Reviews

Tools + Resources

By Michelle

Quick note before we jump into the review: in celebration of Rock the System hitting #1 in Systems & Planning and #2 in Entrepreneurship in the Kindle store, you can get 15% off anything in the store with the code “bestseller” at checkout until midnight on Saturday. Have fun!

How Teamweek works:

It’s basically a really pretty, interactive Gantt chart. In case that means nothing to you, what it translates to is that you can see how long tasks are supposed to take and see them overlapped on top of each other in a visual way, instead of just seeing them as a list of boxes to check. There’s also:

• color coding
• to-do lists/subtasks
• milestones
• ability to assign things to a person
• project & client labels

Pricing: $4/month for each “manager” user, $2/month for each normal user

How it could work for solopreneurs:

Teamweek is clearly advertised/intended towards teams of 3+ people, but I wanted to see if I could come up with ways that solopreneurs or smaller teams could make it useful,

• The first thing that came to mind would be using it monthly or quarterly planning. It gives you a nice clean way to see how your projects and other life events (family visiting, you travelling, etc.) overlap/interact with each other – this is the first way I show to use it, from 0:00 to about 4:10 in the video
• It could also be used for visual weekly planning, depending on your organizational needs, as highlighted from 4:10-7:13 in the video
• It’d be GREAT for launch planning – it would let you see how all the pieces overlap (I show this from 7:13 to 9:40 in the video)

If you’re a really creative type and want something that compliments a more “to do list”-y app (like Wunderlist), I think Teamweek would definitely be worth the $4/month. And if you’re planning a launch and want to keep everything on track, it’d definitely be worth looking at as well. I don’t think I’m going to become a regular user of it (I’ve gotten spoiled by Google Docs integration/notes/etc.) but I’ll definitely be sending people to them and probably using it to help plan my next multi-person launch. Definitely check it out!

Reviews

Tools + Resources

By Michelle

I’d definitely recommend Conqu for people who are managing a small (less than five member) team, especially if everyone on the team uses + is versed in GTD as a productivity system – I can only imagine that’d make it a million times more effective.

Pricing: The tool itself is free with unlimited tasks/projects, but you can upgrade to ConquSync for $53/year. This lets you:

• sync across multiple platforms
• invite others to your workspace
• have offline functionality (update tasks offline and they’ll sync once you get online)
• send tasks via email
• make a one-time import via Remember the Milk or Toodledo

Availability: Get it on the web, as a download for Mac, Linux, or Windows, in the Android or iOS marketplace, for your Nook color, Blackberry, or Kindle Fire. Whew.

Features: 

• Clean, easy to use design
• Recurring tasks
• Color coding
• Ability to differentiate between “date scheduled” and “date due” – this could be handy for seeing how much padding you have left before a task really needs to get done so you can decide if you want to push it back or not
• Lots of different filters – tags, date due, context, project
• GTD based, so like I said – if you use that, this’d be a great choice for you
• Delegation & ability to see at a glance what tasks you’re waiting on being done by others

Reviews

Tools + Resources

By Michelle

Notes:

Wunderlist 2 is pretty much the same as the original Wunderlist, not a lot of changes – slightly more streamlined UI, the ability to add notes & subtasks, and more task/list sharing capabilities. But if you missed the other review or want to see what the differences are, here’s a video review for ya!

(PS: Wunderlist, bring back my pretty purple damask backgorund. Pleeeease.) 

Life

By Michelle

We depart from your usual blog posts for something a little outside the norm for this month’s Word Carnival. The theme was “love” and while I pondered trying to figure out how to tie love back into systems and productivity, I gave up on that and went the easy route instead. There are a lot of things I “love” about being an entrepreneur (trying to explain what I do on a date can be reallyfreakinghard y’all) but there are definitely more things that I genuinely love-love about what I do.

Here’s four of those things:

#4: I’m too fucking stubborn to do anything else.

This pretty much sums it up better than I could:

I’ll try to sum it up for me, though, anyways. Because this is my blog and I do what I want.

Let’s face it, guys: there’s not a lot of options for a 24 year old who wants to look however she wants (meaning: rainbow hair and tattoos) and doesn’t have a college education. So it’s a good thing that I’ve been dead-set on working for myself for a long time and that I’ve never given up on it.

