedom…

Well, the way I manage some of the sites and projects I have on the go, and some of the ways I manage my maintenance clients AND the way I manage my inbox had started to feel rather a lot like that messy bedroom. I have a few tools that are supposed to make things easier, but unless I actually use those tools, well, things just stayed messy, and other parts of my business management also started to slide.

Enter Infinite WP.

I have had this great tool in my tool kit for ages. I used to have a few sites running on it, but I’d never sat down and installed EVERYONE on it. However, I’d begun to notice that a number of clients, past and present, had sites that were woefully in need of updates, (bordering on really bad security risks) and because I was only ever casting my eye over them when things went wrong I started to feel like I needed to take steps to actually get the whole site management shebang under control.

So, I sat down on a recent weekend, took the bull by the horns and got a whole new Infinite WP setup working on my awesome new host’s servers (IWP had stopped working at my old host since they upgraded some thing or another) and one by one I installed the client plugin on each site and added them into the Infinite WP dashboard. A grand total of around 47 sites.

Is this the end to all my organisational woes? No, of course not, but there are a couple of things about it that are kind of like having made the bed… getting this element of client management sorted out has started to bring some of the other things more into line.

Because I’m not wasting time going back and forth across those 47 sites to do updates, or backups, or to just check in and make sure everything is running smoothly I have much more time to get some of those other little jobs out of the way… like getting all my maintenance clients using my project management tool.

Because I’m not wasting time trying to find logins for sites I haven’t checked in on for quite some time (yes some clients pre date my password keeper) I can concentrate on getting down and dirty with my inbox to get that sucker back to Inbox:Zero.

Because I can hook up Infinite WP with my uptime monitor I’m getting ahead of the game and letting clients know their site’s are down (rare, very rare) instead of getting panicked calls from them informing ME … Damn, this IWP is making me look gooooood!

Because Infinite WP is taking a whole lot of fiddly annoying tasks off my hands, I have a whole lot more time to be doing the things I love, like tweaking that code and making websites fly…

So, to wrap up the metaphor… getting my sites squared away in this way is like the business equivalent of making my bed. Everything looks neater, I feel lighter and I can now focus on the fun bits… because I’m doing more of the fun stuff it feels as like Infinite WP has been putting the free back in my freelance.

So I gotta ask… am I the only one? What’s your office equivalent of making the bed? What’s your office ‘freedom’ tool?

http://lovely-decor.com/american-flag-duvet-cover-set.html

Disclosure: This is a post that’s been in drafts since I saw the Admiral’s speech and started getting my sh*t together… the freedom part? That’s because I’m playing along with Infinite WP for some cool discounts on their product… you can read more about that here.

About Dee Teal

Dee Teal is a WordPress Developer (mostly front-end and using the Genesis Theme Framework) and WordPress trainer who is crazy active in the WordPress community. She's run large scale WordPress events, and small ones, and if you ask someone about WordPress in Australia, you won't usually be more than one degree of separation from someone who knows her.
 
Dee has published a tutorial series on WP Tuts+ called Beginning with WordPress
 
You can also find her here...
LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Google+

Comments

  1. Bernadette Formosa says

    July 4, 2014 at 10:25 am

    Completely agree..since i was a kid I had to have ALL rooms tidy before I could work. working at home for me would be a nightmare, i would never get anything done because where ever I look I would feel the need to re arrange. Thats the creative/decorating side of me….thats why its best I work in other peoples homes and decorate for them; creating space and educating people on becoming minimalist, decluttering externally is significant to decluttering internally. making your bed..watch out…..it will spread into all your rooms leaving an element of pride and satisfaction and then move on to the next project.

  2. Japh says

    July 5, 2014 at 11:15 am

    Nice one, Dee! I feel like this sometimes too, and InfiniteWP has definitely been a tool that’s helped me.

    I also signed up for Amazon Web Services and setup scheduled backups to S3 for all my client sites through IWP.

    I love that it can generate PDF reports for your clients too, to help them see the extra value you’re providing.

    Awesome stuff 🙂

    • Dee says

      July 5, 2014 at 8:03 pm

      Thanks @japh!! 😀 I’ve heard that Stream is really good for keeping tabs on things too 😉

FREE Website Planner

  • Become your web designer's favourite client

Website Sign Ups

Become your Web Designer's favourite client by preparing for your web project using the Web Princess' Interactive Website Planner

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Tweet

  • I just solved pack Snake in WordBrain - as number 2605 ever! #wordbrain #genius #words http://t.co/ygULwZTRYQ http://t.co/ORNxwtaTIl September 14, 2015 2:11 pm
  • Pretty impressed with the stops that @Telstra are pulling out to get my issues sorted... Service with a surprised smile! September 14, 2015 2:48 am
  • It's Tuesday. A perfect evening for this. And by this I mean beer (of course). #oohermrs… https://t.co/eiIttD5xWa September 8, 2015 8:17 am
  • Follow Along

Recent Posts

  • Asking a Better Question September 13, 2016
  • Growing & Developing your WordPress Meetup June 24, 2016
  • Making an Escape June 7, 2016
  • Changing Tack : Adjusting your Sails for the Winds of Change May 7, 2016
  • Beating Imposter Syndrome August 31, 2015
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclosure Policy
  • Contact

© 2019 The Web Princess
Proudly custom built with Genesis