So I’ve been pondering lately while jumping into the entrepreneur space and how to be a “tech hero” with what’s different between a lifestyle business (ie. what I’m looking to do) and an online start up, or traditional small business? It’s very tricky to ponder and jump at the same time by the way. Something was off as I continued to read about specific personalities of small business owners, VC funding, and positioning your products. I’m trying to develop my business and offer relevant must have services to entrepreneurs with tech needs, but where do I fall exactly? Well, lifestyle businesses are their own flavor of business and they have specific limitations. They muddy the water between entrepreneur, freelancer, and business owner and so many topics of conversations that entrepreneurs or startups can talk about, simply don’t apply. Others, like passive income models do. Continue reading →
Since last month I stopped putzing around online trying to find that one great tool, golden idea, or “look” that would make it all easy. It doesn’t exist, I think we all know that, yet we still waste time looking for the easy way out, both in life and business. I stopped just dipping my toes in the pool, networking without any real purpose and instead dug into my niche with aim to be a resource, and release a product. Man it feels good to execute. I don’t have thousands of subscribers or enough monthly income to start a money report, ala Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income, but things are finally cooking in the income stage. Updates and numbers below. Note: I’m still doing this with a 9-5, so you can expect only an hour or two of work a day. Continue reading →
Wow, it’s been four weeks, I’m a jerk. I’m breaking the cardinal “consistency” blog rule, but for good reason. I haven’t left frustrated or concluded lifestyle design is an exercise in futility, on the contrary I’ve been moving the pieces into place on how to create lasting income online, the stage at odds with my day to day life right now. I’m sorry for not updating sooner, the reality is, this is a messy battle. I’ve half written a dozen posts to try and capture the take aways from my stalemate of really digging into my niche and launching a product. It finally makes sense in a chess frame of reference. On the cusp of disembarking from working in the business to working on it, there’s much to share, and you’ll benefit from my stalls, excuses, and breakthroughs….like usual. Continue reading →
Coach, consultant, confident, whatever…talking with and getting help from people who have more experience than you is smart and necessary. Adam Baker and Corbett Barr have made great names for themselves in the lifestyle design and online business space. They’re perceived as experts as they should be. I’ve met with both of them and learned a thing or two about strategy and action.
I’ve been working on a few processes on generating website traffic and how to become a thoughtleader. Some for automation, other for self execution. There are countless guides, blogs, and websites on this, (I’m looking forward to David Walsh’s M6 Method process on it) but I find most of the information out there too heavy to absorb, so here’s my particular black book on how to scratch your niche and make an impression. It assumes you want quality readers and have good content (or are in the process of producing it). Continue reading →
Here’s how I “social media” …. it’s almost a verb…no? There’s too much information to absorb, and in the spirit of avoiding information overload, this short video demonstrates how I manage social media without going crazy and the basics of pushing content out to your growing social media fans. I don’t know if it’ll help, I’m sure you’ve figured out some sort of system that works for you, if not, maybe this will push you in the right direction.
Don’t confuse this with a focused social media push for a specific “pillar post” or product. At times I’ll blast something I find interesting out with the tactics above, but for the most part, pushing content you want to generate traffic has a lot more strategy on top of the above actions, these are just the basics and how to sift through what you’re reading and want to promote to keep the ball rolling. I’m using these tactics as I swell base level support, readers, and contacts for IT Arsenal.
Bonus: Mac application “Fluid” allows you to turn the above tools into stand alone applications that live separately in your dock so you can more easily pull their functions apart from general web browsing.
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Where do you work? I don’t mean that 9-5 you may or may not have, I mean, where do you brainstorm? Where do you mastermind and create your latest projects or grind out ideas and turn information into products? Do you roam? Do you have a home base? What does it look like? What do you listen to? What’s around you?
The video below details my physical office set up, how my moonlighting “command center” is set up, and what I surround myself with while working. As I’m working up some pillar content on how business is going at IT Arsenal, the lifestyle business connected with this project, I wanted to show you how I work in a quick 2 minute video, and ask…how do you? I’m sure there are ways to learn from each other.
*The video quality sucks as I captured it with a photo camera but the audio is very clear.
While I’m creating my empire, tearing things of my own creation down or building new ideas up I’m often…
Listening to various instrumental music, classical to techno. Words distract me.
Staring at or reworking my “Board”.