I’m fairly certain that being incredibly stubborn, while a setback in the world of traditional employment (or at least, my experience with traditional employment), is the only thing that’s got me anywhere at all as far as my business aspirations. Clearly being smart, talented, and good looking (and, uh, modest) helps too, but I think the “screw you, I’m not quitting” attitude is the main contributor to all the progress I’ve made. Hence my “fail better” tattoo (one of the recent batch I got a few weeks ago – three in one sitting*). It’s nice that there’s at least one area of my life where being massively stubborn is an asset rather than a setback.

*By request: tattoos #1, #2, & #3! (I have seven total, so that’s not all of them, but that’s the three I got in one sitting a few weeks ago.)

#3: Freedom and flexibility!

This is a total stereotype, but it’s true. Running my own business allows me a kind of freedom I definitely wouldn’t have otherwise – I can set my work hours based on what works for me (fun fact! the reason I rarely book morning meetings is that my neurotic brain starts waking me up around 6 AM convinced that I missed the meeting and my client is going to hate me with the fire of ten thousand suns), take off when I want to, and base when I work based on how much I get done instead of just logging hours.

I do think there’s a trade-off that’s rarely discussed in the “rah rah entrepreneurship” articles. Yeah, sometimes I have a four day work week, and I can take off for random things like “the weather is nice outside, let’s go play!” But sometimes, I work late, or on the weekend, or I finish my workday so mentally wrung-out I can’t do anything but eat and watch a New Girl marathon.

There’s a powerful sovereignty (for me) in doing what I do, but I also think it ties up a lot of my mental processes that would otherwise be free – I have friends who have “normal jobs” and I’m 99% sure they don’t spend near as much time thinking about their livelihood as I do. They get to “shut off” from their job in a way that I find nigh impossible to do. Sometimes I think that mental freedom must be nice, but in the long run, I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

#2: I get to do something that matters to me. And I get to make the last call.

If you’ve read my about page, you’re probably aware that I’ve always been kind of an idealist. My principles have always been really important to me, and that’s one reason that working for myself matters so much to me – I know the behind the scenes working of my business. I know there’s no sweat shop labor involved anywhere, and I know that what I’m doing actually makes peoples’ lives better (because they tell me so and then I get sniffly and go hide to preserve my tough-gal image).

The associated benefit of that is that I get to make the last call. One of my last jobs before striking out into the big wide world of self-employment was working at a call center for an electronics store that shall not be named. There was this incident during the holidays where an older woman called in. She was honestly borderline hysterical – she was on a fixed income, and her and her husband had been saving for months to buy their son a new computer for Christmas, but then she went to buy it and it wasn’t on the site any more.

I spent probably close to an hour talking to her on the phone, getting the specs for the computer, finding out what her son was going to use it for, and then going through the site with her until we found something that was a good fit and in her price range. She was so grateful she was on the verge of tears, and after she placed her order she asked to speak to my supervisor – I’m assuming she gushed about me. (‘Cause, you know, I’m awesome.) I got to say bye to her, and then she hung up; the supervisor stayed around to say “I’m glad you made her happy, but that was probably too much time spent on one phone call for the purchase amount she made.” I don’t even remember what I said, but I clearly remember wanting to say “Screw you, what was I supposed to do?!”

It’s pretty awesome that I can do whatever I want and then say “Why? Because I’m the boss, that’s why!” Not needing to justify your actions to anyone = awesome. 

#1: You guys.

MUSHY MOMENT! Yeah. You guys. Not just my clients and customers – though I love them too, of course – but everyone I’ve met through this wild and wacky journey. Colleagues, friends, mentors. So many of my closest friends, people who have kept me going when I was thisclose to saying “fuck it all” and wallowing in self-pity for days on end, I wouldn’t have met if I didn’t work for myself.

I don’t know how to describe what it feels like to have clients that you would genuinely love to grab a few drinks with, customers who email you unprompted to tell you how something you made has affected their life, colleagues that help you up and dust you off when you hit setbacks, mentors who say “if I have faith in anyone, it’s you”. Except to say that it feels incredible and amazing and makes you want to give everyone big sloppy kisses and I am sosososo(x a million) grateful.

