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Where did March go? I feel like I’ve been short changed on time this last month. 31 days just seems to disappear in the blink of an eye! Thankfully though, I got a huge amount done, so once again it’s time to take a look back at the things I set out to achieve and whether or not I got there.

The Business

Since last month when I wrote about my progress in February, it feels like I’ve done almost double the amount of work again. I blogged this month about the hours which I’m currently working, well that hasn’t changed much yet – I’m still up early, and in bed very late.

Here’s some of the stuff I managed to get done in March:

• Totally cleaned out my office, hopefully this’ll be a guest post on FreelanceFolder soon
• Got invited to do a guest post on Darren Rowse’s TwiTip (I need to write this up)
• Opened my business bank account (which took a LONG TIME to do)
• Fully reviewed the SitePoint Web Design Business Kit (as pomised)
• Networked with a lot [MORE] really great people!
• Didn’t take on any new projects, but got lots of enquiries. See my post on Dry Patches
• Designed/coded/released the intial version of WPress’d
• Put together some new sets of documents including my new-client needs-assessment form
• Totally coded up and released a brand new Lyrical Media site (big accomplishment!)
• Managed to get Lyrical Media bumped up to PR6 with the latest pagerank update
• Got my credit rating sorted out! Natwest finally came through and fixed their mistake!

Reviewing Goals From March

In my first month review I set myself some goals to achieve for the month of March, let’s have a quick look back and see what I did (and didn’t) manage to get done.

• Grow my twitter account to 700 followers – Sucess! I smashed this one, over 1,000 now!
• Grow my rss subscribers to 60 – Success! Feedburner is currently showing 65!
• Look into an advertising budget with BuySellAds – Fail, simply haven’t got the budget yet
  
• Set up a monthly newsletter with Campaign Monitor – Half success, opened an account and started using it, but I haven’t actually set a newsletter up yet.
  
• Complete and release the Neophyte wordpress theme – Total Fail, this one is on the backburner for the time being
• Learn some more PHP, Javascript, and Ruby – Success! I did all three!

Goals For April

I set 6 goals last month, this month I’m bumping that up to 8 – and they’re slightly more ambitious goals too, because what would be the point of succeeding at the same rate?

• Set up Newsletter – back from last month, really want to get this done
• Review the SitePoint Email Marketing Kit on this blog (fits in with the above)
• Review the Rockstar Freelancer Book on this blog
• Win (at least) two new client projects
• Complete the first sample of my top secret Lyrical Media project (watch this space)
• Grow my twitter account to 1,500 followers
• Grow my rss subscribers to 100 people
• Sell EggRage.co.uk (leave a comment if interested)

Other Stuff Coming in April

• An interview with Brendon Sinclaire (author of the Web Design Business Kit)
• Some more free applications for freelancers
• A couple of guest posts by me on other freelance / web design blogs
• More ‘personal’ style posts from me about the trials and tribulations of self employment
• New and improved business cards!

What Are You Up To?

I love hearing from everyone who comments on this blog, so please tell me what you’re up to and if there’s anything that I can do to help out. If you’re doing anything related to web design business, drop me a line and maybe we can get you a guest post slot! This site received 24,000 page views in March compared to 18,000 in February, so it’s on the up!