photo credit: Dyanna

As the wheels continue to turn and burn in developing a digital product I’m releasing my personal notes on the ebook Make Your Words Sell. Whether we like it or not, we are selling or less suggestively, “communicating” everyday or our lives, so why not become a little better at it on paper (or a blog). I believe these bullet points will help do just that.

Out of all the copywriting resources I covered while testing idea feasibility and a mock sales page I was continually recommended to Make Your Words Sell by Joe Robson through both my extensive “Googling” and by three separate online marketers. Apparently it’s great for an online guide (and it’s free!). The thing is, it’s 250 pages long. It may be an easy read but it still took me a week to sit through, and it’s pretty much a massive list of useful bullet points, so I decided to pull out what I deemed essentials for easy use.

Call it my shorthand summary, or bullet point wisdom (with page references), but below is what I took away from MYWS to make the most out of persuasive online writing. Give it a gander and update your market writing tool bag as we continue with the creating income stage here at The LDP, amongst other things.

For extra exposure, check out stellar writer JC Hewitt at his blog Fail Often. He’s been “paying the bills since ‘08″ only after a few years of looking into journalism. I’ve read up on his last three posts and have been compelled to get in touch with him after each one, that’s the type of writing I’d like to command!

Make Your Words Sell

• first, anyone can do it, it’s more effort based not skill based (19)
• know your product, industry, and competition (most important to know competition) (25)
• identify your customers wants (30)
• for every feature there are one more benefits (tell them about the benefit not the feature) (32)
• how to find benefits, present features and ask, so what? (36)
• use lots of subheadings, use even without other text
• start each paragraph with a “bang” (key or flashy word)
• paragraphs should not be more than four-five lines
• vary paragraph lengths
• it takes %20 longer to read a computer screen than paper (woah? is that true?) (49)
• saturate with benefits (51)
• techies do not prefer technical copy, don’t use jargon (57)
• don’t try to be funny, unless you’re really good at it (58)
• keep your message positive, not negative in anyway (60)
• we are all salesmen, every day of our lives (charles shwab) (62)
• use white space (62)
• use black text on a white or very pale background (dangerous to do otherwise) (66)
• don’t make bulleted lists too long whatever you do, 5 bullets max. (67)
• use a P.S. for a call to action, it works (68)
• use testimonials, feature them, (duh, page 70)
• use text based links instead of “banners” or “image” links, people are more likely to click them (70)
• “sell freebies” and sell their benefit on your salespage
• write with joints, a finishing line on a paragraph that intrigues the user to read on. example…how exactly can you double sales? (raise curiosity)
• describe your guarantees in detail
• ASK for the order (are you going to buy it? have we got a deal?, then shut up, don’t keep writing, ask for payment)
• tell them how to order, click here, fill this out
• pile on reassurance before and after the sale with guarantee, money back, restatement of benefits, a testimonial
• cut, slash and review your copy several times (83)
• write to suit your ideal audience, NOT everyone in common references and connotations
• summary of typical personality types and how to write to them (89)
• have a non english native speaker proof read your writing if you can
• make sure to present what you have as something special
• be different immediately (104) (opening headline, paragraph, something) be unique (112)
• step back and gain perspective after a few drafts
• create an extensive list of features, match your web design meta data
• need more and better benefits? ask what will that do for me, how will that improve my lifestyle, how will i benefit in the long term, how will it help my family? (107)
• continue to ask SO WHAT? (110)
• display your uniqueness, your unique selling position multiple times
• use headlines ruthlessly (115) but don’t copy others these are special on the web and target them to ideal customers (122)
• write distinct “hooks” or triggers with benefits (128)
• base outline full book instructions (129)
• make sure the text on your links have important words in them, they act as mini headlines (134)
• write headlines while you are excited about your product (137)
• read it outloud, as someone else to read it outloud, send to someone else for opinions (139)
• anticipate your readers thoughts by asking so what
• get in their head example (145)
• create a ideal customer document (analyze them, paint a picture, list out their characteristics) (148)
• the books mock process flow for creating a salespage (154) (good for modeling your own, but still long, they actually make a fake product)
• you MUST make your opening paragraph flow (188)
• prioritize benefits, best go at top (199)
• don’t let customer think too long, ask for sale (201)
• consider using a “special release price, or limited time only” to foster more sales (204)
• people fill out the form and then leave, reassure them all the way! make sales simple (205)
• finish strong with an “irresistible” offer, bonuses, discounts, limited time
• kick start guide (225) (they model the process in concept not an actual example here)
• the biggest obstacle is procrastination (228)
• ken’s 5 keys (co-author) become your customer, benefits first, keep it simple stupid, use the right tone (232)
• word magic (a huge list of “trigger” words that invoke response from anyone and everyone including “joint” words) (234) (great to have printed out or on hand when writing)

I wanted to test out this fancy new service (www.issuu.com) so here’s the first part of the “trigger” word section of the ebook in Issuu display below. I’m probably not supposed to display it, but given that it’s a free resource now and I’m pointing people to their website, I think Joe will probably be cool with it.

Hope you picked up a few new tips or brushed up on a few old ones. Add your own by leaving a comment.

PS/Real Life: After employing these techniques to my test product, the feedback I received from established digital download marketers like Glen Allsopp (www.viperchill.com – How I Wrote a $30000 eBook (And You Can Too) was really positive, which got me excited but most still commented that the best way to introduce an idea and test it’s profitability is to gauge an audience you are familiar with. Awesome writing is one thing, having eye balls is another. Considering on average I have very poor writing skills I’ve decided to build out the product anyway but concurrently build the fan base at IT Arsenal, the freedom business I’m developing as I record my efforts here. No doubt we’ll cover that amongst the efforts here going forward.

It’s been a while since I’ve taken a snapshot of how things are going at The LDP project. There are some solid resources The LDP has been featured on lately and a few behind the scenes workings that I’d like to share about. In fact, as what usually happens, there’s more than a few things going on behind the scenes and a few directions we can focus on going into the future. I need your help with that. Check out what’s going on around the project and influence where we go from here in today’s post PLUS a time saving breakfast batch secret I just discovered AND a video in which I chug a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi Max. It’s like 3 posts in one! You’ve been warned.

Influence Me and Get What You Want

Obviously we’re moving ahead with creating income online, we’ve covered feasibility testing of an idea with a thorough stroke, next we’ll dig into how we actually bring about this idea to a reality. Along that path, I’m cooking up some content I think those interested in intelligent free living will want to know about. It would be a sincere help if you took a minute to pick what you’d like to see in the poll below. Extra detail on each topic is further down the page.

Previews and Details

The Life Design Timeline in collaboration with Alan Perlman, (9-5 Alternative)

A timeline that’s flooded with nothing but vital resources for the phases of lifestyle design. It’s a tool designed for those who need to gain footing when they’re lost, or gain a visual grasp of the core elements of breaking free from a molded lifestyle. Check out this picture for an example, it’s a timeline of the this blog.

Click to Enlarge

Lifestyle Design Infographics

A series of info graphics like the one below aimed at instant “aha” moments for creating breakthroughs in time management, productivity, and other core elements of living well, “allah” lifestyle design.

Click to Enlarge

Outsourcing Workflow Database

In collaboration with reader Jason Stephens (who I’ve been working with on outsourcing his business) I’d like to gauge interest for putting together a resource site dedicated to pre-made workflows for virtual assistants and common tasks both business and personal use. The materials would help bridge the gap in how to work with a virtual assistant and automate several common minutia type tasks of marketing, information research, maintenance and such.

Time Batching Omelets!

I’ve found one of the most interesting effects of reading the 4 Hour Work Week on my time has been batch cooking. Here’s a gem if you like protein healthy eggs in the morning.

Omelets in a Boiling Bag

You can set up a whole weeks worth of omelets, including the fixings in one fell swoop and cook them without using any messy dishes during the week. Try this out.

1. Crack a couple eggs, add cheese, pepper and your favorite additions to a zip-lock bag. Use the Ziplock brand name, as they’re sturdier.

2. Boil the ziplock bag in a large stovetop pot. (takes about 12 minutes)

3. Enjoy. The omelet slips out of the zip lock without a mess. Add to fajita wrap for breakfast burrito action.

I’ll probably pull a Tim Ferriss on this later and do a YouTube that will subsequently get 50 billion views….you never know. The cool thing about this breakfast hack is that you can make a weeks worth of omelets at a time and have minimal dishes to clean throughout the week, big time saver. If you’re particularly green, don’t complain, I’m assuming that I’m somehow absorbing like .01234 percent plastic into my diet. Let me know if there some awesome “green” alternative to zip-lock bags that might work.

The LDP around the Web

I’ve been chatting it up with some awesome people as I continue to empirically test out designing life on purpose. As you can surmise, I love talking actionable changes which almost always leads me to process design and automation conversations. Check out where this project has recently been featured below, some upcoming content, and thank you for being a part of it!

Gen-Y Rock Stars -- Outsourcing for musicians guest post and audio conference (strategies, tools, and experiences)

BlogcastFM, process design and productivity chat. This site is a big up-and-coming interview style audio resource, includes some premium lifestyle designer names. Worth a look.

Chris Ducker of Virtual Business Lifestyle will be guest posting here soon!

Look for me possibly showing up at Free Pursuits in the near future!

The World Occurring Right Now

What’s life look like right now, after 8 months of lifestyle design testing? Here’s a very candid run on sentence kind of glimpse.

I still maintain a 9-5, although I’m ruthless about my attention both at work and out of work. Fridays are optional. Singular focus has become a vital practice in block working. I’ve gotten the hang of checking e-mail only a few times a day, I’m a heavy Gmail filter user now, gathering IT Arsenal e-mail, personal, and LDP e-mail all in one spot while parsing off automated bill pays and all account type e-mails. I’m fairly busy but not stressed. I maintain a pretty tight reign on my time through scheduling and calendaring. I use Evernote as a gathering pool of things that need to be scheduled or looked at, this list rarely goes above 10 items. I “hold” actual tasks to tackle either in a calendar or linked Google document in a calendar event. I spend about 2 hours a day after work alternating days between this blog and it’s projects (some mentioned above) and IT Arsenal, the freedom business born from this whole lifestyle design idea. I spend about an hour day while taking in some sort of entertainment responding to e-mails of readers or potentials clients, and I’ve loved these conversations. At times I put this off for current or new client hourly pay type interactions. I’ve been shifting focus to IT Arsenal recently, but doing a lot of similar work on both fronts, which has been networking. I now have a fairly solid “pitch” at IT Arsenal and plenty to talk about with the fun people and stuff I’m working on here to chat it up on social networks and others with similar projects…I can now offer something of value in the conversation. These conversations usually lead to some sort of “we should do something together” vibe that is free to act on, and furthers promotion and continued work on products or my mission on helping out entrepreneurs, small business owners et cetera. I constantly am looking for mentor support on the business front (how to appeal to users, how to launch products and service ideas, ect.), and feel I’m moving slowly in terms of any growth or actual income. I remind myself that consistent smaller amounts of effective work are much more valuable than burning myself out trying to work till 11pm every night. The gradual build of followers, mission, and value will be profitable when I have sellable propositions. I also get to continue do things I love with the pace I’m at, weekends, long hours, trips and steps toward dreams like learning JKD or running triathlons aren’t being sacrificed. I spend about 5 hours a week working on value driven posts and digital product creation. I’m constantly on the lookout for entrepreneur collaboration and lately spend my time in Wordpress, Tweetdeck, Google Analytics, on the phone, and Evernote drumming up content.

It’s frustrating I don’t just have something I can sell except myself (in an hourly way) yet, and I think I would have put more hours in the beginning into something I could, or into learning affiliate selling of products I’ve used and can honestly promote if I could do it all over again. I’m sure I would have earned passive income by now. I blame it on coming from a freelancer’s perspective. On the flip side, I’ve gained some valuable new hourly/project gigs along the way.

I’ve tried to cut back on the scheduling as I find myself in my calendar too often (I’m too analytical and need to prompt action from myself more often), but I have a few big goals I’m digging for in terms of “business goals” this year. I’d like to speak at 4 engagements on how I think I can help entrepreneurs (which will build credibility to cite elsewhere), I’d like to launch 2 products, go to one big entrepreneur conference, get published in a physical publication, and work with one semi big name. On a personal note, I’m done with the snow here in Philly and looking forward to getting outside. I’m a runner and a triathlete and I’m getting sick of working out indoors, it doesn’t help weekend plans with my girlfriend either.

Finally a Request

I’ve entered a contest for my freedom business connected with this project, IT Arsenal. It’s a two minute video in which I describe IT Arsenal and chug a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi Max! Your view counts as a vote so you would be doing me a huge favor if you watched! Thanks!

Tweet this and help a brother out! Check out the contest here.