Now I have to go get some tissues, dammit.

This month, we’re trying something a little different for Word Carnival. Instead of a topic, we’re going with a theme, and that theme is love. We hear it’s all you need. Check out all the other awesome Carnies to catch their creative takes on this month’s theme here.

Productivity & Organization

By Michelle

The word “accountability” gets thrown around a lot in business & productivity circles. It’s a pretty big buzzword & y’all know I love to hate on some buzzwords, but at the same time, I can understand why it gets tossed around more than blame in a roomful of politicians – it’s actually a really crucial part of sustainable success. (Note the emphasis on sustainable.)

But what is accountability, anyways? We could go look it up in the dictionary, but that’s boring. In short, accountability means that someone is going to hold you to doing what you said you’re going to do – someone knows what you’re supposed to be doing & will call you on your shit if you’re not doing it.

However vital I think accountability is, there’s often an important piece of it missing. You can have the best accountability coach or partner or network in the world, but if you aren’t holding yourself accountable, it’s all going to be for absolutely naught. You won’t make any progress, you’ll be frustrated (and your cohorts will be frustrated too, because nobody likes holding up dead weight), and you certainly won’t be living up to your full potential. And that’s a damn shame.

“Okay, nice thought, Michelle,” you say. “But how am I supposed to start holding myself accountable?”

1. Get honest.

We, as humans, are extraordinarily good at bullshitting. Both other people and ourselves, but ourselves more than anyone. If you want to stop stalling out & start making forward progress, you have to get honest. It might hurt a little bit. If you’ve painted this inner picture of yourself as someone who’s doing their very best with what they have, and then when you think about it, you realize that you aren’t giving in 110% effort because you’re afraid of giving it your all & then failing, it can sting a little. But if you aren’t clear + honest with yourself about what’s going on in your current situation, you can’t fix it.

Note: honesty is not the same as cruelty. This step is not an excuse to beat yourself up and tell yourself you’re worthless, and if I catch you doing that, I will kick your ass. This is about getting an accurate assessment of what’s been holding you back, even if you aren’t a fan of the results of that assessment.

2. Get support systems in place.

Once you’re honest with yourself about what’s been holding you back – whether that’s a shitty attitude, a tendency towards laziness, an awful work environment, unsupportive friends/family, or the massive purple monster that follows you around and beats you up, you need to figure out how you’re going to circumvent that with your new support systems.

For example, if you tend to get distracted when you’re working by shiny objects like Facebook & Twitter, you can install StayFocusd to block you from those sites during your prime work hours. If you consistently forget what your priorities are, you can write ’em down & put ’em above your workspace. If you struggle with feeling alone and unmotivated, you need a support group. And so on.

3. Do the freakin’ work.

No shortcut here, unfortunately. Put in some blood, sweat, & tears. But once you’ve done steps one and two – got brutally honest with yourself and put in support systems to remove things that had previously blocked you – you’ll find this step much, much easier. When you know why you haven’t made progress in the past & you’re taking active steps to fix that, it’s approximately one-point-five million times easier to buckle down, do the work, and make the forward progress that’s been eluding you for the past forever & a half.

One of my least favorite things about accountability the way it’s usually done is that it often turns into nagging. True accountability should be about respect, trust, self-knowledge, and support – not “Did you get it done yet? Didya? Didya? Oh, okay, well, I guess there’s always next week.” 

Productivity & Organization

By Michelle

Like a lot of people, I’ve had a rough time transitioning back from the holidays into 2013, resulting in some tumbleweeds here about these parts – so when my buddy Liz offered to write a guest post I said “ohmygodpleaseyes”. Here it is, y’all! 

Hi, I’m Liz. I work a full-time “corporate” job, and have some fun freelancing on the side to sate my multipod tendencies. I’ve been called (in the same conversation) a:

• workaholic
• flake
• lunatic
• slacker
• someone who hides behind work because her life is going to hell in a handbasket, AND FINALLY…
• good person, if a little frazzled

Whew. With all those expectations hanging over my head just from one person, you’d think I’ve had collapsed by now under the weight! And yet, I still show up on time for my job, I still meet client deadlines…what am I doing wrong that someone I trust would tell me these things?

