How to decide what to work on
How to decide what to work on
Hey there, happy Sunday!
At the start of the year, I was unsure which direction to take with my freelance business. Initially, I thought I'd follow the agency route for two reasons:
- It seemed like the obvious next step from a freelance business.
- Scaling up a service that was already working seemed like a safe move to increase my income.
But I quickly realised that building this agency wasn't exciting me. It took me a while to process this, because while freelancing was never my 'forever' thing I enjoy the work I do.
For a while I thought I should push through but instead I decided to take some time to think and reflect (continuing freelancing to earn a living).
Over the last few months, I've been testing out creating content, mainly youtube videos and articles covering the topics that interest me most [creativity, self-development and entrepreneurship].
Since starting to make content it's become obvious that I can't not try to make this my full-time job over the next few years.
Which now I write that sounds rather scary 😳
The end goal I have is to build a business where I can learn, write, create and teach things that interest me and help others.
Here's the first iteration of that
I'm not sure what this will look like 12 months from now, all I know is where I'm starting and where I want to go.
There's a lot to figure out before I'm in a position to make a living from this - but I know I can make it work.
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In this weeks video I talk about the framework I use to make deciding what to work on easier.
Four Finds
I.
The Scientific Argument for Mastering One Thing at a Time
(Article)
It's becoming more obvious to me that the bottleneck to getting lots of things done is attention, not time.
People will often say they don't have time to do something, but if it's important enough you can always carve out more time.
Where we typically struggle is in our ability to focus on multiple things in tandem. Instead of trying to stack multiple projects together and splitting our time between them. It's often better to work in sprints focusing fully on 1-2 things for a period of time then moving on.
II.
Company of One
(Book)
The best books are usually the ones that question the default. Company of One is a really easy read that questions a lot of typical assumptions people hold about business and how things 'should' be done.
If you're interested in building a profitable business that values lifestyle over growth at all costs then this is the perfect read.
“For companies of one, the question is always what can I do to make my business better? instead of what can I do to grow my business larger?”
III.
The Perfect Spouse Is the Best Life Hack No One Told You About
(Article)
There are a lot of unhelpful narratives around entrepreneurship. Like the idea that you need to put in 16 hour days and sacrifice everything else in life to build something successful.
Or as Ryan Holiday points out 'the myth of the lone creative entrepreneur battling the world without an ally in sight'.
This article is one I return to regularly and a great reminder that you can't do it alone. Having people to help you through it, whether that's a partner, friends or family is vital to doing your best work.
IV.
A six figure job making memes
The fact that you can earn a great living as a professional shitposter/meme artist makes me so happy.
One Idea
"Most distractions do not come so much from our environment, but our own minds." - Sonke Ahrens
End Note
End Note
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Have a great week!
- Stephen