Welcome to The Simplifier, brought to you by…

Contents:

1. A Note From Shawn

Three things that go well with chocolate

2. Our Featured Quote

by James Baldwin    

3. Article: Where the Wild Things Aren’t: Taming the Invoicing Beast

by PS Head Simplifier Shawn Tuttle

4. Your Simplification Tip

List Criteria When Comparison Shopping

5. In the News

A Delicate Balance, Eight Days a Week, and Getting Deeper into the 4-hour Workweek

6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com

New Testimonials

7. Keep Smiling

Best Office Prank Videos

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1. A Note From Shawn

What do workshops, taming beasts, and garden design have in common?

(1) They all go well with chocolate. (But then just about everything does.)
(2) They are all on my mind right now. The “Stuff in Your Space” 3-week workshop begins this Monday evening in Nevada City; the article is about taming the beasts that sabotage your business; and Spring tempts me to co-create with nature and invite more beauty into the yard.
(3) They all benefit from planning (and, of course, chocolate). No planning means it ain’t happening. When biking in Italy, we guides used the phrase “shift early and often” with clients to make climbing hills easier. Applying that here we get “think early and often”. Catchy? Only time will tell.

Follow up report from last issue’s article on making big change:
I used ending procrastination for article writing as my own example of an attempt to make significant change. My plan had the article complete on Friday; I can now report that it was finished on Tuesday. Which is smidgen better than Wednesday. Will try again! Maybe I’ll throw more chocolate into the plan. =)

Enjoy,

Shawn

Shawn Tuttle
Head Simplifier, Project Simplify
Co-editor, The Simplifier

 

 

 

 

2. Our Featured Quote

“Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex; you thought of nothing else if you didn’t have it and thought of other things if you did.”

-James Baldwin

 

 

3. Article: Where the Wild Things Aren’t: Taming the Invoicing Beast

By Shawn Tuttle

The idea of “invoicing clients” is deceptively simple; it is the means to get paid for work you’ve done for a person or business. In reality, without effective systems in place to run your business, invoicing will throw you into an arena filled with snarling beasts. Savages loom, ready to pounce, in the form of self-worth insecurities and confidence issues, holes in your client agreements, and inefficiencies in your tracking systems—all of which you thought were tamed and good-to-go in your new business venture.

Michael Gerber, entrepreneur and author of The E-Myth, sums up the maxim that any business wanting to thrive must follow:

“Systems run the business and people run the systems.”

In addition to laying a solid foundation for growth and avoiding the arena of nasty varmints, good invoicing systems are crucial for maintaining good client relations. They make life much easier for you, too! 

You might think I’m exaggerating the beastliness of the situation, and I may be… but not much. While I’m sure you’ve done great work for your client, presenting them with an unprofessional or delayed invoice can have disastrous effect. If the numbers are inaccurate or don’t match up with expectations, you may be expected to provide information that you didn’t track. If it’s ugly enough, you could lose a payment, a client and a potential source of referrals. Invoicing represents money, and money is a sticky subject.

After all this talk of the brutalities of invoicing, now would be a good time to establish a visual of yourself running your business with the utmost efficiency, triumphing as a glorious beast tamer, and connecting with your inner uber-professional.

Within this vision, you present your clients with accurate time billings and considerate descriptions of how your time was spent. You invoice them according to your agreement with them for rates, billing frequency, payment terms, and any other relevant specifics. You make it easy for them to pay you by making payment details obvious and easy to find. That way your invoice says more than just how much they owe you, it also says: “I appreciate you as a client and want to continue working with you.”

Don’t worry, there is a way to present a polished image while keeping the feisty fiends safely locked away. 

You do so by heeding Michael Gerber’s words to have systems run your business and for you to run the systems. You should have three main systems in place for invoicing in a service-based business:

1. time tracking (discussed below)
2. client agreements (in upcoming article) 
3. the invoice itself (see Anatomy of an Invoice online)

Down the road, these same routines will allow you, the savvy leader of your business, to delegate successfully to others.

