Welcome to ProjectLifestyleDesign.com. My name is Dakota Sutcliffe and I created this project to design my lifestyle. What is this website for? This website is for those who are trying to design their own lifestyle. It will act as a compass as you follow along my journey as I pursue my own lifestyle. Subscribe via RSS Feed or Email to receive updates straight to your inbox!
Woot woot! It’s time for the Progress Report for February.
I do these reports every month for the previous months successes and failures. This helps me stay accountable to myself and all of the readers of this blog, to help me towards my goals for the year. You can look at this just like a student with his grades and all of you are my parents… that’s actually kind of weird.
One of my goals this year was to build my business and support my family through it. The good thing I can say about that is I have been able to work solely on my business for over a month with only the distractions of my family to take my time. And by no means am I complaining, I love being able to spend time with my family. I heart it.
Anyways, with this time I have been able to complete and start a few things. Like branding my business with an official image and going insane. I haven’t gone completely insane yet.
The Successes
I was able to get only two posts in during February, the previous report and the case study. I got distracted with a few things and wasn’t able to write like normal. The fact I got two posts at all is still a great thing in my opinion.
We decided to add a few things to our schedule to try and add some fun to the week for Chance. There is a park down the road and we decided to try and go there every Wednesday at some point during the day. This gives him time to interact with other kids and get use to the rest of the world.
Insanity Workout
In addition to the park thing, my wife and I started the Insanity workout in the last week of February. If you are following me on Twitter, then you may already know a little bit of this all.
I started Insanity when I first got it (before Evelyn was born) and I wasn’t able to complete it because I injured my feet. I have been wanting to do it ever since but just haven’t had the time to do it.
Now that I am working for myself at this point I have plenty of time to do the things I really want to do, like spending more time with my family, reading my bible and getting in a better shape than a circle, not that there is anything wrong with being a circle.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Insanity workout, you start the program off with a Fit Test. This shows where you have started from and you do this every two weeks to keep track of your progress… kind of like a progress report! 
Today we started the third week with the Fit Test. (Two weeks from the start of the program)
Here’s a break down of what I have done so far:
| Move | Week 1 | Week 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Switch Kicks | 51 | 60 |
| Power Jacks | 35 | 43 |
| Power Knees | 51 | 77 |
| Power Jumps | 15 | 21 |
| Globe Jumps | 5 | 6 |
| Suicide Jumps | 0 | 10 |
| Push-up Jacks | 5 | 20 |
| Low Plank Obliques | 24 | 32 |
I have already seen improvements and this is a great motivator. I have also noticed my endurance has greatly increased which is a definite plus to keeping up with my son. 
Some of you may be wondering why I am talking about the Insanity workout on this blog. Well, it is a part of lifestyle designing. You design the way you want your lifestyle to be and I just so happen to be incorporating exercise into my design.
One thing to keep in mind though.
For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. 1 Timothy 4:8
Exercising my body will only profit a little, this flesh… this body. While spiritual exercise will profit many things, beyond the flesh. So while I still do this workout regiment I will not let anything else fall like reading my bible and talking to God, among other things.
I will update my progress on this in future posts.
Reader Challenge
I was also part of the reader challenge on Pat Flynn’s blog. The reader challenge was to do a case study. That was about it to the instructions, not having done a case study before I decided to research. I basically found: a case study is simply an information dump in a clean format.
It can be information in numbers, a story, a timeline, pretty much anything.
I also have the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook. This worked to my advantage and gave me the idea to do both in one post. Some may consider what I did as something lazy and I should have done them separately. I kind of had that feeling myself; it didn’t matter though because it was a good idea.
I did a brief overview of Tim Ferriss’ blog about lifestyle design, and used the things about it. It’s a major blog and made sense for me to research it instead of anything else.
After Pat’s post went live I had a huge influx of visitors. This was awesome! I was so excited to get a whopping 246 page views in one day! I even started to get hits off of google for “31dbbbday4” being searched.
This was amaz-a-zing!
I even won the random drawing for an amazon gift card, totally cool.
Branding
I won’t talk to much about this topic because I wrote a whole post about it here. What I will address here though is I have successfully branded my business with a logo. Something which was incredibly necessary. Logo’s are what people associate with the company brand. Look for this website to have a better visual brand in the future.
Application Development
We started work for a new app, not Season 7. Not sure what to call this one yet. It’s a game app which will teach the user about a topic. I am not sure I want to give to much information about it yet. We are still in the brain storming stages on how the app is going to work and the screenflow, yaddah yaddah. I won’t bore you with all of that just yet.
