WORK LESS WEDNESDAY

WLW #40

August 03, 2022

💸 1. Why I Lose $2,876 A Month Sending Out This Free Newsletter

Few understand the costs associated with running a free newsletter.

It’s free for you, not for me. 😅

I was inspired by this Twitter post from Marissa Goldberg to take a look at the costs I incur by creating WLW.

✅My direct newsletter expenses:

(I also incur a lot of indirect expenses related to my biz: website hosting, subscriptions, etc. – not listed here)

​ConvertKit: $110/month

Newsletter hosting.

​Notion: $16/month

Newsletter writing and management.

Team Costs: $250/month

My team uploads WLW to ConvertKit, posts WLW reminders on Instagram, and uploads the archive to my website.

My Time: $2,500/month

According to my time tracking, I spend about 5 hours a month writing WLW. I sell an hour of my time for $500.

= $2,876/month

So why do I spend nearly $35,000 a year to email you?

  1. Remove Platform Risk – I don’t own my 90,000 Instagram followers. Instagram does. If they want to stop showing my posts, they can. That’s scary. If I could bring all 90,000 of you over to Work Less Wednesday, I would. I’m trying.
  2. Build Connections – I’ve met some amazing people through this newsletter. A welcome surprise.
  3. Sell Stuff – I want you to take my course (🏖️How To Work Less Cohort II enrollment open August 29th). I want to work with you 1:1 (Book business coaching here). I want you to buy my book (When I write it 😜).

☀️ 2. How To Work Less, Make More $, And Have More Peace – Blog Post by Designed By Shyne

My friend Shyne (drop her a follow!) wrote an awesome blog post this week on her #SlowGirlSummer movement.

What is it?

​Slow Girl Summer is an anti-hustle, anti-hurry movement to help you free yourself from “the grind” & cultivate a burnout free life.

Here’s what she said about the post:

I wrote a blog (essay) on how slowing down changed my life. Inside is:

  • how I work less & make more $$$
  • ways you can too
  • why the act of slowing down is not only a cure to hustle culture but an act of rebellion against oppressive economic systems

Here’s a sample daily schedule from Shyne:

🔥 3. Top Ways Startups Waste Money – YouTube Video From Y Combinator

Listened to this video while washing dishes this week.

Y Combinator partners discuss all the ways founders waste money early on.

While it’s targeted towards startups, this list holds for all solopreneurs IMO.

Here’s the list:

  1. Hiring too fast – See my post for more on this.
  2. Hiring too many contractors – Don’t hire 5 contractors to do 1 person’s job.
  3. Ad buys – Facebook Ads can burn through money like nobody’s business.
  4. Event sponsorships – Figure out how to do it for free.
  5. Hiring a PR firm – “If you want to get good at firing vendors, hiring a PR agency is a great way to get your feet wet.” lol
  6. Lawyers – Spend as little as possible.
  7. Advisors – Don’t give a % of your company to a paid “advisor.”

5️⃣ 4. 5 Years Of Freelancing Lessons In 5 Minutes –Twitter thread by Stephen Wise

Some great freelance advice in this thread. My highlights:

  • You get better clients as soon as you act like the freelancer who deserves better clients.
  • A 30-minute call will take 150 minutes of your day. 60 minutes before the call (not wanting to start anything). 30 minutes on the call. 60 minutes after the call (following up and regaining focus). Calls are important, just use them sparingly.
  • Reduced price = reduced scope.
  • The lowest paying clients are the hardest to please.
  • It’s your business: You don’t have to work 40 hours per week.

📘 5. Book I’m Reading This Week – The Cabinet by Un-su Kim

Picked this one up off the staff recommendation shelf at my favorite bookstore in Asheville, NC, Malaprops.

Winner of the Munhakdongne Novel Award, South Korea’s most prestigious literary prize, The Cabinet is a fun fiction read.

From the back cover:

​Cabinet 13 looks exactly like any normal filing cabinet…Except this cabinet is filled with files on the ‘symptomers’, humans whose strange abilities and bizarre experiences might just mark the emergence of a new species.

But to Mr Kong, the harried office worker whose job it is to look after the cabinet, the symptomers are a headache; especially the one who won’t stop calling every day, asking to be turned into a cat.

A richly funny and fantastical novel about the strangeness at the heart of even the most everyday lives, from one of South Korea’s most acclaimed novelists.

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