Here is my monthly report on projects, goals, and the lessons I’m learning along the way.
My 2020 Goals
Professional Goals:
92% / Double the number of members of The Religion Teacher (December 2017 to present) (+0%)
381,474/1,000,000 words for kids (A part of my #1millionwordsforkids goal) (+11,949 words)
551/600 Resources (Videos/Worksheets) for Members of The Religion Teacher (+0 resources)
Personal Goals:
47/75 Books read (+5 books)
30/73 Books of the Bible read from beginning to end (+0 books read)
88/100 30-minute workouts (+6 workouts)
How I Spent My Time in August 2020
I track every minute of time I spend working on projects using an app called Toggl (here is why). Here is a list of the top ten projects I spent the most time on last month:
- 14:44 – The Religion Teacher Email & Customer Service
- 9:08 – Buying/Selling Our House
- 7:18 – Morning Preview
- 5:08 – Daily Review
- 4:51 – Daily Bible Devotional for Kids
- 4:28 – The Religion Teacher Videos
- 3:26 – Weekly Review
- 3:13 – The Religion Teacher September Membership Launch
- 2:07 – The Religion Teacher Newsletter
- 2:05 – The Religion Teacher Blog Posts
Total Time: 74:24 Hours
August 2020 Highlights & Lessons Learned
Baby Bennett is Born!
We closed on selling our old house on a Monday morning then found ourselves in the hospital that afternoon. After a couple more days, we found ourselves holding our newborn baby boy one month early!
Bennett was in the NICU for an umbilical cord infection for an extra ten days. It was a really difficult time, but we were surrounded by love, prayers, and plenty of help.
Mr. B is our fifth child and you would amazed by how much we learned from the NICU nurses about taking care of a baby! We thought we were pros and found out we had so much more to learn.
Bennett is home now (in our new home!) and doing well. His older sisters are quite smitten with him.
Limited Time = Focus on the Essentials
Between moving to a new house and welcoming a baby four weeks early, I had to scramble to get work time in. I had planned ahead and prepared, but my actual work time was about half of what it is on a normal month even if you count the working hours buying and selling the houses.
When that happens, it important to focus on the essentials. For me, that means getting weekly email newsletters out at the minimum. Everything went out on time and I don’t think anyone would have noticed things were different if I hadn’t mention in the emails that we welcomed a new child into the world.
This is probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned since working for myself. Find out what is essential to maintain the business. Get those projects completed and go from there.
Plan Newsletters Ahead of Time
Knowing things would get a little crazy this month, I planned out my email newsletters ahead of time. Usually I just open up MailChimp and start working on the emails.
This month I looked at the calendar and plugged in topics to include. While I didn’t save much more time, I saved a lot of mental bandwidth.
It was a stressful month and to be able to give my future self a break was a nice gift.