Drinking a glass or two of “calimocho”, a cheap red wine and soda mixture popular in Spain.
What does your empire building environment look like while your hard at work?
“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.” Daniel Burnham
Relationships are fuel. I’ve had some great conversations lately and wanted to share them with you. Thoughts on catalyzing productivity, how I confront moonlighting/blogging at my job, and a quick video of how I batch breakfast omelets.
Question 1 (dealing with breaking free at work)
Hey Rob, just wanted to drop you a quick note and say I really appreciate your blog! I’ve been subscribed for a little while now and your themes really resonate w/ me and what I’m trying to do as well…Quick question for you: I really want to start my own blog of the same nature / a personal blog, if nothing other than for myself. However, I’m concerned that it would conflict w/ my current employment (I work at a small business). I could go anonymous, but I’m pretty big on personal branding. So my question to you is, how did you deal with that? Were you / are you employed while starting this blog? What are your thoughts on it now?Again, mad props for all the hustling you’ve been doing!Thanks, Cheers
****
Hey C—--,
Good question and I’ll be glad to answer…it’s a bit tricky, it takes some tact and a good bit of awareness. Your company may differ, but here’s how I treat the situation at the 9-5 I work for as an IT support and administrator. It’s a incorporating approach rather than a distancing one.
I keep my life design and effort toward passive income relatively quiet at work, obviously not sharing links or using the company in any form of promotion what so ever. I don’t link up with coworkers on LinkedIn, or Facebook. I simply keep quiet and say ehh, I’m not sure how to use those sites just yet. Not meaning I don’t know “how” to use them, but in this situation, I don’t know how I would use them, so for work, I dont. I don’t mention the company I work for (meaning on blogs, like thelifedesignproject for example) except in a profile or two as work history, I make sure not to speak openly about them on the various social medias.
I do however talk casually about how I do some support and design work on the side at work, trying to “earn a little extra” here and there. The company and coworkers can appreciate that. I’ve never bashed my job in my posts, or video’s and I won’t. It’s a good job, it just comes with all the pitfalls that jobs do. The ones you and I know we can break free from with enough consistency and hard work. As much as the job is draining and hectic, I treat it as a playing ground to take advantage of and hone my productivity, efficiency and work related life design skills. This prepares me for later, and makes me more valuable. I negotiate remote work from time to time as well. I just so happen to work in a job that’s related to niches I want to explore as well, (tech help, and how to tackle that on the web, thoughts?) so a lot of things at work that I am being paid to do, apply after hours (such as the walkthrough I’ll capture on Dropbox today), an added bonus.
I do speak openly on my sites about trying to earn passive income and escape the rat race though. I haven’t been confronted about this at work, but if I was, I’d be honest. I have an open relationship with my co-workers, my boss has even given me web design clients because he knows I do work on the side. If anyone at work was to really Google me, which I don’t think they have…they’d easily be able to surmise that I’m actively hunting for a big break and income through an easily managed web endeavor. Again, if confronted with that, I’d be honest and state that I’m trying my hand at this internet stuff off hours, I’d probably say something like, “believe me, if I’m going anywhere, I’ll make sure to be up front about it, but I don’t think it’s going to happen any time soon”…which is in fact all true. If I released a product or site that started to take off in a matter of months, I’d slowly wean myself out of this position over a course of 3 months or so. It’s a little bit of don’t ask don’t tell, being respectful, and being real. Your job may prove more difficult but I think the tactics apply, what’s your situation like?
Question 2 (productivity tactics expounded on)
In context of a conversation on Leo Babauta’s “one thing kill your todo list” article.
Rob,
I think there is something in the written word that works. We might be fooling ourselves with all the gadgets, wasn’t Tim Ferris that uses a sheet of paper folded as task lister? Perhaps its the way to go. Having a master list, and then we just have like 1, 2, or 3 daily slots to fill as we feel like it.
So, the daily tasks are all on paper. All 3 Slots of them or something. So again:
1) Wake Up
2) See Electronic To Do List
3) Pick Sheet of Paper. Write 2/3 Goals for the day. (a mini-brain-reboot?!) (This is THE IMPORTANT step here)
4) Do It
5) If all paper goals done go back to Electronic Sheet or…
6) Waste Time in “B Mode” tasks such as E-mail/RSS/Web/Reading/Social/Etc
Of course the “Paper Thing” might be or not important, but the Re-Writing the goals certainly is.
