My December 2018 Retrospective
Key accomplishments
Rapid Breakup Recovery
- Got a local WP environment running with a proper git setup
- 2 new blog posts
- Created a list of podcasts to outreach to for a RBR podcast tour
Intercompanion
- Recorded 4 podcast interviews
- Set up the Intercompanion website
Pingcoin
- Fixed a bug which made the app crash on older Android devices
- Made a nicer placeholder website (opens in a new tab)
General
- Did my November 2018 retrospective (first monthly retrospective)
Personal
- Moved back to Switzerland and moved in with girlfriend
- Imported all my accounts into my accounting software
Other
- Reading: Finished Start With Why by Simon Sinek (terrible book)
Monthly goal check-in
- Writing
- I only wrote 2 articles for RBR, but I was happy about their quality. Here I clearly set out to do too much.
- 4 articles for RBR (failed, 2)
- 1 article for Jesse MS (failed)
- 2 articles for Intercompanion (failed)
- I only wrote 2 articles for RBR, but I was happy about their quality. Here I clearly set out to do too much.
- Financial independence
- I only made $161.75 in December, all from RBR. I believe that the problem is that the objectives I set (below) for the month were not unambiguously going to lead to revenue. Going forward I will maintain a yearly target that I will check every month.
- $1000 income in December (failed)
- Get up to speed with my accounting (failed)
- Redesign RBR (success)
- Outline a course (success)
- Start a podcast tour (failed, only made a list of potential podcasts)
- Launch Intercompanion podcast + website (failed, only launched the website)
- Validate my positioning (failed)
- Move from Drip to Intercom (failed)
- Blog post about moving to intercom (failed)
- Explore other opportunities (success)
- Edit and publish old interviews (failed)
- Create a consulting video (failed)
- I only made $161.75 in December, all from RBR. I believe that the problem is that the objectives I set (below) for the month were not unambiguously going to lead to revenue. Going forward I will maintain a yearly target that I will check every month.
- Full of love
- Did well here, although not everything is reflected in these objectives.
- Stay in touch with Indiehackers (success)
- Stay in touch with friends (failed)
- Did well here, although not everything is reflected in these objectives.
- Seize every day
- Found a gym and have been doing the 5x5 routine 3x a week
- Figure out gym (success)
- Found a gym and have been doing the 5x5 routine 3x a week
- Reading
- I'm trying to read more and more, but I haven't come up with a workflow that works for me yet. Overall I'm surprised how slow my progress is through any given book.
- Come up with and stick with new reading / summarizing workflow (failed)
- Read & summarize 4 books (failed, only finished 1)
- Summarize past read books (failed)
- I'm trying to read more and more, but I haven't come up with a workflow that works for me yet. Overall I'm surprised how slow my progress is through any given book.
- Explore my subconscious and integrate my shadow
- I was feeling very tense around money and sustaining myself in Switzerland. I explored this tension in my mind and I realized that the worst possible scenario I could imagine would not be to run out of money, but to never actually be able to earn a reasonable amount of money. Speaking with one of my best friends he probed me further and helped me realize I was attaching feelings of being a failure to this scenario. The idea of never being able to make money has been making me feel tense because it makes me feel like a failure in the most profound sense of the word. Once I realized that, a lot of the tension disappeared. Now, I've probably landed my first client for my own product development business.
- Daily reparenting exercise (success)
- Daily shadow integration exercise (success)
- Daily tapping exercise (success)
- I was feeling very tense around money and sustaining myself in Switzerland. I explored this tension in my mind and I realized that the worst possible scenario I could imagine would not be to run out of money, but to never actually be able to earn a reasonable amount of money. Speaking with one of my best friends he probed me further and helped me realize I was attaching feelings of being a failure to this scenario. The idea of never being able to make money has been making me feel tense because it makes me feel like a failure in the most profound sense of the word. Once I realized that, a lot of the tension disappeared. Now, I've probably landed my first client for my own product development business.
- I am strong (physical strength)
- Did well here
- Stick with 5x5 routine
- Did well here
- Travel
- N/A
Time Spent
Total: 104 hours (-50.2%)
Wow. I was really surprised to see that I logged 50% less hours than in November (opens in a new tab). November was my most productive month in Chiang Mai and in December I had to move back to Switzerland, get settled in with my girlfriend and I spent considerable time away from my computer during the holidays.
I spent my 28.3% (up from 7%) of my time on RBR (opens in a new tab). I'm happy with this amount as I wanted to focus more on this project in December.
I spent 13.9% (up from 5%) of my time on Intercompanion (opens in a new tab). I'm also happy with this amount as I've decided to focus more on this strategy for establishing a consulting arm.
I'm still a bit unsure how to approach the time tracking results. I've started doing time budgeting (setting a time target per category) on a weekly basis. I will start doing the same on a monthly basis starting in January.
Revenue
Rapid Breakup Recovery
- Coaching calls: $47.75
- Ebooks sales: $114
- Total: $161.75 (-19.5%)
Grand Total
$161.75
Happiness
I recorded 48% good moods (+3), 48% meh (+0) and 2% bad (-4). I continue to see an upward trend in my mood, albeit very slightly. I was interested to see how my monthly mood average would change going from being single and financially comfortable in Chiang Mai in November to being in a relationship and financially more strained in Switzerland in December. Even though my material quality of life has decreased, I'm happy my mood has remained stable.
Overall
What went well?
- Setting monthly goals
- Doing podcast interviews is fun and it's a great way to build relationships with others in your industry.
What did not go well?
- Achieving my monthly goal
- I set too many goals / objectives for the month
- Failed to catch up on my accounting
- I set a goal of achieving $1000 in independent revenue in December and I fell quite a bit short of that. I even reviewed this goal almost every day, but I still didn't reach it.
- Failed to write and publish 4 articles for RBR
- Looking over this retrospective I feel my time was spread over many different projects. Although I enjoy working on different things, I can't help but think that I would accomplish more if I could focus.
- Scheduling podcasts was a bit of a pain
What should I stop / not start doing?
- Lower my estimates for the amount of tasks I think I can get done in a single month
- Always have a podcast going
What should I start / continue doing?
- I need to change my approach with regards to setting a monthly goal. Simply setting a goal and reviewing it is not enough for me. In other areas of my life when I set a goal I know more or less how I'm going to get there. In this case, I had no idea. I think revenue is still the right indicator to look at, but perhaps setting a 0-to-$1000 goal (without a clear idea how to get there) is not the right approach. Instead I will be setting a yearly revenue goal in my yearly planning and I'll be checking in with that goal on a monthly basis.