Monthly review June 2024
Welcome to my monthly review, where I lay out all the dirty details of my business for everyone to see.
I subscribe to a couple of people who do these and read them every single time they land in my inbox. Because I’m nosy, and I like seeing what other people are doing, how they’re doing it, and how they feel about it. So I decided to start doing them myself.
I want to do these for a few reasons:
It keeps me accountable. Writing these up for you guys forces me to actually look at my data and reflect.
I think financial transparency is extremely important and hopefully me doing these helps break down the money taboo.
How many hours I worked in June?
I tracked 82 hours over June. The numbers these month are super interesting to me because it felt like I worked way more and billed way more, but I only worked a handful more hours and my EHR actually turned out to be lower this month. If I calculate my EHR only using my billable hours it come to $148 which is where I want it to be right now, but I guess all the time spent doing ‘non billable’ work is just part of running your own business. These monthly reviews are definitely eye-opening for me.
How was June overall?
This month was a challenging one but it still felt good. I recently moved to a higher dose of Vyvanse (a long release ADHD medication) so I’ve had a bit of a wobbly time adjusting to that, but the difference has been phenomenal. I feel like I worked at a good capacity, gave myself time when I needed it, and delivered good work.
That being said, I almost hit $10k this month and while I did take a moment to celebrate that, it’s confronting realising that after tax and business expenses, that’s actually not a great paycheque coming to me. Cost of living blues are hitting everyone, including me.
How did my goals go for June?
Launch new website. I haven’t officially announced or launched it, but my new website is FINISHED AND READY TO GO!
Carve out time to work on my business processes. Specifically, I want to:
Create some Google Doc templates I use for all my projects and create a zap so when I make a new project in Moxie, it makes a new project folder and duplicates all the documents into it. I didn’t get to this one, but my own website and client work were such a whirlwind that it’s okay.
Create a template/form for my preferred partners to fill in so I can start compiling a nice dossier to refer to and share. I created and shared the form and compiled the responses I got. It’s not pretty or shareable yet, but it’s getting there.
Deliver a fun brand and web client project I’m working on for a financial advisor. I loved working on this one and handed over the brand identity and copy deck to the designer last week. This particular client also said he was sad we wouldn’t be working together any more, so I count this one as a double win.
Goals for next month:
Officially launch and promote my new website.
Create the google doc templates and zaps I wanted to do last month.
Update some free content so I can put the new versions onto my new website.
Fly up to Sydney for quality time with my family and my niece’s first birthday party.
Tech I’m currently using for my business
Productivity
Zapier (paid plan)
Asana (free plan)
Notion (free)
Moxie (lifetime subscription from Appsumo)
Grain for recording customer interviews and VOC research, getting transcripts and extracting insights
Clockify (free version) for my time tracking. I like the Chrome plugin.
Brain.FM to help get me into focus mode. If you’d like to try it, you can use my affiliate code when you sign up for 20% off your membership. Code: tbp
Chat GPT 4.0 (free). I used to have a subscription so I could use the more advanced data analysis features, but I downgraded to free once they made more features free to use.
Squarespace for my website
Social media
Simplified.app for scheduling my own and some clients posts.
Podcasting
Descript (paid annually) for recording and editing
Squadcast for recording (free account with Descript subscription)
Marketing
Mailerlite (paid plan) to send out these emails that you all know and love!
Thrivecart (lifetime subscription) to host all my products and courses.
Damn Write’s content club to keep me regular (it’s been helping a bit, but I anticipate using it much more when my new website’s live)
Liz’s email marketing membership. I dip in and out of this membership. It is very low cost and excellent value. She sent out an offer for 6 months for the price of three (USD$27) so I snapped it up. Why not.
Finance and Money
Thriday (paid plan, paid annually for discount) for my business banking + bookkeeping, and to implement the Profit First system. I mostly use Moxie for my invoicing because I sometimes need different currencies.
Wise for any international payments I need to send or receive.