Time tracking 
When it’s time to invoice, you need quick and easy access to three pieces of information: what you did, for how long, and for who. Trying to recreate your billable time by digging for scraps of paper and racking your brain to remember what you did a month ago is best left for the Tarzan and Jane entrepreneurs who are still stuck in the jungle with the wild things. 

If you only bill for client appointments that are tracked in your planner, then using a “to bill” code in there might be all you need. To do this, at the end of an appointment or at the end of the day, you’d (1) make sure the billable time is recorded and accurate, and (2) enter a brief description of the appointment in the notes section. 

However, if you are like many service providers who do work for clients on a looser schedule, you’d probably benefit from a time-tracking program. There are numerous programs designed in all shapes and sizes just for this purpose. Be aware that some time-tracking programs are designed to help you examine your schedule for productivity purposes while others are intended mainly for invoicing clients. 

Choosing (and using!) the right program can make time tracking so easy you’ll wonder how you survived in the dark ages up until now. They come with an on-screen stopwatch that you start and stop as you work on different projects. You assign each “time slip” to a client project and include a brief description of what you did. A couple of clicks at billing time creates a formatted invoice ready to submit to your client.

You’ll know when your system is simple and thorough enough when you can easily show someone else how to do it for you.

One more suggestion on invoicing itself: whichever method of time tracking you choose, set deadlines for billing clients. For example, issue monthly invoices by the 5th of the following month. If this is tough for you, schedule an appointment with yourself or give yourself a reward when you finish. Do whatever it takes to make it happen. Besides the fact that your client won’t initiate payment without it, a timely invoice gives you another opportunity to impress them with your professionalism, as well as strengthens your stance for growth. 

Make time tracking and invoicing as easy as possible. It’s an investment that is essential for the success of your business! Take the time to find a method that works well for your situation and stick with it.

Tame the wily beasts of inefficiency; they don’t belong in your successful business. Accurate and timely invoices send a message of consideration to your clients while paving the way for future work. The three components of healthy invoicing are time tracking, the invoice itself, and bright and shiny client agreements (we’ll cover these next issue). Before you know it, you’ll be out of the filthy old arena and into the cosmopolitan cafe, where all the other uber-professionals are hanging out. Let your systems carry the weight of invoicing so that your inner professional can shine! 

—

Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify.

4. Your Simplification Tip

List criteria when comparison shopping

Just as your cell phone has an impact on your daily life, so do the computer programs you use. Choosing a new software program out of a sea of possibilities can be daunting. You start learning about a type of program you want and a floodgate opens to a rush of features available—some are essential, some are irrelevant, some are just plain cool…  It can get confusing quickly! It’s worth spending the time selecting the right one because you want it to keep the beasts at bay (see article above) and flow smoothly with your daily activities.

One way to find the right program for you is to ask colleagues what they use as well as what they like and dislike about it. If you look online, you may find that someone has already done a useful comparison (for example this great review of online invoicing services). Another way is to make your own comparison chart with the features that are important to you and then search for possibilities online. (I also used this method recently when researching my latest cell phone.)

For either method, making a list of your criteria and indicating which features are required vs. which would be nice to have will ensure that you get a program that works for your situation.

1. Determine your criteria.
Below is a list of possible criteria for a time-tracking program search. Not all would apply to you, and you may think of other features.

• I want a timer built in to the program that is easy to use.
• I can make my own entries.
• I can create invoices.
• I can design my own invoice.
• I can bill expenses.
• I want a desktop program.
• I like the interface of the program
• Reasonable cost

2. Make a chart with your criteria to compare programs. The format of your chart can be as fancy as a spreadsheet or as spontaneous as handwritten on a paper towel while sitting at a cafe.

sample chart here:

The clarification of required (i.e., deal killers) vs. desired features really help you narrow your search in order to make an informed decision quickly. Let it be easy!

 

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5. In the News

Compiled by The Simplifier co-editor Lance Brown

Eight Days a Week (Scotland on Sunday)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/62eheb                 
15 ways to save a day each week, a little bit at a time.