Well, that was probably the post random post yet, hopefully beneficial/entertaining, what do you think? Leave a comment

Seattle Municiple Archives

If you’ve just found us here at The Life Design Project we’re in the midst of determining the profitability of an idea or service that we’ve derived from a niche interest, before we actually create anything.

Testing if an idea or product (or even an affiliate’s) is likely to sell isn’t as cut and dry as I or I’m sure you would like it to be. In the end, after the several rounds of sales page adjustments, copy-write education, Adwords testing and requested reviews, I’m left only slightly more informed on deciding whether or not to create my product. Geez, that sucks.

Wait, there’s hope! I turned to experienced and outspoken experts and asked them point blank, “What are the three best ways to test feasibility”. (I wanted to find out if I had just wasted time building a mock sales page and learning everything that goes into it.) The answers I received we’re nothing short of gold. Check out the progression of a sales page, real Adwords results, and what the experts had to say below. Note: I qualify these “experts” by knowing and seeing their products and ideas propel their freedom and income. There are hundred of thousands of others claiming to have created income on the web, I actually know these people have.

We’re finally there, decision time, make your idea a real tangible product, or cut your losses and start over. I decide below.

Sales Page / Mock Up Progression

Rough layout and made up sales pitch to professionally reviewed and carefully preened sales page. The evolution is below in picture form.

The real things that impacted change during this mock was reading a free ebook on sales copy, asking popular bloggers with ebooks to review my sales page, (Never underestimate how easy it is to actually connect with people you think you can’t.) and taking the time to build a real e-mail capture campaign. I still have a list of things to update, but it went through enough for Adwords testing.

Adwords Results

At first I thought these were the only results I needed to get to a yes or no about creating my product. I was wrong. Adwords are a costly, powerful, guess and test platform that could leave you more confused about what to do than if you didn’t use them at all. Luckily my results actually pushed me to ask more experienced people what they thought both about my product and how they do testing. My numbers are sort of ambivalent, there’s potential for some income, but no way to really tell if its worth spending a month or three creating the product. All in all, I only spent $50 on Adwords, and that could have been my issue, who knows…guess and test right?

I'm also going to be spending another $50 on Facebook ads over the next few weeks, for experience and just for collecting more information. If you're interested in the nitty gritty Adwords details let me know and I'd be glad to divulge, there not incredibly applicable here.

What the Experts Said

I asked several popular and successful online entrepreneurs a simple question when I found my Adwords results rather lame, I was floored by the immediacy of their response, for which I’m thankful, but more so by the quality information! Here’s what I asked.

Question: What would you say are the three best ways to test the feasibility (as in, gauging whether it will make any money) of a product or service idea before creating it? Is it all Adwords? Did having a large readership help your confidence? Gut feeling?

Adam Baker: Man VS Debt, Untemplater (writer)

“Feasibility testing” is drastically different depending on how you view it.  On a macro level, for let’s say Apple.  I can see where traditional testing of a market is absolutely vital to their operations.  I get that, although I can hardly speak to something of that magnitude with no experience in it. However, I can speak a little to “feasibility testing” on a micro level… for the smallest of small business people.  In the situation of a consulting, offering services, or creating information products on an individual level, I strongly believe traditional testing is over-rated.  Instead of focusing on the sample size of XYZ split test to see what market youshould be in, let your passions and own interest determine your market. If you are truly passionate about the field you are working in, it should be relatively easy to brainstorm products that you want to see or have.  Do you love Fantasy Football?  You don’t need a campaign to figure out what people want.  If you are in it, if you are a fan of the industry… do what you already know is missing. Brainstorm what types of services you would pay for.  What types of product would be valuable enough to give you an edge?  For other perspective ask you close friends or network that also is passionate about the industry.  You don’t need 10,000 clicks.  Just ask 3-5 true fans and you’ll see the patterns that emerge. If you are lucky enough to already have a small audience (from a blog, an existing customer base, or similar situation), you can create a simple poll.  Put some real time into the questions.  Don’t imply answers in the question itself.  Give them as equally weighted options as possible and let the people that are passionate about you, guide your decision.

Glen Alsopp: Viperchill

If I’m promoting something on Clickbank, the grav and %refd gives me an idea
of whether something is selling well and whether a lot of affiliates are making sales. If you make something yourself, then you should generally know the niche so you wouldknow if there is an audience for that kind of product. My real ‘market testing’ comes in the form of keyword research. If you can get traffic, you will make money.

As for your site, excellent job. It looks very professional. One thing I would suggest is highlighting the word ‘can’t’ in the header – that confused me a little.

Cody McKibben: Thrilling Heroics, Untemplater, Business Backpacker

I’d say the most valuable resource is your readers. Once you have a decent-sized, established following, you cannot get any better feedback on your product ideas. You can also learn a lot by talking about your ideas with fellow entrepreneurs, who will critique, help improve, and shoot your ideas out of the sky when necessary. But, if you have a readership, it’s always great to interact with them on Twitter, through blog comments, putting out questions in your blog posts, and using surveys to gauge whether there is a market for what you’re thinking of putting together. The people who read you most are the most likely to buy from you, because you’ve already established that relationship with them and they like & trust you. I’d also recommend doing keyword research with a tool like Market Samurai (although there are a number of free options you can string together out there to do almost the same) to see how much search traffic there is for your niche, how competitive it is for advertising and search engine ranking, and the profitability of those keywords (or, how likely it is that people are in the right mindset to break open their wallets when they search for what you’re offering).

Chris Guillebeau: The Art of Nonconformity

I would start with the existing audience – survey them to understand their needs, and also pitch your ideas to see what resonates. The quality of the relationship with people is much more important than large numbers. I launched my first product with only about 3,000 readers. I know that Adwords is sometimes presented as a good way to evaluate ideas, but the challenge is you have no relationship with people who come to a site that way — so the data may not correlate with how your real audience will respond. The other thing that’s important is to make sure the value proposition is very clear. When people buy the product, exactly what do they receive and how will they be helped? The more well-defined this is, the better.

Andrew Warner: Mixergy

Having a large audience will help you learn what to build. Running a cheap, fake adwords campaign will cost a you a bit more, but it will be faster.

Ashley Morgan:

1. Existing demand for similar products – a saturated market is not a barrier to entry in an increasingly large marketplace like the internet.

2. Feedback from blog posts that have mentioned and hinted at the product prior to release. This is probably the most important consideration, especially if your blog readers are going to be your market (which is probably the case for most people).

3. The “have I been tempted to buy or have I bought similar products” question. If you would buy something similar, or even better if you have bought something similar, then you know that the product is something that someone would buy.

Greg Rollett: Rockstar Lifestyle Design

I created a lead magnet (100 Resources For DIY Musicians PDF). They had to enter their name and email to get it. On the download page I said something to the effect of, look below to download, BUT I wanted to show you something cool I was working on. It was an offer for the New Music Economy product. It is a 4 module course and I only created materials for the 1st module. If people bought it I would obviously make the rest. The course was delivered over email over 4 week, giving me a week in between to create each module. So, I drove leads into my funnel and then I converted that just over 2% for the test product. Now I am doing a launch for the product and its going really, really well.

Idea number 2 is to hold a teleseminar / webinar. Get people to signup and talk to them. So you not only collect leads, but they are going to tell you what they need at the end of the call if you ask for questions and you get an MP3 or video that you can use as part of the product. Hope that helps man. Talk soon.

J. D. Bentley: Wage Slave Rebel

I wouldn’t consider myself an expert because I don’t have any track record or experience to draw from. However, even in my ignorance I know that it’s usually a terrible idea to go on a gut feeling. I at least want to know that, generally speaking, there is an audience for what I want to create even if I’m not completely sure how to go about reaching them. For example, when I was in the planning stages of Simple Weight Loss for Men, it wasn’t a weight loss book for men. It was a weight loss book for anyone. Of course, you don’t have to worry about whether or not there will be an audience for a weight loss book. There will be. It’s one of those endless topics that can be written about again and again. But the problem is that since the topic is so wildly popular and incredibly broad, you’ll find yourself up against lots of competition. So, for me, it was about finding a way to differentiate. Whenever I research an idea I always go to the Google Keyword Tool to see what people are searching for. If people are searching for what you’re making, you know you’ve got an audience. I knew I had a weight loss book that I loved, but I had no idea what would set it apart. In the Keyword Tool I did a quick search for “How to weight loss” so that I’d get a list of “how to” and “weight loss” topics. One of those topics happened to be “Weight Loss for Men”. The keyword “weight loss” gets, on average, 16 million searches per month. Definitely too much to stand out. However, “weight loss for men” got about 22,000 searches. I knew I had found my audience. However, just because you have an audience who wants information that you’re selling doesn’t mean you have an audience willing to pay for the information you’re selling. A simple test is to search Google for your keyword and see if ads pop up and what kind. If there are ads on that keyword then it means someone is making a sale from it. That’s a good sign.

Real Life

My Thoughts on Their Thoughts

Crap. Seems like they aren’t that big on Adwords. Using the keyword tool maybe, gauging their audience, definitely. Now what. I need to focus on that “core” I’ve referenced before. The “core” puts out free content, offers top quality value and builds a group of followers, usually through a blog or service website of some sort. Give value. Your followers in the niche of web design, or animal wigs, or travel or whatever are the people who will tell you if your product is going to go anywhere when you hint at creating it. Give yourself away (maybe even your first product), do stuff for people even slightly interested in what you have to say, when it comes time, they’ll help you out. Growth will ensue. Otherwise or in addition, you can take your chances with the un-perfect science of online keyword research and advertising to launch your idea. Adwords won’t hurt and you never know, but seek balance. Sometimes I wish I had something to sell you guys, the readers here, hah! but that’s not my mission for The LDP, this is all about testing and meeting people, and I love you all for your engagement! If you ever want or need IT advice, want to collaborate or know what I’m working on, feel free to contact me, or head over to IT Arsenal and check me out there.

Was it all for Nothing Then?

Absolutely not. Reading up on copywriting, running Adwords tests and creating a sales page gave me a real feel for a product launch, allowed me to honestly figure out how e-mail campaigns work (from the technical side) and find meaning in Google Analytics. Along the way I consulted with several people to review the sales page and give me their opinion, the entire process shaped my final decision and constantly kept me involved in helping entrepreneurs, my core message at IT Arsenal. I’ve personally walked 4 readers from this blog through my backup advice and heard from several others interested in the product or where the “core” model of IT Arsenal is going. The takeaway for me is to build more of a homebase if I want assurity in testing profitability.

Am I going to create Backup Informer?

Yes, that’s the final say. I wish I had a much bigger crowd at IT Arsenal, one that I could call my “fan base” for gauging whether they will be interested in this product or not. I’ll certainly continue to grow that fan base, but based on the collective results of Adwords testing, expert/reader review here, and my gut feeling, I’m going to give it a try. One of the golden elements of creating a digital product is that I won’t be wasting any actual money as I create it. I’ll be risking my time and effort because I’m still unsure as to it’s profitability potential, but you know what, I’m a whole lot less unsure than I was when I started, and risk is part of the process anyway. It’s just a lot more calculated now. Onward to business growing, follower growing and digital product launching.

What are your thoughts? Leave a Comment.

Our lives are dynamic and so is designing them. There’s a definite flow to creating your freed lifestyle but there are also several constants to refresh and maintain along the journey. Keeping up certain conversations, continually reading books and blogs, and trying out new tools for productivity and growth are among those constants that keep us sharp and ready to succeed. It’s the journey that shapes us, not the goal itself.

In line with sharing my experiences for this project, here are 3 new tools I’ve picked up, 3 new blogs I’m scanning, 3 new ebooks I’m reading, and 3 types of conversations I’m now having in the thick of creating easily managed income with a digital product. Hopefully you can use them as fuel on your road.

These resources are one’s I’ve drawn on for moving through the beginnings of creating an easily managed income product and staying motivated while doing so.

3 Tools

RescueTime – A handy website and tracking tool for time gauging how long you spend at certain websites or using certain apps. I was surprised, I spent a considerable amount of time at my own sites writing. I learned I need to compress these down in writing blocks instead of constantly having them open. They boast an average of 3 hours and 54 minutes a week saved for those who use the tool! Mac/Windows.

BuySellAds – I haven’t used this service yet, but I’ve read up a considerable amount on this service site. A friend who’s using it now, and who I met through this blog recommended it. Whether you want to create your own ads or serve others, you have extreme customizability and hyper targeting. This testimonial puts it well, “BSA is like a shotgun sniper rifle. We spread our brand image in the right areas and can still target specific niches where customers who need web hosting hang out. Fantastic!”

Mailchimp – I’m realizing more and more that e-mail lists, newsletters, or “instant updates” are a staple of any business out there. The ins and outs of setting up a mailing list aren’t difficult but it’s a process to familiarize yourself with. Mailchimp lets you do that for free (for small lists) and their website is top notch. I know a lot users are partial to Aweber, I think that’s more because of their affiliate selling network and advanced features. Regardless, don’t just brush understanding a mailing list off, if you haven’t set one up, do so for kicks, because you will need to do it eventually. It’s the quintessential example of setting something up to be automated by solid forthought. The welcome e-mails, confirmation e-mails and the various nuances like using the users first name or branding the e-mails that go out to your users take more than 10 minutes to sort out, give yourself an hour or two to sit with it. Feel free as always to contact me for any help along the way.