I didn’t have systems in place to make sure that my 9-to-5 (and my little bits of extra) didn’t take over me. I suck at setting up boundaries, and I’m a perfectionist and a pleaser. I want to make it work, and work properly, and what’s a little sleep or a cancelled dinner if I achieve that?

Answer: It’s my sanity, and the opinions of those close to me. So I found a method to tame my madness: keep a basic schedule of my important activities, and frame my routine around it.

“But Liz,” (you may say) “it’s already frustrating to operate on the timetables of others. Someone else is setting my work hours and has expectations. Then I supposed to fit in a yoga class to relax, plus run little Susie’s soccer practice, drive Jimmy to flute lessons, and watch this coming season of Game of Thrones. It’s going to look like a mess!”

First off, slow your roll and take a deeeeep breath. There’s something pretty darn awesome about all those things you listed above — you know when they happen. You also know when you’re expected to be at work — yes, sometimes late nights and emergencies occur (I work with technology, I’m an expert on the 2am “It’s BROKEN” phone call), but on the whole you can map out your “requireds” of the day without a huge time or money investment. So what’s stopping you from jumping on the time management bandwagon?

Now, identify your show-stopper when it comes to scheduling. There’s two major pitfalls that will stand in your way: time and fear. You may not think with everything you have going on that you have time to pause and map it all out. But stop and think a sec — if you map it out now, you can identify all those tiny holes in your schedule that you’re losing in the bigger picture of “OMG MY DAY WHAT HAPPENED TO IT??” Once you identify those, you see your wiggle room. You can feel it, instead of feeling the “fuck my overwhelm!” and you can take advantage of it.

Fear is a lot harder to handle. It’s amorphous and internal, so you can’t point to it and go “there, that’s why I’m not managing my time better!” Not sure what you’re afraid of? Maybe you’re like me, where free time/down time felt like a failure, instead of a blessing. Maybe free time means time to realize things you’re avoiding — a doctor’s appointment where you may get bad news, catching up your zillion items in email, returning that one call you just don’t want to make. Whatever the fear, it’s real to you and thus, in your way. So acknowledge it, give it a good cuddle, and remind your fear that you’re doing this for YOU and not the doctor, the email, or the phone call.

There are as many lifestyles, work schedules, and setups as there are fish in the sea. But the core habits and systems Michelle advocates are universal, regardless of whether you set your own hours or someone else expects you to be in a certain place for 8 hours a day. Systems are extremely important to me, as someone who straddles the world of the freelancer and the full-time employee. If you give just a basic system a shot, you may be surprised at how much good it does you, too.

Liz Patt is a creative soul, jill-of-all trades, consummate drinker of caffeinated beverages, and connoisseur of chocolate. Her background is in IT Administration, writing, and editing. Liz sightings may occur in many a coffee shop, usually with her iPhone in one hand and her Kindle (or the occasional paperback) in the other. Find her on Twitter as @awanderingliz.

Business

By Michelle

For the last few months, I’ve been working on one of the biggest changes in my business so far – switching my main service set (online business management/project management) from an hourly, freelancer-based model, to a monthly retainer, almost more of an agency style model.

This is something that I really agonized over, and to be honest, it makes me nervous as all get out. But this has been one of my dreams for a while – in 2013, I want to focus on working like this and on doing more classes & workshops, like the 2013 Planning + Systems + Strategy workshop. (There’s still a few days to register for that, BTW! Check it out here or download the preview workbook here.) You can see all the new service deets here (shoutout to Tanja, who has been invaluable in helping with the copy).

I thought it’d (hopefully!) be not only interesting but useful & informative, as either a potential client or as a fellow business owner, for you to read some of the reasoning & motivation behind the new services and why I decided to make such a drastic switch.

Why retainer rates instead of hourly rates?

There are so many ways to answer this question.

For one, charging a flat monthly fee removes surprises for both parties. My clients know exactly what they’re going to pay each month, and I know exactly what I can expect to make each month from my client work. It also lets me work with other kickass service professionals, which is something I’d been wanting to do for a while – I liked the idea of moving to a more “agency” style service, but that would be difficult (nigh impossible, really) to do while still functioning in an hourly model.