The Failures
I had a few bumps in the road this month, which I count as some failures. One in particular was the posting, I wasn’t consistent at all and I apologize to anyone who I may have let down because of my failure.
Income Prospects
So far, I still haven’t brought in any income to support family. I am still going to interviews and submitting applications to places I see would be a good spot for my skill-set. I haven’t
Post Consistency
Failure to the max, only 2 posts last month. I am working on improving that for this month much more. I suppose part of the dilemma is quality vs. quantity. I haven’t really reached the medium I like yet because I really only want to make good quality posts.
Writing Mishaps
The past couple of posts I have written I have had things I wanted to add to the post while I am writing it and I think about where I am going to put it in the post. I eventually forget about it and end up not putting it in the post. When I do remember about the bit of content I wanted to add, the post had already been published. I look at this as a failure because these are things which need to be improved.
Work Regiment
Last month I was also having trouble staying consistent with my work progress. I didn’t get a whole lot done with app development and working through all of the kinks needed for the apps I am working through. Adding Insanity and park activities starts taking time away from when I can get a lot of things done.
The Teachings
This is a new segment to the report because I don’t really think ending a post with “Failures” will leave a good impression.
Over all I look at it as a good month, it wasn’t profitable by any means, but it was successful with things behind the scenes.
Some things to take from this month and learn from is something similar to survival of the fittest. Having an adaptation to the things going on around you is really important. I like to make a plan for something, but I also don’t like to be so rigid with the plan. If something comes up, then I adapt and make a new plan. I work really well on the fly. Flexible is a good word for it.
Unlike my wife… which is another story… about schedules and rigidness.
Here are some bullet points of what I learned through the month:
- Water + Insanity = Survival
- Tie down my thoughts so I can’t lose them, writing them down works too.
- Consistency needs more consistency
- Focus needs more focus
- When I submit a post for a Reader Challenge, make sure I at least have one more new post posted for the monster influx of visitors to be entertained.
- Strengthen weak points, but don’t stop strengthening the already strong points. This goes for working on things in my business and my spiritual life.
Anyways, I have adapted to my happenings and feel like March will be a better month with more successfulness than failureness.
I hope you enjoyed this post, because I enjoyed writing it.
Leave a comment and let me know what you think I could do differently!
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Branding is a major part of any business. If you don’t have a brand to build on, then you won’t have a business that will last very long. Branding involves many things, from the way you present yourself, a business card, all the way to the logo for your company.
People identify with brands.
From the golden arches of McDonalds to the mermaid for Starbucks. Some brands do not even makes sense but when you see it, you know what it is and what they are about.
Branding is something I have been putting off with ProjectLifestyleDeisgn.com. And I don’t really have a reason for it. But obviously this post isn’t about this blog.
Today I am going to talk about the logo and branding experience I had with my business, Hoj Poj Studios. By the end February, I finally got the business branded and now I can start building my brand with a professional image.
So anyways, I have some very novice experience with graphic design and decided to go through someone to design the logo for my business for me.
I decided to go with a family friend, someone I consider part of my family. Her name is Kristen and she is a professional graphic designer. I knew she had a lot of talent because I was familiar with her work. I just told her to run with it, do the best she could do. I thought this would put her in the best element as possible.
That’s what I get for thinking.
When I started I didn’t really have any idea of what I was wanting. The initial business idea I had was to do computer fixing, podcasting, graphic design, and web development. This is pretty hard to put all into one logo to brand your business.
After changing my business up to strictly app development, blogging and podcasting.
This made it much more simple. Simple is key to many things, and in this scenario it was especially key.
I knew I wanted it to be “fun” and “professional” at the same time, something that is kind of hard to accomplish.
The good part is, I feel like this was still achieved with the end result. After the first set of letting her run with it, she was still going with the original business idea. This was bad communication on my part and wasn’t helpful to her.
I let her know I was going to try something different, and then she hit me with a new set of designs, one of them really stood out.
I let her know I didn’t want the “LLC” in the logo and I wanted Studios to look like the HOJPOJ.
She let me know she would add Studios and send it in a few different colors.
Here are a few of the examples:
Then I asked her to do something along the lines of a “blue” to see what she could come up with and got this:
I sent another email asking for some specific changes to the background inside the border and to the letters and it came back exactly the way I was wanting it!