Runner-Ups

Wordpress Subscription Options Plugin – A very simple plugin but so important. This plugin displays those vital favicons for Twitter, Facebook, E-mail and RSS. Unless you build something custom, I found most of the plugins out there to be hoakey. This was plug and play. It’s easy to use your own images too.

Facebook Fan Page – I was never a huge Facebook fan, but it’s so easy to drum up followers and get a coherent page of fan based interaction with a Facebook Fan Page that I’ve been giving it more thought. You need a regular profile to have one, and receive a unique URL at 100 fans. It’s easy to automate and interact with via the various Facebook applications out there. Check out the IT Arsenal Fan page and feel free to add us if you could use free IT advice, links, and occasional support give aways.

Teleport – Mac tool for using multiple computers with one keyboard and mouse. I own a desktop and laptop so when I sit down at home, I can open up my laptop and instantly gain it’s screen and applications for quick use with my existing desktop keyboard and mouse. Vise versa works too for those rare occasions.

Omnigraffle – Mindmapping powertool with easy export to website setup or pdf, I’ll be using this extensively as I build out assistant workflows and wireframes for projects. Mac only.

3 Blogs

Mixergy – Andrew Warner interviews ambitious start ups. Really great flow to his interviews and more importantly I almost always walk away with something actionable. Consistently grabs “big little names”, like Tim Ferris or Gary Vaynerchuck or the guys who make WooThemes and really digs into how they are finding success. A lot of value here.

Virtual Business Lifestyle – A website by Chris C Ducker. I’m relatively new to following Chris but he’s got a great focus on outsourcing and also hits on passive income. He has a fresh very real style and is transparent with his finances. I appreciate that. He’s coming from the perspective of a CEO of an outsourcing company so I don’t know if you can’t get more direct for your outsourcing tips.

The Smart Passive Income Blog – The website sounds cheesy, but the author Pat Flynn has an awesome story. He turned a test he was having trouble passing into an online forum for group learning, then into ad space, and then grew multiple ideas for generating passive income online. He now shares his journey, what he learned and what he’s continuing to learn with others. He’s very accessible, transparent, and focused on creating income. He has a great attitude about it too. Perfect for the income stage of lifestyle design.

3 eBooks

Bootstrappers Bible – A Seth Godin original apparently. In my typical style, I sent Seth an e-mail one day, lasered down to what I’m working on and asked for advice. He responded and recommended this resource and to keep working hard. Typical heh, but a great resource on business starting with zero initial money. Direct free download.

eBooks The Smart Way – A really great overall guide to launching an eBook. There have been some substantial posts on this topic lately as well, but it’s really a topic that works well for a guidebook of sorts. I’m half way through and finding it quickly applicable. Sign up for his mailing list for free download.

Start Over Finish Rich – David Bach is an award winning author and started my financial journey with his book Automatic Millionaire when I was 17. He just finished this book and I’m probably reading it more because I know his content is stellar than anything else. He calls it the action plan to getting your money back on track in 2010. I’m not particularly struggling with management, but talking money in general keeps me interested in business so this is more of a personal find. Amazon 9.99.

3 Types of Conversation

I haven’t really plugged this blog or attempted to popularize it as I’ve seen some of my other brother sites have. Believe it or not, it’s been about 220ish days since this site launched. I feel like Free Pursuits and Thrilling Heroics were just finding their own back when I started. I still haven’t felt the urge to draw attention here as this site continues to be about the journey and recording it’s facts and pragmatic process. I’ve been overwhelmed with the response I have received despite that fact, which for the most part has been a small powerful collective of people who I keep up with constantly. I love that and am so very open to growth. Having said that, I’ve been learning more of the ins and outs of guest posts and media attention for IT Arsenal, the “core” freedom income producing endeavor of this project. I do on the other hand want to start marketing and getting eye balls on that site as it I attempt to bring in real passive income through its works. I’ve been linking up with people I’ve connected with through the life design space and several small business owners. I continue to “network” a vague term for shooting the breeze to feel out how two people can mutually benefit each other. It’s fun for the most part.

Building on my last point, as I continue to network with others for IT Arsenal, it’s caused me to think about what I’m really offering and the products I’m developing. A common question I get is “send me something showing me what you do”. It’s been a big shift from freelancer/lifestyle design blogger to IT Arsenal product and services entrepreneur. I didn’t expect it, but creating a mini powerpoint, video or outline is really beneficial in pitching some sort of collaboration between you and that other website, blogger, small business owner, or speaking venue. I know I want to do Apple IT support and I’m building a backup guidebook, but I didn’t realize that when speaking on it, that I’m really offering process design workflows and systems for productivity and outsourcing. The latter sounds more appealing to small business owners and online entrepreneurs, even though when it gets down to it, I’ll end up building guidebooks, documentation and optimizing their computers for using what I’ve found to the most effective software for whatever their end goal is, marketing, photoshop, backing up, ect. A new perspective, but the same work I love.

Business meet-ups and mutually beneficial projects. I’m looking to establishing myself as a credible speaker and creator, something highly recommended to sell a product by others who’ve done it and the 4 Hour Work Week as well. Along that path I’ve asked a local university if I could give a free talk on the technology for starting a small business online and I’ve started looking through meetup.com and barcamp.com for venues to talk to small business owners and give talks about anything to anyone who will listen. I’ve come across others with similar goals or those looking to create similar products which have led to potential collaboration. It’s great to have something in the pipeline. I already have a partner for my next product on workflows, am collaborating on a lifestyle designer support application, and linked up with a few people for potential cross sales.

I wonder….what are you finding useful lately and why? Leave a comment.

photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³

Adwords, copywriting, SEO, headers, <title>, keywords….Online business is a lot about words and how you can make them dance at your will. Stealing an awesome phrase from an awesome movie, we all need to be “warrior poets” when it comes to our verbiage online. Luckily this takes more effort than skill.

In our current quest to test how viable a product idea is without wasting money or time, the most thought intensive piece of the puzzle so far has easily been the words. The title of the product, the copy of the sales page, and the advertising wordage to be specific.

I trailed out a week of Adwords for my undeveloped guide. I did it mostly to finally do it. As previously mentioned, I finally escaped my mind and have been keen to produce lately, even if just for experience. I kept a particularly small budget ($25) and used some keywords I had been analyzing (keywords) for weeks. My goal was simply to gain data on who clicked through to buy, and who left me their e-mail address. I knew I’d be revising before making a real decision but I needed to pull this trigger.

Results

• $25 Spent
• 387 hits
• 24 buy now clicks
• 4 e-mail sign-ups
• Keyword for Adwords : “how to backup itunes”
• Playing off the popularity (number of searches) of iTunes

The results were interesting, mildly positive, but what intrigued me more was after reading a rather lengthy (245pg) e-book on copy writing, I clearly saw how much my words needed to improve. Our words, our language as a whole, is everything when communicating with people. It’s clear any entrepreneur, lifestyle designer, or whatever you want to call yourself could always use a refresher on effective communication. The right words are like magic. I wasn’t present to this.

So I took the next steps in realizing this mock page needed one of two things to go through a real trial. I needed to hire a copywriter, or take a crack at real copywriting myself. You can imagine I chose the latter (to keep costs down, I was confident and well I’m cheap), but I didn’t even see this until after reading a book on copywriting. It’s clear that language is something that easily passes us by as a vital tool.

It’s a shame on the one hand because it adds time and effort to the feasibility testing of an idea, but it’s also a tool you’ll need and use continually as you go forward with developing ideas for income. The e-book I read was Make Your Words Sell and it’s free to download (scroll to the bottom). I’ll be summarizing my takeaways of the book in a future post and below I’ll explain the first steps in really writing to sell, and what created nearly the entire content of my re-write.

I wouldn’t mind outsourcing this type of work by the way, but locally with someone I could call regularly. It might seem impossible to ever let someone else write the message for your idea. I can understand that, but think of all the successful products out there, now ask if their creators also wrote there sales message? Do you think the guy(s) who build the Playstation also write’s its ads? or that Tim Ferriss doesn’t consult with other people or do rounds of testing before releasing written content? Don’t be afraid to do the same, remember relationships are fuel not just for you, but your ideas as well.

What to do now. Well, to build or not to build and in order to figure that out I need real feedback with some real copy this time.

Word Magic, Copy Writing Basics

• If you’ve never sold a product or written to sell, read something on it. It’ll help. Again, here’s the resource I used. Make Your Words Sell
• Use awesome headers, but avoid the word awesome.
• Express benefits, not features. People don’t care about features.
• Come up with 30 benefits by SWATing them. Take a feature and then ask, “so what?” to get another benefit. Come up with benefit after benefit until you have a huge list. Your sales page will develop from this. <- This was my biggest take away from MYWS.

If you’re interested in more details, let me know in the comments and I’ll really expand everything I took away from the book in one of my typically overly detailed posts.

Real Life

• First version copy before reading anything. (View)
• Second version when I was half way through Make Your Words Sell. (notice header changes, a lot still needed) (View)
• Here’s some feedback I received on the second version of copy from a real copywriter who I met through this blog. (View)

Next steps are to perfect the copy, revise the Adwords used, and up the budget to $100.

What do you think? Know any good copy writing resources? Leave a comment.

photo credit: kalidoskopika

It’s awesome to have a solid process scheduling system, but the point is to streamline production, not manage 1000 tasks. Ever feel unproductive despite your best efforts? There should be a built in alert for calendar and task systems that simply says, STOP! finish something first idiot.

After finally identifying that this past week, I was able to free myself and get something done. A refresher in singular focus and the visual below really set me straight. I’m finally doing the actions that will actually propel me to freedom income, the stage we’re currently in. It’s not building websites, or tweeting, or stumbling, and it’s especially NOT creating a product. It’s pinpointing my ideal customer, finding a pain or need, and mock testing ideas for realistic results on profitability. The content I’ve been talking about recently, but sluggishly acting on. Here’s how I, and you can realize what mode of process your stuck in and how to move past it and get something done.

Okay so, confessions first. I’m not nearly as far along as I’d like to be in mock testing my first product idea. I don’t have any grand excuses except that life’s hard. I haven’t “geo arbitraged” my way across the world. I’m still hustling the 9-5, creating an infrastructure of tools, documents, and sites to launch products and services while tracking everything I do. I promise to bring you that raw reality with the notes on exactly how it all goes down, screw ups included. You don’t have to repeat them though. I’ve simply been focusing on the wrong tasks and stuck in the wrong mindset.

How to Identify Where You are, and Move On. A Visual.

There are 3 modes of processing life. You are either taking something in, (reading, watching tv, smelling) thinking about something, (in your head, planning, organizing, scheduling) or you are putting out (typing, jumping, producing). I know these are loose definitions, and the realists here will argue they are blended but from a holistic view, these principles apply.

Click to Enlarge

The key to productivity as a whole is in our ability to cycle through the necessary modes until a task is done. Awareness of this is the big first step, identifying if you’re stuck is the next, and moving on is what makes things happen.

STOP, take a good look above.

We often don’t know how to approach a big goal, and struggle with the long list of tasks that need to happen in order to complete something like “sell a product” which consist of hundred of tasks. Don’t ever tell me it’s as simple as a website and some SEO. I will kill you! We naturally hover to our strengths or preference and get stuck there.

1st. Lesson Learned

I’ve probably spent more time on building out a website to launch my ideas from, than I have actually testing my first idea (Backup Informer) to see if it’s profitable. I’d recommend not doing that. Along the way I pretty much paralyzed myself with analysis. I allowed the amount of business ideas, post ideas, feedback, e-mails and general planning to lock myself up. Time wasted planning and juggling instead of taking in fresh content, or producing something. It’s important to have sustainability, but if you’re not focusing on profitable content, you’re kinda just twiddling your digital thumbs. Seek balance, the visual above will help.

2nd. Lesson Learned

The whole point of the freedom business isn’t to build an empire, it’s to turn easily managed money on an idea…apparently that got away from me. I believe my freelancer background had something to do with that. You might use plenty of shared skills that a freelancer uses, but you want to be an entrepreneur.

