Tomorrow (Sat.): WoWiPAD 3! (World Wide Paperwork and Administrivia Day) [en]

[fr] Demain, samedi, journée internationale de la paperasse et de l'administratif. On s'y met tous ensemble, chacun chez soi bien entendu, mais on se soutien moralement. Vous voulez vous joindre au mouvement? Il suffit de laisser un mot et d'annoncer publiquement que vous serez de la partie!

Still Needs to Go... Tomorrow, I need to deal with my taxes. So, no “working”, but paperwork. As I’ve done in the past, I’ve found a few other similar-spirited people, and we’ll all chug along at our respective paperwork tasks during the day, supporting each other through Twitter, Seesmic, and the knowledge that we’re not alone that day doing this kind of drudge work.

That’s WoWiPAD (3rd!), or as some prefer, the Administrivia Day. You do it at home or in the office (depending on where your long-suffering paperwork is), from roughly 9-6 in your timezone.

If you want to join me, Delphine, Pivwan, Peter, Baud and Richard leave a note or send a tweet, and I’ll add you to our roster of courageous WoWiPADers! All you need to do to be “in” is to publicly state that you will be 🙂

Actionable Cat

Tag: wowipad3 (for tweets, posts, photos, videos…)

Update: I just created a WoWiPAD livecommunity on six groups. Go sign up there, and use #wowipad/#wowipad3 in your tweets to have them appear there. I wrote a post on the Going Solo blog about how to use six groups, it’ll help get you started.

Two Successes! WPD2 and WoWiPAD1 [en]

[fr] Aussi bien le Website Pro Day 2 (WPD2) que le WoWiPAD1 (World Wide Paperwork and Administrivia Day, ou bien "Journée Paperasse" de son petit nom) ont rencontré un franc succès.

Du coup, on remet ça. WPD 3 (sur Lausanne, mais vous pouvez saisir la balle au bond et organiser des événements-frères ailleurs) le 16 janvier, et WoWiPAD2 dès que quelqu'un d'intéressé m'aura contacté pour fixer une date.

Je trouve aussi qu'une journée pour bloguer à 100% (finir les brouillons, écrire ces billets auxquels on pense depuis des lustres mais y'a toujours plus urgent à faire) serait pas mal, ainsi qu'un pour mettre à jour ses uploads de photos sur Flickr... (quoi? vous êtes à jour? zou!)

I’ll be brief, because I’m running around a bit like a headless chicken these days with tons of different things to do, and the blog gets neglected. So, here’s a short article, rather than no long article (because that’s what tends to happen).

Both WPD2 and WoWiPAD1 were a great success. I really think that gathering people together towards a common goal on a given day is a really good idea — especially for people working from home, or freelancers.

The Lausanne branch of the Website Pro Day initiative have already decided that we needed a WPD3. The date that has been chosen is January 16th. Make a note of it now! I’ll create a Facebook event shortly.

WoWiPAD1 (that Suw wants to rename the “Administrivia Day” because she doesn’t like the ugly acronym… who can blame her?) saw participants joining us from all over the place, including Ton and Elmine from the Netherlands and even Stowe Boyd from San Francisco. We posted updates to the event wall, Twitter (most of them private, unfortunately), and Seesmic. I’ve collected links to related Seesmic videos in the event links.

Personally, I’m ready for WoWiPAD2. If you are too, ping me and we’ll choose a date (better to be at least two people to set a date).

I’m also ready for “Write All Those Blog Posts Already Day” (100% blogging, a chance to finish drafts and catch up on old post ideas!) as well as “Digging Through That Flickr Backlog Day” to upload those photos you took six months ago and still haven’t seen the light of day. Ping me if you’re interested, and we’ll make them happen!

WoWiPAD1 and WPD2 News [en]

[fr] Le deuxième Website Pro Day aura lieu ce vendredi à Lausanne. Nous sommes 4, il y a de la place pour encore une ou deux personnes si bosser sur le canapé ne vous dérange pas.

Quant au World Wide Paperwork and Administrivial Day (WoWiPAD, le jour consacré à faire un sort à sa paperasse, chacun chez soi) le 2 janvier, je suis épatée: une dizaine de personnes se proposent de participer à cette opération de solidarité! Joignez-vous à nous. Si vous n'avez pas de compte Facebook, il suffit de laisser un mot dans les commentaires.

As dates are drawing nearer, a short update on both the first World Wide Paperwork and Administrivia Day (WoWiPAD) and the second Website Pro Day (WPD). (See my previous post about these two initiatives for background information.)

