What a difference a week makes

Last week, I took a few days off and went to Creation Northwest to hang out with a few friends. Stepping away from the desk and getting out into the . . . gasp . . . sun, has made a *huge* difference in my focus and creativity. I was able to come up with a few different options to a problem that I had been eluding me for a few weeks.

Also, during the flight times I was able to finish up a proof of concept for a new iPhone game that I’ve been working on with a friend. If I wouldn’t have had the time on the plane and in the hotel in Seattle, I don’t know that I would have completed that part of the project. As it stands, once the graphics are complete, the game will almost be ready to submit to Apple. That would be very cool.

Lesson learned: I’ve got to get away a little more often. Maybe not to the other side of the country (jet lag is a pain), but maybe run to the mountains or the beach for a day or two. That’s the beauty of living in North Carolina.

It’s the end of the month, which means accounting tasks on Saturday. Fortunately, my accounting processes only take a couple of hours a month, primarily because I outsource my payroll to a payroll service. People have asked me why I pay $20 per month to write a check to myself. I respond with “I’m not paying $20/month to write a check, I’m paying $60/qtr to have someone else manage all my payments and filings.” That $20/month is the best money I spend each and every month.

If you are still writing and managing your own payroll. . .stop it. . .right now. . .yes, you. . .stop. . .right. . .now.

I use the payroll service through my bank, but there are plenty of good services that offer reasonably priced solutions. Spend the time and find the one that works for you and stop doing manually yourself. There are some cases where it makes sense, but I can’t think of one unless the total cost of doing it in house is cheaper than outsourcing it. To me, total cost includes making sure your payroll person is staying on top of all the tax rate changes that have been coming out this year. That alone would drive me batty.

At some point, I’ll probably outsource my bookkeeping as well, but I’ve been doing bookkeeping for over 20 years, so it’s second nature to me and I enjoy it. It’s a nice diversion from solving problems. I like it when 1+1 actually does equal 2.

Finally, the application that I wrote for one of my clients is scheduled to go live in the app store on August 1. I still can’t reveal the app until it goes live, but next week I will be able to. I’m excited to see how it does.

For anyone that is submitting apps to Apple, don’t forget you can set the date on the pricing tab to way out in the future. I think that is a good thing so you can coordinate your marketing materials to launch on a specific date.

That’s one of the nuggets that will be included in the iPhone development course that I’m putting together right now. If you have anything specific that you would like to see in the course, fill out the form on the Contact section of the website.