Entrepreneur: Day 24 (Task Lists & Budgets)

Two things I’m pretty bad at – creating task lists for myself and sticking to a budget. Neither have I had to really manage tightly over the last fifteen years and it’s taking some getting used to. I’m not a low-level detail person, my Myers-Briggs personality type is ENTP and they’re not exactly nit-picky about details. However, I realize that I need to be closer to the details of the operation of the new company as well as more closely manage my own finances. Three tools that I’m using are Things, Basecamp, and Mint.com. I’m using Things for personal projects and tasks like “renew my drivers license” and “grocery” lists. There are versions for Mac, iPhone and my iPad and they all sync together as long as you’re on the same network.  I’m using Basecamp’s free version to get the company off the ground and launch the first product. It doesn’t support task dependencies but it gets me close enough. To manage my own finances I’m using Mint.com – they’ve already saved me about $2,000 a year on car insurance by switching to eSurance. Seriously. And I can set a monthly budget for gas, coffee, food and as many other categories as I need. It’s been about ten years since I needed to be on a budget and this is a great tool to keep me honest and see how I’m tracking according to plan. So although I thought all these posts would be about starting a company and launching a product – it’s also about fixing some of my own weaknesses that I can’t exactly hire someone to handle.