“If you act like an entrepreneur, but work like a freelancer, sooner or later you’ll go nuts or work yourself to death.” – Seth Godin

Entrepreneurs build things that can live or die without them, they build projects that are bigger than themselves. Working through Ramit Sethi’s earn1k.com content actually helped me with that. Although his program is more about advancing your freelancing skills, it made the difference between freelancing and being an entrepreneur cut and dry. I never had that distinction before. It’s okay to wear both hats sometimes, but I believe the whole concept behind freedom businesses and automation, heavily suggest moving from freelancer to entrepreneur, or straight to entrepreneur. (I could ramble on about this but I think it’s clear here)

—

The graphic above really put me in my place. I was so blindly struggling to plan out months, or even just the next 20 tasks I wanted to accomplish in various projects that I have going on that I consistently failed to act. I stopped reading, I stopped doing, I was in an iCal cloud. I finally moved past that when I got this. I hope these thoughts and graphic will help you do the same. Again, perspective reigns supreme and clarity creates a path for moving forward!

Go forth and produce, updates on freedom business results later, comments welcome.

PS. On a tech side note, I’ve heard one or two comments about my site loading slowly, if you’re experiencing this, can you let me know in the comments? Thanks!

What do you think? Leave a comment.

photo credit: roger.karlsson

Sustainability: An important note on building a core business along with your freedom business products and services.

One thing thats important to note during this whole information product virtual business creation process is to spend time on that front/core of your business from time to time. You certainly can “go mercenary” with your freedom business product, but having a core really impacts your ability to promote or drive any sort of campaign behind your product when you eventually do create it. Let me explain.

Developing a core model allows you to grow and change but keep continuity. Think about how the big wigs do it…Tim Ferriss doesn’t actually say “have a blog” or “have a homebase”…but he did it with the 4 hour work week  (his flagship muse) before the book launch…he had a huge community, he even held competitions for who could create the biggest mini communities on Ning…and in his book he phrases it as “becoming an expert”…and the path to get there means going to colleges and talking, recording your sessions for future productizing, citing those accomplishments to get on tv or into publications…basically creating a following through these efforts, creating credentials to launch big, to be a phenomenon and gain your initial wave of true followers…he and we digital creators do the same through our blogs and media involvement. (although just recently in a Q/A with Tim he stressed doing offline promotion) It’s for this reason why I think its vital to create this core, homebase, “front” to your freedom products…otherwise you are dust in the wind…you have no backing, you have no connection or credentials living anywhere. Balance this with the soft launch and mock testing of your product and service ideas, the more you are involved and mention your possible and growing product the more you’ll realize it’s going succeed or fail and the quicker you can move on to the next idea. You can still pull off automated income without that core, but it will probably be much harder to sustain.

Real life example

I’ve “platformatized” my IT business even when I thought I couldn’t. I’m going to be taking IT support for entrepreneurs and small business owners to a different level. The field or search term “tech support” right now is riddled with useless forums by users who “kinda know what they are talking about” who ask weakly worded questions and then go back and forth for 20 forum pages trying to find a answer. Other solutions for small businesses owners are to go to company support sites where no one is willing to step in their shoes or post on craigslist, as I’ve aptly found out. I hope to rip that all apart…answer questions for free, with superior quality answers and keep myself in the game of creating products or services people find valuable to use when dealing with their technology struggles.

It will be different than hunting for clients, the whole negotiation process and freelancing type thing. I struggled with this in my conversations and recent readings of Ramit’s blog (iwillteachyoutoberich.com) because he continues to talk about living a great life by going the path of freelancing. I struggled because, yes I could go back to freelancing and up my rates, use some of these lifestyle design tactics to get bigger clients or be more well known and then charge more, but I’d still be doing the hard work day in and day out, and not building something I could use to sustain income later. There’s some mix of that freedom in freelancing but not really. Maybe I’m way off but Ramit isn’t freelancing? He built a resource, wrote a book, and now is running programs like earn1k.com so he can create community and continue to sell his book. He did his front work, now he manages it and sees the paychecks…I don’t think he’s freelancing and I don’t think he would take a consulting gig from a mom and pop.

I don’t mean to say you can just sit down and write a book, or make a product, you have to go through being educated on your topic first, through the experiences of trying to make it happen, but why not start that process knowing you’ll be building something to easily maintain and move you ahead, not simply put more money in your pocket. Money isn’t the goal, time and freedom are.

It may take a little time, it may just mean putting in the effort to make sure my responses are completely coherent with citations, research and ample instruction for non technical minds. It’s what I do..I’ll actually enjoy that part of it. I’m not taking Lifehacker or Dell by storm, this core structure isn’t supposed to take over my life, but instead keep me involved with the products and services I want to build out and test. It’s more than a “bio” page on your ideas, it’s that “personal brand” thing people keep talking about. This part isn’t the autopilot income, but it’s the center of quality, it’s the becoming an expert and gaining experience while the gears of creating products out of these experiences are turning and burning for freedom income. For those office workers, and I can’t believe I’m making this analogy but it’s like the “corporate office” for your business. It’s vital. I see that more and more as I try to justify creating a product that I could give to the world. I think this piece often gets looked over in the myriad of other “virtual business” coaching, training, pitching type websites. They bring you along on developing an idea, breaking into a niche, and perhaps launching a product or bla bla various tactics in doing all that along the way, but it all falls apart for me if I don’t have continuity from my trials and errors. How about you?

The literal grunt work.

itarsenal.com was just a portfolio, un-SEO optimized, stock site on the web. Non blog. Probably similiar to something a lot of you have now, or the offline equivalent of a resume. Now, the site is a resource, and it’s a hybrid portfolio but that’s not its focal point. The focus is on a call to action for anyone and everyone (although niched to Mac small business/entrepreneur users) to go there and ask any type of IT question and get a great response back. The questions will be posted on the blog, as will the thorough answers…each post can be promoted depending on it’s worth.

I don’t expect flocks of people to actually send me questions, but instead I’ll answer the questions I get daily, or go out and find from my small business clients and friends. It’ll use various social medias, and present any public acknowledgements to qualify an expert level status as merited and to be further used in freedom products. (not that hard) These posts can be SEO optimized, shared, turned into a product later, built on, guest posted like Ramit’s recent guest post on Tim Ferriss’s blog (those two are buddying up for exposure and it makes sense)…other calls to action on the site provide actual services to pay for like the traditional consulting and design work or products already built. I’m not giving up clients and real work altogether!!

All these tasks will be made easier with the use of the tactics already covered on automation and outsourcing too. In the end it’s about providing great content to keep me in the game of  providing great products to sell either loosely or tightly connected with IT Arsenal for passive income. At the very least its giving me fresh problems to provide solutions for. It’s becoming my mental glue.

Warning: Don’t get hung up like I did on making this core/front site similar to a product. I wasted time on trying to make it super niche with keywords or game planning about how to drive people to it. Products, services, ideas that are fresh for mock testing and trial launching are  much more important as they actually have potential to bring in money. Let them retroactively shape this creation. Do the basics. I wasted hours on trying to craft my “core” site and in the end realized I neglected acting on my current backup product, the only thing besides freelancing that will bring in money. Dumb!

So…developing my freedom product has also developed or platformatized my core branding, creating a homebase. I’d suggest anyone living out lifestyle design do something similar in their niche. It doesn’t have to be as involved as I made my site, I just so happen to be in the IT field. All your nitty gritty details don’t need to be on display there (thats what blogs like this are for) but it can constantly host your campaigns and brightest ideas…until one lights up, like my friend David Walsh’s recent Source Control, which was recently linked up on entrepreneur.com!

What do you think? Do you have something similar, am I nuts? Leave a comment.

photo credit: Tim Morgan

As the Adword testing of my information product flies around the interwebs I wanted to offer you some more varied experiences at The LDP in the next coming weeks. I’ll be adding to my Monday posts randomly throughout the week with some different lifestyle design topics, features and insights. I hate to break continuity on our income stage so I’ll do my best to keep things related, but hey that’s what blog categories are for.

On top of that thought, you should always be doing something more to build your financial freedom and designed lifestyle, whether it be re-activating a failed practice (I’ve doing that with singular focus lately using e.ggtimer for productivity) or reaching out to others. Lifestyle design is much more about laying tracks, relationally, mentally, and even physically for a future you’ve already visualized or goal set than it is about selling something or doing any ONE thing. So, in efforts to keep recording what I’m doing, you’re getting it all. Today’s post is on my varied conversations with Ramit Sethi, author of I Will Teach You to Be Rich over the last 5 months.

Ramit wrote a very obvious sounding book on finances, saving, and being smart with money. His style is what I recognize as unique about him and the more I read  his blog and interacted with him, the more that stuck out. Especially his frankness, I wouldn’t be surprised if he simply told people listening, “Stop asking me dumb questions, you guys are stupid, this is what you need to do…. ” He does it in a very approachable and intelligent manner though, the guys no slouch coming out of Stanford.

Okay so those are the basics, on the Lifestyle Design front, you’ve maybe seen him with Tim Ferriss as they’ve done a few video’s together. Ramit’s blog, like Tim’s is also very similarly engaging, case study filled and interestingly written. Posts are a little too often for me. I’ll be honest, I haven’t read his whole book through, I’m not struggling with saving or making investments, I’m much more interested with income/freedom and lifestyle at this point. I think if you want solid financial tips go to www.getrichslowly.org for basics and beyond. Ramit’s book will put money in your pocket too.

Anyway, I approached him maybe 4 months ago, shot him an e-mail out of the blue and said in a pompous way, trying to attract attention I’m sure, that I wanted to work with him. I made a song and dance about working with him to test and advise me on business (very freedom business oriented) ideas, or use me as a technical advisor. The title of the e-mail was “to the real ramit.” I was trying to do just as I’ve seen others do and would still advise, get in touch with the super powers in certain niches, gain exposure, network, build credibility and really help someone who’s made it in your mind.

UPDATE 7:02PM: He actually called me out on this e-mail citing it as a “bad e-mail” on his last blog post. Hah! Hilarious, we actually posted about the same e-mail at relatively the same time. I didn’t read about it until just now.

I think it’s even a tactic in the 4 Hour Work Week. To my surprise the guy responded not once but everytime! albeit short sentences, cordial, but informative. In the end, he said something along the lines of not interested. Looking back on the e-mail, I wasn’t specific enough, I was blanketing that I could help him out and I wanted to join ranks, but little else. It was junk. That’s where that ended, but I learned something. People you don’t think you can reach, you absolutely can reach, but have something dead set specific to ask them for, or about. Be short.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I’ve been following his blog loosely. He started focusing more on making income, and most recently turning your skills into freelancing. I attend a few of his free Wed night, Ustream office hour sessions (YouTube preview). Which by the way, are a killer, viral, easy to do publicity service action. I threw my questions in on how to make my tech service niche and skills profitable, again I had trouble being specific, half knowing I already knew what products I had in mind, yet dumb enough not to site them.

So I write him again…heck why not. Here’s where I give him real respect and credibility. He responded to about 20 e-mails over the next week with me. It’s funny, one thing I put too much effort into when setting up my blog and business sites was how I wanted my e-mails to look to people. Ramit was obviously not writing to a CEO, but he was down to earth, used no capitalization or signature. That could just be him, or he could be cutting out grammar and actually responding to the XXX e-mails he gets a day. Our topics varied; a sys admin for his blog, traffic credibility on websites trackers like compete.com, and what to do with my “freelancing”, I even got him to go look and comment on the information product I’m looking to launch.

Ok, So What?

Here’s the tie in back to lifestyle design and income. I’ll say it as I’ve said it before, relationships are fuel. You need to be reaching out to those in the area’s you look to succeed. I have no clue if I’ll talk to Ramit again, in my opinion I’ve made myself look like a complete novice when it comes to business ideas or launching anything. Fact is, I learned I am, despite having a strong technical background. I’ve made a connection though, joined up for his earn1k.com program at his recommendation and suggestion to jump to a higher tier with the program, and despite him saying I’d most likely make zero sales with Backup Informer. He gave me confidence I’d learn a lot from it, I’m on the right path, and that if I wanted, I could write him again and get an ear.

He might yell at me as he didn’t want me to share exact e-mails but here are a few intelligent comments he made I think you could use and I don’t think he’d mind me sharing.

• best advice: ask specific questions to get specific answers. do the broad soul-searching on your own, with your family/friends, and using google.
• figure out who wants what you’re offering. dont just jump in blindly…start with your GOALS

So…relationships are fuel people, keep building them and your future. Well, my egg timer for 30 minutes has about 27 seconds left so I’ll end here and link this post up later.

What do you think? Leave a comment.

photo credit: laffy4k

Our from the ground up freedom business is just about ready for a soft launch and some real profitability results. It seems it has taken longer here in the blog world than it has in real world hours. The holidays, a cold, reflection posts and some 9-5 job chaos has chopped up the 10-20 hours it has actually taken to get all this off the ground. This post is to recap the last few weeks of actionable items for reflecting, automating, and improving. It’a also to shed truth on the real uses of Google Adword keywords in comparison to SEO keywords for our mock process. Bonus! Free workflow for your VA or yourself on finding valuable data on keywords.

