My apologies for not writing lately. A mix of a family member being ill (she's fine, thanks), and today's lesson --
Prepare for things to take longer than you plan, and don't get demoralized when it happens.
Every multi-step project has multiple potential pitfalls you might be unaware of.
Take banking, for instance. This happened to me, and has happened to lots of people I know. They assume getting a local bank account in a foreign country is no big deal, and budget a couple hours for it. Then they're shocked when it takes much longer and with more runaround than anticipated.
This can screw up all kinds of things -- setting up a way to receive payments, send invoices, etc.
This is the kind of thing -- "just get a bank account" -- that you can easily fail to even factor into your plans and timetables. Not due to negligence, even, really. How would you know if you hadn't heard it from someone else beforehand? And then when getting a bank account takes two weeks of runaround and nuisance paperwork (or longer...), it backs everything up. Then momentum gets lost, and that "three week project" is now half-stalled at 95% complete eight weeks in...
...and this is where amateurs get demoralized.
Look, your weight loss plan is probably going to go slower than you expect, since you're probably counting your calories wrong, missing "grazing" calories, underestimating what you're eating, and underestimating how often you'll screw up.
But if you stick with it, and recalibrate, and stick with it, and get back on if you slip -- it'll happen.
Look, the programming project you've got cooking is going to have some stupid little snag. Like, you're going to be unable to get permissions to work correctly when logged in, and it's going to take you three days to debug and screw up your whole week.
This is where amateurs get demoralized. But if you've mentally budgeted some time for "things will go wrong" and just work through and press on, you'll get released.
New to consulting, contracting, or freelancing? God help you the first time you think "I've got all this business that's going to come in!" Guess what? A lot of it is going to fall through for stupid little reasons.
This is where amateurs get demoralized. But if you keep prospecting, selling, improving your skills, delivering great results, proving yourself with free work or creative/experimental/opensource/whatever projects, and otherwise keep doing the right thing -- the business will come.
In everything, there's all kinds of unexpected landmines that you couldn't plan for until you've done it before. There's really no getting around it, 'xcept through getting experience.
But if you're ready for that, you're golden. "Things will go wrong, and I'll keep going." Recalibrate and re-double your efforts when your first timetable turned out to overwhelmingly optimistic -- because that's what first timetables often are.
And as a sidenote, when all these cool things that are backed up come out bang-bang-bang-bang! in and people start thinking I'm Superman or something, you'll know the truth -- I've been grinding away since November, and half these damn things should be done by now. But that's life. Obligatory Tokugawa quote:
"The strong manly ones in life are those who understand the meaning of the word patience. Patience means restraining one's inclinations. There are seven emotions: joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate, and if a man does not give way to these he can be called patient. I am not as strong as I might be, but I have long known and practiced patience. And if my descendants wish to be as I am, they must study patience." -- Tokugawa Ieyasu, Unifier of Japan and Founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, 1543-1616
Steel thyself against delay; know that it may come; be ready and solider on.