I’ve wasted a ton of time recently being annoyed at my recurring absense of any kind of motivation, and concentration, though I find the two go nicely hand in hand.  I seem to have fallen into the same trap of late where I want to get a chunk of work done, the desire’s there, but when it comes to actually putting pen to paper (so to speak), I’m off with the faries thinking about whats for dinner, or the last time I had a Guiness, or perhaps how great I looked in my mankini last night.  You get the picture.

Wind back 6 months ago when I was noticed myself having the same problem (it’s definitely a common recurring theme for me, but its been especially bad over the last couple of weeks), and I was thinking about what I was doing back then to try and improve the situation.  I spent a few minutes trawling google earlier yesterday for some answers to curing motivation/concentration issues, and the common theme seemed to be depression and other mental health issues.  This is nonsense of course, I’m just as happy and laid back ask I’ve always been though I definitely feel the stress of money and financial situations a hell of a lot more than I used to.  If anything being motivationless is depressing, but not so much vice versa, I don’t think.

Money is definitely an ingredient of motivation though, I can usually push out required work with ease if theres an instant reward at the end, but this seems to fade when the money is not bankable within a month or so!

So, I’ve spent a few days just thinking about what I’m going to do about the situation, and i’m noticing (obviously) that some of the things I’m figuring out, I worked out last time I felt this way, so like a viscious cycle, I’m once again learning from past mistakes

I’ll attack it this way, and like a childish game give myself a score of 1 - 10 for my percieved moto-rating.

Thinking about:

• Being positive at all times, despite what s*#t the day throws
• Systematic approach to get a job done by cutting down everything into miniscule tasks
• Attempt to fight laziness and apathy by not checking email/forums every two seconds, just because
• At work, Insist (unless its important) that communication is carried out via email/IM, as being interrupted 30 times an hour is a recipe for mind blocks and mental muddle

Now the question one might pose to me, is why on Earth am I posting this?!? I answer in one way, if this I.T jig falls through but my self motivation is successful, coach the other 87.3% of corporate/business workers in my way of thinking.

I’m going to be the next Anthony Robbins… Bitch!

Changing Situations

Today (April 1st) marks the day that I start at my company as a permanent employee, and also that day that I cease to be a full-time contractor, at least for the time being, anyway.  It’s brought about an aura of uncertainty, not because I’m unsure of what I’m doing, but because of that fact that taking a paycut is often hard to justify.

I’ve had the choice though, to stay on contracting and miss out on possible bonus’s, promotions, as well as all the normal benifits like holidays, sick pay (hooray, I can take a day off again) and private health care.  I’m hanging on to the thoguth that whilst I was getting better money contracting (by no means, fantastic money, mind you), with the holiday and sick pay, I’m not that much worse off.  And I found about a fantastic little nasty called Employer’s Natiional Insurance Tax, which for some reason I was stupid enough to have been paying myself, missing out on the grand total of almost £1,000 cleared cash in hand per month.

This is what I’ll be expected to wear to the office, now that I’m permanent

Renewed Motivation

But the worry at the change in career path has renewed my motivation to pursue out of work projects and whilst I’ve had a couple of fairly unproductive months, I think I’m well back on track down the path of success. At least I hope so, anyway.  So far I’ve:

• 75% completed the first of the ShanCo projects, an experiment in collaboration, team work and fighting the good (SEO) fight to thrive for a win in this web world.  I can’t say too much because not only would that ruin the surprise, I’d be sure to dissapoint as well.
• started to draw up plans with an old mate from University;
• and done the same with some friends from work, thinking about a couple of huge ideas one of the guys came up with that could quite likely revolutionise the London Texas Hold’em scene as well as a couple of other ideas as well.  If I can help, that is!

Budgeting & Finance

Another thing I did, whilst fretting about the incoming financial situation was draw up a quick budget for the next few years.  I’m amazed time and time again, just how much money we waste, and how easy it would be to save a fair chunk if you put your mind to it and watch out on the frivilous bar rounds (£36 on five drinks on Saturday night!).  I’ve found in the past if I’ve had something that i’ve needed to save up for, drawing out a budget and clearly working out exactly much we needed to save, and exactly how much we can save if we stick to the money we intend to live on each week.

It’s probably a no brainer for most, and a sign of immaturity, but sticking to my money guide, which took me about 20 minutes to knock up in Excel should help in this matter, especially when I consider all the things we’re going to have to pay for in the next few months, such as the Big Event and the nicely priced Holiday to Russia in July.  Hell I’m going to enjoy my holiday pay though!

Things appear to be going well so far, slowly, but in a solid direction.  Since speaking the last time, I’m just starting two freelance lots of work, boosting up my personal work and starting on a joint venture with a mate from back home.  One of the freelance jobs is making simple front end changes on a photography webiste for approximately 10-30 hours, and the other is an going data access/manipulation wrapper for an accounting application but should be a nice chunk of cash in a couple of months or so.

The venture with Rusty is for a project/website or group of sites comprising of tech related goodness.  I can’t say much now as its still most definately in its infancy, but if all goes to plan could quite possibly be a good startup, as I’m 90% sure it hasn’t been done quite the way we want to do it before.  It all comes back to that old notion that if you can’t think of something to do, take a previous idea, build on its weaknesses and make it better, much better.  And that’s the plan.   It should be great to have a partner for once, as this should provide motivation to get more and more done and slowly but gradually fill it with content.

I’m sure (hoping) everything will click into place, and in a year from now I can look back and see what kind of changes have been made, its not even necessarily about the money, just the name and satisfaction from doing something properly.

So the first part of the Out with the Old  initiative is well on its way, not that I’ve actually accomplished anything yet, but the groundwork has been laid and between Beer, Red Wine and Irish Coffee its about all I can think about.