Having fun

What I am thinking about:

Today I revisited an old website that I last visited probably several years ago. This site is Ken Rockwell’s. (If you’re interested in cameras and related gear, this site will be of interest to you.) What impresses me however, is the fact that he’s been working on his website since 1999:

“I started this website as a goof in 1999. Back then it took forever to download an emailed scan of a photo, and longer than forever if there were a few photos. This website was an easier way to share recent photos with my immediate freinds than trying to send a bunch of emails.”

— Ken Rockwell

This means he has been working at this website for 25+ years now. And it appears like he is having fun. This having fun part is what I’ve been thinking about. He goes on to say:

“I continue to do this site all by myself for fun — probably the last remaining 1990’s for-fun website that hasn’t sold out to other interests. Even though it has become popular, presumably because so many people find it helpful, it is still run just for fun. I am this site’s only author. I have no one to proofread, spell check or fact check for me, so there will always be errors and omissions.”

— Ken Rockwell

“…all by myself for fun…” and he makes a living doing it. When you read his reviews or descriptions under his photographs, they seem like unconcerned expressions of what others think about his work. He is having fun. Further down in his old about section, he continues:

“I’ve been adding to this site since 1999. This means that many of these pages, including this one, are over ten years old. I can’t possibly go back and update everything magically as the world turns. Read, enjoy, have fun, and take everything in the spirit in which it’s shared.”

— Ken Rockwell

This carefree way of documenting his work and sharing something that contributes to other people’s lives, all while having fun, this sort of work seems highly attractive to me. This is what I would like this site to be for me.

I’ve thought about creating a page on this website for book reviews. Quite a few years ago, I dabbled with book reviews on an old Wordpress site I started. While I enjoyed the process of reviewing books then, it doesn’t feel like quite the right fit now. Perhaps a better fit for me now is to simply share what thoughts those books provoke instead of actually reviewing the book in a formal fashion. After all, if I (or you) am having fun, chances are I will continue the project in a much more sustained fashion. For 25+ years? Who knows? Time will tell.

What I am reading right now:

Company of One

So far, this has been a thought provoking read. It has challenged the notion that our business needs to grow to be sustainable. Better, yes. But not necessarily bigger. Focusing on quality and customer service are hallmarks of an excellent Company of One. This is a book I return to frequently in my mind while at the office.

Amazon link.

A Day in the Life

Instead of writing a script for a video I was thinking about, we ended up filming “a day in the life” kind of video. We have not done a day in the life on our channel yet. It is tough to film a video like this with two little kiddos. Trevor gets under Heidi’s skin many times a day. This makes her cry which makes for pathetic audio. This means that we will need to do a voice over for some of those parts or add some music.

This afternoon, I was feeling disenfranchised with how the filming day was going. I was feeling like we could do better, tell a better story, get better angles, get better audio, etc. If we’d film a video in a studio or at night when the kiddos are sleeping, we could get way better results.

Also, while Lydia was reviewing a scene on camera that she had just shot, the audio would not play. Turns out, the mic was plugged into the headphone port instead of the audio port. This means, we got poor audio for more than half the video.

A couple of positives about today:

• I filmed myself getting out of bed for the first time. Some of these clips are not very impressive, but can now be improved upon in the future. I find myself critiquing every scene. Usually, there is something that can be improved upon.

• It’ll be fun to watch the “day in the life” video in the future, say, 5, 10, 15 years down the road.

YouTube Studio is telling me that I’ve found my groove. This is based on more that 2,000 hours of watch time. I feel like I am still constantly looking for that groove where the next 5 or 10 videos flow in succession, versus me always trying to decide what to create next.

It’s 11:03 p.m., and I must needs be off to bed. Good night!

Video. Schedule. Pressure.

It’s Thursday. Two days from now it’ll be two weeks since we published our last YouTube video. That means we should be publishing another video on Saturday to keep up with the 2 week rhythm we’ve set for ourselves. I am not sure what kind of video to produce. I have a bunch of ideas, but these ideas are new territory for me, and I worry how those videos would turn out. Also, it feels like there is a lot of friction for filming B-roll for these videos. Perhaps I am just procrastinating. I feel like I do not have long periods of time in which to shoot this footage, and I tell myself that I need a day of dedicated time, or at least half a day, to film the different scenes. I don’t feel like setting up the lighting or the the camera just to film one section just to tear it all down, only to resume again another day.