WPD2 Lausanne will take place this Friday. Ollie, Julien, Anne-Paule, Carlos and myself will spend the day (9am-6pm approx) at Julien’s place working on our professional websites. So far, no other sister-events have been announced, but I still have hope! (If you’re in Lausanne and would like to join us, we probably have space for an extra person or two, if you don’t mind working on the couch.)

WoWiPAD (renamed following Greg‘s suggestion) will take place all over the world (yes!) on January 2nd, 9am-6pm approx (local times). So far, 10 people have confirmed their participation on Facebook. Join us! (If you don’t use Facebook, you can sign up in the comments of this post.) I’m thinking about opening a temporary IRC channel for the day, to help give some sense of connection to the various people participating (though of course, we don’t sit in it chatting, we’ll be hacking away at our paperwork.)

Who’s in?

World Wide Paperwork and Administrivia Day (WoWiPAD) and Website Pro Day (WPD) [en]

[fr] En plus du Website Pro Day, je propose de tenir début janvier le World Wide Paperwork and Administrivia Day, consacré à régler ces histoires de paperasses (j'ai des tas de quittances à trier et à envoyer à ma comptable, par exemple) une fois pour toutes. On fait ça chacun chez soi, bien entendu, mais on est solidaires et on fait ça en même temps. Ça motive!

Faites signe si vous êtes partants.

A couple of months ago, I came upon Chris Messina‘s Finish your %#&*@ drafts day. I thought: “what a great idea!”

Well, not the drafts thing (I have drafts in my WordPress installation right now for the first time in my life), but the “get people together to do something”. It’s not a new idea, of course. I’ve actually already used it to fight procrastination, with friends:

  • oh, we’re both chatting when we should do washing up and other things. Let’s go and do it and then meet up on chat again to congratulate ourselves on doing it.
  • hey, can I come and do my homework at your place?
  • let’s meet up do our tax declaration together.

So, when my friend Olivier mentioned in passing that his professional website needed some work done, I said “oh, me too! let’s do it together” and organised the First Website Pro Day (it’s bastardised gallicised English, don’t worry).

There were four of us (a fifth had to cancel at the last minute because of a sick child) and it was a great success for all those who participated. Not only did we make progress on the “professional online presence” front (I actually moved this blog over to my server back from DreamHost, a move which had been stalling all my efforts to do anything to SB.com), but we also started talking about building a local coworking community again.

Website Pro Day 1, Lausanne

We also decided that one day was not enough, and that we needed to organise (at least) another similar day: Website Pro Day 2 is set for December 28th.

Now, obviously, this kind of gathering is local. But wouldn’t it be great of other freelancers or small business owners, in other cities, also got together to work on their professional online presence on the same day? All you need is two people to begin with. Announce it, put it on Facebook or upcoming, whatever catches your fancy. I’ll mention it here, too.

Being a freelancer is cool, but it can sometimes be a bit lonely. That’s why ideas like coworking and barcamp are very important to us: it’s a chance to get together with “colleagues”. Well, it can also be done in a slightly less formal way, too. Just grab a few “colleagues”, and meet to get something done.

So, another of these “get-together” initiatives I’m launching is the World Wide Paperwork and Administrivia Day, which we’ll call WoWiPAD from now on. Unless you’re super-organised or are already a GTD black belt, you probably have piles of receipts to sort, papers to file, expenses to invoice, forms to fill in, and various administrative things that just pile up and don’t get done, because, let’s face it, it’s way more fun to be earning $$ doing exciting stuff with clients than spending the day drowning in stuffy papers alone at one’s desk.

Obviously, we can’t really gather in one physical space for the WoWiPAD. No, you are not welcome to come to my place with your drawers, piles of papers, stapler — in short, your whole office. But what we can do, though, is decide on a date to do things together. Yes, just knowing that we’re not in this “alone” can be very supportive.

Whether you’re a freelancer, a small business owner, or just a somebody with stacks of paperwork to deal with on your desk, leave a comment here or sign up on Facebook if you’d like to participate in the WoWiPAD.

I’m going to suggest two dates, which I know are quite nearby — because I’m going to have to do this paperwork stuff soon anyway, or it’ll sprout legs and start running all over the place. The cat is enough trouble by itself, I have no need for paper pets.

As far as I’m concerned, Wednesday January 2nd would be good, as would Thursday 3rd (and even Friday 4th).

What about you?

Update, Dec. 26th: Date is officially Jan. 2nd, and the event has been rechristened WoWiPAD (much more pronounceable) — thanks to Greg for the suggestion.