Tired, but not defeated yet

Guess I have to let off some steam (by blogging) before I knock off today. It has been a great sense of accomplishment for me, but this crazy schedule of mine is going to swallow me whole if I don’t start figuring out how to manage it.

I guess what most people say is right – the “new rich” (still cringe at the term) is not someone who can efficiently finish all his task, but intelligently choose which task to do, do it effectively, and outsource the rest. Not to say I’m any more efficient than others I know, but really, what has made me tired these days is that I can hardly “outsource” the work I do to people. I can’t hire the right person to help me. Firstly, it’s not easy – for starters, as my concept of web design is not very good, I’ve tried getting others to help me take photos, draw mock ups and stuff, but the result was never good enough, and most of the time I ended up having to do twice the work to meet my high standards. Then there are other work that’s too niche to be outsourced, like music arrangement – which would take a long time to find and then groom a person to take some of the jobs.

I’ve spent some time on Friday shaving off a number of “noise” in my life, and re-prioritizing the work that has to be done this week(end), but it is not enough. Work @ IDA is picking up speed as well and eating into the weekends, and I’m now literally taking leave here and there to catch up with my life. Worst part is, the most interesting things like setting up new ventures are being put in the back burner because I can’t go back on my word to complete certain customer’s job first. This has to change – I can’t let my partners down!

If anything, I’ve stopped taking in new paid “jobs” – that helps a bit, but it’s also not always easy to pass it on to friends who can take on the work. Ultimately, you don’t want to lose the “customer” especially those that has been patient and encouraging. The approach of dropping them entirely coz they are not the 1 or 2 customers who generate 80% of your income still doesn’t make sense to me as the business isn’t generating that much income anyway (can hardly use it to pay all my taxes and insurance).

This busy-ness is also pissing off quite a number of people who demands my attention. Personal relationships are ultimately an important part of life, however, trying to waste my time chatting idly these days are killing me. Every instant message it’s like a stab in the wound: you know the person really wants to talk to you, but you know every minute spent talking will have absolutely nothing to gain for both sides, and the work part will be jeopardized.

So a bit of an apology to those people. Try coming back to me in September.

I’m not giving up so soon. However, I think I’m going to put in some of this money to hire a full time “side kick” if you will. If you’re the personal secretary type, doesn’t matter where in the world you are, maybe we should talk. Skillset: Lots of web technologies (PHP and the likes), lots of music composition / arrangement training (Sibelius and the likes), lots of meticulous filing experience of various operational data and also ability to dig out a lot of information from the web, synthesize and report. Can’t pay more than what I pay for rent now, otherwise I’ll have to sell the car.

Otherwise, at least come and appreciate some of these things: Try attending one of my performances will be a good start. As for the ventures, I’ll tell more when they crystallize and go into some form of beta.

Time for bed. 3 more customer meeting tomorrow. Zzz.