The List

For anyone who has ever wondered what it takes to make the move from home based, part time business to full time, real live office business, I’m going to share with you how our first two days in business have shaped up, in the form of what I like to call “The List”.

• Check emails
• Reply to emails
• Call the sign company
• Drink coffee
• Go to new office, measure windows, floors, doors.
• Realize how much work needs to be done to get the new office up to snuff.
• Drink more coffee
• Answer 5th cell call of the day (and it’s only 9:30!)
• Get call from old job asking how to work Photoshop.
• Go to IKEA. Don’t buy anything, just try to decide what we really need.
• Cell phone – Mom wants to know when she and Dad can come visit the new digs.
• Drink more coffee.
• Take bus. partner’s toddler to do a number two.
• Call to lease nice shiny new camera. Get credit check done.
• Make list for Home Depot.
• Go to Home Depot. Forget list.
• Buy a whole lot of crap for new office construction. Get Home Depot card (another credit check).
• Call to get new phone, Internet and Crackberries. (Another credit check)
• Wonder what the hell the credit bureau must be thinking.
• Unbeknown to us that this is the first of SEVERAL calls to our beloved telephone provider and we still won’ t have a phone number till the end of the week.
• Edit artwork for sign company. Would be much easier if we had an office phone number to put on our sign.
• Take another call from old job wondering where my last time sheet is. Wonder if I should claim an extra hour for Photoshop support.
• Take toddler for a pee.
• Drink more coffee.
• Write requirements doc for actual billable work.
• Leave voicemails for people.
• Go back to IKEA. Actually buy stuff. Start to realize how expensive crap is.
• Check emails.
• No time to reply to emails.
• 4pm – better have some lunch. And breakfast.
• Lose paint swatch for new office walls.
• Lose chequebook.
• Try not to lose the children.
• Find chequebook.
• Draft two show proposals to send to network contact.
• Start drinking wine instead of coffee.
• Go to Home Depot again to pick up all the stuff on the list that we forgot.
• Drink more wine.
• 10:30pm – Dinner time!
• 11:30pm -Collapse.

So for all you budding entrepreneurs out there – whenever any business owner says “You have to work really hard when you do it on your own” – they are right. But you know what – it’s all worth it in the end.