I said that one!
She was always quick to respond and never delayed. I was always the one slow to respond, it took me about 5 months to finally get here because of MY slowness.
Once I was able to modify the specifications for my website I added it and it is what you now see today!
Here are some general points to remember when trying to brand your business:
- Keep it simple
- Have a General idea of what you want
- Keep it relevant
I am nothing less than impressed by what the end result is and I am very happy I went with Kristen.
I asked Kristen prior to writing this post if she was ok with me doing it, she did not solicit this by any means. I want to recommend her because she is also trying to grow her business and as a friend I offered.
If you are interested in working with Kristen, then please send me an email letting me know and I will respond with her contact information. As you can tell from my experience, it’s best to know/have a general idea you are wanting.
While I am on this topic my business website, I have a request.
My wife is so very passionate about my business website. I won’t say either way she is passionate but I want to know what you all think about it, because it’s not her who is interacting with it.
It’s you, you are the one who will come in contact with my Brand for the first time.
I want to know your impression of the website.
So, if you don’t mind, then please go to HojPojStudios.com. You can either send me an email or leave a comment here of what you think.
Be looking for my February Progress Report this Monday!
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Today’s task is to take some time to observe and research a top blog in my niche. There also happens to be a reader challenge from Pat Flynn’s blog which involves doing a case study. So I decided to try to kill two bird’s with one stone, lets see how it works out.
The blog I am researching today is Tim Ferriss’ blog for the case study and the 31DBBBDay4 workbook task.
The things I am looking at on this blog:
Content – Topics, style, post consistency
Engagement – Most Conversation and reader connection, Complaints, Media Usage
Design – First impression, Layout and Sidebar usage
Monetization – Advertising strategy, Affiliate Programs
Some of the other things I could look at are like Traffic and SEO I will only graze the top of those two topics.
I am not going to spend too much time on this because I don’t want to get to wrapped into someone else’s stuff. The point is to learn from what he is doing or the lack thereof.
Content
Topics – I have noticed the topics are very random. Some even seem like they aren’t related to lifestyle design at all. i.e. Aging wine just doesn’t seem like it’s a part of lifestyle design to me.
Style – He does a variety of styles. From lists, to how-to’s, to just informational, which is all good and in my opinion it is good to have a variety of ways to post. He had his own humor.
Consistency – As far as how regularly he posts, it seems he usually gets at least 2 posts a month. Regularly one at the beginning and either the middle or end of the month. The regularity is irregular, so there isn’t really a consistent schedule for posting on that website.
Engagement
Conversational Topics – The post I found with the most comments (over 4,000 comments) was about weight loss. This is obviously a hot topic because it has the interest of a lot of people. I would also agree this connects better because most people don’t know where to start.
Complaints – I haven’t really noticed any complaints on the blog. This is a good thing because it means, his stuff works. (right?)
Media Usage – The only thing I see is a twitter page they utilize. Beyond that I don’t see anything else. He has books which already put his name out there, but beyond that no other social media actions seem to take place.
Design
First Impression – I really like the changing photos of him in the header, going around the world and the things he has done. It really shows the kind of lifestyle he has designed for himself.
Layout – I see it is a two-column, which seems to be the norm for most blogs. I like how he has the navigation menu below the header. Only the necessary things as well. He also has the subscribe to the feed via’s available as well. What particularly stands out is the 7 reason’s to subscribe, I haven’t seen that anywhere else, nifty. Something which helped me with this case study was the Most popular section in his sidebar. It helped me find the largest commented post.
Monetization
Advertising Strategy – The only products he advertises are his product, which makes sense because it is his blog. There is only one advertising block in the top right hand corner which seems to cycle different ad’s.
Affiliate Programs – I also don’t see him promoting any affiliate programs on his blog. This actually give me some inspiration because he doesn’t need any affiliate programs.
This is a case study, so I am learning from his blog and seeing what I can do to differentiate and make my blog better. Put things in I think need to be and take things out which I don’t see apply. This gives perspective to see what this blog is about as well.
My objective is to be different and to make a difference. I have noticed there are similarities between his blog and this blog. These aren’t that big of a deal to me, because the way I have presented is in a different way. I also have to be peculiar and I think being different also makes me peculiar
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: 1 Peter 2:9
Now that I have up to day 4 in this series, I have created a page for these posts. You can find it here. Since it is a “project”, then it will also go under the Projects page.
