Catch up time

Didn't I say last posting "Why have a blog if you don't write it regularly?"?

Or something similar.

And immediately I'm in trouble with my punctuation because I 'm quoting a question within my question!! Hence the two question marks.

But enough of semantics...or pedantics...it's time for the excuses:

• I've been busy...but not as busy as I'd have liked to have been
• ermmmm....

I can't think of any more excuses. But the excuse I've given needs a little explanation:

May has been an up-and-down month for me. Main achievement was finishing a website for a local choir and getting paid promptly for it. In fact, I was paid so promptly that perhaps I ought to have asked more for it! And having the money is good, because time is money and I do spend a lot of time on producing a website, but the main thing is the sense of achievement in seeing the thing work and the appreciative feedback I get from the customers.

Pupils have been a little sporadic - I didn't quite do £1000 worth of lessons in May and I set myself that figure as my target now. So there have been some gaps in the teaching weeks and you'd think that I could have filled each gap with a posting on this blog. But we've had some really good weather throughout May and it seemed such a shame to be sitting up here in the office...

So now you're thinking I've been sunbathing? Wrong! When you're running a one-man business there's always something profitable to do. It might not be immediately 'profitable' but there's always something that needs to be done to benefit the business and when the weather's good and I feel I need the exercise, I go out leafletting.

I'm on my fourth batch of leaflets since starting on November 5th 2008. I thought batches of 3000 would be manageable, both on my pocket and in carrying them home from the printer's. But having got through 9000 in 9 months I thought I'd up the tempo and order 5000 last August. I carried them home in the newly-acquired car. And from last Autumn things got busier - much busier- with pupils. So now, delivering leaflets is more of a pleasure and less of a chore than it was - almost a welcome relief!

I'm down to my last 500 now, so I've almost done 14 000 leaflets in 20 months - mostly through individual letter-boxes but I have left a few small stacks in various community centres.

And now it's school half-term, which means I get the week off from the singing job, so it's an opportunity to give myself a break. Family time!

So I suppose that makes two Excuses For Not Blogging after all:

• I had to fill the time with business-related activity
• I had to make time to get away from business-related activity

Back to work tomorrow...a manual to prepare and then print six copies for new pupils, mock-up some specimen web-pages for a prospective client, tax the car, drop off some business cards at my friendly local PC retailer, return phone calls to THREE enquirers....but no actual teaching til Wednesday.

Still, as you see, there's always something to do!

Ill winds and silver linings

It's been two weeks of mixed fortune for My Computer Tutor. Last week was "a bit thin" - that's how I described it to friends who asked.

I had three clients cancel lessons through illness and another postpone because she was on holiday. Fair enough - we all get ill at some time, and we all need a holiday.
But then one session turned into a ignominious retreat because although I thought I'd managed to burn a DVD disc of photographs successfully, the wretched thing wouldn't play all the way through on my client's DVD player. I won't bore you with the technical details - or rather my lack of the grasp of the technical details - but I took it home again promising to investigate fully. And didn't count that as a lesson.

Then on Friday I arrived for my first pupil...to find her opening the door in her pyjamas (pink) to explain that she'd completely forgotten... "No matter", I said breezily, "These things happen....see you next Friday". I'm a softy, I suppose. I should charge for the session - and I see on some tutors' websites that they say they do. But then ultimately how can you enforce it? And is it worth all the bad feeling? And anyway, this lady's had at least 20 lessons and shows every sign of wanting more.
But I used her lesson time to deliver some leaflets before going on to my next pupil.

So I was 5 lessons down last week - and Monday was the May Day Bank Holiday so I was going to be another 3 lessons short this week. But over the weekend the phone rang a few times, with the result that I have a new pupil who has booked 4 lessons starting in the middle of May and another who starts next week. In the "spare" time I had last week I managed to publish a website for a male voice choir and will submit the invoice this weekend. I finished a spreadsheet for a local business and now he wants his website upgraded too.

There's always something profitable to do, even if I'm not actually teaching a client. I always have 'homework' to do for someone - sometimes it seems like everyone! And there are still areas of the county that I can leaflet....so never a dull moment....clouds and silver linings etc. etc.

And my DVD lady is happy with the disk...it plays on the laptop OK as a slideshow, after all...and I rescued her printer and sorted out all kinds of stuff for her this morning - so that was good - especially as she paid me for the last four lessons, so April's figures now look a little better!

How's work for you?

Colin