360aday.com

Some might say I tend to fly a lot — my daughter does too. Working for Canada’s number two airline definitely helps me do that. Tonight I’m off for a couple of weeks to Prague, Czech Republic and the surrounding area. I’ve got my passport, some money in the bank, standby tickets on British Airways and am counting down the hours until I hopefully (cross your fingers) make it on their Boeing 767-300ER to London Heathrow.

This past Monday I was flying back from Winnipeg to Calgary on one of WestJet’s aircraft equipped with live satellite TV. The unfortunate part was they were INOP so nobody could watch anything. What was I to do? Oh no…what would I have done 4 years ago before live TV on the aircraft? Well I reached for my iPhone that had some podcasts on it that I’d not yet listened to. There were some from the Get-It-Done Guy that I’d downloaded a while back based around a certain level of interest. One of them was about packing wrinkle free clothes and it mentioned OneBag.com as a resource. Last night as I was packing probably too much clothing, I wondered if there was a better way. I rarely simply fold my clothes and stuff them in a suitcase (error number one according to OneBag). I often thought I was smart by simply rolling them. There’s no doubt that compared to folding, rolling saves A LOT of space. I decided to try the bundle wrapping method detailed on the OneBag website. Luckily they even have a nicely illustrated guide displaying how it’s done.

I was hesitant at first as I was laying out my clothes in this funny stack on the bed. But as I managed to add more and more to the pile it started to hit me that yes, this might actually save more room. So I continued laying items out. Then came the fun part, the actual bundling. I followed the guide and created this nice little bundle that, quite honestly, fit perfectly inside my Samsonite carry-on bag. HOLY SMOKES…there was room to spare even!

Now the fun part is I’ve got to undo the bundle tonight when I get home to add my jeans to the mix and another pair or two of underwear. I’m definitely using the bundle wrapping method as well when I do it again. Since I’ve not got to worry about my clothing being all wrinkly (though it will be because it started out that way), I can focus more time and effort on enjoyable things like shooting some photos. I’m definitely looking forward to this trip.

I recently had asked about how to create my own URL shortener on Twitter and was pointed to a great post on outspokenmedia.com with a tutorial. So I grabbed the latest version of the Link Shortcut plugin and went to town. Following along with the tutorial, the plugin was easily installed and configured — with the exception of having an error similar to the following.

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/home/XXXXXXX/public_html/wp-content/plugins/link-shortcut/admin/footer.inc.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/php5/lib/php') in /home/XXXXXXX/public_html/wp-content/plugins/link-shortcut/admin/options.inc.php on line 53

I was trying to figure out what the issue might be and simply determined the file was missing. So I dug through the archive of versions of the plugin, only to see it never existed. I got impatient and simply created a blank file and saved it as footer.inc.php and uploaded it to the requested directory. Guess what? It worked! So I’m hopefully that when I Tweet this URL it’ll be nice and short and everything will work. Guess there’s only one way to find out!

There are many forks in the road as one travels through life. I for one am continually identifying them. There are also plenty of distractions along the way. New projects. New ideas. New clients. Old clients. The ever longing quest for money, freedom, time or whatever it is that drives the individual. For me, right now, I’m at a place where I need to take action.

As the saying goes “talk is cheap.” So is thought honestly. Without action, there’s really nothing. So for me now I need to take action and stay focused. That’s where the challenge comes in. In addition to holding a full-time, 40 hour a week job doing web design & development I also do my own gig outside that time and have a desire/need to be the best father I can be to an amazing baby girl. Toss in trying to be a respectable, decent partner and then add a dose of sleep! That really leaves me with very little time to work on the numerous ideas that are already in my head, let alone the ideas that seem to enter every day.

So what am I to do? It’s a matter of maximizing my time, efficiency and remaining focused. There’s being focused again. That’s where I’m at and know I need to take action so I can progress through the current fork in my road. I have a burning desire to break free from the current “9-5 boredom” while being underpaid and under-appreciated for the work I do. I’m confident that I have some multi-million dollar ideas in my head and those who I’ve shared them with see possibility as well. A few days ago on Twitter I slapped up a nice little tweet that really shows a little thinking outside the box. (If you’re trying to figure out the annual salary, just multiply it by 7).

That’s it, that’s all. At just a mere 10¢/second I can easily retire by the time I’m 32. A goal I’ve had for a few years. It’s so close I can taste it, but I need that focus. I need to focus on the four projects currently in progress…not to mention the others bouncing around. Heck, I even had one this morning while making breakfast. There’s no shortage of ideas.

I guess what I need to know is how do you remain focused? What techniques do you use to focus and how are you motivated to do “work for free” that ideally puts a LOT OF COIN in your pocket in the future? I need your help to keep me focused. You can seriously contribute to my success without financial expense or investment…just take a few minutes to leave a well, thought out comment. Please.

So it’s been a few days since I wrote. I knew it would happen. I thought about trying to find a computer this weekend while up in Lake Louise at The Fairmont, but decided against it. I decided to actually take time out and relax. Apparently, I also forgot to post on Friday, so according to my calculations I owe you 360 words for four days resulting in 1440 words posted today. Holy smokes that’s a lot of writing to do!