My call to action to leave in the comments today is:
What makes you different? What can you say differentiates you from the rest of the world?
I am going to do more case studies in the future. So if you liked this one, then please consider subscribing via RSS Feed or Email.
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I decided to start a progress report section for this blog. Usually a progress report is associated with school and how well a student is doing throughout the year, this way the student can keep up-to-date with his or her grades. This usually helps the student understand what they need to work on to make sure their grade is good when it is made official at the end of a semester or the year.
This report is how well I am doing on my lifestyle design project. It will show previous months successes and failures, what I have learned and the most important, how well I am doing at getting to my end goals and towards the lifestyle I am trying to design. I think this section is aptly named.
The Successes
This last month has been one not so expected. The ups have been good. I started this blog blazing and getting out some good content. I have had a few commenters which is also encouraging.
Towards the end of the month I was let go from the place of my employment which also makes me happy. I no longer have a job but this will also go into my failures as, I don’t have a job… and I don’t have any way to stay afloat without the help of my father, for which I thank God.
The great part about all of this is I have been able to get a lot of stuff done with my business.
Things Completed this Month:
Established routine meetings with my team
Started a better way of task management for my team
Established a routine for my normal work day
Opened my business checking account
These were all important and needed to get completed.
What I have Learned:
I have learned from these successful events, things like how to better organize my life and how to get these things done. I have blogged about a few of these things as well, like my Organization Overhaul post.
I have also learned, the more I get done then the better I feel. It’s kind of like a snowball effect. When you start to pick up speed it’s almost like nothing can stop you. Getting into the groove of things has been a big encouragement for myself, next to getting a lot of stuff done with the app. I have done a lot of stuff with the artwork for the app, we have an artist working on one particular thing at the moment because it’s… complex artwork. While I work on the not so complex artwork!
The Failures
While I was successful at a few things, there were probably more things I could have done without. Like being let go from the place I had been working. The unfortunate thing is I don’t have anything to keep my head above the water as far as expenses go. I was given a severance package which definitely helps.
One of the things I didn’t assess well enough for a goal to complete was the doing 31 days to build a better blog. I planned on completing it by March 31st and writing a post about each of my days. I also mentioned in my goal post to be consistent with my posts, 2-3 posts a week.
I haven’t been able to keep that up and doing the math with the 31dbbb task I assigned myself it was going to be 2-3 posts a week of just building my blog. Which this blog isn’t about building a better blog, it’s about lifestyle design. So, I decided I have failed that goal, though I will still complete it in due time.
The Outlook
The good thing is I don’t have many expenses: a car note and insurance.
I have decided it is best for me to get another job to be able to take care of my family, at least until I have an income which can support my family from my business. My family has needs and I am the one who is supposed to provide for those needs.
The first day of my official unemployment, I got a phone call for a potential job opportunity. I had not done anything to receive this call. I didn’t post my resume anywhere or anything like that. I basically took that as a door and if it is supposed to be open, then I pray it is supposed to stay and if not, then for God to shut that door.
I have also had a recruiting company contact me after I did update my resume on Monster.com, they also have a possible opportunity for me.
There has been nothing but good come out of this because I haven’t had to work really hard on trying to find another job, and I have been the one being contacted first.
I look at this as God showing me he is working things out, to get me to the point where I can provide for my family.
One of the questions I was asked during an interview led to an answer I had not ever really thought about. The most logical explanation to this was I had not been asked the question before that day. The good thing is I knew exactly what I was going to say, without hesitation.
What is your ultimate goal, what do you plan to do (in your career)?
To own my own business and use it to help under developed areas. To help provide food, water, shelter and education for children.
So, I will leave you with this question:
What is your ultimate goal? What do you plan to do in your career?
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Organization is very important when you are running a business, this way you don’t run your business into the ground. It is always important to know where you are to know how far you have moved and where you plan on going. Over the last few weeks I have realized how organized I haven’t been in the past and how I have started to go in the direction of organizing everything I do from the beginning of something I start.
At the same time, I have come to value Google Docs quite a bit in the area of organization.
My most favorite part about Google Docs is the share-ability and versatility. You can be in a spreadsheet or a word document with someone else and both be typing something at the same time.
I have also come to value spreadsheets a lot more and use them to help me organize tasks for the team and track things like Mileage and tasks I need completing.
Lets get some examples here to show you what I am talking about.
