October was a surprisingly busy month which is a good thing after months without any work. It's good to be back in work mode but must not forget to continue working on my business, website and side projects.

Personal

Had an idea for a new side project, something that involves 11ty and naturally I bought a domain name for it, so now it needs to happen because it's real once you buy the domain name, right?

It's nothing grand and I don't want to make a big deal about it, just something for me to continue learning 11ty and Nunjucks.

Updates

  • I created a /uses page and got a pull request approved to have it added to uses.tech
  • Wrote a blog post about Creating a Sitemap file with 11ty
  • I worked on improving the security of my website by researching and adding security headers on Netlify - I have a blog post to finish on this.
  • Added a maskable icon - this is something new that Google has added to the list of requirements, which means that phones can mask your icon to make it fit with the users' theme - i.e. can it become a circle if it needs to.
  • Started looking into web monetisation - just basics to start off with, I signed up with Brave browser and verified my website so it can collect donations and also signed up with Coil to be able to collect these donations - not that I'm expecting any. The plan is to also start giving donations to a website I use on a lot, like CSS Tricks etc - I have some digital currency that is just sitting in places and I have no idea what to do with it, so why not distribute it to content authors who I learn from.

Work

  • Created and sent out three project proposals, two of which were accepted
  • Got two new client projects - a redesign of a property listing website and a new website for a tyre and wheels company
  • Out of those 2 proposals, one is for a new client
  • Continuing with freelance work as well as looking for contract work - looking at getting to a stage where I can start scheduling work in advance
  • Had one interview for an interaction designer contract with the ONS, but have not had any feedback for it, I know they said things are slowing in government, but I'm assuming they went with someone else.
  • Since I'm a one-person business I am always looking at how I can streamline my processes as well as looking at ways of minimising running costs - not that I have a lot of expenses.

Not long ago, I switched my business bank account to RBS from Santander - I was happy with Santander and the monthly bank charges were a fixed £7.50. But I moved to RBS so that I could get FreeAgent for free, which is available to companies with business accounts with RBS and NatWest - because FreeAgent is owned by them now.

But after the first year with RBS, they have turned out to be a lot more expensive than I had thought. On average, since lockdown, I've been paying at least £10 a month on charges - this was a lot more when I was working on-site with clients.

My plan now is to get a Monzo Business Account which is a fixed £5 a month, then use a self-hosted app solution for invoices and use Stripe for recurring invoices for my hosting customers.

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