Backup Informer, my aptly named freedom business is progressing well. The initial mock development has furthered into design touch ups, setting up e-mail capture (Mailchimp), traffic tracking in Google Analytics, and tutorial reading on writing good copy (MYWS!), keyword testing, and the infamous Google Adwords are launching now. Adwords research and testing is easily the most convoluted and frustrating process to the newcomer, there are some important distinctions to be made. You can see it evolve at http://backupinformer.itarsenal.com

In educational refreshment, I’ve bulleted tools and process below for getting your idea off the ground, from start to where we are currently.

The freedom business or “muse” has a few identifiable phases within the creating income stage, the whole point of which is to automate income. Product Idea, Mock Development, Soft Launch, Product Development, Hard Launch. Automate and repeat. Peep the strat below.

Idea Development

These sometimes come at you like lighting, other times you just have to dig. I’ve explained in earlier posts about sticking to your interests and working outward. I keep a working document of all the products/ideas I’d like to launch or try out. You’ll continue to hear about them here, and I’m always open to joint ventures!

Timeframe: Anytime.

Resources: Napkin, Google Docs, You name it.

Initial Efforts

Initial research (building momentum, get us commited)

Mock page structure and hosting (basic visuals)

Ballpark a few keywords for search

Copy (make it up right now)

Metrics (sign up for accounts, get familiar)

Timeframe: 2-5 hours

Resources: Google Analytics, Web Hosting (Godaddy is my choice), check out iWeb, hire me to design your mock page or google a sales page creator. I suggested checking out Google page Creator since their open to templates now, could be a great place to start looking.

Mock 2nd Pass

Clean up the mock visuals and layout loose ends

Implement Metrics tools (Google Analytics)

Implement E-mail Capture (Mailchimp)

Copy Writing Intelligence (reading on copy writing)

Timeframe: 2-5 hours

Resources: I used eCover Suite Elite to create a physical representation of my information product, you should too. It requires Adobe Photoshop. If thats out of your price range, contact me, or outsource. I tweaked graphics I pulled off the web or screen shots of my computer for further visuals. Screen shots are easy to do, check out Sumo Paint for free online image editing. I have no clue about copy writing so I’m reading a free ebook called Make Your Words Sell, a few times over at the recommendation of a friend. As mentioned before I used Mailchimp for the e-mail capture.

Here are the before and after pictures from the initial efforts to the 2nd pass.

Present Day State

Copy rewrite and soft launch. Then depending on results, tweak copy and adword keywords and retest, continue on to development, or scrap the idea. That’s where I lie now, in soft launching the product through advertising for a marketability gauge. But first…

The Truth about Search Engine Advertising (AKA Google Adwords)

In my research of setting up the correct tools for the mock I’ve come across some truth on Google Adwords or Search Engine Advertising in general and it’s time to share. I may be in my own world, but this is how I see it. Using Google Adwords to drive “paid traffic” to your product is the quickest and most measurable way to gauge the marketability and profitability of your product. It’s the best measuring stick we have for a mock run without a real product in hand. I think it’s a bit rough, and those who make money only through Adwords I’d liken to mercenaries. Here’s why I believe that.

• It’s not SEO  
  • The type of keywords you want are not always the same, they’re cheaper and don’t have the quality you want from SEO keywords you’d use to organically rank your page. You’re not driving interest to a product or website, you’re driving interest to an Ad.
• You can always be out-bought.
• If you had a real product, you’d want people to find you through natural search, affiliates can pay people to find you. Putting the cart before the horse should only be for testing.
• People don’t like ads in general, it’s a game.
• The results aren’t of high quality. Don’t trust them farther than you can throw them. Meaning, don’t expect conversation rates to be that telling of the quality of your product, but loosely gauge interest and simply if people are really going to click that buy now button.
• In general, these thoughts come from a background that traditional advertising is changing and going away with the continued rise and use of the internet.

How to get the most out of keywords semi quickly. There is a daunting silly amount of “how to’s” and paid products for developing profitable keywords and processes on driving buying traffic to your product. I did my homework and have a technical background of exactly how the “keyword” and ad process works. Although it’s not a difficult concept, everyone is hucking their own “best method” and it’s near impossible to get straight information. The info is also murkeyed with the fact that similar or identical keyword research and tools are used for SEO and organic ranking of websites, which is a completely different target from Ads and not what we are after right now. (We will be soon) Adwords are less complicated, or at least take less work than SEO.

Linked below is a workflow (easily given to a VA) of how I proceeded with finding data on my keywords and what I’ll be launching with for the Backup Informer. Special thanks to Alan Perlman and Greg Rollett who brainstormed with me.

• First, realize the keywords we are looking for should have little competition but high search volume. Google pagerank doesn’t matter because we’re looking to get on the ads, not the search listings for these words.
• Brainstorm keywords, be as long tail but popular (meaning high search volume) as you can. There seems to be a ton of mystery around finding these magic words, I just kept at it, “search and destroy” with words that you could imagine people would use to find your product. Yes being creative helps, but just as the hundred sales pitch pages out there will tell you, it’s not magic, it will take some hard thinking, trial and error…experience is more valuable than the right words right now. At least I’m telling myself that and just going forward.
• Muse/Niche Keyword Market Research <- make a big list of words, and then run it through this list for the information you’ll need to move forward

I’ll be soft launching this week, and reporting on results with numbers and screen shots in two weeks time. I’ll report on budget and all the over the top detail you typically see here. Let’s see if this thing can fly. More to come on how to use those ad systems too, but don’t expect too much, Google does a pretty good job of providing how to actually use it’s Adword program once you have keywords to use. Whew…feels good to be busy and taking on the world, I hope you are too.

Hello! In celebration of The LDP’s growth and honestly, just to pass time as the research developments continue with both the Backup Informer and the core of our freedom business effort stage here at the project, IT Arsenal, I’m introducing The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content Giveaway! Long title right?

It’s fairly simple, 3 ways to win and plenty of winners for a free no questions asked AND shipped copy of the book anywhere, global! The 4 Hour Work Week isn’t perfect but it’s insightful and sparked this project so it’s fitting that it’s the first giveaway. Author Tim Ferriss just updated his New York Times best seller many years running with 100 pages of fresh up to date content, grab it free! Details below!

UPDATE: 1st Winner! @bill_lyons. Thanks Bill!

UPDATE: 2nd Winner Cole Tucker, who had the most votes for his Life Design question on what he’d like to learn most! Check it out here. Congrats!

Way 1

Follow me on twitter @robgranholm and re-tweet this post. Easy!

A winner will be randomly selected by Friday 1/15

In addition to the first winner, the 100th RT will receive a free book AND I’ll donate $25 to Charity: Water in your name.

In addition addition, the 500th RT will receive a free book, I’ll donate $50 to Charity: Water AND I’ll provide an hour of free coaching to them in any area of IT support or lifestyle design.

Way 2

Submit a question here (google moderator requires google username) for what you’d like to learn about lifestyle design in the beginning of 2010 (the next 3 months).

The questions will be reviewed by me and a small team and voted on by the community (or whoever you send there to vote for your question) through Friday 1/22. The question with the most votes will receive a free book!

Way 3

Subscribe to the RSS feed and send me an e-mail at robgranholm @ gmail.com telling me you’ve done it. The 50th person to do so will also receive a free book!

Do one or all three! I’ll post the winners here!

Progress Update

Don’t think this is a content cop out! I’ve been recording and taking notes on a weekly basis for the ongoing product mock, developing both the front and back elements of a freedom business along with a few other life design wisdoms. Plenty to share. “Muse” or “Freedom Business” Mock Product Updates, Keyword Processing, Adwords, Freedom Business Sustainability, and in the distance, the lifestyle design timeline guide. 2010 lifestyle design testing has only just begun.

photo credit: Rodrigo_Soldon

I’m afraid the LDP will be indisposed for this Mondays post at an all week event. I’m sorry! There’s still plenty going on under the hood. Most notably, freedom business updates and the New 4 Hour Work Week Giveaway. More to come as 2010 embarks. I’m psyched!

If you’re feeling now’s the time to make some changes in your life, shed bad habits and make real strides toward more time, freedom, and financial liberty take a look at a previous post entitled How to Reboot your Brain and Regain Life Control. It’s a stellar practice for seeing where you are, and gaining clarity for the next steps on your path. It might just what you need if you’re looking for that fresh start feeling in the new year.

FREE TREAT! If you’re a fellow wordpress blogger and are always looking for creative images for your posts, here’s a true gem. Photo Dropper is a plugin that searches up free to use, creative commons Flikr images from within the WP compose screen. Sick. http://www.photodropper.com/

Cheers!

Today’s post is a little more introspective as I’ve had a bit more time to reflect while traveling during some winter vacation. I figured now would be a good time to share more about who I am (and what I own!) as internet traffic dips and people are busy with their families and the holidays. The short and sweet of my thoughts here look at the measurable truth behind gaining more than just closet space by taking inventory of what you own and ditching the junk.

I’ve made a lot of changes in the last 7 months, mostly revolving around life efficiency/effectiveness, material possessions, and creating an easily managed business. These changes so far have come prominently in how I think, but cascade more and more into my everyday activities. Activities which have effected two things in my life, belongings and income. Since I’ve been focusing on creating income, I’m taking a look at what I own and how a practice to minimize what you own will buy you more time, earn you more money, and free your mind to think more clearly.

Income through Inventory

I am not a minamalist. It seems to be the latest craze these days but I haven’t joined. I think it’s because I’m in a relationship and I also love the idea of building a home base. I might be a mediumist? or perhaps a utilitarian. I don’t think it’s wrong to be a minimalist, but I don’t think it was suggested by lifestyle design either. I like the idea of having freedom that allows me to pick up and go at the drop of a dime, but living out of a book bag at all times is a no go for me.

I don’t think it has to be that way either, the distinction is having the power to travel (temporary  moves, or “mini retirements”) as to capitalize on the money you are already earning, not BECAUSE you need to earn dollars more cheaply (doing this will lock you in and inherently defeat your minimalist lifestyle because you’ll end up putting down roots). I advocate you should be earning income before you travel like this, it’s a core facet of lifestyle design that people often swap. To each his own, but I’m calling it how I see it.

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH INCOME? Having less often lets you make more. I certainly don’t suggest hoarding up crap you never use and as mentioned in previous posts, I’ve taken to analyzing what I own monthly to question whether I really need it. The process has earned me both time and freedom (and a little money), the currency of any smart person. The whole point isn’t to trash stuff you don’t use, although that’s the core action, but to understand how much you gain by being aware of what is around you.

What we own ends up owning us.

Wise words. Our possessions take up a certain amount of mental RAM (always being present in our brain in some fashion) not to mention physical ROM (actual space in our lives). Our heads are overloaded as it is, it’s never a bad idea to break down what you own to free up valuable mental real estate and put some front money into your reserves for creating a freedom business. The problem is this process sucks away time we already don’t have.

The Streamlined No Time Minimizing Process

I took a cue from Colin Wright and snapped some pictures of just about everything I own one day. I don’t know if he intended it to be a practice, or merely a exemplary showing of how little he owns (72 things!) but I immediately thought how I could turn this into a quick and dirty, streamlined process for minimizing. I thought it would be interesting to see all my possessions in picture form and help my monthly ritual (stage 2: elimination) of minimizing my belongings so I wandered around my house one night taking snap shots of everything I own. The process took me about 5 minutes.

Seeing everything I own in picture form immediately set off some triggers for things I don’t use any longer and should trash or sell. I was also able to view those pictures throughout the day at work, on the train, whenever I had a few minutes.

Seeing my belongings in pictures gave me the detached view I needed of them, I was able to quickly drum up a list of things to trash.

Since I knew what to throw away, the process became almost instant. All of 15 minutes later and I had a pile to toss, or take individual snapshots of for posting on eBay or Craigslist. (hint: Use a VA to do this from stage 3: automation)

The Benefits are Many.

Sure your closet is a little cleaner but the other benefits are much more important.

Time saved from going through your clothes, scanning through your books, sitting down to work or any number of the other minutia tasks you perform throughout the day. You don’t realize that moving that empty box from the iron you bought every time you put the towels away sucks away time from your life.

Mental freedom from thinking through what you own, or what needs to be maintained or updated, or taken care of each time you travel, or take on a new job or explore a new idea or simply get dressed. This is the most elusive benefit because we simply can’t quantify the mental drain that ratty sweatshirt you refuse to get rid of has on us. Let me clearly tell you it’s weighing your down, it’s costing you seconds that count to minutes and hours each year you don’t take a long look at it, remember it’s memories and trash it.

Pocket money for a month of eJunkies online store, or for purchasing that domain name for your future business, or the next book you’re looking to buy.

Lifestyle Design effects what you own, and improves both your mental and real world income.

Who is Robert Granholm.

Below is my most recent inventory gallery, I’ve already cut the fat from several of these pictures.

What does your inventory look like? I don’t think you should jump on the minimalist train and sell everything, but start taking into account how what you own, is owning you and effecting your income.