Here, you can see I have created a spreadsheet for January of 2012 Mileage Log, a spreadsheet for the list of monies I have spent, and a spreadsheet for a Task List to manage tasks for the group for a certain project.
These are only a few of the documents I have, we have several things in here from requirements documents to screen flows and all of those goodies.
I only took a screenshot of these particular documents because I thought they were most relevant to the post.
Lets delve a little into the Mileage Log.
Here, you can see how much my wife drove, I am pretty sure this isn’t relevant to my CPA, I just thought it would be good for a reference if necessary. You can also see the date, the miles from the starting location and then the miles at the ending location.
In the “Mileage” column, you can see the total miles from start to end.
I added the Project Association column to be able to take that trip as part of a tax right-off.
Basically what I did here was start a formula which pulled the ending miles and ending location over to the next starting miles and starting location, because that would make sense right? For the mileage column, I did a simple subtraction formula from the ending and starting miles.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with spreadsheets, there is the easy use of “continuing” a formula. This little square, click and drag where you want the formula to go. For instance in the Mileage column, I was going to use the same subtraction formula for every cell below it. I used this to continue the formula and it changes the format according to the cells it needs to subtract.
From Mileage tracking to Money tracking, because keeping track of what you spend and how much you are spending is a big deal.
Lets hop into the List of Monies spreadsheet.
You can see here a part of the asset section of the spreadsheet. The rest is Software, Personal Development, Domains and Hosting and then some Miscellaneous, like CPA fee’s.
The asset’s I have the cost bolded for things which weren’t taxed when I bought them. The taxed item here was bought locally, see the correlation? The reason I bolded them, was so I could easily differentiate them in the end and work it in a separate formula which I will show you in a little bit.
With the spreadsheet I am able to use simple addition to find out the total cost of all of the things which I have purchased for the business.
So here you can see the total monies spent on everything. I added up all of the things which weren’t taxed as well.
And then I use a simple percent (according to the percent of tax formula from the total to find out how much tax I need to pay for the items which weren’t taxed.
I was super happy to finally get that number because I was expecting it to be higher or something for some reason.
Anyways, I think that’s enough for finances.
Lets move on to task management.
This is a more recent spreadsheet which doesn’t require much. I created the columns for the week and each person who is part of the project. We discuss each week what the next items are for the next few days which we need to complete to keep the project moving.
This makes sure there is always progress.
It also helps for time management. You can see I had to get the video created and posted before the other person could Link in the Video. There is only one formula used here and it’s on the Week column. I did a +7 to create the next week, and then used the little square to replicate the formula repeatedly.
One thing to keep in mind here, all of the examples given here are all spreadsheets. I haven’t had the need to use the other features, except for documents which just holds text for me and can be shared. It can also be multi-collaboration, so if you are working on a requirements doc, someone else can be in it and updated some other part of the document without having any trouble.
I hope this post was useful for anyone not sure of how to organize things. I don’t think this is a perfect fit for everyone, but may be helpful to at least a few people trying to design their lifestyle.
One last thing I forgot to mention, Google Docs is mobile friendly. This means if you want a document or spreadsheet, then you can “Add to Home Screen” if you have an iPhone.
This is what it looks like for my mileage log. It brings me straight to the spreadsheet and I only have to type in the necessary fields. You don’t have to do a specific sheet or document you can just to your overview page and access your docs as well.
If you liked this post, then please share it with your Facebook friends or Twitter followers. If you don’t have a Facebook or Twitter, then email it to one person you think may be interested in organizing their projects and things with Google Docs.
What are some ways which have helped you be more productive?
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The Severance
You may wonder “what is a severance?” If you take the root word, which is “sever” (rhymes with lever), then you may get a better understanding of the word severance.
So earlier this year I had planned on being able to “live on a passive income” through my business.
This was leading to the point of not having to go have normal job as well. And living off of a passive income. One which I could support and spend more time with my family.
Well this is a perfect example of where plans don’t necessarily work out to your advantage.
The Delivery
Tuesday morning, I was informed I no longer had employment with company. I had been there for over 3 years and somehow the skills I had acquired there were not what they were wanting.
They gave me a severance package. Due to the uniqueness of each package I am not allowed to disclose any information about the package.
Being let go from a company you have put hard work into for 3 years is kind of a strange feeling. I wouldn’t have any idea how other people would feel who work for a company longer than that, but I can certainly relate now.
There wasn’t really anything I could do about it either, the decision had already been made.
