Administrative BS
Sometimes I absolutely hate that I am the only one with thumbs here! It must fall to me to do all these fun and lovely tasks like secure email, LLC’s, taxes, advertising, and such. I would much rather be digging holes, herding, or hunting small game, but no, I’m stuck here in the office, on yet another beautiful day! What makes it even worse is I have this nagging perfectionist streak, that is impossible to maintain in this perfectly imperfect world. But I am trying to let that go. Now while at first glance, my administrative woes may seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with prupping, it cannot be avoided, not even here. You see, part of prupping is self-reliance. Self-reliance entails having a business, where your skills provide you with an income. Even if you and yours are handy enough to provide yourselves with everything you need, with enough surplus to attain some wants, there is always that pesky tax man that only loves cash. So, you will be doing some administrative work! I’ve found some things that may make your administrative life easier.
Hire competent people when you can. This may seem like a no brainer, but it’s hard to come up with the money especially when you are first starting out. It is also fairly hard to find competent people. They are in high demand, and may not take you on, even if you are lucky enough to find them. Sifting through those that just want to make a buck, or think they know what they are doing, or misunderstand what you want can be very time consuming. Plus, you must actually know what you want. A vague I need help statement will not yield much true help. The best way to know what you need is to do it yourself first. Ugh!
Do not be a perfectionist. I am always amazed when I get professional emails, from older accomplished people with misspellings and smiley faces. What?! Then I head over to a popular long standing companies’ website, complete with broken links and bad English. While we do indeed want to put out the best product possible, and preserve our reputation, if everyone waited for perfection, there would be no business being done. Start somewhere and then improve on that.
Enlist family and friends. While you certainly don’t want to take advantage of those closest to you, your pack does want you to succeed, and is willing to help you out. Ask them to help you accomplish simple tasks, for recommendations, and their opinions. Bear in mind that they may tend to be a little too gentle with their criticisms. This is where joining a group of people in your industry may come in handy.
Take breaks. Our culture seems to want us to be running at top speed all the time, but this is not how genuine production happens. Being busy all the time may make you feel productive, but a balanced, well thought out approach will yield better results. You need time to just walk, hang out, to reflect on your goals and focus on the deeds that will truly make them happen. Take time to pet the puppies!
Group things together. This is something I am struggling with right now. I’m always looking for the best providers, and the most cost effective. The first version of this site took me months to build. I was so incredibly happy with it. Until I realized how long it took to load! I had to scrap it and start all over again, with a new host, and now I’m terrified of what could be many helpful plugins. Today I have emails with at least 3 different providers, and websites with at least two different hosts. Would it not be easier to just open my email in one place and go to one host to update my sites? Sigh. One day.
Do not procrastinate. Taking care of daunting tasks will not be easier days, weeks, or months from now, when you’ve forgotten what you need to do, along with all your passwords. I try to schedule the most grueling duties early in the day and leave the fun easy stuff for a lunch break, or when I have only a short block of time to work.
While we do indeed have to make sure the administrative side of our businesses are attended to, let’s not forget the reason we started our own gig. For me it is designing, which I stopped doing for quite some time because I was too busy being my own secretary. Please don’t lose your passion to tasks!
<3 MOG professional :)
