Financial Freedom – it’s a new month! Definitely wasn’t a stellar June, but this month should be a marked improvement over last month now that I’ve got a handle on my discretionary budget.  The keys to having a stellar month are as follows:

– paying everything  off with just enough to cover pre-determined discretionary expenses

– having enough cash for discretionary spending each week pay cycle ($200)

Fitness Phenomenon + – went to the gym 4 times this week.  It seems that going to the gym isn’t much of a challenge as I’m carving out time in my schedule each week to check in as often as possible.  Right now, the main challenge would be the nutrition portion of fitness that I need to get a handle of.  Items I need to focus on are:

– buy frozen veggies and cook it in a huge batch so I can eat it throughout the week at work

– get lentils for mornings

– try weaving in sweet potatoes to add a little variety to my meals in order to the “right” kind of carbs into my system.

 

SEO/Career – things are coming along as I’m being known as the “infographic guy” at my workplace.  However, I feel there could be some efficiencies that can be gained.  I need to talk to my boss about these to see if they’re even a possibility.  The worst thing that can happen is that he says “no”.

– I should talk to my boss about my 6 month review

– continually check out Inbound.org everyday to stay on top of my game.

 

Illustrator – a bit slower in terms of progress this week, but I’m still learning.  I have the basic understanding of what the elements are of an infographic – I just need to create something (even though it’s ugly) in order to build a foundation and something to improve on in terms of processes for data visualization.

– MAKE something – even though it’s ugly 🙂

– continue dedicating time in the mornings to create these data visualizations.

Financial Freedom – this month’s progress has been off the mark when compared to the expectations of myself, but after having giving back the money owed to my brother slowed me down, but things should be interesting in the coming months as I’ll be trying a few experiments.

Fitness Phenomenon – I didn’t go to the gym last week as I took it off. Really weird. However, I’m back into the swing of things by heading to CFTO for the first time ever this Sunday.

SEO/Career – I’m still trying to figure out Ecommerce analytics and hooking into Adwords and Social to get a broader view of the conversion funnel. Additionally, I’ve signed up for DistilledU – I’m really excited to learn about the “Distilled Way”.

Adobe Illustrator / Infographics – I dug deep into how to create pie and donut charts via TutsPlus’ new course “Information Graphics” and figured out how to create Pie and Donut charts in Adobe Illustrator. Also, I learned how to do Infographics using Excel, Photoshop as tools through Shane Snow’s Infographic tutorials on Lynda.com.

Big Rocks to move this week:

– Continue working on Illustrator in the mornings – Goal is to emulate a simple infographic and make it ridiculous!
– Cleaning as I go… this a tricky one… grrr!
– Ecommerce analytics and conversion funnels..

Financial Freedom – still on pace and spending less than I make! However it did suck that I lost my Metropass 🙁

Fitness Phenomenon + – worked out 4 times this week, 3 of which were Crossfit workouts. My chest and triceps were sore for 3 days lol.

On another note, I’ve decided to drastically cut down on beer consumption to tackle two fronts – save on alcohol expenses as well as not take in empty calories. What that means is that I will not buy beer when out with friends. However, that doesn’t mean that I will be cutting out alcohol 😉 Will have to measure myself before and after to understand the true impact.

SEO/Career – learned that I could track a virtual page view for websites that are not part of a property you control in Google Analytics via “gaqpush”. Other than that, I’ve been pumping out infographics for clients.

Illustrator ++ – I’ve finished 30 Days to Learn Illustrator! Really glad that I implemented “Creative mornings” where I’d start playing with Illustrator first thing on Weekday mornings and on the commute to work. Just need to continue working on tutorials and transition over to infographics. This should be about a 3 week process.

– continue working on Illustrator in the mornings
– continue looking at Ecommerce SEO
– STILL have to focus on “cleaning as I go” habit

Financial Freedom – outside of a minor “hiccup” this past week, I’ll remind myself to divert the maximum amount of funds towards my debt with a bit left over to cover expenses until my next pay cheque. It has worked well before, but or some reason I fell off that habit.

Fitness Phenomenon + – I completed another Hero WOD this week, which was Nancy. It was brutal in that I’ve never attempted to do the one arm kettlebell snatch as a movement, so I had to scale back big time in order to complete the workout, dropping down from 24KG to 10KG, which was really tough on the hands lol.

SEO/Career – I devoted an hour to cleaning up some of my processes this past week. As long as I devote 30 mins a day minimum, I should be able to get things in tip top shape. Also, I’ll be looking more into technical ecommerce SEO and analytics.

Illustrator + – made some great progress this past week by waking up early to focus on learning Illustrator and even making use of my commute on the bus towards work, which is at minimum 1.5 hours almost every weekday. Will continue to do this and closely monitor my progress and see what I can create in the coming weeks and months.

The Big Rocks to be moved by June 17, 2012:

– continue waking up early to focus on being a “producer” instead of a “consumer” and make use of my morning commutes to work
– learn more technical aspects of Ecommerce SEO and analytics
– Focus on honing “cleaning as I go habit”

Financial Freedom + – New month! Just have to give the remainder of the outstanding balance to my brother and I’m back on track!

Fitness Phenomenon ++  – Did the Hero WOD “Helen” prescribed for the first time and finished it in 14:35!  I went to the gym 3 times this week, mostly going in the mornings.  I’m going to switch my workouts to the evenings as the turnout is lower and I get more personal attention from the trainers at Crossfit Toronto.  Will have to cancel my membership at the Training Room later this week.

SEO/Career – I want to figure out how to delve into eCommerce SEO a bit more in terms of tracking end to end whether through organic traffic or paid traffic.

Things I’ll be focusing on are: building social bookmarking links to existing links, infographics, and guest posts

Adobe Illustrator – have a better understanding of gradients and will be using more mornings instead to build the habit of working on my own projects and giving the energy the deserve first thing in the morning with a fresh head instead of after work, which was directly inspired by this Reddit thread.  Let’s see how this experiment will work out compared to previous weeks.  I have a good feeling about this.

The Big Rocks to be moved:

– pay brother back remaining balance

– cancel gym membership

– wrapping up loose ends of SEO process

– changing my mornings into “creative” time by waking up extra early