Action Faker to Action Taker

[Nick M.]

OK, so I'm both sorry to everyone here at the forum and to myself for not posting in the last week and a half. I had a very big mental breakdown and some other mental health issues which literally stopped all progress in it's tracks. It's odd because I almost never have mental breakdowns.

But I think I'm mostly good from that and ready to get back into things.

My number 1 priority in improving my work ethic is to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again. Luckily, this time it came at about the best time it could have in the process of building a business (more on that later), but I can't lose a week and a half again.

So current plan is to develop a morning routine. I'm going to start off by running when I wake up because running has shown to help with stamina throughout the day and many mental health related problems. Eventually, I want to add in other things that will also really help in the long term.

Anything else that any of you know of that can help prevent breakdowns in the future?

So do you have your own product?

Yes, it's in production. This is why it was about the best time to have this breakdown because the product is being produced and there's not much I can do on that side.

I'm now just behind in getting ahead.

Hi @bytecode how long are your pomodoros/breaks?

I'm currently doing 25/5, but I might increase it to 45/10. For coding, sometimes I feel that 25 is a bit short (depending on the task).

Also, probably a stupid question, but do you ladies and gents count the short breaks when tracking time? I mean, using 25/5 pomodoros, do you track 25 min * 4 every 4 pomodoros, or (25 + 5) * 4? I'm currently tracking the short breaks as work, as they are only 5 minutes, but not tracking the long ones (15-20 minutes every 4 pomodoros, as recommended by its creator). This way I track 2 hours of work for 4 pomodoros, then nothing for 15-20 minutes of long break, then another 2 hours, and so on.

I just wonder how this fits into a daily 9-5 (or whatever) routine, and how working on your business can make you feel like those 8 hours have to be effective pomodoro time, excluding all breaks (also the short ones). That would mean that, to achieve 8 hours of work a day, you'd need around 19 pomodoros + 1.5h for short breaks + another 4 long breaks of 15-20 minutes. That's 10.5-11 hours in total to get 8 hours of work done.

Maybe the thick is to avoid following the standard pomodoro schedule, and find one that works for you and maximises your productivity.

Before my pomodoros were 25/5, but this week I'm going to try 50/10 because 25 minutes feels short, that's a lot of pomodoros each day, and 50/10 fits a lot better in to the school schedule.

This week's goal, get back in the groove with 6 50/10 pomodoros each day. That's the same amount of work as before. Adding on top a run each morning.

Then over time I can iteratively improve my morning routine.

 

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[Nick M.]

Pomodoros 5.5

So today got back into things with almost the full number of 50/10 pomodoros. So far I think I'm liking them better because I can concentrate for longer periods at one time.

And got morning run like I said I would.

 

[Nick M.]

Pomodoros 6

Today was interesting. I found out this morning that my manufacturer accidentally shipped the product before they gave me the information I needed to create the shipping plan with Amazon. I've already reached out to both the manufacturer and Amazon to try to fix the situation. We'll just have to see how everything will work out with that.

This also means that I've potentially lost this inventory! I hope I can recover it if Amazon doesn't accept the shipment, but I have no idea.

So now I need to plan ahead for the worst case scenario.

If I do lose all the inventory and can't get it back to reship, then I need to get the funds to start the process all over. I don't have the funds right now to do so. But luckily as a composer I have many people lined up to do custom music arrangements. In that department, I currently have more work than I have time. So I reached out to people saying that I can get some arrangements done by the end of the week (since it's Thanksgiving and there's no school to slow me down). Already I have $450 of work lined up for the week. That's about half of what I need to get started again.

That's the joy about holidays and "breaks": it's the perfect time to get ahead while everyone else is taking a break.

 

[Xolorr]

Killer thread! Keep it up!
I'm definitely going to implement Pomodoros into my routine and actually track what I do from now on.

Can't wait to see how you progress!
Have you set up your own ecom store for your FBA product?
Have you altered the product at all to be different to the market offerings?

 

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[Nick M.]

Pomodoros 2

So I did 6 pomodoros worth of work yesterday, but realized after the fact that 4 of them went on a big tangent. Added that to my Not-To-Do list. You have to make sure your work is aligned with your goals.

Killer thread! Keep it up!
I'm definitely going to implement Pomodoros into my routine and actually track what I do from now on.

Can't wait to see how you progress!
Have you set up your own ecom store for your FBA product?
Have you altered the product at all to be different to the market offerings?

Really glad that this thread has helped you!

I've not yet setup an ecom store yet because a) I already ordered the product from my supplier before Walter suggested it, so I couldn't put a link on the packaging, and b) it does cost money and I want to wait until I have some proof that this product will sell on Amazon before I setup the site. I do completely plan on doing this.

Right now, my product is different, though only slightly different because I didn't have the funds to make the changes I wanted to change to increase the value proposition. However, if this variant sells, then I will either have the funds or find the way to get the funds to try my other idea.

 

[Nick M.]

Pomodoros 6.5

Ha! Not even Thanksgiving can stop me!

Even got more done than my goal for the day!