Getting Deeper Into the 4-hour Workweek  (The Independent)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/6ybyrz           
We featured a review of The 4-Hour Workweek here some time ago, but this article gets much more in-depth with lazy, lazy author Timothy Ferriss. By my calculations, this interview could only have taken about 2.5 minutes. I mean, the guy must have a tight schedule, right? Short, but tight.

A Delicate Balance  (California Job Journal)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/5jaxty             
When I was in college and eating in the dining commons, I used to enjoy stacking dishes into tall and unwieldy towers. I found then that you can balance a surprisingly large and motley assortment of stuff upon a rather small base item, if you finesse it enough. The same is true when dealing with work-life balance—where you are the rather small base item, and your job, your family, and your life interests are the half-eaten bowls of cereal teetering high above you, on a lunch tray supported only by a fork and a plastic salt shaker. (Finesse away!)

If you know of something in the news that should be featured here, let us know!

 

 

6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com

New Testimonials

Who doesn’t love praise? Whoever it is, they’re great. And I know they have the strength to weather the burden of whatever praise might be cast randomly upon them (by, say, a passing wiseass).

Project Simplify, however, loves praise — both giving it and getting it. And we’ve been getting some new praise lately, from old friends and new workshop participants alike…

…Kalia Rork checked in with an update to her note from 2006:

“I spent about 5 or 6 hours yesterday cleaning out the closets in my guest room. There is a big sliding closet, plus storage above. This is the place where all the  #!*&  I don’t know what to do with ends up. Well, I must’ve learned something from you because I got through it all! I just took the thing on the top and dealt with it. I only have a couple things out of the whole closet stuffed full that I’m still deciding about, but other than that it’s done done done! I was exhausted afterward, to say the least.

“So, we folk out here DO need to learn what you have to teach. I’m thinking about how different my life is from two years ago, how much more organized and easy it is to deal with. Basically, I can say the organizing and simplifying I’ve learned is saving me $70 to $80K a year for an assistant!”

…and Shawn’s workshop participants have been testimonializing too:

“Shawn is an inspiration. She has shown me that I have the skills necessary to bring order not only to my daily schedule, but my cluttered mind as well. I felt like this workshop was the eye opener that I needed to stay focused on roles and responsibilities that work for me and my schedule. I’ve also learned to set realistic goals and manage a functional way of reaching them.”  

- Amelia Barrett
Grass Valley, CA

“Shawn was clear and graceful—striking a good balance between “teaching” and supporting each of us. The group was interactive, thoughtful, and fun. All in all—a success!”

- P.M.
Nevada City, CA

Our thanks go out as always to those who have shared their thanks with us. (Nice how that works, eh? ;-))

 

 

 

7. Keep Smiling

by The Simplifier co-editor Lance Brown

Best Office Prank Videos

When I think about it, I’m actually not a huge fan of pranks. I’ve got hang-ups about both honesty and benefiting at the expense of others, so when I think about it, I kinda have a moral objection to playing pranks on people.

But when I don’t think about it, pranks are funny. A great prank is an art form of sorts, and I’m a big fan of tweaking people’s minds. As a Nevada County living legend says, “You’ve got to mess with people.” And the popularity of shows ranging from Candid Camera to Punk’d and beyond prove that pranks tap into the public funny bone, for whatever reason. (Probably because they’re funny. Just don’t think about it!)

And if it’s true that “you’ve got to mess with people”, then it must be at least doubly true that you’ve got to mess with office people. That’s just simple physics.

So, with no further ado (sometimes I wonder if ado is all I do), here’s the 12 Best Office Prank Videos, as compiled by Video Clips Review.

And here’s the URL:
http://videoclipsreview.com/page/Best+Office+Pranks 

 

 

 

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Thanks for reading!

Publication Information
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The Simplifier is published by:
Project Simplify
P.O. Box 597
Nevada City, CA 95959
phone: 530.205.5775
web: www.projectsimplify.com
e-mail: (newsletter@projectsimplify.com) newsletter (at) projectsimplify (dot) com