I was escorted to my desk to gather my belongings and then escorted out of the building. I go home first to let my wife know the news.
The Irony
We had been talking about me taking off Friday so we could go on a small vacation somewhere. Being the nice guy I am, I was going to use this to break the news to her.
Her: What are you doing home?
Me: I ask for a day off and they gave me the rest of the week!
Her: What?
She was happy and at the same time not so happy. She was hoping I was going to be able to give them a two weeks notice and chuck a deuce as I walk out the front door, type of thing. We talked and then I left to go to the credit union I have accounts with and then a local coffee shop. I didn’t want to waste any of the abundance of time I now have on my hands.
What did I do? I went to open my business checking account. I got that opened and then I complete a few of the other tasks I had been putting off. Now, I have no reason to put anything off with my business.
The Good, Bad, and more Good
The past 3 days have been great. I have been really up-beat and feeling really good about being able to use this time to my advantage. It also give me a lot more room to read and pray, which is one of my other goals for this year.
On the flip side, there are some not so uplifting people, which is also completely understandable. Like my father, he isn’t too happy about the situation and keeps pushing for me to look for another job. So I am kind of torn between building my business and looking for another job.
The way I look at it is, my “job” right now is to build Hoj Poj Studios, LLC. The problem with this is, there is $0.00 coming in from Hoj Poj Studios, LLC and this is my dilemma.
But, I also know the Lord provides for the righteous.
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. Psalm 37:25
The door was shut at the place of my previous employment. If it was shut, then I know a door was opened somewhere else. I know this because of the scripture in Matthew 2:1-15. Here, the wise men brought gifts. The lord had provided Joseph with enough income to travel to Egypt and take care of his family.
When the one door was shut, the other was opened.
My plan for this is to do what is necessary a search for the open door which God has provided. Who knows, maybe I won’t have to search at all and it will just plop in my lap, kind of like the job which I had just been relieved.
If it is with another company, then so be it. I want what the Lord wills. If it is me building up my income enough over the severance package timeline, then so be it.
Either way, we will see what happens.
I will close with the following scripture for some more edification for anyone who may have gone through or is going through a similar situation.
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; 2 Corinthians 4:17
This situation could be a lot worse, but the good thing is I am able to have it work towards greater things.
Thanks for reading this post. If you think it’s worthy of sharing, then please show me some love share my story with someone you know.
Also, let me know what you think of this post in the comments below.
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Day Number 3, we are moving right along!
Today’s task is to promote a post!
I have already been doing this task with a few posts. Using twitter… only. I really need to get the Facebook and Twitter pages branded to help with this in the future. You know, so I can do some better shameless self promotion.
By no means am I a social media guru. I do try to get by with what knowledge I do have… if you want to follow me you can find me on Twitter @TheDsutty.
The purpose of the task was to promote a post via twitter or something to that affect. Well I decided to do something a little different. I am promoting a post from a post and then promote the promotion post on Twitter.
Here’s a picture for you if I didn’t make it clear.
So if you found this post through Twitter, then this would be the case the promoting of the post:
What is the post?!
Ah yes, the post this post is for! sjdrl298whfoaiwue!!!
It is the story of why I got this blog started in the first place. The very first post of this blog.
What Lifestyle am I designing?
I promote this post because “I think” it is a very informative post, maybe even inspirational. Maybe it can cure cancer! No maybe not that, but maybe inspirational for sure…
I hope you enjoyed this post! It’s a short post, for short people. Not really, because “short” is relative of course.
Time for some shameless self promotion! Let me know if you liked this post, if you did then please share it! If you didn’t like it? Share it anyway!
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This is the second post (day 2) of my saga to take 31 days to build a better blog. The task for today is to make a list post. This post if you haven’t figured out is going to be about the most valuable plugins for WordPress. This is of course my most humbly opinionated list of valuable WordPress plugins.
You may wonder, “How good is a plugin list for creating your own lifestyle design?” Well to answer that question, is an easy one. If you happen to start a blog (which I recommend) while you are starting to design your own lifestyle, then this post will bring some value to your blog (I hope). Beyond the content you create, some of these plugins will help ease some of the pains you may come across while on your lifestyle blogging journey.
This list is how I value the plugins to my blog(s) and are scaled to the value they provide (in my humbly opinionated way).
Give us the list already!
Okay Okay, sheesh.
