Monday, May 19, 2014

Decompression Underway

I'm taking this week "off"- as in, I don't have an office I need to go to or anyone else expecting work from me.

I do intend to relax a bit this week. I had visions of sitting in my backyard enjoying our more seasonable weather this week (68 and part sun/part clouds is in the forecast for the entire week), but my Kindle went on the fritz. I wrote more about that over at Tungsten Hippo today. I'll probably still get some backyard time, but not as much as I would have with my Kindle.

And yes, the fact that I finally wrote another Tungsten Hippo post is an indicator of the fact that I'm coming out of the crunch of setting up the new business. (Aside: I didn't want to go through the disclosure song and dance in that post, but you all know that Xist is my publisher and so I'll say here: the best, most reliable source of well-formatted kids' ebooks for my Kindle Fire is Xist. The big publishers are starting to get the format now, but a lot of their backlist books are poorly formatted and don't read well on the Fire.)

My new business is not completely set up. I'm still waiting on my tax ID. Once I get that, I can set up a bank account, fund it, and then use it to register domain names, convert my Toggl account to Pro (so I can use it to create invoices), and set up payroll. I also need to figure out what I'll use for accounting software (a surprising number of the people I've asked say they just use a spreadsheet), finish the paperwork for the business set up (I need to issue shares, adopt my by-laws, and things like that), and a few other odds and ends. With some luck (i.e., if my tax ID arrives early in the week), I'll be mostly set up by the end of the week.


I'm planning to take it a bit easy for the first month, so I don't feel like I have to pack all my downtime into this one week. I want to pause, let the burned out feeling fade, and adopt a deliberate plan for what to do next. I have a lot of different ideas, but so far all I know for certain is that the first not-immediately paid thing I'll focus on doing is finishing up the ebook about job-hunting.

I also plan to write some more. I think that will help me vanquish the burned out feeling, because writing is something I like to do that was getting short shrift as I tried to make my schedule work out. I have a few post ideas on my list, but if you have suggestions- leave them in the comments!

9 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:44 PM

    I need your help! I'ma gonna shoot you an email. But remember how I said offhand I was going to be working on a project that I could really use your insight on? (Possibly not because it was a long time ago...) Well, I'm trying to get a one page description to the NSF to figure out which call for proposals it best fits. We're still in the pre-planning stages trying to figure out exactly what we want to do and it could use some industry insight/sniff-testing.

    *hopeful smile*

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have picked an excellent week in which to need my help! I can guarantee turnaround in less than 24 hours- probably much less depending on when the email hits my inbox. And I'm happy to help!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous2:04 PM

      sent!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous1:38 PM

      You're awesome! Thanks so much!

      Delete
  2. I'm glad you are taking it a bit easy and letting the burn out fade. That's important. And I'm really enjoying hearing about how you are setting up your own business! It's truly fascinating to me, so I enjoy your posts on that. :)

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  3. Please check out quickbooks for your accounting! I love it! It makes everything very easy and my accountant can log in and check up on me/download everything for my taxes. I originally started with freshbooks, which may work for you since it seems to be designed more for what you do than what I do since it does a lot more with time-tracking. Good luck!

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  4. Hope you're enjoying your downtime! Definitely keep posting about this journey!

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  5. Anonymous5:36 PM

    I'm curious... what are you doing for payroll? Is this software that helps your track your hours and bill your customer?

    - Virginia

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I plan to use Toggl for the billing. I like it better for time-tracking than any of the integrated time-tracking/payroll things I've seen (although I didn't do an exhaustive search- with just one employee who will be on salary, I don't really have to optimize that!)

      I'll use either ADP or Paychex for payroll. I haven't set that up yet, so I'm not sure which.

      Delete

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