Today I’ve run into yet another hitch. Oddly, knowing that I can expect this has lowered my stress; I know that from here on out there will be many roadblocks to overcome. My roadblock today is Elance not updating my country location after more than 48 hours with my scanned driver’s license and 12 hours with my scanned passport. But even though I couldn’t place any bids today, I still felt like I accomplished a lot.
I knew that today’s next step was bid proposal, but with the roadblock, I couldn’t. But just because I can’t submit the proposals, that didn’t mean I couldn’t write them and get ready for when the roadblock is removed. I spent the morning (here defined as 0930-1430) researching and writing five bids. Doing a little research on advice for proposals yielded little new information; mostly it was a case of having the courage to start. (However, there is some useful advice here and here.) The courage to try will be a recurring theme.
Another useful thing today was trying out the Pomodoro technique and setting goals for each half hour. Instead of spending an hour or two researching and tweaking proposals and getting distracted, by setting short goals, I was able to power through distractions, then relax and refresh for a few minutes. I definitely plan to use this technique more in the future; I can accredit most of my useful work today to that one time management technique.
More from today… well, I tried out a new co-working space called Guru. Clean, open space with plenty of light, free coffee and, well, noone else working. I assume it’s new and just unknown. After a week of coffee shops, having reliable internet and not feeling like a freeloader was really nice. Next week I’ll be looking at a few more co-working spaces, too, hopefully to gain a few friends and more allies.
Alright, it’s late, I’m tired, and tomorrow will be another full day.
P.S. – no post yesterday due to a border run to Myanmar. 30 more days added, and a new country stamp in the passport. Good day.