Here is the list from #1 being the most valuable:
1. G.A.S.P. (Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin) is by far my favorite comment spam filter. It puts a check box to make a real user click it to make sure it’s a legit person. It also has a “honeypot” feature to prevent other spam bots from taking advantage. The honeypot is a hidden field which gets hit when the spam bots “fill in all fields”.
2. Akismet is another awesome spam filter. The algorithm takes time to catch up sometimes when “new” spam starts to get generated. But then I have read about other instances when it starts filtering out legit comments into the spam folder, which can get real nasty when you have 300 comments you need to look through. When this is used with G.A.S.P., then it’s kind of an overkill and nothing gets through… except trolls.
3. Contact Form 7 is very versatile and I use this on all of my blogs. I can put it in the side bar which is really handy if I want to make a quick & dirty form (email and question only). The CAPTCHA feature is also useful for slowing trolls and stopping spambots.
4. Really Simple CAPTCHA is used with Contact Form 7 for it’s CAPTCHA feature.
5. WP SlimStat is a really nice when it comes to recent hits and quick tracking of recent visitors. I hear it can be slow if you hit if there are several pages views but I haven’t gotten any lag yet.
6. Google Analyticator is a good long term stat tracker and was also a learningcurve for myself after using SlimStat for so long.
7. Shareaholic | email, bookmark, share buttons is a pretty way to add all of the share buttons for a ton of social networks. Lots of them I hadn’t heard of until I came across this plugin.
8. Sharebar is another good sharing plugin and keeps a count of how many times the post has been shared. It is handy because it scrolls with the user down the side of the post.
9. Subscribe to Comments Reloaded is good for keeping discussions going in the comments section.
10. Blubrry PowerPress is what I use for my podcasting, it features a highly customizable audio player and helps streamline some things to easily setup your feed.
11. WordPress Database Backup is a robust backup utility I use for daily backups. I can have them sent to my email which is really handy.
12. Thesis OpenHook helps me customize my Thesis Theme a little easier.
13. All in one SEO Pack is activation ready to help with better search engine optimization.
14. Posts Per Category allows archives post to be displayed beyond the fixed 10 per feed. Especially handy for podcasts.
This list will probably change over time where some provide more value than others. And some of these may provide no value to you at all, for instance if you don’t do a podcast, then the Blubrry PowerPress plugin will do you absolutely no good, what-so-ever.
As these plugins are all useful, I will also add, to this: don’t go plugin happy.. and by that, I mean only use what is necessary. “Do I really need to activate Hello Dolly? or should I just delete it?” **BALETED**
Anyways, hope you found this post valuable! If you have, then please share it, tweet it, and link it with one of your friends!
What are some of your most valued plugins?
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Today I am going to tell you the technical side of how I got my business started. I think this is important because it will help anyone else out who decides to start their own business when they are starting to pursue their on lifestyle design.
I will share with you the process I took and then the process I should have taken. Looking back, it would have been easier with the knowledge I have now but I didn’t have the knowledge I have now because I didn’t experience it yet… yeah, think about that one.
On to the good stuff…
First things First
Well more like second things first for me… I hadn’t really thought everything through.
I started buying stuff for my business without having any sense of taxes. I didn’t have a business bank account or a CPA to consult.
I went through a podcasting class with Cliff Ravenscraft (which I had to pay for) and then podcasting equipment.
I also had not been keeping my mileage of already traveled business trips.
I had also not kept a list of my monies already spent for my business before it was an LLC.
Another thing to keep in mind is I didn’t realize I was making a business until I realized I was making a brand. I started a podcast and went from their thinking about the business I was starting.
The original business plan I had before I visited a CPA was to have several avenues to bring in money.
Those avenues were:
Niche Website Building
PC Repair
iPhone Repair
Affiliate Marketing
Website Dev/Design
App Development
I learned about taxes, after talking with my CPA, and not long after that talk I decided to remove the “repair” parts of my business out of my business. The reason I decided this was because of sales tax and use tax (same tax, different name) and I didn’t want to deal with it. I also feel like I am trying to move away from that field of repairing computer things anyway.
In my first meeting with my CPA I was given a task list, of which I have yet to “fully” complete.
The Business Task List:
Copy of Personal Tax Return from 2010
Open a Business Checking Account
Get a Federal ID# (EIN) & IRS Acceptance Letter
LLC Paper Work
Get an Occupational License
Work on a Logbook for Mileage & Reconstruct already spent miles for trips
List of monies already spent on Hoj Poj Studios, LLC
I still need to get him the Tax return, open a business checking account and get a list of monies already spent. He was able to setup the EIN for me and I already had the LLC paperwork and emailed it to him. Since I decided to remove the repair work from my business I didn’t need to get the occupation license any longer.
