Taiyo Johnson (太陽 ジョンソン)

(Photo credit: Futurist Movies)

So one of my very favourite blogs, PersonalMBA.com, just posted an invitation to write “Your Year (and Decade) in Review” and so how could I resist! (especially since 2009 has been such a busy and ,in many ways [and through the fire], a truly great year)

Josh (Mr. PersonalMBA) Kaufman’s post had a great pic, which I have used again here because it so adequately embodies the focus and goals of the past decade of my life – Japan. (Click here to skip ahead and read about my decade, including my time in Japan)

So in answer to Josh’s post, and perhaps for the benefit/amusement of two or three people, I post my 2009 Year In Review.

In 2009 I achieved (among other things) the following personal accomplishments (biz accomplishments below that). They surely sound wonderful but each was a struggle. Truly I have been forged by fire.

• Woke up early[-ish] (6:00)  throughout the year using Steve Pavalina’s conditioned response method.
• Overcame a particularly bad habit using the check-calendar system I created.
• Created my personal mission statement, using the book First Things First by Stephen Covey
• Stopped watching TV and following the news (based on advice in 4 hour work week, Ben Franklin’s Autobiography, etc.)
• Read EXTENSIVELY. Thanks to not watching TV. Read some of the best books of my life, like Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
• Improved my “fluency” in Japanese (began blogging in Japanese)
• Began learning Chinese. (It is actually not that hard coming from Japanese ). Nearing intermediate level, maybe. Can speak and write simple sentences.
• Improved my Jazz Saxophone skills a bit, learning modes and blues scales.
• Learnt to live (and travel) simply and digitised most of my life in preparation to reach my goal of a completely mobile life.
• Created many of the weird and geeky productivity theories found on this site (like my 13 month calendar)
• Just finished plotting my major goals for the next three years (like building location-free income) and have planned in detail the first quarter, month, week of 2010.
• Lived and Loved deeper

And now for those business accomplishments.

A report of my 2009 business accomplishments, straight from the 2009 Annual Meeting documents of my company Eagle Land Grace, LLC

Eagle Land Grace, LLC

Overview of 2009 Accomplishments

During 2009, the member – Tori Johnson – developed systems to manage the business, performed web development/marketing services for small business clients, and created several websites to inform and train small business owners, including: backsaas.com, tenaciousfrog.com, taiyojohnson.com, and locationfreeincome.com.

Systems:

• Setup integration between freshbooks, outright, and shoeboxed to create a semi-automated accounting system.
• Created checklists (using Google Docs form/spreadsheet) for documenting wordpress installations. These checklists insure that every step of the installation process is completed and doubles as documentation of every installation. With these checklists I will be able to easily outsource the installation process in the future.
• Hired services of first “virtual assistant”
  
• Created systems for handling clients (”project questionnaire”, “client fit” checklist, etc.)
  

• Developed small business marketing membership program for TenaciousFrog.com
  

Web development and internet marketing services:

• Built [/redesigned] websites for several small business clients
  
  • Gave clients marketing advice
  • Setup local listings and optimized websites for SEO
  • Setup email newsletter campaigns with MailChimp
  • Developed innovative online marketing strategies for several clients (including viral marketing)
    
  • Assisted a client in receiving publicity, including being featured in a local NBC TV station news program
    

Training Programs:

• TenaciousFrog.com
  • Created plans for Tenacious Frog Marketing, including plans for a future book on bootstrapped internet marketing for small businesses.
  • Setup the website and the small business marketing membership program
• BackSaaS.com
  • created a basic ebook as a free giveaway for newsletter subscription
  • created the website’s infastructure, particularly the submission forms for readers to submit new Software As A Service finds
  • Formulated a system for soliciting interviews with Software As A Service providers.
    
  • Conducted and posted the first of such interviews (YaY!)
• LocationFreeIncome.com
  • Setup the website and created the Location-free Income manifesto
  • Conducted “experiment in super-light travel“
  • brainstormed possible ebooks and programs for the website
• Tori.TaiyoJohnson.com
  • Created an ebook about “GoogleCasting” as a free giveway for newsletter signup
  • Wrote about my personal productivity systems (laying the groundwork for future books on the subject)

Decade in review – to Japan and back again

• 1999 – (high school) Ended my first business to focus better on school work (all advanced classes ) particularly my Japanese classes. The business was a local newsletter supported by ads I solicited from local businesses. I also did printing and design work (including 100s of t-shirt for clubs at my high school).
• 2000 – Served my last as a non-voting homeowners association board member. (was appointed in 1998 because of my newsletter and community beautification projects)
• 2001 – To Uni !
  • Graduated from high school with an IB diploma, which gave me a full scholarship to any state school in Florida.
  • Attended University of Miami (not a state school…) mainly because of their sister school relationship with Jochi U in Tokyo
• 2002 – To Japan !
  • Fight against the study abroad advisers, who only wanted me to go for six months, to become the first exchange student in ten years to go to Japan for a full year
  • Given flight ticket to Japan scheduled to depart on September 11, 2002. Arrive in Japan for student exchange on the 12th. BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE.
• 2003- Still in Tokyo I begin the first of my web projects and out of frustration, with the slow updates of my friend who was coding it, I learn html. I also meet a very special lady this year and become even more determined to return to Japan
• 2004 – Back at my home university. Against all odds (and the advice of my guidance counselor) I manage to transfer back to Jochi University as a regular foregin student. And so I return to Tokyo, thus began two of the best and worst years of my life.
• This year I find my first apartment and land my first “real” job (English tutor)… both in Japanese. That was a battle.
• 2005 – I started a few websites about Japan this year. They were social networking sites. One would catch on a bit fueling my determination to work online.
• I also landed a second teaching job
• founded a club at my school
• found a few business mentors and worked with a small business owner in Tokyo
• incorporated my company Eagle Land Grace, LLC (and setup bank account) during a brief return home in the summer, thus another life-long dream accomplished at age 23.
• 2006 – Begin working at a financial services company that was just beginning to setup a branch office in Tokyo. (At that point I was working three part-time jobs, running a small business, and going to school…). I start Nipponster.com first as a social networking website running on Phpizabi CMS (the would-be facebook of Japan). I graduate from Jochi University.