I feel like I have all sorts of video ideas but these ideas do not fit into a tight niche. I worry that the channel will not perform as well as it could if I follow my varied ideas and concoct a channel that has “a little bit of this, and a little bit of that”. Part of me says that I shouldn’t worry about it. I am simply practicing, and do not need to take myself so seriously. That is probably true. But I do know that stellar creations are enjoyed by a much larger audience. It feels good to create something that is enjoyed by lots of people, not just 7 or 8 people, or whatever.

I may just start writing a script and then film myself and start filming B roll. I think that is the right thing to do. Then the video will be what it will be. At the very least, I will get some practice. Even if I only get this video done by Saturday night instead of Saturday morning, I would feel like I haven’t let myself down.

Impossible to slow down?

It’s Saturday night. It’s been a week since I’ve been back to work full time. This week, I did all sorts, with the one constant task which I’ve returned to every day being a new product booklet that we are hoping to have ready for the upcoming Spring show season. I feel like I cannot settle down to work deeply for very long. Either there is an interruption in my day brought on by one of our people, or the interruption is due to my inability to concentrate and my apparent need to bounce my mind around. But who doesn’t need a break periodically when staring at a computer screen and trying to wrestle multiple creative elements onto one cohesive page? Then I also feel like the product booklet should not be taking so much time to complete. But perhaps I simply overestimate how much work I can get done each day or week?

After supper at home, I’ve worked on the Wilde Treats website. Here, I have tremendous fun. Building websites or e-commerce stores is so much fun. At least the architectural part of it is so much fun. Sometimes I think I would enjoy running a website design firm. But really, doing the architectural web design would be the fun, not doing all the necessary administrative work. I also feel this to be true at work. It is the creative work that I crave (especially web design) and not the laborious admin work. I’ve sometimes felt like a mother when doing admin work. At least in the sense, that I am indispensable and so much energy is being sucked out of me. I’m sure there are people in this world that thrive on admin work.

Some days I feel like trying to slow down is futile. I work 7 or 8 hours at work and then come home to work on a website. Effectively this makes for a 12-13 hour workday. I don’t know. Then I have more and more ideas that continually rush into my head. More product websites to build. More things to sell to customers that I would enjoy using myself. And on and on… I need unlimited amounts of time and money and a general manager who would happily do all my admin work so I can go on my website building adventures. Good night, and happy new week!

Back to Work

Today was the first day back to work after taking most of the month of January off. Since our work is somewhat seasonal, most of the staff took January off.

I have mixed feeling about going back to work at the office. The cons? Not being able to sleep in to 8:30 a.m. Not being able to spend most of the day with my little family. It would be so much fun to make a living without the 8-5 job the business requires at this stage. Hopefully one day, we’ll be able to work together as a family, creating videos and selling products we love to create. Another con? I noticed a couple pimples emerge on my forehead just today. I usually have very few pimples on my forehead, and I am noticing my stress bodies stress response. At one point this afternoon I had cold sweat running down from my underarms. And I wasn’t dealing with anything particularly stressful. I was simply focusing and working away. I need to learn to moderate my stress response.

The pros of going back to work? Working at a project that is larger than life is rewarding. Taking the revenue from 3.5 to 4.25 million this year seems like a goal that is fun to tackle. Other times, I wonder if we will keep moving the goal post higher and higher, meaning the feeling of going from 4.25 to 5 million will feel exactly the same as the previous step up. That doesn’t feel very exciting. That was a rabbit trail. Another pro? I enjoy working with some of our high energy guys in particular. Saying hello in the morning and knowing that they have a livelihood in part because of my efforts gives me that feeling of being needed.

My to do list for today (as copied from my Microsoft To Do app:

• Pray

• Pull weekly data

• Have a look at Tariffs, and make a plan for purchasing lumber.

