Welcome to 2012, and more specifically, Welcome to January. My morning got off to a roaring start when I walked into my office and hit the switch on my power strip, only to remember that I was running a program overnight to find duplicate files on my computer. Yes, that’s right: instead of turning ON the electricity, I turned it OFF — and lost all my work.
Like I said, welcome to 2012…
I was running the routine because I have tons of duplicate files scattered all over my data drive. Part of my desire to simplify / “minimize” my business is to get a handle on all of the files that are on the drive. My “challenge” is that I seem to start a new system every year about this time, which means that I most likely have up to 7-8 copies of some files, all under different files structures, etc. So this utility will find the duplicate files (it also includes a hashing function so that I’ll know for sure if the files are duplicate), and then I can eliminate duplicates and start on a new file system.
I’ll talk more about the duplicate file finding tool later. It’s a free version of software that you apparently have to register, and I want the routine to finish so that I can see if it holds the results “ransom” until you register. If that’s the case, I won’t recommend it because the vendor did not mention that on his site, and I consider such tactics to be “yucky”.
So that’s on the agenda for January and will probably take a lot of time. I’m also going through all my “stuff” with the eventual goal of being able to fit it all on two bookcases, one filing cabinet (for the papers), and one storage shelf unit (for tools and equipment). Considering that I have about 10 bookcases now, full of junk, plus numerous boxes full of papers and a garage full of “toys”, makes this a lofty goal. But I want to do it because all that “stuff” clutters my life, steals my time, and drains my energy (not to mention saving money if / “when” we move again). Just cleaning off my desk and rearranging everything yesterday ate up a lot of time. I won’t get this done during January (at least I don’t think I will), but I’ll at least get a good start on it.
Another part of this goal is to take notes as I read books. I want to start getting rid of physical books (at least 80% of them!), and taking notes as I read will enable me to get rid of some of the books after I read them. Some of the books I can eliminate right away, i.e. HTML reference (I can always look that up on the Internet). Some books I’ll get rid of because the subject no longer interests me, i.e. I’ll just hire somebody to write a program for me if I need one. Eventually I’m going to purchase some type of tablet PC and/or a book reader so that I can start buying books that way — and eliminate the need to lug a few thousand pounds of books every time I move.
And all of this means that I’ll be selling a lot of stuff. Craigslist and Ebay, here I come!
So here are January’s goals:
* Come up with a good file system for my digital files. I have an idea about how to do this; again, if it works out well, I’ll tell you about the product I used to help. I’ve created a separate folder on my hard drive to start taking notes on what I want.
* Get rid of papers and books where possible / practical.
* (Finally) set up my scanner so that I can start scanning and shredding papers.
* Put up five products for sale. I’ve joined a membership site that makes this very easy. I’m pretty confident that the products will be high quality and they come with “everything”. If I make at least $40 from them in January (the site cost me $37 a month, a special rate because I participated in the beta testing), then I’ll continue the membership.
* Come up with a simple system to drive traffic to those five products, then drive some traffic.
* I’m going to test an SMTP service that will send my emails for me. My hosting company (DathornThis is an affiliate link. If you click on it and purchase the product, I will receive an affiliate commission. Using this link to purchase this product enables you to show your appreciation and support for this site at no added expense to you. I am grateful for your support.) wisely limits the number of emails I can send from my account (to avoid spam complaints and IP blacklisting). I want to manage my own autoresponders (at least for now), so this service looks promising. I can send 1,000 emails a month for $30 a year, and this will be enough to test it. Again, if it works, I’ll talk more about it here.
* Set up the autoresponder. Of course. 
* There’s going to be a small business conference that caters to local businesses in my home town later this month. I’m thinking about going to it with the goal of talking to 100 people about their web sites. I have a script (that I need to finish installing) that will analyze a web site, generate a report that tells you how it can be improved, and then I can offer services to help them. If I can get the script set up and working, plus generate $100 in extra business revenue to pay for the conference, I just might do that. Oh, and a few bucks for business cards…
That all sounds pretty ambitious, but do-able.
I also have an accountability partner for the year. We’re going to trade emails each morning to say what we want to accomplish, then send another in the evening to make excuses for not doing it… Hopefully the “excuse” emails won’t be very frequent.
What are your plans for January 2012 (or for whatever month you happen to be reading this)? Feel free to share them briefly in a comment below. Just be sure to post back at the end of the month to let us all know how you did (how’s that for “free” accountability?).
P.S. — My duplicate file finding routine reports that it will be done in 2,027 hours. That’s 84.5 days, so check back towards the end of March to see how it all worked out… (in reality, the time remaining will drop; it’s already down to 81.5 days in the time to took to write this sentence. I’m sure it will be done in a day or two!).
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