I will try to use some version of this with the app Things for Mac. (or maybe just dump it?) But this is clearly material for another e-mail!
Kudos Rob, take care,
****
R—-,
Catalyzing Action
I’ve been using a paper “reminder list” or slot loading list for a while. I keep the items vital, and short, making sure it doesn’t just turn into another todo list and it’s been working well. I can see how the Mac app “Things” could fill this task as well. I’ve used the app and it works well enough, just takes effort to assimilate into your flow like anything else. I’ve been using my print out, but if I was going to keep to a computer, I’d use “Things” heavily. I still keep the calendar as my hub for existence for the most part, any type of list is more “action catalyst” for me, items must be done right now, with urgency (like Leo’s “one thing” article suggests), or scheduled right now. The thing is how do we get ourselves to act on our beautiful groomed systems?
Catalyzing Passion
It’s just as much a mental battle to get things done as a management one, I’ve re-found a bit of my goal hunger again in the last few days. I’m finally putting a good (emphasis on good, meaning focused, enjoyable) hour here and there after work into specific entrepreneur projects, and approaching my fitness workouts more fiercely than before.
I’m not sure exactly what triggered it, so I reviewed what’s changed, what got me hungry. I can’t break down every nuance, but here’s what I found. Letting go, catalyzed my passion. Sounds so zen and cool, but it’s actually really hard for me to do. When I go a week straight with the background task of “I need to do X” (which I probably do for month long stretches) … in my head, I move like a snail. It’s not even a defined “X” … it’s just a difficult to shake the feeling that I need to do something. Confront that regularly, dispel it. I (We) need to accept that WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE SOMETHING TO DO…you can do everything on every list, and will invariably create another list. So instead of fight it, truly release your brain once a day, go outside and scream, workout so hard you can’t think about an RSS article, play a game that sucks your focus away hardcore, do something to get yourself out of “yourself”. These things are usually personal and relational, here’s what I’ve been doing.
I’ve started biking more, I’ve started playing Starcraft II (somehow managed to get a beta key), I’m doing Yoga….If I’m not feeling any of those I have a long conversation with a friend and make sure to talk about them. The linchpin is to let yourself do this with a free mind. It’s a conscious thing you need to tell you brain to do. What would/do you do to let go?
…and don’t worry about losing yourself to letting go, the management systems and internal pressures we’ve discussed previously will help you re-engage in your productivity goals and you’ll be all the better for it.
Batching Breakfast
So I’ve talked about how I batch most of the repetitive annoying life tasks on Sunday before. I usually cook or prepare about 3-4 lunches, dinners, and breakfasts Sunday night. Here’s a video of how I prep and batch omelets so that during the week, I have zero mess and zero preparation time to make the most of my morning. This idea isn’t new, but this is my version.
What do you think? Leave a comment.
P.S. If you’d like to get automatic updates of new material here on The Life Design Project, you can simply subscribe to the RSS feed!
Everywhere I turn lately I see people resounding something so simple and so effective when it comes to producing income with an online lifestyle businesses. Don’t. Huh? Yeah…don’t produce income. Forget it. If you’re getting started, or struggling, do something you love instead, do something you know and share it with and for your friends, colleagues (loosely interpreted) and family.
Note: Hard work and educating yourself along the way is a give in.
Oh not that crock again! I just heard the token guy from Europe yell…and I agree with him! What about the tools?! The new web apps! Affiliate marketing, the science of keywords and online advertising! Business, not passion! I want business tips! Monetization! Web traffic secrets! Social Media!…I know!…me too!…but I can’t shake that I’m blinded by all the information, it all takes a back seat, that it’s complimentary to doing what you enjoy and know. Your BUSINESS success will start (and survive) from small tight circle growth and doing things you enjoy…monetization and traffic will follow, here’s why. Continue reading →
After reading several blogs, books, and posts (such as "The Four Hour Work Week"), I began to wonder if it were truly possible to create additional income while freeing up time to chase your dreams. Like many of these authors I fell into 40+ hour a week jobs right out of college. And like many of them I was hit with the anxiety that comes with the thought of being trapped doing them for the next 40+ years.
HOWEVER, unlike these authors we don't have a degree from Princeton or consulting sales that generate thousands of dollars each month. So for everyone who may feel just a little less qualified than those who have already designed a lifestyle, feel free to join us in designing ours.
