Where did March go? I feel like I’ve been short changed on time this last month. 31 days just seems to disappear in the blink of an eye! Thankfully though, I got a huge amount done, so once again it’s time to take a look back at the things I set out to achieve and whether or not I got there.
The Business
Since last month when I wrote about my progress in February, it feels like I’ve done almost double the amount of work again. I blogged this month about the hours which I’m currently working, well that hasn’t changed much yet – I’m still up early, and in bed very late.
Here’s some of the stuff I managed to get done in March:
- Totally cleaned out my office, hopefully this’ll be a guest post on FreelanceFolder soon
- Got invited to do a guest post on Darren Rowse’s TwiTip (I need to write this up)
- Opened my business bank account (which took a LONG TIME to do)
- Fully reviewed the SitePoint Web Design Business Kit (as pomised)
- Networked with a lot [MORE] really great people!
- Didn’t take on any new projects, but got lots of enquiries. See my post on Dry Patches
- Designed/coded/released the intial version of WPress’d
- Put together some new sets of documents including my new-client needs-assessment form
- Totally coded up and released a brand new Lyrical Media site (big accomplishment!)
- Managed to get Lyrical Media bumped up to PR6 with the latest pagerank update
- Got my credit rating sorted out! Natwest finally came through and fixed their mistake!
Reviewing Goals From March
In my first month review I set myself some goals to achieve for the month of March, let’s have a quick look back and see what I did (and didn’t) manage to get done.
- Grow my twitter account to 700 followers – Sucess! I smashed this one, over 1,000 now!
- Grow my rss subscribers to 60 – Success! Feedburner is currently showing 65!
- Look into an advertising budget with BuySellAds – Fail, simply haven’t got the budget yet
- Set up a monthly newsletter with Campaign Monitor – Half success, opened an account and started using it, but I haven’t actually set a newsletter up yet.
- Complete and release the Neophyte wordpress theme – Total Fail, this one is on the backburner for the time being
- Learn some more PHP, Javascript, and Ruby – Success! I did all three!
Goals For April
I set 6 goals last month, this month I’m bumping that up to 8 – and they’re slightly more ambitious goals too, because what would be the point of succeeding at the same rate?
- Set up Newsletter – back from last month, really want to get this done
- Review the SitePoint Email Marketing Kit on this blog (fits in with the above)
- Review the Rockstar Freelancer Book on this blog
- Win (at least) two new client projects
- Complete the first sample of my top secret Lyrical Media project (watch this space)
- Grow my twitter account to 1,500 followers
- Grow my rss subscribers to 100 people
- Sell EggRage.co.uk (leave a comment if interested)
Other Stuff Coming in April
- An interview with Brendon Sinclaire (author of the Web Design Business Kit)
- Some more free applications for freelancers
- A couple of guest posts by me on other freelance / web design blogs
- More ‘personal’ style posts from me about the trials and tribulations of self employment
- New and improved business cards!
What Are You Up To?
I love hearing from everyone who comments on this blog, so please tell me what you’re up to and if there’s anything that I can do to help out. If you’re doing anything related to web design business, drop me a line and maybe we can get you a guest post slot! This site received 24,000 page views in March compared to 18,000 in February, so it’s on the up!