For another, what I’ve realized with my clients is that they really aren’t just buying my time – they’re taking up residence in my brain 24/7. I’ll be thinking about my clients’ businesses while I’m eating or in the shower or on the bus – it’s not something I can switch off (or that I want to switch off!). Given that, I don’t think an hourly business model makes the most sense.

The last, and probably most important shift for me, was realizing that I want my business to feel high-end. I want to be Nordstrom, not Target. I want working with me to be a really fantastic experience loaded with bonuses, surprises, and fabulous service (think: yearly retreats, monthly self-care surprises, special gifts).

This is what sealed the deal in switching business models for me – I realized that I literally, mathematically could not provide that kind of service for my clients and still make a profit with the hourly model I’d been working in. I’d be actively losing money and unable to pay my rent.

That took a lot of the emotional money issues out of it, for me – I had to ask myself, “Is it more important to me to provide an absolutely amazing experience for my clients, or to avoid dealing with my discomfort of switching pricing models?”

Overall? It’s just easier, simpler, & more elegant, for everyone involved.

Why would someone pay for these packages instead of just having a VA?

You’ll notice that hours of VA work are included in each of the tiers, with the hours increasing as the price increases. Of course, you’re paying more at each retainer level than you would be if you hired just a VA. So you might be wondering – why not simply work with a VA?

My clients will get more out of these VA hours than they would be if they were working with a VA 1:1 – because the VA is working off of a clear, organized task list that ties into the bigger picture, instead of just handling things on the fly. That’s actually one of the problems that business owners run into when they start to delegate – they just kind of hand things off as they come up, without a bigger picture view of what they’re handing off and why, and what impact handing those things off (vs. handing other tasks off, for example) has on their business. Which, of course, is still effective, but it’s not the most effective way to do things.

Another thing is that since I’ll be working with several VAs at once within this model, I can give my clients’ work off to someone who specializes in that particular task – whereas if you’re a small business owner working with VAs 1:1, it can be difficult to have several “on hand” with different specialities. (Think tech wrangling vs. customer service vs. writing or editing.) And it might not even be financially feasible, depending on how your VAs structure their payment. This way, that’s taken care of for you.

Why not just have an online business manager (the way you used to work) instead of using this model?

Mainly, because I decided to make this switch for very specific reasons – it wasn’t just done randomly.

One of the things I’ve run into is working with clients who – to be utterly frank – have kind of shitty VAs. I’m not dissing on virtual assistants as a whole because there are a lot of incredibly awesome ones out there (and I’m looking forward to working with them in this new model!). But I’d run into issues like the assistant not having great communication or timeliness skills, assistants having issues accepting assignments from me, things like that. Having kickass VAs that I have an ongoing relationship with will solve a lot of that.

The other thing I’ve run into is that my clients are not usually natural system thinkers. Which is totally fine, obvs, because that’s where I shine. But that has some ramifications – namely, by the time I come on the scene, there are usually very inefficient, broken systems in place when it comes to teamwork & generally getting shit done. And, as with so many things, it’s really much harder to fix something that’s broken instead of creating a strong foundation from the get-go. This way, I can handle all of the system creation internally within my business, which sets things up for everything to get done super-smoothly.

It really comes back to what I said in point #3 about retainer rates, above – I honestly believe that this is the best way for my clients to get a seamless, frustration-free experience with better results than they’d get from the way I had been working.

What’s this mean for Bombchelle going into 2013?

Like I said in the introduction, in 2013 I want to focus on this style of work and on classes & workshops (including in person ones, which I’m super excited about). I’m going to be discontinuing my one-off services on December 31st (so if you’re interested in getting some 1:1 planning + systematizing done, make sure to book your’s now – you can use the service any time before January 31st). I love doing them and I get great feedback on them, but I don’t feel like they’re the highest leverage spot to put my attention and I don’t want to have too many things on offer at any given point and confuse people.

I’m also going to be working on doing more writing & creating more things like the planners – I’m in fact working on a Kindle book that should be out by the end of the month, and have plans for at least two more in 2013.

So – those are my reasons for one of the biggest shifts in my business yet, & some info about what that shift means for my biz. I’d love to hear your thoughts & stories of similar switches you’ve made in your business below!

