Hello again!
I hope you’ve been well. It’s been about 3 months since I posted. A lot has happened for me during that time! My wife and I started filing for chapter 13 bankruptcy back at the end of January. There were lots of birthdays, and illnesses, and personal drama, as there always is.
Freelancing updates
In this project, I floundered somewhat. I struggled to keep up with the schedule that I set for myself. I found myself procrastinating still, putting things off until weeks had gone by and I hadn’t written a single other blog post I was happy with. I was still posting daily content basically, and I talked about trying to do freelancing, and even did a little bit of networking on LinkedIn.
However, my heart just wasn’t in it. I don’t want to do consulting, not full-time anyway. I don’t want to be locked into a situation where a lot of my income is dependent on time spent working for clients. I want to be my own boss for the flexibility, and I realized that I wouldn’t really get to have that if I was working for other people all day every day. I still want to do some consulting, but I haven’t decided what form that will take yet.
So I backed off the freelancing stuff, and instead started focusing on actually building some software. I felt like, I’ve gotta get at least one thing out there that is done and launched and can be used by other people, and can probably even be monetized. When it came to deciding what to build, I knew I wanted to build something that would solve a problem I was currently having.
How I protect my time
When I’m procrastinating, facing something I am struggling with or don’t really want to be doing, I have a tendency to try to distract myself, usually by opening up Steam, and playing Rivals in the middle of the day.
I’m not as bad as I used to be with it, I usually keep it limited to 2-3 quick matches during the day, but I admit it is problematic. I don’t really get a TON of time to do focused work, maybe like 7 hours/day on good days, and in many instances I was losing at least 1 of those hours playing Rivals. Perhaps to some others it would be as simple as not doing that, but to be honest willpower isn’t my strongest ability, and I needed some help keeping that in control.
So, I built Time Protector. It’s a web app with an installable local desktop agent, and a browser extension. The web app allows you to configure ‘website’ and ‘process’ rules for blocking each of those things on your computer for configurable days and times. For example, I have blocked Steam for myself from 9 AM - 5 PM M-F:
You can also block websites, which will be caught by the browser extension and redirected to a page telling you it’s blocked.
I had planned on having a couple of other features there that aren’t fully implemented yet. Right now, the API is logging when you break a rule that you configured. I started to implement an auto-posting feature that would automatically post on your behalf to your social media account (Bsky was where I started since it’s free and easy), and also a leaderboard displaying the usernames of the top rule breakers of the week/months/etc., which would have been opt-in.
Unfortunately I ended up getting stuck on the desktop agent. I ran into the most difficulty after I had finished testing it in a development capacity, and needed to test the packaged version (on Windows the .exe installer file). I had problems with this thing minute one. It is an Electron application that runs as a background process with an icon in the system tray, scanning for running processes that break the configured rules, and killing them if found, so it needed admin privileges to run correctly. This caused several different issues that took several weeks for me to completely troubleshoot and debug.
Time Protector was supposed to be a quick win for me, but it ended up taking about 5 weeks to get all the way ready for other people to use it at all, and even then that’s only for Windows and Chrome. My lesson learned from this is to never do a local agent ever, ever again. But it does work! I try to use it every day to keep myself from slipping back into bad habits. Unfortunately there’s a bug with the auto-start and I haven’t had a chance to look into it. I haven’t been able to generate any interest yet in the app, so I might feel more compelled to start fixing some stuff once people are actually using it.
What I realized I missed in my messaging
While I was building Time Protector, I started to really rethink the messaging behind my business. Thus far, I have been mostly playing it safe, writing about things I see other people writing about, keeping content somewhat generic, not taking any hard stances on anything really, targeting broad appeal. I realized that the message I really wanted to deliver was something much more specific.
I listened to this episode of Everyone Hates Marketers, the episode with Billy Broas (May 24, 2024), and in it he talks about claims, or having a core claim. It kind of clicked for me listening to this that my messaging was all over the place. Internally I had all these strong opinions about working for other companies, especially big corporations, but I wasn’t really saying any of that in anything I was promoting, partially because I was too chicken, but also because I didn’t want to be off-putting.
He also talks in that episode about how every single piece of content or promotion or anything you put out there should be nudging the customer at least one more inch in the direction of accepting your core claim, which hopefully results in a sale.
I realized that I needed to hone, refine, and concretely define my claim, and also all of the supporting beliefs and corresponding evidence, to support that claim, then ensure that basically everything I say online is pointed towards that claim. So I’ve been working on that for the past couple of weeks now. I created a little mini map that contains my claim and all of its supporting beliefs, and a few pieces of evidence for each one of those.
Billy also mentions in this episode that it’s helpful when you’re doing any kind of coaching or teaching or something like that, to have a concrete product or thing to point to and say “this is what I do.” I really want the personal brand portion of my business to be committed to helping people quit their jobs, and learn to work for themselves, so I’m going to need some kind of a plan to give to people to help them do that. I can’t just wing it with each one individually, like I’m doing with myself, or they’ll end up floundering exactly like I have.
I started sketching out in my head a little 5-step plan for starting a business and setting up the necessary channels to market it online using social media. I wrote a little thread about it earlier today. Yesterday I started writing up a more formal and verbose version of that plan, which I’ll post about in a more detailed way later on.
My intent is to use this plan myself over the next few weeks to see how it goes. The schedule does feel a little aggressive maybe, but I also think it might be helpful to other people if they feel like this is something they can achieve in a short amount of time. So I’m going to try it.
I’m going to help others quit their jobs
I’m very nervous about this, because now it has to be time for me to finally put my money where my mouth is. I have to actually implement this plan that I’m going to try to teach to other people, and actually do the things that are in the plan, and not just procrastinate and waste more time. I get anxious thinking about it, because I know it’s going to take a ton of work, and I am still unsure on how to avoid burnout. I know rest days are important, but often they feel like setbacks to me.
While I’m nervous, I am also really excited. I desperately want to quit my job, and I also want to help other people quit their jobs. The work landscape out there is nightmarish for lots of people for a number of reasons, and that doesn’t even include the recent mass layoffs of thousands of federal workers. It’s bad out there, and I really believe that many of us would be much better off if we took our lives into our own hands and built our own businesses, and I also believe it’s not as difficult as some people believe it is.
So I really want this to succeed. That’s on me, I’m the one who’s got to lock in and figure this thing out. I’ve got to use Time Protector to keep myself from getting distracted during the day. I’ve got to use Pomodoro timers to help me focus on one task at a time. I’ve got to meet the daily expectations of myself. I know all the things to do, now to just actually do them. Wish me luck!