WORK LESS WEDNESDAY

WLW #98

September 14, 2023

Diversification Is A Distraction

In this episode, I cover: â€‹

– đŸ¤š Why you don’t need multiple streams of income, especially if you haven’t reached 6-figures.

– 💸 Why most people think more revenue streams = more money and less risk (and why they’re wrong).

– 📚 Why you should drop your 10+ projects and focus on 1-2 things that really move the needle.

– đŸ§ Three questions I ask myself regularly to avoid this in my business.


❌ 1. How I Run My Agency In 10 Hours A Week

Over the last 5 years, I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out what moves the needle and what doesn’t.

The proof?

My design agency earned $500k last year with less than 10 hours of work/week from me.

This is a whole month.

So what does it take to get to 10 hours a week?

Here are a few things that worked for me:

  1. Invest time upfront to build (and train) an incredible team of freelancers/contractors. Designers, developers, animators, editors, etc.
  2. I got really good at saleslead generationnetworking, and have honed my offer over time. Fortunately, all of this is learnable.
  3. The ~10 hours of work I do is hard, focused deep work. Usually:
    1. High level design
    2. Marketing strategy
    3. Client management and sales
  4. I have to say “No” to A LOT of stuff most people say “Yes” to.

Which leads me to this list.

Here are 10 things most people do, that I don’t do in my design agency, which allows me to work 10 hours a week.

  1. I don’t write proposals (for free)
  2. I don’t post on social media (for my agency)
  3. I don’t submit for awards
  4. I don’t do work for less than my minimum rate
  5. I don’t do discounts: full price or free
  6. I don’t travel for work
  7. I don’t take meetings 4 on days out of the week
  8. I don’t do requests for coffee
  9. I don’t work with bad/unethical clients (even for $$)
  10. I don’t check email until noon (mostly)

P.S. If you want to hear the details, check out my podcast episode: 20+ Things I Don’t Do As A $500k Solopreneur – it explains all 10 in detail.


🧠 2. Brain Training I’ve Been Starting My Mornings With – Lumosity

A few weeks ago I came across a great YouTube video detailing Rob Dyrdek’s (yes, the skateboarder) Matrix productivity system.

In it, he has a daily habit routine called “The Core 7”

These are the 7 activities that Rob must perform EVERY DAY, no matter what.

They include:

  1. Wake up at 5am every morning.
  2. Brain training – first thing in the morning.
  3. Meditation – 20 minutes in a giant egg. (lol)
  4. Work out
  5. Eat clean
  6. Avoid alcohol
  7. Daily supplements

The last few weeks, I’ve been inspired to add brain training to my morning meditation routine.

It helps me to get focused for deep work and is really fun.

I use the app Lumosity, which gives you 5 exercises daily to do, and takes about 10 minutes.

Give it a try, let me know what you think! (not an ad, just what I’m doing)


💬 3. You’re Not Asking Enough

One pattern I see constantly from people I work with and people online:

They’re not asking enough.

We constantly give value to the people around us:

  • Free social media posts
  • Quality work for our clients
  • Free resources on our website

And then we never get to reap the rewards because we’re scared to put ourselves out there.

We all KNOW we should ask for what we want more, but we feel like we can only ask once, and thats enough.

No.

You need to ask much more often.

Whether you are:

  • Asking for referrals from your happy clients
  • Asking for newsletter signups from your followers
  • Asking for people to buy in your mailing list

You’re just not doing it enough.

Ask more.

People won’t get mad.

I promise.


⚡ 4. The Best Way To Make Time (When You Have No Time) – Article By Mandy Brown

​Mandy Brown is a coach who works with high performers.

Their biggest complaint she hears, by far, is “I don’t have enough time.”

By the time they reach her, they’ve done all the easy stuff:

  • They’ve reorganized their calendar.
  • They’ve blocked out time.
  • They’ve prioritized.

And it hasn’t worked.

Mandy has a solution:

Here’s an example: Someone is so busy with work and caretaking that they don’t make time for their art. At the end of the day they’re too tired to write or paint or make music or whathaveyou. So they don’t. Days, then weeks go by. They are more and more tired. They are getting less and less done. Then one day they say fuck it all. They eat leftover pasta over the sink, drop mom off at her mahjongg game, and go sit in the park to draw. They draw for hours, until the sun goes down and they’re squinting under the street lights. And, lo and behold, the next day they plow through all those lingering to-dos. They see clearly that half of them were unnecessary when before they all seemed critical. They recognize a few others as things better handed off to their peers. They suddenly find time for attending to that one project they’d been procrastinating on for weeks. They sleep better. It turns out, not doing their art was costing them time, was draining it away, little by little, like a slow but steady leak. They had assumed, wrongly, that there wasn’t enough time in the day to do their art, because they assumed (because we’re conditioned to assume) that every thing we do costs time. But that math doesn’t take energy into account, doesn’t grok that doing things that energize you gives you time back. By doing their art, a whole lot of time suddenly returned. Their art didn’t need more time; their time needed their art.

We all have something like this in our life.

Something that GIVES us energy.

When was the last time you did it?


🍅 5. The Reverse Pomodoro Technique

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