Not only that, but I found out that one of my pieces that I wrote over summer won a competition that has a lot of exposure. Like a lot. Like probably over 30,000 people will now listen to it. Maybe even 50,000 That means extra funds for this from simply winning the competition and hopefully even more from sheet music sales.

Even more good news, one of the Amazon service reps even went out of their way to try to make sure that my products were received correctly even though I didn't ask. The packages are arriving today (they got delayed) so we'll see if they will actually get accepted or not.

 

[Nick M.]

So I don't know what to do. I just don't.

Pretty much everything I can think of doing relies on Amazon accepting/receiving the products. So far, I've not heard if they have accepted them or not but they have been delivered. Within the next day or two the inventory should be updated in Seller Central if they accepted them.

If not, they'll be shipped back to my supplier, and in which case I'll send them the shipping labels and pay for shipping.

So everything can be set to go anywhere between a day and 1.5 weeks. Also frustrated that I missed Black Friday and potentially a third of the holiday shopping season.

But above all, the hardest part is that I don't yet have any feedback to know whether or not what I'm doing is actually working. Not only do I not have a single sale to justify the time and effort I'm putting in on this, but I don't even have a single possibility of a sale to tell me whether or not I need to change course. If no one's buying, then I at least know that I'm doing something wrong and I need to change paths.

Like I would like to say that I've done many pomodoros each day towards this, but I don't know what I would do to get further along. I've made my guesses on what should work for everything I can think of. I just need feedback.

 

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[MoneyPhantom]

Did you ship your first batch of products directly to Amazon? Wouldn't you want to check on quality first?

 

[Nick M.]

Good news, Amazon has accepted the shipment. Soon they should also accept the inventory.

Unfortunately, all of today I haven't been able to check the inventory because I think the seller central server is down. At least something weird is happening because download speeds today were far slower than dial up. Even checked several internet connections and my computer to see if the slow speed is my end or the server.

But anyways, that means I can start making sure that things get sold! Then I can start implementing several of the amazing tips you all have suggested and that are on other threads of this forum.

Did you ship your first batch of products directly to Amazon? Wouldn't you want to check on quality first?

My first batch I sent directly to Amazon, though I asked for a sample first.

 

[Walter Hay]

My first batch I sent directly to Amazon, though I asked for a sample first.

This is risky. Samples are often hand picked or even hand finished and the end result can be that they are quite superior to the quality of a production batch.

It's much safer to spend $200 to $300 to have the goods inspected by a reputable inmspection service before shipment.

Walter

 

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[MoneyPhantom]

This is risky. Samples are often hand picked or even hand finished and the end result can be that they are quite superior to the quality of a production batch.

It's much safer to spend $200 to $300 to have the goods inspected by a reputable inmspection service before shipment.

Walter

You also have to take into account possible bad reviews. It'll most likely be hard to sell more if the first and only reviews state that your product quality is bad.

Then you can either go the path to buy good reviews and still sell the bad product (what is cheating on your customers IMHO), or get the whole batch back from Amazon and hand-pick it or even dump it as whole.

 

[Nick M.]

Both really good points and something I will definitely do next time.

To make sure myself that everything is okay I ordered one of the products myself. It will come in on Monday so I'll know then how the quality is.

Aside from that, my main goal right now is getting sales to get reviews. I've gotten 8 orders between yesterday and today. As far as I can tell, the listing is fairly good. I might go in later and update a couple pictures to share more detail.

I also setup a good system of accounting so I can see clearly what is actually happening financially.

 

[Nick M.]

For everyone's reference, right now I'm trying to see if I can keep up the work ethic while not posting every day to see if I can do that.

It also keeps you from reading identical "6 Pomodoro" posts each day.

On the other news, here's a PSA for anyone using Amazon this holiday season.

Yesterday I got an email from a group of top Amazon reviewers to get essentially free reviews for my product. I checked with Amazon support and this violates their terms of service.

Here's the email:

"Hi how are you? HAPPY Holidays! My name is Kate I am one of amazon top 10 reviewers. I wanted to see if there any chance I can review some of your products. I hope your interested in having a top reviewer review your items. All I require is a 95% off to 99% discount promo code. Reviews will be submitted 4 to 6 days after received, also have small top amazon review group of 20 reviewers they are also on top 100 on ranks. In which 12 reviewer are interested in doing reviews for your products. If interested in having us all review please forward us link of products you would like us to review and promo codes.

Hope to hear back were trying to help as many seller as we can for Christmas sales/reviews.

We're a group of 20 top 100 rank members. Once you submit codes we order and provide order numbers with each reviewer Amazon link & socia media link. Any reviews under 4 stars we will contact you first before submitting reviews if any issues or negative feedback our goal is to help seller promote & get a good deal while we promote your products as top reviewers at no cost to you all we require is promo code discount to order."

I've also spent time getting sales tax sorted out, which is a huge pain but it has to be done.

 

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[Walter Hay]

Yesterday I got an email from a group of top Amazon reviewers to get essentially free reviews for my product.

Apart from the fact that it does contravene Amazon's TOS, for what it's worth, the email contains clues that identify the writer as Chinese with moderate English skills.

I doubt that she or her associates are in fact top reviewers on Amazon.

Walter