I guess it’s a good thing to write though, since I’m working on my new ergonomic keyboard it will give me a chance to get used to it a little bit more. I think what I’ll do is split the posts up a little bit more and perhaps carry one of those days forward so that you don’t have to read it all at once — you know, one long pointless thought.

The weekend was spent skiing and relaxing in Lake Louise. For not having skied in about 5 years, I was actually somewhat impressed with myself that I didn’t completely bail and have my skis end up at the bottom of the hill without me. First run down the hill resulted in an almost wipe out, but I didn’t actually fall. “Great! That means I’m going to get progressively worse throughout the day” I thought to myself. Of course, being that the mind is so powerful, I instantly believed it, and as you can guess got a little worse each run down.

There were briefs period of brilliance and skill, but there were a lot of me as a beginner, and it showed. I figured that the easiest way to get up from falling was to simply not fall. Of course that didn’t always work so well. Oh well, no harm done in falling I guess.

It’s not such a great thing to have writers block, especially when I have to write so many words today, but it feels like that’s what I have. I guess it’s all the other work that’s building up that I’m thinking about. I’ll continue to write throughout today and get to that magical 1440…or you could just stand up and spin around 4 times and that would be the 1440 degrees that I would owe you!? Of course, now I’m just rambling on (though it was a great song).
(WC: 396)

Well, I woke up this morning and new what I was going to write about. Funny thing is I still remember what I was going to write about. Unfortunately, it’s not the “BIG” thing. I was sitting in my home office last night discussing a new layout and some design elements with my brother and business partner, Andrew. I noticed my idea book sitting on a shelf behind him. I’d been planning on paging through it to look for some specifics, and decided there was no time like the present.

I reached over and grabbed the book and began paging through it. I found the idea that I was looking for when I started back through the pages — from back to front. The idea that was written in the book was from December 5, 2003. I know for a fact though that it’s been bouncing around in my head far longer. I still talk about it to a few close people, and the idea has evolved to a point where I think I could almost make money doing it…so that’s the plan. Get the beta version up and running (yes, it’s something online) and go from there with testing and hopefully profits — maybe someone will even buy it from me.

I was looking in the same “To Do” list and noticed something else. The last item on the list of 15 different things was, and I quote, “Movie/Book/Whatever idea!!” So I can confidently say that for over three years I’ve been giving this some thought, but apparently not enough. I’ve known for that long that I’ve wanted to do it. That I’ve wanted to write something. That I’ve wanted that recognition for writing something great. My problem still is that I’m not sure what to write. Or am I? Is there something that I’m just sitting here complaining about not knowing what to write? Am I gaining some twisted form of satisfaction knowing that I can complain or just simply is it that I don’t want to commit to it?

I have a problem and I know it. I’m afraid; just as many other people are as well. It’s quite silly if you think about what I’m actually afraid of. I could see being afraid of sharks, or guns, or famine or something else. But for me, I’m scared and afraid of success! Yes, to be successful and actually recognized and respected is something that apparently I’m afraid of. My brother and I have spoken about this before, and we both feel it’s why we haven’t been able to take SPRY Design Group, our graphic & web design firm, seriously for the past — oh, ever!

Why? Why is it that we’re afraid of success? More importantly, why am I afraid of success or is there something more specific about being successful that actually scares me? Everyone always dreams of being rich and famous, but most only every think of it as a dream. Why not be rich and famous? In school children are often asked what they would like to be when they grow up. I know that I was asked this question, and thinking back, I can’t recall my answer. I think there was a fireman, a policeman and the usual super hero listed in there somewhere. The first two were dangerous, and the last was unrealistic, so I moved on. The next big one was architect, but not just any architect, someone that was highly respected; thought outside the box — sometimes too far outside the box, but was still recognized. Someone like Andrew Lloyd Wright who changed the way people look at buildings. That’s what I wanted to be.

Thinking about it now, at the age of twenty-eight, nobody asks me what I want to be when I grow up. People often ask me to grow up, but never what I want to be. Why? Am I all grown up now? I know plenty of people that would disagree if you say yes (right Terri). I’m fine, make that extremely happy, with not being grown up. I love being young at heart, and trying new things. So really, what do I want to be when I grow up. It’s a long list, but it goes something like this.

When I grow up I want to be:

• Financially free to do the things that I want, when I want, with who I want, how I want.
• Wealthy in time, money, friends, freedom and love.
• Famous. Yes, famous. I want to be respected in my field by my peers, not necessarily known by everyone, but at least known and highly respected in my field and profession.

The list is longer, but since I’m at the office, I can’t think too much…too many distractions around here! My point is that I don’t actually want to be anything…but in fact that could be my problem. If I BE it, then I DO it, then I HAVE it…interesting how that should work. Now to decipher my life and ponder a little more. It’s crazy how a few simple, intense days and hours in a Personal Best seminar can change your life — or I guess technically my life.
(WC: 867)