Things go downhill

• The financial services company job does not work out and I am without a visa sponsor
• The English language school I work at offers to sponsor my visa but it does not workout
• my father’s health fails
• I leave Japan on June 14th
• 2007 – I try my hand at the import/export business. I start working part-time for an interior designer. I go in a different direction with Nipponster.com eventually starting DailyJ a journalistic blog where I interviewed over 20 Japan-related website owners about their projects. It was the training ground for all of my future internet marketing work and is still my favourite web project to date. I begin frequenting the library and beginning my self-education. I learn much about business/life, internet marketing, open source, php, css, linux, and software as a service. I read The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman. I also start keeping notebooks, my one-journal-for-everything system
• 2008 – I redesign the website for the interior designer I work for and do internet marketing for him, soon bringing in thousands of dollars monthly from the web. Suddenly I have the epiphany that I could do this for other small businesses too, so Eagle Land Grace, LLC moves into the internet marketing business. I build sites for several clients and lay the foundation of my service business.
• I frequent the library weekly for business insight. I read business books, biographies, and productivity books voraciously. I probably read over 40 books that year
• I spend December in meditation on my life going through the book First Things First by Stephen Covey and laying the ground work of my mission statement.

WOW. In retrospect I have been very productive and extremely fortunate. But like Josh said, it does not seem so wonderful en route.

I have another website, LocationFreeIncome.com where I talk about creating a mobile lifestyle where one can work and live anywhere.

In keeping with that goal I am currently digitising my binders (and also my notebooks.

To do this I am planning to have the contents scanned, and so I am looking for a good scanning service.

I found a promising one today, ScanCafe

In 2008 after much experimentation I was able to create a calendar system that was just right for me.

Of course like anything in life I knew that it would remain a work in progress and so I have continued to tweak it, arriving at its present form.

Cycle brainstorming sheets

The calendar system comprises of five calendar sheets for brainstorming weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, and annually.

Since it is part of my “Tenacious Life System” (TLS), I’ll call it the TLS calendar. Or maybe the TaiyoJohnson Calendar. What do you think?

Here is the link to download the taiyojohnson calendar sheets(Google docs version. click here for pdf) These are also part of my cyclical time management theory

Now a bit about the methodology of it.

Here is where I prove myself either a genius or lunatic in your eyes. My bet is I will be labeled the latter and maybe (posthumously) attain to the former.

My Calendar system has 13 months

In mid-to-late 2008 I was pondering my planning system and time divisions and cycles. And I realised something important that I had not thought of before.

52 weeks, divided into perfect 4 week months equals 13 months (with 28 days each), so why not a 13 month calendar?

So starting with the first Monday of 2009 I divided my 2009 calendar into 4 week, 28 day, months. There have been many advantages of this system over a regular calendar, one of them being the boost my nerd ego (as I am on a completely different and far nerdier calendar than the masses).

Another possible benefit I am looking forward to come December 7th of this year: the 13th month.

For me, the 13th month is a bonus month. A month of inward reflection and alignment with goals, principles, values and virtues.

It is a fast from the busyness and distractions of the other months.

It starts with the mission statement

Prior to planning anything or playing with any of the brainstorming forms, you need to create a personal mission statement. Here is my personal mission statement.

We do this because who we want to be is more important than what we think we have to do. Doing is not as important as being.

A phenomenal book for charting your course toward accomplishing the important things in life, and writing a mission statement, is Stephen Covey’s First Things First.

Big Picture: First the year

I have seven points on my mission statement.

From each of those points I come up with goals that I want to accomplish related to them that year.

I brainstorm what I think will be involved in accomplishing them and I map it out in my notebook.

I pour my heart and soul into it. I think about my passions (which I have on the same page as my mission statement) and whether or not I feel passionate about the goals I am formulating.

Once I have some thoughts in mind I begin entering them onto the “annual” sheet of the taiyojohnson calendar sheets.

Then the Breakdown

From there I break down those goals into pieces and decide what pieces to focus on during the 1st half of the year.

That goes on the “semi-annual” sheet.

Then I plan the 1st quarter, 1st month, and finally the 1st week.

Plan as you go

Plan as you move along the weeks, months and quarters. These I call the cycles. When you reach the end of one cycle plan the next. For example when you reach the end of one month plan the next.

I have a theory that time management should be cyclical. So identify the things you do once a week every week, things you do once a month, once a quarter, etc.

Try to systematise these things as much as possible.

Coming from a business background I was/am impressed by the way businesses plan their lives out in so much detail. Whereas people seem to seldom plan their lives out at all…

There are few corporations without 5 year plans, but few people with them.

(The same can be said for business/personal financial planning, but that is another story.)

I am planning 2010 now so that I am ready and aligned with what is important when it arrives.

Found this today.

100 essential geek skills.

I will be posting how I measure up soon

Hi. In this Google Voice recording or “GoogleCast” (hey, I just coined a new term!) I talk about my 13 month calendar system.

This is not a very organised Googlecast and it is also a bit monotonous. But if you can catch my point about the 13 month system I think it will benefit you.
I plan to talk much more about my 13 month system in the future. For now try to enjoy the monotony