More about Rob

I’m just a guy with a thirst for new experiences in search of a doorway that will allow me to have them. I’m just like you in many ways as we all share similarities. I have my dreams and I’ve discovered that finding them is a reality, I just have to plan and think about getting them. That’s the very first spark of lifestyle design, or bluntly said, thinking about life past the next paycheck. I don’t think my life is miserable, in fact I believe I’m blessed beyond belief, but challenged for pulling more out of my time on earth. It’s in my character to help others and persevere when met with a new challenge or skill. I think these things are common amongst lifestyle designers.

I’m 25, I know technology well as it’s my profession and have a wonderful girlfriend of almost 3 years. I’m blessed with saving grace. I grew up extroverted but find myself introverted more and more. I’ve set up a convenient work situation at a consulting firm until I can free myself financially. I’ve made it a life challenge to be in great physical shape and run triathlons yearly. I constantly find myself limited by money and time. I want to learn 100’s of new skills, I want to talk about them, I want to travel, I want to teach and I want to play. I have a hard time relaxing sometimes.

In the works.

The Updated 4 Hour Work Week Book Giveaway!

• Details are still in the works, but stay tuned for your chance at a free copy of the newly released Expanded 4HWW.

Visual updates: a little logo and sidebar work. Feedback welcome.

An interactive timeline that will allow users to view the suggested lifestyle design stages in detail. (the process followed here at The LDP) Each stage in the timeline will include several development points and link to actionable information and posts. Users can identify where they are, where they want to be, and where they need to revisit.

A resource book on mock testing a freedom business from ground zero.

Continued breakdown of lifestyle design and its real life application.

• Currently testing the freedom business “muse” development process and its automation.

Looking Back…

Some of our accomplishments in the last 6 months…

Contacted and spoke with two talented authors, Sam Carpenter, and Gary Vaynerchuk. Sam has contributed here at the blog and continues to be a resource and Gary will be involved in some shape or form, interview or advising most likely in 2010.

Roughly 3k hits a month, 250+ RSS subscribers. Thanks! Small but growing.

New friends, new relationships, and networking opportunities.

A few comments from our journey so far…

David Walsh: Massively valuable bank of resources here Rob. You’re the real deal and things are about to blow up for you. It’s not a matte…
(The Life Design Project | Resources for Freedom )

Monica O’Brien: Rob, my experience with VA’s has been great. It is some work upfront, but man is it worth it. Great post – great primer
(Results | Outsourcing and Automation in Freelance )

stressful life: Right on !! Damn I’m getting addicted to your blog
(Life’s Easy Mode in 3 Steps | Automate Your System )

MS Scientist: Am I the only chick here who cares enough to comment? I like your chronology. I also liked your mind re-booting post.
(Life Designed | 70 days in, What have I done?!)

sam carpenter: Very good Robert. It’s the calendar thing and the documentation thing and it’s most always worth what seems the “extra” time …
(How to Reboot your Brain and Regain Life Control)

A Goodbye

Brandon, who started this project with me has decided to take another direction. Lifestyle design isn’t for everyone and he often couldn’t see the reality of possibility. He’s pursuing a few other interests which may very well lead him to financial freedom as well, hopefully he’ll keep his eye on the new currency, time and freedom as he pursues real estate and the stock market.

—

You guys are amazing, Thanks for your support and interest. If you’re one of those interested minds wavering on the cusp of intrigue and action, please feel free to drop me an e-mail, I’d love to hear your story and answer any questions on lifestyle design, or what I’m up. Merry Christmas!

This post is a little raw and more rapidly written than most here. Okay so now we have an idea we’ve preliminarily qualified as worth some effort. What now? I’ve taken the steps outlined in the last post and had a few conversations with other bloggers and people in the space. I’ve qualified the backup guide as something to dig more into, now to see where it leads…but first a confession.

Honestly…

I’ve been slacking the last couple weeks. I don’t have much of an excuse other then life has been getting the best of me. I attempt to stay objective and not really personal here, but I’ve noticed that several of the great articles I read continually bring a personal note into their conversation. I don’t think you’ll see an outpour of subjective “this is how I feel” posts, but I’d like to attempt to bring my life progressively to this project. So, having said that….man have I struggled to find the motivation on making things happen this past week!

How to Bounce Back

Schedule other people: I called into a conference call from Greg Rollett’s business series for some inspiration, I also scheduled a call with Sam Carpenter author of Work the System to chat with him about what I’m doing. Inspiration to press on ensued.

Talk about it: Keep it in your conversation, and your future.

Take a break and mean it: Instead of constantly feeling you have to do more, purposely stop and enjoy your life. Remember, that’s the whole point of becoming financially free.

Reboot your brain (again).

Mock Testing (tools and process)

Ok, now on to progress. A majority of the testing to qualify actually creating our freedom business product deals with our mock page. I haven’t actually created the product yet (although I’ve started a rough outline) but I have created a pitch page (otherwise known as the sales page or squeeze page), and it’s purpose at this point in the game is to get some initial numerical feedback on whether people will be interested in buying my product. The goal is to quantify hits to the page and clicks on a buy now button, or an e-mail sign up to be notified about the product. Depending on results, I’ll tweak the pitch (which probably means tailoring the product and key terms a little differently), cancel the product idea because it sucks, or move to building out the idea. The process below can be done on various levels of ideas, products, services and so on. If you recall this is how Tim Ferriss coined the name for his book. He ran a few weeks of testing on various book titles, the “4 Hour Work Week” came back with the best results, and indeed it’s done him well. I’ll be mock testing and reviewing results after a 2 week period.

Set-Up

Out of order page and e-mail capture. Your exact set up may vary, but the point of our mock is to find out who is ready to lay down some money. Since the product isn’t finished, we’ll set up an “out of order” page when a buy now link is pressed. I don’t exactly love the idea of presenting someone a sales page and not being able to deliver so I plan to position the “out of order” page with a %10 off coupon and e-mail sign up. I really am not a master at this, but I imagine if the buyer is sincerely interested they’ll be glad about the %10 off, and you’ll capture an e-mail in the process for when you’re really ready to launch.

E-mail campaigns are not new. These services work by a snippet of code inserted into your website. I’m going to using MailChimp because they offer completely free campaigns for up to 500 address’s which because I’m cheap and because we are only testing, is perfect. Other popular ones include constant contact, icontact, and vertical response. I believe there is another winner several people use, but it escapes me.

How can I give them %10 off already!? Don’t fret about this yet, when we get to building a store, you’ll see that any modern store front we use will have an easy coupon code we can push out to everyone who gave us their e-mail.

Tracking

You’ll need to count how many people find your business and where they came from. Tracking is vital as it’s where most of our data comes from. Luckily the tool and method is clear cut, unlike some of the techniques in advertising and search engine optimization. Google Analytics is the “go to” and tutorials on how to use it are bountiful. You simply need a Google account, and to insert some code into the bottom of every page you’d like to track. Google Analytics will provide you easy to absorb stats and if and when you are ready, the platform to really dig into your website traffic. Right now, we just want to know how many people, and from where.

Bonus: Free heat maps. Check out Clickheat for another small snippet of code (needs to be uploaded to your FTP site also) you can throw onto your website for a visual heat map of where people click. I’m not positive on on how useful the data is yet, but more data is better than less. If you find everyone keeps clicking on your privacy policy or some image on your site, you’ll realize this is a trouble area that you would not have otherwise.

Getting Hits

Now that we have a page that we can track, lets try to get people there. We’re still in the testing phase need I remind you so we want to find traffic as cheaply and quickly as possible and stop there. I’d be interested in others initial efforts on this front, but here’s what I plan to do in my initial 2 week testing phase. I’d love to hear from those more experienced in the comments.

Naming. The name of your product can be a make or break decision on two levels, organic search and advertising. It sounds worse than it is. We’re testing right now so take the vibe you got from your preliminary Google searches and come up with a 4-5 keywords that hit on your audience. The name of the product should be related to those keywords but doesn’t always have to be. The goal here is to find keywords that people look for often, but are not already capitalized on by several other businesses. It also should have a nice ring to it. Finding that string of words is somewhat magical and so I’m purposely being vague here as this can be a process to agonize over. We don’t want to halt progress so don’t go crazy here, just keep it in the back of your mind as you tweak your mock up. I searched for “backup guide” found very little competition and simply came up with “Backup Informer” to test. We can change things in two weeks if anything proves horribly wrong.

SEO: Keyword theme your site so that two to three keywords are meaningfully sprinkled throughout your site, specifically in titles and headers. Take care to make sure your website loads quickly, google pays specific attention to this. Stop there. It takes time for sites to be picked up organically and so it’s not really our focus (yet), but we lay the base ground work for the future. I’m using keywords and strings of words that play off of the word backup, such as “easy backup, backup for everyone, backup guide, backup anyone can use.”

Advertising/Promotion (soft launch): The soft launch is very different than a hard launch sales campaign that I’ll cover in the future. Google Adwords, friendly reviews, and forums are all I can think to use here. It’s tricky to get personal in any shape or form when you don’t have an actual product. What I mean by this is it’s hard to send out e-mails, facebook messages, or anything similar for people to check out your product when you don’t have anything and just want to test if people will buy it. The fact I’ve come to is that for initial testing purposes you’re going to have to play the Adwords game. You’ll have to ask your friends what they think and throw some money at it to get hits. I don’t like this, but I’m going to try it and give my results over the next few weeks.

Writing

Another key element of the mock up is writing. There is simply a more appealing way to write. Words, their arrangement, and placement make a big impact on how likely someone is to buy or consider buying a product. I’m not magical with words, in fact, I think I’ve very mechanical with them, and long winded. I had this resource recommended to me from a friend who’s had success with his information product, 007 Lifestyle. The resource is called Make Your Words Sell. I’ve thumbed through it and plan to rework my existing text after I’ve educated myself on selling with my words.

—

Obviously the mock testing isn’t finished yet. I have to push through being stagnant and get to work on the details listed above. The holidays are hard to work around. It seems like a lot, but the time requirements really aren’t that heavy. An hour a day for a week should have me in place to run the soft launch. I’ll be continually keeping my eyes out for backup products, and working on my outline of the actual product during this time as well. It’s no surprise that the key to any product is not its actual content, which is still important, but how it’s marketed, what light it’s painted in. The mock testings most valuable data will tell us in what direction to go as a whole and shed light on what’s working or if our idea is shot. Once you know you have an idea you’re going to bring to reality, actions turn into two core efforts, creating a good product, and campaign launching it. The ability to know how to launch it, and to whom beforehand ensures a good idea on how it will sell. I’ll find that out soon, and perhaps join those who are already onto the next stages, managing the campaign, tying in community, and driving sales.

Here is where I’m most excited. I hope both to learn from readers and fellow entrepreneurs and teach by experience going forward. I’m looking at what I’ve found are the vital first steps in creating income on your own terms. I’ve already chosen my first run at what is going to be my “muse” or “freedom business” or “easily managed online business.” I’ll probably use the term “freedom business” from now on as my girlfriend thinks I’m talking about a woman whenever I say muse. In reality it’s just a specific type of business model.

Anyway, my first effort will be a guidebook on the single question I get asked most working with computers and information technology, “How do I backup?” It’s a generic question, one that actually leads to many questions in response, but I’m going to use that “problem” and create a solution of value to sell.

I’ll dig more into my actual business soon but I want to first define a few things so you can easily slip yourself into my position, after all, you’re not building a backup guidebook…you may not even know what I mean or how I want to approach creating income. I also want a record of how I see things, and what I did to start.

Definitions

Not allowed: Selling someone else’s product (affiliate marketing) without thorough evaluation, pyramid/multi level marketing (ever heard of Monavie?), Google Adwords only marketing (without a product/service you created or know thoroughly), product reviews, filling out surveys, doing trial offers for any type of kickback, playing online games for nickels…or anything of the like. These  ideas have no real meaning or value.

Allowed: Muse/Freedom Businesses: The requirements of a freedom business as I understand them; a business in where you take stock in, or create a product or service that takes initial effort to set up and produce but therein after takes a matter of hours (I’ll say 10 or less, that’s a goal) a week to maintain passive income or sales from. Examples: ebooks, membership sites, digital software or products, audio programs, video programs, books, dvds, information blogs/service oriented websites for advertising sales, etc. Or… selling or advertising a product that you use (affiliate marketing), or have a thourough understanding of and believe in. Example: Greg Rollett’s Business Series. I’ve taken the course, I’ve seen the changes and relationships I’ve built. I know he runs a quality show. Click his link on the right or check his blog out. These ideas create meaning and value.

If you recall from my last post, a freedom business could be the back part of a seemingly service oriented task, such as automating/outsourcing website design (difficult), or the recording of any type of presentation work, such as interviewing several experts and packaging their advice into a resource or book or selling CD’s of your band. Anything can be turned into product, I hope that is plain to see, but some ideas are orders of magnitude easier and more suited for the type of online and easy management we are looking for and I believe are implicitly implied by lifestyle design.

