Sunday Morning. Yesterday was an unplanned cheat day. I slept in and didn’t do my morning walk. So, it’s no mercy today for my schedule. I can get a lot in before the family wakes up, before we head to church.
I’ve been learning through reading and videos that the number one thing that I need to do both for marketing but also simply for growth is to put myself out there, you know, on the internet, on Facebook, on Youtube all that stuff. I just started reading a book yesterday called “Show Your Work” by Austin Kleon. So far it’s good. It’s gonna be a short, easy read. So in the spirit of showing my work let’s start posting these personal blogs. It doesn’t matter that nobody is reading it. It’s for me.
The basic routine is this:
- Wake at 4:00 and walk the dog for 30 minutes while listening to foreign language content in order to improve my Portuguese.
- Go through my morning routine, roughly 30 minutes. It’s a series of things like putting on a big toothy smile, drinking a glass of water, taking vitamins & some self-talk points.
- Work for an hour and a half. This first bit is usually marketing.
- Reading – in my target C2 language, 30 minutes. Right now I’m reading “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari. I’m sure it was written in English first, by I’m reading a Portuguese translation. (It’s very good by the way)
- Then it’s breakfast with the family. Followed by a frenzied time of getting the kids ready for school and out the door. It’s always a frustrating experience for all of us.
- Sometimes I drive them to school, sometimes Kimberly does.
- 2 Hour Work Block – it’s still undefined what type of work I do here. When I have more clients I think it will be actual bookkeeping. Right now it has been to study marketing.
- 30 Minute Block to study something.
- 30 Minute Lunch
- 2 Hour Work Block
- 30 Minutes of house cleaning while listening to foreign language.
- 30 Minutes of B2 Reading – This year I have targeted Swedish as my B2 Language.
- 2 Hour Work Block
- By now the kids are usually home from school. It’s time for homework, practicing their musical instruments and practicing reading. With attention spans being what they are, I usually need to help keep them focused on the activities. For me it’s a point of emphasis this year.
- Cook Dinner, or if I’m not cooking that day, then play with the kids.
- Dinner
- Cleanup/Dishes
- 30 minutes of Study time
- A bit of TV time with Kimberly, to be honest I have an hour of work scheduled here, at least until the business is well launched, but mostly I’ve watched TV here.
- Go to bed, read anything I’m interested in until lights out.
The weekends are a bit different. The early morning stuff is the same, but I try to spend most of the day with the family. On Sunday afternoons around 4:00 or so I try to work on personal finance items, goal setting and planning.
The pain points in the schedule are usually the B2 language things. Right now I’m at the early stages of learning Swedish so the things I do to learn are a bit boring. The reading is low level and not so interesting yet. The listening activities honestly are above my ability. As I get better though this time should become more interesting. Getting up early has not actually been the hard part. I’ve come to really enjoy rising early and going through my morning routine.
Long term, I envision about half my work day being spent on actual bookkeeping activities and the other half spent on branding and marketing. Gary Vaynerchuc famously says that all businesses are marketing businesses. The sooner I embrace that and begin to find enjoyment in it, the better off I will be.