Jetlag is a HUGE productivity killer! So there’s not a great deal to report in my current business update.

However, I did manage to make some progress with my random small chunks of time, and my evergreen background processes kept ticking over while I alternated between rage and despair over my total inability to sleep properly for over a week.

Except on the tattoo table. I did manage to nap there. My body is weird.

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Resources mentioned

I mention the following resources in this episode.

Some of these links are affiliate links, meaning I will receive a commission if you purchase via that link (thanks!) – see my disclosure here.

I got knocked back for Low-Ticket Live – I thought I might, but it’s always worth a shot, right? Even though it didn’t include me, it was still amazing 😆

Beyond Productivity – where I bang on A LOT about being able to use the time we have, even though it often comes in frustratingly small chunks. You really can get a lot done in 10 minutes at a time with the right strategies.

Daniele Lugli – the most amazing botanical tattoo artist out there, and all-round lovely person. See my mostly-done sleeve, and I’ll link my Hercules moth when she updates.

Transcript

Hello, I’m Kelly Kotanidis, and welcome to Online Business from Scratch, where I’m taking you behind the scenes as I build my new online business from scratch to a full-time income while making sure it’s a great fit for my traveling homeschooling life. I’ll be walking you through everything I do and why, so that you can follow along and build your own flexible online business quickly and efficiently.

This is the update for day 132 of my new online business, 12 days on from my last update. I spent the first few days of that period absolutely cramming myself with Greek bakery food before we left. It was nonstop spanakopita, bougatsa, tiropita, koulouri, and moustokouloura, broken up with vegetarian souvlakis and a few ice creams from an amazing shop that I found in an Athens back street. I may have eaten the dark chocolate and the hazelnut at different times on the same day, but I regret absolutely nothing.

We’re now back in Australia, in Melbourne, at my Nanna’s for a week. I still haven’t slept a proper night because, even though I’m doing all the right things to adjust to my new time zone, my body seems intent on not adjusting at all. Since sleeping well the night we arrived, I’ve only managed about four broken hours a night, which is giving me low-level rage and is also not great for my productivity. I did manage to read Marian Keyes’ new book, My Favorite Mistake, in two days. One of our daughters came to visit for a few days, which was awesome, and I also spent another full day getting more tattoos. I finished off my full sleeve and also got a big Hercules moth on my thigh. I even dozed off a bit on the table—that’s how tired I was. The tattooist told me that not many people can manage to fall asleep while getting tattooed!

In bad news this week, I got knocked back for Elizabeth Goddard’s Low Ticket Live Summit, and I’m disappointed but it’s understandable because my business is pretty new and untested. I will put a link to it in the show notes because it’s a great event. It is all about selling lower-cost products in a really sustainable way and it’s always full of people who have done really interesting and innovative stuff. Even though I very rarely watch business summits now because so many are full of absolute fluff and nonsense, I will always make time for Low Ticket Live.

Business-wise, it’s all been maintenance. That’s really all I’ve had the time, energy, and motivation to do. I’ve written another two evergreen emails and done the background work to publish a couple of other podcasts, and that’s about it. While I’m busy and jetlagged, I’m just keeping the core stuff ticking over. I’m doing a little here and a little there. Because I’ve got my checklist and I know exactly what I need to do next, I find I can just pull my laptop out for 10 minutes, do the next task like format the blog post for the next podcast episode, or draft the next email. It doesn’t really feel like I’m working much in those small chunks, but stuff is still getting done.

I talk about all those sorts of productivity processes in my course, Beyond Productivity, about breaking tasks down into tiny chunks and making sure I’m able to use small bits of time, putting all the background stuff into place so I can make the most of the sometimes very scattered and broken up and interrupted time I have to work with. The course is put together in the same way—small chunks, small lessons—so you can actually fit it into your day because what parent has time for hour-long videos? The link to that course is in the show notes.

If you feel like you don’t have any spare time and you will never be able to actually start a business or achieve your big ambitions while you’re homeschooling, you’ll find lots of strategies and ideas in there that work because I’ve used them to start multiple businesses, get my nursing degree, and do lots of other big and little things while homeschooling my five children and having an otherwise pretty busy life.

That’s really about it for the last 12 days. I haven’t done a great deal, but because the background processes are still there, it doesn’t matter too much. People are still checking out my website, listening to the podcast, signing up for my free course, and it’s all slowly but surely growing, while I deal with my jetlag rage and the mild depression that comes with being back in Australia indefinitely. I already miss Greece, I miss Europe, and it’s going to be a bit of a sad transition back to normal life, but it is for the greater good of my teenage boys. So, I’m going to embrace it and make the most of being settled for a while, especially enjoying the bonuses like seeing our three daughters regularly. Being on the same landmass as them is a very big bonus.

I’ll get to really throw myself into this business. I will have a permanent setup and decent, reliable internet so I can even plan ahead, which seems very luxurious, and I’m very much looking forward to that. I’ll talk more about our new situation next time after we’ve actually moved into our new house. We haven’t even seen this house yet, not even in photos, but we’ve already started paying for it, which is a little bit scary. So, cross your fingers for us. I hope we like the house and it’s actually worth living in, and I’ll let you know in the next episode. See you then.

Thanks for listening!

Got any questions? Feel free to to drop them in the comments below.

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