Topics in ‘productivity’

Time to Let Go of Startup Fairy Tales

If you know me, you know I don’t promote stories of “startup heroism” — those thrilling tales of late nights, fueled by coffee, working everywhere and everytime, for 3-5 years until the acquisition ship comes in and you retire with your riches to “Mojito Island”. It’s a sexy and alluring narrative because it says: All… Read more »

2015 Year in Review – Seven Figures, World Domination, Chaos, Time for a Mojito

It’s been a crazy fucking year. A mixture of horrible things, wonderful things; a mixture of things that happened to me, and things I made happen. It wasn’t boring for a single second. (“May you live in interesting times” – a curse indeed.) My year really kicked off, in October 2014 — yes, yes, I… Read more »

Are you thinking, or only farting?

Thinking is supposed to be a question mark. But most people treat it like a period. Terry Pratchett is one of my favorite authors ever. Why? Well, he sees the entire human experience for exactly what it is… and he laughs, indulgently, at the punchline. You think you’re picking up a parody novel and it… Read more »

Confessions of a (reformed) whiner

Hey guys! This is a guest post by 30×500 alum Ryan Castillo, author of 7 Recurring Revenue Recipes for Freelancers and reformed procrastinator. Hi. My name is Ryan and I am a whiner. Or at least I used to be, but we’ll get to that in a minute. For the past three years I’ve failed… Read more »

Making huge projects work: Implementation

In my last essay, I totally pulled back the curtain on the planning + design stage of the (huge) brand new 30×500. The next step? Action, baby. And the key takeaway? Work has an interface and experience all its own… and YOU get to design YOURS. Do it right, and it’ll pay you back. Typically,… Read more »

The 24-Hour Book Challenge — A Six Month Update

On December 2nd, I sat down and started writing. 24 hours later, I launched the first (beta) version of my first biz book, Just Fucking Ship. After a couple more weeks of work, I shipped the final(ish) version. Then I put JFS on a shelf for a while in favor of more urgent/demanding things. Now,… Read more »

I used to suck at shipping.

Are you a procrastinator? Do you have a list of unfinished (or unstarted) projects as long as your arm? Don’t feel bad about it. Do something about it. People often marvel at the amount of shit I manage to get done. Me! With a part-time effort, because I am so often ill and juggling two… Read more »

Chasing cats, dumb risk and smart strategy

This is Franklin. Our friends found him all alone on the street when he was just 3 weeks old. We adopted him at 4 weeks, and hand-raised him with bottles and warming pads and all that. Franklin is all grown up now, and an anxious little kitty… which he expresses by being a giant dick… Read more »

A meditation on goals

This is not an official Year In Review post, but rather a lengthy meditation on goals: Good goals, bad goals, misinformed goals, hitting goals, missing goals. A year and 2 days ago, I hit publish on my goals for 2014. Here are the goals: Grow Freckle Time Tracking to $700k/yr run rate… which would have… Read more »

Don’t Write 1,000 Words a Day

“How do you motivate yourself to write 1,000 Words a Day when you don’t feel like it?” “I don’t.” — Chris Guillebeau, author How to Write 300,000 Words in 1 Year Apparently it was morning. 10…30? I patted down all the major parts: face, chest, thighs, upper arms. Man, my arms were freezing, though I’d… Read more »

Hey, why not get a shiny
Freckle Time Tracking
account?