Get It Done

I've talked about it long enough. I've had two dreams over the last year to write a book and to go freelance in my career. Both are steadily getting closer to becoming a reality as opportunities align. A lot of people want to be their own bosses or set their own hours, but I on the other hand want to be able to devote my time to projects and opportunities that allow me to build amazing web experiences for others. The taste of that eventual goal was beginning to be too hard to pass up and it was time that I worked to achieve the goal. To align with that goal about a month ago I started sketching out ideas and plans for a book and several presentations on two topics that I'm truly passionate about front-end development and responsive design (which is only design really).

Though simply saying, "Get it Done" doesn't mean much if I don't set goals to pace myself and drive myself forward. A great habit that I got into at work was to plan for the next week on Friday and to prepare for the week on Monday morning. I sit down Friday to figure out each task I must complete and all my meetings in the coming week before leaving for the weekend. I leave a little wiggle room for the fiery curveballs (projects with high value with a quick turnaround) that get thrown at me without fail, so I figured why not for those as well. The weekend is recharge time where I don't think about work but focus on family. A good habit to get into is to spend time doing something that you enjoy which doesn't drain your batteries. Come Monday morning I do something very strange, I wake up early and get to work an hour or more before I have to be there in order to plan out how to accomplish each task or even to work on a few of them.

Figuring out a plan that works is probably the hardest part of making a dream a reality. The further that I venture towards getting to the tasks of writing or planning for a presentation the easier it is because of the prep work that I have already put in place, but those steps of prepping didn't seem as helpful or useful at the time. Hence, they were much harder to get through.