What’s left?
Tax Return
Business Checking Account
List of Monies
The first thing of these last three which is easiest to do is get a checking account, because the Tax return is in a safe the lock was spun and I don’t know the combo. The money list I don’t have yet because I don’t know where all of the receipts are yet. So at this point the checking account is looking the easiest.
What Should Have Been First
I should have found a CPA to talk with first and get everything lined out of what I needed to do from the start to finish. So here is what I have come up with what I should have done, and with the knowledge I have now:
Talk with a CPA
Get LLC created
Have CPA do what he did to create the EIN
Get a Business Checking account opened
Purchase Equipment with the Checking account
Track Mileage (from the beginning)
The first thing I should have done was talk with a CPA and get the right bearings on where to go. Then creating the LLC and getting the EIN. Once I have the EIN I can get a checking account (you aren’t able to without an EIN, it’s kind of like a social security number for a business). Then make the purchases with the business checking accounts and keep all of those receipts in one place. During all of this, I would be keeping track of all the mileage while meeting up for the projects we were working on and going to the bank etc.
From my experience, my recommendation to anyone who is starting out their own business is to go to a CPA and get your own business task list to follow up on. If you don’t have a compass, then how will you find your way?
Kind of a disclaimer here, I am not telling anyone this is the way you need to do this, I am simply sharing my experience in the hopes it will make anyone else’s life a little easier when they start their own business.
The next post will be on the second day of 31 days to build a better blog, stay tuned!
Image: Renjith Krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Part of the Goal Post last week I spoke about the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today is the first day I am writing about, which took me about a week to finally complete the task. Now I am writing about it! Please enjoy!
The Elevator Pitch
What is an Elevator Pitch?
Basically, it’s a summary of “what you do” to get someone interested in more of “what you do” when they ask you about “what you do”, or blog about, or anything to that effect. It’s better to have an elevator pitch handy when someone puts you on the spot, rather than bumbling and fumbling like a fool.
I am currently working through the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook. I got it during the 3 day sale for 50% off. One of my goals I set for this year was to complete the workbook by March 31st and this is the first task in the blog, creating an elevator pitch.
Lets start with what the Project Lifestyle Design blog is about.
It’s about finding what it is you want to do with your life and designing it the way you want, to live it. Rather than conforming to what everyone else does in the world. Getting rid of the old and replacing it all with new.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV
So in essence, that is what I am doing. I am getting rid of the old things and taking on new things. So for today’s task I am working on the elevator pitch and I am going to try a incorporate this idea.
Now lets work on the pitch.
Knowing the blog is about “getting rid of the old, and making everything new” about “lifestyle design”, how do you create an elevator pitch out of that?
Here are two examples were given for short tagline type of elevator pitches:
Problogger helps Bloggers Build Exceptional Blogs
and
Home Ex 101 is a site dedicated to teaching a broad range of life skills to adults in a conversational and entertaining manner.
So these two blogs help people solve a problem. Building exceptional blogs and teach life skills to adults. People who start out blogging and find Problogger are helped but the same goes for experienced bloggers. Problogger is still able to help them with growing their own blog. I haven’t read much of Home Ec 101, but the tagline lets me know what goes on there.
What does this blog do to help solve which problem?
So the problem I see is, there are many people who don’t know about lifestyle design.
My solution to this problem would be: to use this blog is here to help them, in some way, shape or form understand what lifestyle design really is, and possibly encourage, inspire or more importantly show someone they can design their own lifestyle as well.
The new reader would be able to educate themselves about lifestyle design and how to do it on their own.
But this isn’t just about education or learning, it would also be a place for others to meet other lifestyle designers for encouragement as well.
Now, what is the tagline/slogan/elevator pitch I can make for this website?
“Out with the old, in with the new… lifestyle design. The how-to for a new lifestyle.”
This will probably evolve into something else, later, but I think it fits perfectly for now.
It’s short to the point, explains what the blog is generally about and hopefully catches some interest of the reader to continue on the website.
What is your tagline? Don’t have one? What about a motto? If so, then please share it in the comments.
Thanks for reading this post, it is the first of a series of posts dedicated to how I take 31 days to build a better blog.
If you liked this post, then please consider sharing it with someone you think may be interested!
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