Ready, Reset, Plod

My first order of the new year is to figure out how to move forward with diminished capacity. The biggest disappointment of 2006 - in the business realm, that is - is that I did not complete the process of establishing the business co-operative. I was wisely advised to stop thinking of that as a 'failure'. (Thanks, John!) Instead, I am to consider it a 'challenge'. Whatever the term, I need to get to work if this is not to become the big "Challenge" of 2007. I'm ready to forge ahead in whatever way I can.

The big question is how to go about getting any work done. Clearly I have to reset my expectations for myself. There is a lot of work I can do in 'quiet' mode, which extends my 4 hours per day limitation, unless I do the 4 hours of physical/people interaction first and get fried so that I'm not really functional. Anyway, to figure this out, I started by creating lists of all the areas of the business that I am supposed to tend to. What this did, was leave me in a state of overwhelm. It's temporary. I've seen this before. When you see the scope of the business undertaking, you can't imagine how you can possibly pull it off. (And it could be argued that a business that is breaking even while it doesn't pay me, is not "pulling if off". Though, it could also be argued that for a 3 year old business to self-sustain when the owner has to check out on such a long-term basis is miraculous. Particularly when the industry is experiencing a downturn.) Regardless of the whether I have or haven't pulled it off, it's difficult to imagine how anyone would. Then to imagine how an incapacitated person would is beyond difficult.

Still, the work has to get done. So, I need a plan. And I need to figure out how to stay focused when I'm not feeling well. I have an idea that I'm going to try here. I'm going to post about my work plan, how to get a grip on it, and how my daily tasks are progressing. I'll do this for a few weeks to see how it goes. My hope is that a commitment to publishing my work progress will embarrass me into getting work done. More seriously, it may be an interesting exercise for anyone who's interested in running a small business to observe. When you get your MBA, there are a lot of case studies about being a manager. But these managers are usually in larger organizations with casts of thousands. Or hundreds. Or even a hundred. Let's just say they have plenty of support staff. The CEO isn't cleaning the bathroom and making the runs to Staples. I have an MBA and not once in my studies did we discuss what the reality of running a micro-business is like. So, perhaps, this will be informatively helpful to someone.

Tonight I'll work on how to post the first chart (can I put a PDF in here?) I've made regarding the areas of the business and some of the major tasks in those areas. I feel ready to get some work done. I'll reset my expectations with the new plan. We'll see how my work plods along. "GO" might be a bit overstated.

Until tomorrow....