Archive for February 21st, 2012

Closing the store is the brave thing to do. …You are daring to imagine that you could have a different life. Oh, I know it doesn’t feel like that. You feel like a big fat failure. But you’re not. You’re marching into the unknown, armed with … nothing. Have a sandwich.

~ Birdie Conrad, from the film You’ve Got Mail, Warner Brothers , 1998

One of the things I find most annoying about the Internet is that it’s constantly changing.   Resources come, resources go, Google changes its rules, new social media appears, web services are created, and just as fast – things disappear.    I have lost count of the number of blogs, feeds, twitter uses I have subscribed to which have just…. faded away.

They don’t end, or stop, or conclude – they just…. fade.

In 2011 I made some big decisions.    I decided to end the development of two software products I had developed, I fired three customers (I tried to fire five but two gave me reason to reconsider) and I called it a day on two or three personal projects (which were not going anywhere).

As Birdie Conrad says (from the quote above), closure of anything can be a tough call, but sometimes it’s the brave (and right thing to do).

As freelancers and business owners, we are told we need to expand all of the time – more clients, better clients, more work, more projects.  Growth (we are told) is good.

But, sometimes all that is really needed is to call it time on the things that are holding us back – the bad customers, the waste of time projects, the pet activities which are distracting us.  When I have taken the difficult decision to make the brave move and cut these things off, I have always found that it creates a vacuum of time and effort which is quickly filled by new customers and new work.

So what are the things that are holding you back, that you need to cut off and close, in order to move forward?

It’s also useful to plan ahead, and know things that will also come to a conclusion at a future date.  This helps us know when we will have spare time and resource in the future which aids in planning.

As an example of this, this blog will end on the last day of December this year (2012) – that’s the date when I will make a final goodbye entry.   There is plenty of time between now and then, but I don’t want it to just fade… it will conclude.   Which will allow me more time to move forward on other things.   But plenty of advice from me between now and then.

And what about you.   Any brave moves you can make this year?