Business

By Michelle

ETA: My grandpa passed away on Tuesday night, so I’ve extended the holiday specials until this Saturday, as I didn’t have a chance to get the word out as much as I wanted about the workshop price change before the bundle bonus expired (due to taking today – 11/28 – and tomorrow – 11/29 off). Thanks for understanding. 

I got super excited about the 2013  planning + systems + strategy workshop when I had the idea. I got feedback from a couple of people, who loooved the idea, and I’ve been wanting to experiment more with longer workshops, ever since I did the Day of Genius with Melissa Dinwiddie last year. I figured I’d run this workshop once in December and once in January and it’d be a good springboard for running more workshops in that format later in the year (which is definitely something I want to do more of).

And when I put it out there, I got crickets. Not exactly crickets – but close enough for my fragile ego to cause quite a lot of sulking and a bit of a self-pity fit (lots of “I’M DOOMED” and “Nobody likes me” and so on). And once I was done with that, which probably took much longer than it should have, I thought about what I could do.

It seemed like I had three options:

• Cancel the workshop entirely and/or move it to January
• Pout more and not take any action at all
• Change something about the pricing/structure of the workshop to make it easier for people to attend

I thought a lot about it. I could have cancelled/postponed, but I really wanted to do it (more on that in a second). Pouting wasn’t really getting me anywhere and I’d run out of chocolate, which everyone knows is the best part about pouting. It’s all downhill after that.

The most obvious option was changing the pricing or structure. And that brought up a lot of internal struggle. It seems like we’re (as business owners) constantly told not to offer discounts for various reasons, including that people rarely take action without some kind of investment. I’ve witnessed this firsthand – people getting something for free or ridiculously cheap and then not taking action (in fact, I wrote a recent post touching on similar issues).

But I’ve also been on the other side of things and been that person so hungry for change that I’ll work my ass off, even if I got something for free or at a discount or had to split it into a ridiculously large number of payments. I don’t necessarily think that lack of money means lack of commitment. (And the constant implication that those two things are one and the same is one of the things about traditional business advice that really rubs me the wrong way.)

I also know that financially this time of year can be pretty shitty. I’ve had some of those worries myself all too recently.

And, I know that this material is fucking awesome. I know it can help people.

I’ve witnessed firsthand so many people, who are talented and driven and creative. Their customers and clients and really, the world at large, needs what they’re offering like woah. But they end up getting burned out and upset and consider going back to (if not winding up going back to) their old job – even if they hated it with every fiber of their being – because of things like poor planning, overwhelm, and overbooking (usually in turn due to poor planning & a lack of systems). It sucks. It breaks my heart. It pisses me off.

And it’s totally freaking avoidable.

That’s why I didn’t want to just cancel or postpone the workshop, even though that arguably would have been much easier and it definitely would have avoided pushing all of my omgyou’reaflakeyfailure buttons. Yeah, I could use the funds from the workshop, but more important than that to me is helping people. I’d do it for free, except that really wouldn’t be in the best interest of anyone (especially Rain – she likes being in dog food & bones, yo).

So, after a lot of thinking, I decided to get rid of the whole early bird pricing concept with the workshop, and drop the price to $75 – still enough to cover my time, but much more accessible (and much more of a no brainer price). I know that December is a hectic month, but I really hope you’ll join us.

Bonus for reading this far: goodies!

Even if you don’t wind up joining us on the day of the workshop, you can download this tasty niblet and get a sneak peek at some of what we’ll be working on. It’s some pre-work designed to get you thinking on your big vision of things and the systems that’ll help you move it along.

As usual, if you have any questions, comments, or feedback, you can drop me a note (or leave a comment below). Thanks for being here, thanks for reading, and thanks for not thinking I’m a flake. 😉

Business

By Michelle

Obviously, I’m pretty big on delegation and the good it can do for your business. However, I am definitely not a legal expert when it comes to hiring or employees – that’s Erica’s field of expertise. She’s an HR expert with oodles of experience + smarts and I convinced her to let me interview her – we talked about the legal side of hiring & also the more ethical side of it in the interview below:

Check out Erica online at the Invisible Office – and make sure to take a look at her course, Give it Up, which is on a Black Friday special right now, a total steal at $80! That’s only available until tomorrow, so make sure to take a look now.

(And, psst, while you’re at it, don’t forget to take a look at the holiday awesomeness going on right here at Bombchelle!)