I’ve chosen my first freedom business idea because I’ve first spent some time and money researching if its a problem worth pitching another solution at. That is valued point number 1. We’re in an age where you can cheaply and quickly test AND build assurity as to whether your idea will actually be marketable or profitable. Don’t ever spend large amounts of time on a product that you don’t KNOW will have a good chance at selling.

The key elements of a freedom business after we know it’s worth it are how easily we can package, sell, and manage the idea. They make it a true freedom giving enterprise. Hence why information based products will be focused on and explored here (and %90 of other lifestyle design sites), at least initially.

Selecting/Finding your Future Passive Income Source

Know thyself, Niche thyself. Famous words from Guy Kawasaki (4 min you tube video worth watching). Here’s the easy part, don’t get caught up on it, as I said, anything can be a product. It’s best to take something you are familiar with and get specific. I can demonstrate best with how I’ve captured what will likely end up being my next three muse ideas…why? The sole reasons are that I’ve experienced them and have interest in them. The hard part is how to create a business idea from them, and package it up in a way that can be sold. “What” your freedom business could be, is not something to get paralyzed about.

I was an Intramural Director in college. I thought about what problems I had and discovered there are no online resources for certain aspects of championship prizes. If you know intramurals at all, you might realize what I mean, and considering all the universities there are in America and in the world, it’s a ripe place to test for profitability.

I work as IT support and have built a few websites. I’ve identified that supporting people with their technology is my passion, but how do I make passive income from such a service oriented field? I have several ideas to test here. Automation and outsourcing as covered in the last few weeks of posts, creating resources from my most common requests and issues like what I’m doing with my first freedom business, a backup guide built for the common untechnical man.

I lived in California and took an interest in Parkour. Parkour is freaking cool, but it also challenges the body and falls in line with the natural movement workouts I like. It’s a new form of sport or pastime and its early stars and communities need places to congregate online. If you know anything about web design and scope it out, they are using outdated and clumsy Joomla websites…most notably I can see forming a huge community site built on a Google Maps API, another fun idea ripe for testing, and interviewing and researching profitability.

These are kinda random, some have to do with IT, which is my passion, but making money DOES NOT require the topic to be something you love to do. Do not be confused. A recent friend and intelligent author Sam Carpenter says this.

I think the major roadblock is that most people think they need to “do what they love”, when really there is no connection whatsoever between what one does to earn money and being free.

You should have an interest and not loath the topic you’d like to pursue making money off of, but don’t kill a passion by turning it into a job, that’s not the point, be warned.

Still don’t think it’s that easy to find an idea?: Tim Ferriss’s speed reading freedom business, Pat Flynn, My Wife Quit Her Job, Chris Guillebeau’s Freedom Flying Guide, Darren Rouse of Digital Photography School, The iPhone or Dots glove, Howmuchisastamp.com…Corbett Bar’s Gate Jumper …all plausible freedom businesses. If you dig further they all have some cool stories as well. Check out Pat Flynn’s if you are interested.

Find Yours: make a list of every job or event you’ve ever been a part of, ask yourself what issues and problems came up, or would would have helped, list out all your interests. Now connect solutions or ideas that could enhance each issue or interest. Don’t be defeated before you begin. It’s okay to move quickly here, discovering if your idea has any dollar value is next and more important.

Is it worth it? Research.

KNOW THYSELF NICHE THYSELF, THEN RESEARCH

Research really comes down to figuring out if whatever problem/topic you’ve chosen is worth creating a solution for. As I said earlier, there is no reason you can’t do this in todays digital world for free or cheaply. If you are already attempting an online business or freedom business of any sort and have no clue why or if you are going to make sales or be used, now is the time to do some research. How to do this perfectly? Well that’s the science I’m picking apart here and I’m very open to feedback.

A solution could mean a whole new product, or a tired old product you’ve given new light (have you seen these snuggie things? THEY ARE BLANKETS WITH HOLES PEOPLE), or taking a solution someone else has found and enhancing it. (make it better in some way shape or form) How do we find out if our solution is worth putting effort into though? We use various questions and tools (covered in my next post) to measure various measurable metrics before spending $12,000 on….

What to Do First, Preliminary Speed Actions

Summarize: I wrote down the problem I was solving, and my proposed solution in 200 words or less.

Example: The Problem: People don’t back up their data, I get asked a lot how to do this. Solution: Create an easier to use than a door instructions on the best backup solutions for the most common situations.

Look Up: Google your idea, but don’t look to see if it’s already out there, it most likely is (it’s okay), you want to know how it’s displayed and to what audiences, gauge how saturated the idea is. How did they “pitch” the solution? It’s not that important if you mimic a product, it is important if you mimic how someone sells a product. You want to be different. You’re just getting a vibe on your idea here.

Example: Finding and presenting to a niche is important, I’m not just selling a backup guide, it will be a guide my mother can use, and the person who only uses e-mail and facebook can understand. It’s updated for the newest and easiest backup tools. I’m going to try and niche myself to the non-technical yet still online users. I don’t know if it’s a great idea yet (might be horrible, you’ll find out with me), that’s the point of the research. Measure whether an idea is worth digging further into. My simple test. I Googled “backup guide”. You get plenty of results. I Googled “backup guide anyone can use”. You get nothing relevant, could mean something, could mean nothing. I’ve been keeping my eye on general news sites (Google news, Time, WSJ) and technical news sites, (Ars Technica, Lifehacker, Mashable, Slashdot) for anything backup as well.

Mock Up: First, draw a simple mockup of your idea, website, product, ect. Look for issues. The idea should lend itself to selling online, and the next step is create an online mockup of your product. (if you aren’t equipped to develop a one page mock website, checkout google sites, buy iWeb or contact me) If it’s a digital product, (it should be) your mockup will turn into your sales page. You can create do this with service type product by creating a landing page mock. The point is to create something quickly and use a fake “buy now” button or calls to action so in the future we can capture either an e-mail address or the metric of how many times people press that button. It’s not important to actually set up the tools to capture this information yet, we just need something to look at.

Example: My mock up: http://backupinformer.itarsenal.com

—————————-

I’ll stop myself there and explain why I think those are the vital first moves. First, summarizing your goal is important because you need to be aware of what “pain” or problem you’re solving at all times…it’s easy to get distracted and lost in your idea and completely neglect what you are actually trying to solve. Pin it to your wall. Second, looking up your business idea is normal and the equivalent of polling your town to see if it needs a 23rd pizza shop, don’t kill a ton of time here, that’s for later…we just want to gauge whether this idea still seems reasonable. Third, creating a mockup will allow you to get a feel for what your idea looks like outside of your brain, and although it still needs some work before you can do some real testing, it gives the idea weight. You’re committed now and momentum has been created. I was inspired to rapidly approach a mockup stage by 37 signals book, Getting Real. Let’s recap.

Total dollars spent: $0, (maybe $100 max if you paid me to build you a quick and dirty mockup.)

Total time spent: If you’re slow as molasses and are working a 9-5, a week.

But, But….

Goal not accomplished! We don’t know if our idea is worth really investing in yet! True, kinda….but we have gained momentum and a reasonable idea of if we should move forward. Next post, we use the information we just gathered and the glorious tools of the interwebs to get real data on if our uncreated product, service, ect. is worth creating!

What do you think?

A major problem I see holding back my friends and fellow freelancers from progress is messy-ness. They’re lost in the frenzy of their new clients, new campaign, or shiny new twitter apps. I don’t want that, and neither do you. Since we’re finally hitting on income producing efforts I’ve decided to layout my custom system for managing the work “stream” that inevitably occurs when we decide to challenge the status quo and create our own income. I have a bevy of new things to start hacking at, and I’ll lay all those out in due time but I’ve realized launching sustainable business ideas takes more for-thought than in-thought (that should be a word). Note: Make sure you’ve defined your goals and have a strategic objective in place so you’re not plotting workflow that leads you in circles.

Article read time: 10 minutes. Bold only: 3 minutes.

We’ve already covered and even had a guest post on countless tactics of efficiency and how to save time, batching, 80/20, no meetings, singular focus, negative realization, automation…great right? But how do we process work? Where does it live? How do you receive and schedule it? What happens when an idea strikes, or it’s obvious you have hours of testing or writing to do? The aforementioned methods are amazingly effective, but only when you have clear definitive work “living” somewhere to be addressed. How can you look to automate, or batch if you haven’t managed what you’re doing? Could you tell me what you did at 3:45pm two, five, fifteen day ago? I can. There’s a bigger system to look at before you can start to use tactics on production, and it has to do with how you process giving, taking and returning to the work that’s in front of you.

It may seem basic, but nailing down a system for workflow will not only make automating and outsourcing easier, but transform any project in general into a prepared occasion instead of an emerging disaster of todo’s and tasks. Peace instead of chaos in your path to creating freedom and executing. After taking on a platform for developing “muses” or “freedom businesses” or as I’ve painfully typed out almost every time, “easily managed products or services”; having a workflow for work is going to be a necessity. I don’t want to hack my way through another idea, so I’ve created a method for unstoppable progress, and I’m giving it to you.

I know some readers, as I do at times, feel I’m being painstakingly slow in getting to the generating money topics, and…maybe I am, but I’d like to think that I’m doing it deliberately. Here’s my quick reasoning before I go into the long and valuable explanation of the Workflow of Work.

• No rush (where’s success going to go?, initial front work to save effort later)
• I’ve failed before (spent a year+ in CA grunting through business, it takes too many hours, it’s choppy and random and I wasn’t doing it intelligently, not again)
• Passive income is a slow build process anyway (shortcuts here are short lived, and you come off as a pushy affiliate wielding crap salesman, always vote value over nonsense)
• Real life implementation (I’m not shooting for non-american cost of living to equal success, real Philadelphia living costs and incomes are evaluated here)

The Workflow of Work.

Outsourcing and automation note: before you can set up pieces of your projects, muses, fledgling companies, or campaigns to be automated, or by extension of automation, outsourced, you need to actually figure out how to get at those pieces. The system below is perfect for that.

“I’m gladly giving away this methodology in the name of getting things done everywhere. It will be included in a future resource currently in development.

One man army, 5 person teams, or 70 person companies. This works.

The fact: Your projects and your life, whether with coworkers, a designer friend, team, or just by yourself require structure in today’s world. Stop ignoring that.

Benefits of the “workflow of work” system: Universal, scalable, upgradable and you can use each piece individually to best fit your circumstance and grow yourself/others into it. NOTE: You’ll only want to teach someone this if you’re with them for the long haul of a project, VA’s, or digital mercenaries (e-lance) can manager their own time with their own methods as long as they deliver, don’t try to bend them into this methodology.

The Tools

(project management, a billion dollar market)

Project management is a huge industry, but it’s left me nothing but heartache. I’ve tested basecamp, action method, xmind, opengoo, activecollab, and campfire with small teams. Some are phenominal at certain elements of workflow, but I’m ultimately frustrated with them without redemption. The truth is, we just can’t see everything, everywhere, all the time. The answer isn’t to try, it’s one level up from that, it’s to be trained in workflow. The glue of the Workflow of Work system is made up of three universal tools, one part capture tool, one part calendar, and one part “*document”.

Capture Tool

It can be anything, it just needs to capture new ideas, requests, and tasks as they come into your world. I use a literal notepad most of the time, its quick and available. The purpose of the capture tool is to be empty. It’s only a temporary holding place for the whatever comes into your work realm. Everything on the capture tool moves to the calendar and *document if necessary as soon as possible. The capture tool should never have something on it for more than 12 hours, it’s not a todo list. Todo lists don’t work.

Calendar

A calendar will give you a vision for what’s happening in your world. The calendar lists everything you are

doing at all times. It does not need a lot of detail, it is not a waste of time. It is shared with all users. It is crucial. I use iCal, but Google Calendar is a popular alternative. One vital thing about todays calendars is that they can remind us of something automatically via alarms. Less work for us.

Document*

Using an online trackable document is useful, but not a definitive answer for work management. I realize this. The “document” can be upgraded for your situation (collaboration software is rampant on the internet), but I make my argument below for an actual document.

At times, you’ll inevitably want to drill down on tasks, find resources, or make updates as things are accomplished. Any task that isn’t obvious by a calendar event title lives here.

The “document” in “the workflow of work” refers a top level business wide “grand central” view of tasks and projects. It is used in conjunction with a calendar. It links to resource files (dropbox, e-mails within gmail, websites, etc.). It needs to be easily edited and viewable by everyone involved with your business or project. Google docs are the “go to” right now for me. The “document” is a literal document in my case and acts as a reference for work progress and what I’m working on in IT Arsenal. It must be fiercely concise, accurate and lead to resource/detail files anytime more than a sentence or two is required for a task. Use formatting and colors, simple and timeless staples for differentiating meaning to the mind. It sounds too simple, but a single Google doc has been a seamless solution for working with small teams. Each team member gets a font, or color…something to differentiate there tasks. We aren’t talking 500 person companies (aren’t we avoiding those?), the projects we’re working on require automated systems to be tweaked and small teams to collaborate. In my experiences the Google doc rarely went beyond the size of this blog page. Very manageable, very accessible. A wiki might work well here as well.