• Get info prepped for Cambridge series, including asking Micah about siding

• Get back to Jonathan.

• Ask Darvin for a conversation.

• Review our goal meeting and pull todo’s and record data.

• Respond to Leandro on the logo.

• Check to see when Cufca training is happening in March.

• Document stating that some tools are to be provided by employee.

• Look at discounts for February?

• Collect stock report on materials from Taiga

• Ask Scott for an update.

I just noticed that all of my to dos, except for one end with either a period or question mark. Whatever. I also had a couple of phone conversations throughout the day and answered some questions that came up from our guys in the shop. I felt more productive than I would from a typical day working at home.

Now I need to be off for a quick bath and then I need to read for 30 minutes. After that, it’s…

Goodnight!

Conservation efforts and freedom…

After church, we chatted with someone about the conversation projects that are supposed to be conserving 30% of the world by 2030. Locally, meetings are being held to inform about these initiatives. While I love nature, and parks are great, these super aggressive conservation efforts smell of control. I don’t like it.

Broad or Deep

One of the things I regret when I look back over the last ten years is the fact that I have switched focus a few too many times. There is a silver lining to this, but lets first talk about the not so good results of ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder).

One of the main downsides of having an attention deficit is that my ability to gain traction is diminished. After my stint at the University of Manitoba (read this post for a little more of my story), I worked for a bee farmer for a summer. Eventually I grew and ran my own small commercial honey bee operation. Then I sold my bees and equipment after several lackluster years that included high winter mortality rates and substandard honey production during the summer. A big influence on selling the bees was that a part time job that was supposed to last only for the winter had turned into a full time job. I decided that I was better off selling the bees and working full time at Diemo, a metal manufacturing shop. Diemo provided the opportunity for personal growth and good pay. My time at Diemo (a total of 3.5 years) has been my longest tenure so far of all the places I've worked.

Several good things have come from my time at Diemo. I had a wonderful time of asking Marty, the general manager, any question I wanted. Our discussions ranged from faith, business, and entrepreneurship to people and philosophy. I learned so much during those 3.5 years at Diemo. Just the other week I was looking for advice on a matter. I sent him an email midday, and he responded to my request for a call within several minutes. Relationships like this are invaluable. I look back on my time at Diemo with fondness.

I feel though that Diemo has been an anomaly in my experience. I wish I had five "Diemo" stories to tell. I don't. I hope that my Pine View Buildings story will be another story of few regrets and many fond moments.

The upside to not focusing on one thing for too long at a time is that you can potentially have many experiences. Working at 5 different jobs over 10 years will tend to give you broader experience than working at one job over 10 years. Working at any given thing for a very long time will give you deep experience.

Question is, which one do you want? Broad experience or deep experience? I will break this post off here. I want to get into the deep vs broad discussion in the future.

Happy Zone

This afternoon, I spent 5 hours building out our new website, miniShed.ca. This is not the first website I have worked on. Every time I build a website, I become very engrossed in my work. Time just flies. I don't feel like going home from work. I love to be at home. But somehow, website building engages my brain in way that gives me direct and positive feedback. I want to do more of it.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, big projects tend to get my full attention, while "insignificant" tasks do not. But, somehow all the details in website creation don't deter me from it. It actually draws me in. Creating a cohesive and engaging design is so much fun! I have discovered that "insignificant" tasks that are part of a large or important project are not treated as insignificant by my brain. Adjusting the colour palette, building a beautiful collage, and crafting the text on the home page all take detailed work, but boy is it important to the future of miniShed.ca. And so, my brain treats the creation of the website as another large project, and I thoroughly enjoy the process.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Does time seem to pass by more quickly when at your job compared to other tasks or events in your day or week?

• Do coffee breaks arrive too soon or does it feel like it takes forever for 10 A.M. to come around?

• Are you looking forward to tomorrow morning, ready to jump in where you left off the evening before?

The answers to the above questions indicate to me if I am enjoying what I do.

I, for one, am looking forward to tomorrow morning. Getting that website wrapped up is motivating, as there is real potential for good tied to it.