After several months of planning and working out a system for working at home, things changed. I got some client work out of the blue, work I could not turn down, so I had to adapt.

My plan was to develop this blog while I developed my software. When the time was right, I would help draw attention to my software with the help of this medium.

Instead, a different opportunity arose. Back to consulting work I go for a few weeks (possibly a few months). This means that my software project becomes second priority. In order to accomplish it, I need to become even more diligent about managing my time.

Instead of managing around M's days off, I'm now managing around my weekends. Evenings are now my free time and waking up early is a thing. But life happens, and one has to roll with the punches. And frankly, life changes like this one are not so bad.

So I'll take this opportunity to bone up my systems and make them adaptable to changes that can happen every so often. It's been a few weeks since this all started, but things have settled down now to the point that I can get the machinery moving again and pointed in the right direction.

The goal of all this hard work, task management, and organization is to build up something worthwhile – a family and our life. I believe that work is important in and of itself. But it’s also important to stop and smell the roses every once in a while.

Tonight, I’m taking M out to dinner. I managed to snag a reservation at a nice restaurant by logging onto their website right at midnight two weeks ago. Being a night owl has it’s advantages!

I may write about the restaurant here sometime in the future, but for now I’ll have to keep it a secret since it’s a surprise for her.

I’ve written a couple of posts now, I guess it’s time for an introduction. I’ll write a little bit about these two businesses I’ve mentioned and a little bit about we, the people behind them.

Me

I’m Anthony, and I do software. By that, I mean I work as a software consultant to clients. My business is structured as a one-person S-corporation that I established in 2007.

I'm also an aspiring software product developer. I’d like to either create software that I can sell or create a software-based service. The current focus of my work is building out some ideas and testing them in the marketplace.

She

My wife prefers not to be named directly, so for the purposes of this blog, she’ll be known as “M”.

M basically manages operations for her family business. She is part of the third generation of family members to run a food service establishment that her grandparents founded over fifty (!) years ago.

Their business is old-school in many ways, the most important of which is their close relationship with many of their customers. They also happen to be old-school in their use of technology, which is very minimal. I’ve never met a more dedicated bunch, and I’m proud just to be associated with them.

We

We’ve been married for about year and a half now. From a personal standpoint, things have never been better. I can't imagine life without M anymore.

At the same time, that first year brought on other major changes to our life. We both run our businesses out of our home and we both have non-traditional working hours. Bringing those into the same household created some unique challenges.

After a bit of a rough start, we managed to put things in place and got a rhythm going. By the end of the year, we were ready with a better plan for tackling the new one.

The Diligent

This blog is the story of how we are taking care of business, at home and from the home. We’re working to build our respective companies, and at the same time build a family together.

Though our two businesses are polar opposites in multiple ways, there are two things they require in common from us: hard work and smart work. We have tools and techniques from the tech and business worlds that help us get this work done. Now, we are using them to help manage how our work and home lives intertwine.

I’ll write about those tools and techniques here, and hope that some may find them helpful!

I know I speak for M when I say that I hope we live up to this blog’s name,

– the diligent.