Life

By Michelle

Happy Turkey Day!

Granted, I’m a day late, and you might not be from the USA, so maybe that’s not such a great opener. I always have conflicted feelings about Thanksgiving – I hate that we get such a whitewashed version of the historical events in school growing up (often more straight-up lies than whitewashed, even), and I hate that every year it gets a little closer to just being part of the pre-Christmas rush & buybuybuy.

But I also think we get precious few reminders to slow down & smell the roses (as it were – I’m guessing not everywhere is as lucky as Austin in still having roses in November 😉 ). Practicing gratitude has become increasingly important to me over the last year, as I realize how thankful I am for the family, friends, support network, and life in general that I have.

One of the things I’m most thankful for is that this year, I can actually buy my family Christmas presents. I know that might sound a little materialistic, but most of the time since I’ve moved down to Texas, money has been really tight; I was doing well to get back up to Missouri for the holidays, let alone give anyone gifts showing how much I cared. To me, it’s not about spending money on my family, it’s about giving them a physical representation – something they can see and touch – that shows them I think about them all the time.

If you’ve been around since the beginning of this year (if you have – thank you), you know it’s been a bit of a bumpy ride. I’ve moved three times this year (with the last one being in June – so really, three times in six months), went through a serious bout of depression in February (which I’m fairly certain was prompted by my hormonal birth control – glad I figured that out), and this weekend is also what I’m jokingly referring to as my six month singleaversary – six months from when Matt & I decided to end our marriage. (One more thing I’m thankful for? No more in-laws! Haha, no, but seriously.)

Despite all of these bumps in the road, I’m doing better than ever. Which sounds cheesy, but it’s true. I have a support network here in Austin – people who love me and want to help me out (and who I will even, gasp, let help me out, which is no small deal for me) and check in on me when I’m not doing well. I have a family that loves me unconditionally, and that I know loves me unconditionally. I live in a great apartment that I’ve rather awesomely decorated, if I do say so myself, with no, you know, gaping, leaking holes in the ceiling. (Actual thing that happened earlier this year.) Also, I’ve got some pretty awesome neighbors. (As it turns out, having cool neighbors is like having cool roommates, without all the bad parts.) I’m healthy, and happy, and so is my dog. After wondering many (many!) times in the last few years if I was totally fucking kidding myself with my business, it’s now at a point where it’s supporting me happily. I work with amazing, fantastic clients that I love.

And no small part of that is because of you. You’ve been here. Reading, and watching, and giving me support (when I said something in a newsletter about Matt & I, directly after it had happened, several people responded to send their love, which made me cry like a baby), and sending your friends and customers and colleagues to me.

So, I want to say, thank you. Really, really thank you.* I hope I’ve returned the favor in one small way or another sometime this year, but even if I haven’t, I’m incredibly grateful for you and your attention, your patronage, and your support.

On a more business-y note…

I think it’s a shame that as business owners, we’re often made to feel (especially at this time of year) like we have to choose between crass commercialism + materialism and making no money at all. I think that’s a false dichotomy. For this weekend, I wanted to do something to say thank you in a big way, and I also wanted to run an awesome deal that wasn’t just about buying things, so here’s what’s going down:

1. The Bombchelle Explosively Epic Holiday Bundle – everything I’ve released so far (including Systems 201 in packaged format) for $42. And when you buy, you’re also entered to win a $497 Purple Lipstick Plan service package, and you’ll get access to new materials that will be released next month, and 10% of all sales go to Vittana (a nonprofit dedicated to helping people out of poverty with education). Whew.
2. I’m also opening registration for the 2013 Planning + Systems + Strategy workshop, a one-day workshop happening in December that I am really excited about. For the early bird period (November 23-28), tickets are $147 instead of $197, and everyone who signs up during that period gets the explosively epic holiday bundle, and 10% of all sales go to Vittana.

These offers are available from now until midnight CST on Wednesday, November 28th. If you have any questions, email me and let me know. In the meantime, whether you celebrated Thanksgiving this week or not, I hope you have a fabulously fantastic weekend with people you love doing things you love.

*I would be lying if I said that writing that didn’t make me think of 10 Things I Hate About You. I know you won’t judge me.