A radical experiment: closing my email

I've just finished reading a couple of books about "productivity", and there's always a lot of talk about how we handle email. Since email is really not a problem for me, I didn't do anything with most of the advice offered.

The one recommendation that I did decide to try, though, I'm really pleased with. And it's ridiculously simple! I decided to try closing my email window (I use GMail, so for me this is a browser window tab, but for others this would apply to an email program) for periods of time while I'm working.

Although it felt weird at first to not be connected directly to my email at all times, I'm starting to really like those periods of time - they're very relaxing, and it's much easier to focus on work without interrupting myself every time an email comes in, which I seem to be compelled to do once I know it's there.

When I add to this a Pandora (www.pandora.com) radio station playing jazz, suddenly my work environment is much more peaceful and pleasant, and yes, more productive.

Setting up client domain registrations and hosting accounts

A friend who has just recently started in the web development business asked me what I do about client domain names and hosting accounts - who signs up for the them, and those name they are put in. I thought I'd repeat my answer here, in case it's helpful to someone else.

I've developed a system over the years which works well for me, so I'll explain it and the reasons for it.

I handle the two - domains and hosting - differently.

For domain names, first and foremost, I never register a client's domain under my name or business name. I don't think there's any reason to, and don't think it's in the best interests of the client, since he should always have control over his own domain name.

if the client already has his own domain names registered, I just ask for the login information for his account with the domain registrar, so that I can access the account to set the name servers. There is seldom any other reason for me to access that account. If the client needs a new domain name or names registered, and is comfortable doing it himself, I encourage that, but try to influence his choice of registrars, since I've found that some are much easier to deal with than others. I also ask him to be sure to make a note of his login information and give it to me.

If the client prefers that I do the registering, I'm glad to do it. I make sure I know what name, address, email address, etc., the client wants to use, as well as getting his credit card number, and put both the account and the domain name entirely in his name.

I handle hosting differently, for two reasons. (1) There is a more pressing reason to have the hosting account in my name: I will need to contact the host at times, and most hosts will not deal with a third party unless that party is authorized in some way by the person who owns the account. Of course, my client can inform the host that I am authorized to make decisions about the account, but when there's something urgent that needs to be done, that can be a real pain. (2) Legally/ethically, having the hosting account in my name is a lot different than having a domain name in my name; a business can depend entirely upon a domain name, whereas a particular hosting account isn't mission-critical. As long as the client has a backup copy of his own web site files, if the web developer were to be hit by a bus, he could carry on with his business without any serious problems.

A third reason for putting hosting accounts in my name is that at times, I have many client hosting accounts to look after, and it's much easier for me to have them all at one host under my name.

That's my system. By the way, the hosts I use for almost everything are HostMySite.com and CrystalTech.com, and the domain registrar I use is GoDaddy.com.

Why I sometimes turn down the opportunity to submit a proposal

I turned down the opportunity to prepare a proposal for two different clients yesterday, so I thought I'd write about that today.

This isn't unusual for me, and I definitely don't think it's a bad thing. But to some who are just starting out as small-business/independent web developers, it might sound strange. If I stated this on the online forums I frequent, I can almost promise that there would be a post or two from people eagerly asking that the clients be referred to them.

Some of my readers may be of a mind to turn down potential web development jobs as well; if you are, you already understand. But for those who don't, here's my explanation.

First and foremost is the fact that, after ten years in this business, I have found that I spend a lot of time talking to potential clients, gathering information, "selling" my services, preparing proposals and figuring estimates. I find this to be hard work, and it isn't my favorite type of work by any means.

Some of this work results in paying jobs, sometimes in good paying jobs. But the percentage that do result in good paying jobs is too low for my liking. Whether or not I could improve that percentage is a subject I'm not ready to tackle here, but I will say that I do the very best I can to get every single contract that I can, assuming that it's appropriate for my skills and strengths.

But, appropriate for my skills and strengths - that's crucial, at least to me. I don't enjoy being in the position of having "won" a contract, and finding myself faced with work that I need to subcontract out to others. I find that a lot of web developers seem to think that subcontracting is the answer to all potential problems with a web development project, and that there's no reason to shy away from any contract, since the talent to complete it is undoubtedly readily available for hire.

But I don't want to supervise web projects. I don't want to be the one whose job is to constantly interface between the client and the people who are having all the fun doing the design and coding. Again, in the immortal words of Sly Stone, different strokes for different folks, and that might be somebody else's idea of a fun job, but it isn't mine.

So, when it becomes obvious to me that I'm not likely to be able to handle all, or at least most. of the actual web development work myself, that's one time when I am likely to pass on submitting a proposal.

There are other reasons I sometimes pass on a project as well. Another is when a client, and/or his project, set off warning lights for me. This might be because the potential client sounds like he is not serious about hiring a web developer at reasonable rates, or it might be because I can tell that the web site production process will be "managed" by a committee, which I've found to be a formula for an unhappy project. Unfortunately, not-for-profit organizations frequently fall into one or both of the above categories.

There are other types of potential clients I've learned to pick out from a distance and avoid as well, for example, the get-rick-quick-on-the-Internet-wannabe. These are people who think that a web site plus a small amount of fiddling with search engine positioning will create for them a goose that will begin laying golden eggs into their bank account shortly after I launch their site.

The truth is, I've found that by sorting through potential clients carefully, I can put my energy into the potential projects which actually have potential for both the client and me, and avoid wasting time on those which don't.

Working from Mexico, continued

I think I can say now, after about a month of running my businesses 100% from Internet cafes in Tulum, Mexico, that it has been a successful experiment. My web design business is at a low setting; most work is waiting until my return. But I have been communicating with new clients, answering requests, and sending urgent work to colleagues to handle temporarily. My other business, WebDevBiz.com, I have been able to run very smoothly from here.

A few small glitches:

• Mexican computer keyboards. Not only are they often ancient and decrepit in the Internet cafes of Tulum, but the keys are arranged strangely. Characters like the at sign (@) are notoriously located in strange locations, requiring a the use of a special key labelled to access. And, I have encountered several keyboards which are completely missing an @ character. How people are supposed to use the Internet and never use that particular character is a mystery to me! The keyboard I am currently typing on seems to have no apostrophe - this is why I keep writing I am instead of the contraction for that phrase! Neither can I find double quotation marks. Despite all of this, I believe I have carried on respectable email correspondence during the past month!
• Browsers are set to display all of their menus in Spanish, and I have not (no apostrophe or I would use a contraction there) been able to figure out how to switch them to English. Similarly, many sites such as PayPal load with all menus in Spanish. (This can easily be changed, I have discovered since, but I was not aware of that initially.) With my rudimentary Spanish I have been able to get by, with the exception of one goof the other day: while attempting to transfer funds from PayPal to my bank account, I instead withdrew funds from my bank account and deposited them in my PayPal account. Doh!
• I did have to get very good at deleting all personal data before leaving each Internet cafe, but this is not difficult, especially since most of them have Firefox installed. (On a totally separate sidetrack: my site statistics for WebDevBiz.com today showed, for the first time, that more visitors are using Firefox than Internet Explorer, which seemed significant!)
  

When I return to Mexico with the intent of carrying on business, I intend to bring a laptop and either get my own Internet access one way or another. Obviously, this would solve the problems above, which are entirely due to using public Internet access.

Along with a good phone service, it looks as if I might have everything I need to live and work from Mexico for parts of the year. Que alegre! :-)