Outside the Cocoon

The "Whys" of Self Employment

If you are anything like me, (and human nature would suggest that you are) there are probably times when you question the choices that you have made.  In particular you may wonder about your choice of chasing after the self employment dream.  In my case this is complicated by the fact that I am not even half way there.  I have made what I consider to be significant progress and I mostly accept that I make slow and meticulous steps forward rather than swift and bold grand leaps.  There are times, however, when progress forward seems non-existent and those are the times that it is critical to have reminders of the "Whys."

Why are we doing, or attempting to do, what we are doing?  Why did we choose it in the first place?  Why do we continue?  Some people may be motivated purely by the financial possibilities of self employment.  For those who are I wouldn't recommend the slow meticulous route.  But for those of us who value our time more than our money, who need to build our own dreams however impractical, who understand that less really is more, it is imperative that we know our whys. 

I was reminded of one of my whys when I logged into my typepad account this morning and discovered that last Friday was take your dog to work day.   http://hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2008/06/office-dogs.html  I am fortunate that I get to take my dogs and my cats to work with me everyday.  They are good sounding boards and never critical even if they are needy sometimes.  I enjoy their company for the portion of my "work" that is self employment. 

I hope someday to be writing this blog as an independent fully self employed person.  There is only one way to make this happen and that is to continue.  Knowing my whys makes continuing inevitable and forgetting or devaluing them make continuing impossible. 

Know your whys and often the hows figure themselves out.

Keeping The Dream Alive

For those of us who work primarily alone it is sometimes a lonely road to travel but we have chosen it for specific reasons in my case it may have something to do with being a control freak or just a non-conformist who doesn't want anyone telling me what to do.  At any rate there are times when it is hard to see the forest for the trees as the saying goes.  We can easily get so bogged down in the tasks that must be accomplished that we loose sight of our direction and the reason for our efforts.  We don't have a team to encourage us and help keep us motivated: never mind that it was our choice to go it alone. 

I believe that it is natural to travel through both high and low enthusiasm levels when working on any of our dreams but for obvious reasons it is better to have more highs than lows.  There are plenty of great books on the subject and if you know yourself at all you know some of the tricks that help to keep you inspired, whether it is taking a walk, listening to some inspirational music or having lunch with a friend.  

I don't believe that there is such a thing as too much inspiration.  So I welcome anything that seems to be sent to me for that purpose.  If you like daily inspiration with a zany twist; sign up to receive Mike Dooley's Notes From The Universe. http://www.tut.com/nftu.htm

Find Five - De-clutter: Simplify cleaning your closet

I am not the creator of the find five philosophy I don't even remember where I first read about it.  So I will apologize in advance for not being able to give proper credit and also for possibly misrepresenting the concept by having morphed it with my own ideas. 

I can't say that I "Find Five" every day but I do try to do it as often as I can.  There is no set time requirement it usually takes only 5 or 10 minutes.  In a nutshell Finding Five is about de-cluttering.  How many of us have closets bulging with stuff?  We know we need to clean out all that stuff but the task seems daunting and we can easily procrastinate by claiming we will do it as soon as we can "find" a couple of hours. 

The rules are simple.  Look through your closets or your cupboards or your garage and find 5 things to either throw away, give away or if you are like me and have an interest in EBay you can find 5 things to sell. 

I have found that psychologically it is much easier to open my messy cluttered closet and pull out five things I don't like than it is to think about finding the time to evaluate each item.  There is a sense of abundance when I discard five things and more of a sense of scarcity when the pile of give away stuff gets too big.  I start to question whether I should really get rid of that Item that I haven't warn in a year that was never that flattering and doesn't quite fit.. 

Finding five things is easy.  A recent trip through my medicine cabinet yielded over 30 items that needed to be thrown away.  (In my book it is not breaking the rules if you find more than 5 things)  Most of the items in my medicine cabinet were half used make up, a couple of empty prescription bottles, (yes I said empty) and some other cold and allergy medicines that were well past their expiration date.  In about 15 minutes I had a lot of extra space.  I can actually tell what is in there now and most of the items are useful.  I could probably take a second pass at it and find a few more items to discard.

The other benefit of this quick little activity is that I have found it helps me to focus.  There may be no scientific reason for it but having less physical clutter seems to help in having less mental clutter.  For example this morning I was having difficulty focusing on writing this blog.  I decided to take a few minutes and clean out one of my kitchen cupboards.  I quickly found more than five things to throw away and one thing to donate.  Then I headed back to my computer to write. 

Give it a try for yourself.  Sure you won't have the same dramatic results as if you spend all day reorganizing your closet.  But you can still rejoice over the 5 empty hangers or the one shelf in your linen closet that has a little more space.  And then there is tomorrow when you can re-claim a little more of your closet or cupboard.  Think of it as a de-cluttering investment that grows over time for big results.

Your Life Is Now - John Mellencamp

It's hard to live each moment when our minds are cluttered with thoughts of yesterday's successes or failures and tomorrow's hopes and dreams but we should still try: because right now is all we really have.

Your Life Is Now!!!

 

Ebay: blocking bidders with unpaid item strikes

Since last weeks post I have 2 more items in the midst of the unpaid item claims process.  This morning I updated my selling preferences to block bidders with 2 or more unpaid item strikes in the last 12 months.  Hopefully that will help. 

I was curious to know if the buyers who have not paid me had other unpaid item strikes against them but sadly EBay does not publish this information to its members.

Perhaps I was naive because on the 11 unpaid item claims mentioned in my last post I never left negative feedback.  I assumed that the unpaid item strike was sufficient.  Now it is all sellers have to manage non paying bidders / buyers.