*Caveat

The “grand central” data collection could exist in another application or form, sadly most others are simply not as agile or concise as formatted text and links. One thing I always get lost with in these project management applications is their focus on time. I understand wanting to stay within a specific project deadline, and chart your billable hours, but executing, using a calendar, and effective productivity (hello first stages of lifestyle design anyone?) will inherently zero out time issues. It’s something I just cut out altogether as a time waster, how’s that for ironic?

The Flow

(follow the rules, honor your calendar)

New Work (Receiving)

Client, new idea, partner, etc -> Capture device (phone, pad and paper, stickies, notpad, etc) -> task scheduled according to deadline and priority on calendar (in summary if placed on projects document) -> a projects “document” if task requires more than 6? words to describe and understand in entirety.

Existing Work

Calendar of scheduled tasks -> projects document -> open supporting resources -> do work -> schedule any remaining work according to deadline and priority on calendar -> follow up with person who requested work be done if applicable

Capture device should be empty each end of business day, the goal is to keep your capture device empty as soon as possible. It will force execution. No execution? NOTHING HAPPENS. Do not use e-mail for organizing work or requests. It doesn’t work.

Delegating Work

When it comes to work, giving it, or making a request is much easier than receiving it.

The critical point when delegating or giving out work is being complete. Be clear, be concise, include all necessary support materials and procedure documentation and give a due date. If there is no due date, make one up weeks later so it prompts completion. The medium for assigning work can vary. E-mails work best because of their clarity and reference. The point is to avoid the recipient from replying back to you that they need something more to move ahead. Avoid empowerment failure.

It is not important to micro-manage that you made a request, the person receiving manages this. You will inevitably manage the larger project you’ve delegated a task to, a comment denoting you are waiting on “Jon” for “X” is sufficient.

It is important that you be mindful of the task you are delegating, if it’s likely to be repeated, create a workflow or template, or e-mail draft for it so it’s exponentially easier or outsourced next time. It will be a key to automating a service based industry until you’ve created a passive income campaign.

Go Forth and Produce

Next up, tackling how to do commercial intent testing, how I’m building community, status updates on how much of my business is actually automated and how much effort I’m putting on creating ideas for passive income. Also, how I’ve captured ideas and plan to test them for profitability.

How do you process work? Was this useful in how you deal with the daily stream of tasks in your world?

This post is an information update, and rather meaningless for direct application. I’ve noticed the life design world updates rather frequently, with all over the place topics, and I do not. I enjoy catching up on all the various subject matter but here at the project I’ll be sticking to a less varied methodology. I hope in doing this I can stay focused and continue to bring you posts I’ve tested with my life and taken time to write about thoroughly. I’ve heard a few times lifestyles design isn’t about keeping up with joneses….well its hit me that it never is…no matter where you are at…so make sure to stick to your guns and do what you do well. Remember… “Everything that’s popular is wrong” … quote Tim Ferriss.

Posting Schedule

I’ve decided to go on a posting schedule, not because I aim to monetize mass readers and put out 4 posts a day, but to keep my readers aware and myself honest. I’ll be posting each Monday, and I’ll make my best efforts to make it worth your while as you design your ideal lifestyle…I’ve come so far…I won’t be bailing out anytime soon.

Not Selling Out

I’ve finally broached the stage of creating income and as I go into development on how, I’d like to clarify what I won’t be doing for money on the internet. It’s a slimy world out there and I don’t want to fall down the slippery slope…the money just isn’t reliable or sustainable. I will not be doing any affiliate work where the affiliate link is the main source of income. So I will not be setting up streams of income from product reviews, or trying free samples, or filling out e-mails or surveys and so on. I may very well suggest and shout affiliate materials as I’m a fan of quality products just like you are, but they will never be the end goal or main push for trying to set up an income stream. Creating something of value that you are required only to maintain is.

Not Selling you

Commitment to readers. I’m going to be moving into a phase of creating products and resources and my main goals, as mentioned above, will be to provide value and to make money. I’m committing here to my readers I will never try to prompt or pitch you an IT product on this blog. I’ll certainly be talking about my creations as I continue to test muse making, but I won’t be using any of you as test dummies for metrics, or product pitches. I commit to being honest about my efforts here and if you can use or want to evaluate anything that I’m working on, by all means, let me know.

Like I said, not too applicable for designing your life, but part of the systems approach is being real with exactly where you are. Spend a minute today and view yourself and your goals from outside your perspective, alter course if needed…and jump back in the drivers seat. This week will be different.

Essentially lifestyle design boils down to how effectively you use your time, and the emotions you get from spending that time.

photo by nationalrural

I was sitting in on a mastermind call this week, and the moderator said something that truly clicked with me, and will hopefully click for the rest all of you,

I am about to spend life. Is my life worth spending on “this.”

Now look at what you are doing right now – you could be reading posts, or checking your Twitter account, writing a report, spending time with your family or friends, playing video games, traveling, checking email – you get my point. Now reread the sentence above. Is my life worth spending on this?
Let’s do a quick exercise. Count to 10.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

That is 10 seconds you can never get back. Ten seconds you could have spent getting on the treadmill, writing a post, meeting a new contact, sitting on the couch – you get it now right?

There are countless programs that teach time management and I bet in your 9-5 you were spoon fed a program that was to work with all the employees at the company. At your new freedom business, or internet lifestyle you have been tossed ideas of how to spend your time from outsourcing to inbox zero to GTD.

It Doesn’t Matter

I’ve read them all, taken online classes and attended countless seminars and they have all lead me back to the same place. That place is my Firefox open with tons of tabs, GMail open so I see my inbox numbers grow, Tweetdeck chirping every 30 seconds and a phone that likes to buzz every few minutes.

We all fall back on the systems that are familiar to us. We keep the email open to see new orders come in, or client requests. We hope that a cool Tweet pops up that takes us to a new blog or person. We open links in new tabs with the hopes of reading them in a few minutes and two days later discover that they are still there and if I close it I may never find it again. We bookmark, Stumble and Digg with tags that are great in intention, but when we need that one post for reference for something we are writing we are back in Google doing countless searches for keywords that make no sense to any human and gives webmasters that Tweet that says, “someone just found my site using the keyword ‘how to make love to twitter with a butter knife + mashable + orlando in 2009′.”

Damn that ADD

There’s only about 4.5 million people with ADHD in the U.S. (study from 2006). So what’s the problem with the rest of us?
Information overload is a start. How many blogs are in your RSS Reader? How many people’s Tweets do you look at? How many emails do you get everyday?

Processing this information is crucial to not only your growth, but also to get a hold of your life and come to peace. I don’t think minimalism is the answer. I think it lies in values and priorities. In order to be truly happy and live your ideal lifestyle, you need to do things that align with your values. If you value making money, you need to quit being a social media whore and start getting business. If you value family, what can you do to make every moment in your life more valuable for your family?

The Right Solution For You

As someone who has gone through many programs I have decided that there is no cut and paste system that is going to work for me, but I know a few things that can get people to notice when they are not spending their life to their fullest.

Write down when you catch yourself not doing something you care about. I make little check marks on a scrap piece of paper every time I catch myself web surfing, daydreaming or checking email excessively. This will get you to think of your actions more carefully.

Reward yourself. You need you time and that needs to be implemented into your day. Whether its an hour chunk or a few 15 minute breaks, be sure to give yourself time to relax and entertain your brain.

Get something important done before lunch. Tim Ferriss says to do it as the first thing in your day, but I say give it till lunch. When you eat you will feel more accomplished and will be excited to get back to whatever it is you spend your time doing.

Write important things down and post at your desk. This really changed the way I have done things. I have a personal statement and business vision printed at my desk and I glance at it constantly. What it does is look me in the mirror and ask if what I am doing aligns with these statements and wil progress me closer towards a goal or purpose. It works freakishly good.

Tell people your goals. When you tell people your goals, they are prone to ask you about them in conversation. When they ask about a project you told them about and 3 weeks go by, you should have made some progress right? If not, they are going to call you off and not take your idea seriously. That’s powerful. Show them you mean it and if you work hard you will have something to report.

How Do You Manage Your Time

Everyone has different ideas and views and I want to know what works for you. Do you have an application or a technique that can benefit people? Let us know in the comments. When building a business, learning from the wins and losses of others is one of the best things you can do, so please let’s share and help each other grow.

Greg is helping young people find their passion and grow their brand in the new Rock Star Business Series. Sign-up or say hey to Greg on Twitter.

I’ve stumbled on some great people and phenomenal services over the first 3 stages of this project. Although the best is yet to come, (income streams finally!) I can’t stress enough how valuable the for-thought of defining your dreams and situation (stage 1), eliminating and optimizing (stage 2), automating and outsourcing (stage 3) are before you actually try to set up a platform for residual income. I’m in no way interested in flimsy, low quality, time wasting attempts to build passive income and I want to make sure you aren’t either. So before embarking on making money while I sleep I’ve put together a resource listing for reference and teaching. I hope they serve you as well as they have me…

I’ll be concise as I list these resources and their uses, I don’t like to just push internet junk around. I’d like to stress that methodology (the definition stage ) has been more useful and more challenging than anything else, re-working how my brain thinks THEN applying these tools have made all the difference in elevating how I operate in life and business.

You can locate a growing copy of this list in the page navigation at the top of the site going forward. Check back if you find this of value, they’ll be much more to share as creating stream of income enters the picture. I’m almost scared of how much more.

All links under each title are in chronological order preserving a slice of how I got to where I am. Use this to position yourself or pick up some materials for where you are.

All the links here are using Apture which allows you to click them without leaving the page and read a blurb on them, check it out.

• Books/eBooks
  • 4 Hour Work Week (audiobook)
  • How to Win Friends & Influence People (audiobook)
  • Rapid Breakthrough Reading
  • The Richest Man in Babylon
  • Rich Dad Poor Dad
  • 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
  • How I got 100,000 subscribers in Two Years (ebook)
  • Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
  • Work the System
  • Source Control (ebook)
  • Getting Real (ebook)
  • Crush It! (in progress)

• Tools
  • Google apps (documents and iPhone/mail client synced gmail)
  • iCal
  • Wordpress
  • Craigslist (and various job/gig boards)
  • mindmeister
  • Evernote
  • Mint.com
  • 4 Hour Work Week forums
  • su.pr (use this to make links small and track them)
  • Tweetdeck (monitor twitter and links being retweeted)
  • StumbleUpon, Digg, , Delicious, Linkedin (use to promote content)
  • Apture
  • Fonolo
  • Rockstar Business Series (more down to earth than name suggests)
  • “Link Alliances” (friends who commit to read and if applicable promote each others material)
  • “Virtual Assistants” (read this post for more info )
  • “Work the System” (documentation methodology)
  • “Workflow of Work” (my custom one level up management process on work)

• Stories (lives I’ve hunted out because they’ve inspired me)
  • Tim Ferriss’s
  • Leo Babauta’s
  • Cody McKibben’s
  • Chris Guillebeau’s
  • Gary Vaynerchuck’s
  • Seneca’s
  • Greg Rollett’s

• People/Blogs
  • Chris Guillebeau (The Art of Non-Conformity)  (found him through searching “lifestyle design”)
  • Greg Rollett (Rockstar Lifestyle Design) (found him through searching “lifestyle design”)
  • Corbett Bar (Free Pursuits) (found him through comments on The Art of Non-Conformity)
  • J.D. Bentley (Wage Slave Rebel) (found him through comments on Free Pursuits)
  • David Walsh (Muselife) (found him through searching “muse”)
  • Cody McKibben (Thrilling Heroics) (found him through Viralogy Experts)
  • Sean Oagle (Location 180) (found him through comments)
  • Karen (Dreamin the Life) (found her through comments)
  • J.D. (Get Rich Slowly) (i completely forget)
  • Adam Baker (Man VS Debt) (found him through Get Rich Slowly)

• Misc
  • Sending e-mails to every blog author asking them if they are for real.
  • Actually commenting on peoples blogs!
  • Buying ebooks and promoting them when their useful, asking for my money back when they aren’t.
  • The distinction of being on the court, not in the stands.

Have you found any resources/methods you HAVE to share?

What does it look like to take a slightly elevated view to your fledgeling freelance business or idea on lifestyle design? If you’ve been following along at all, I’ve taken the resources Source Control, Work the System, and the Under 30 Rockstar Business Series and applied their advice toward one of the core tactics of lifestyle design; life business automation, and outsourcing. I’ve found they go hand in hand, and would argue that outsourcing is really an extension of the overall automation system you can set up to free your lifestyle and charge your business for growth and idea testing. Amazingly powerful, it’s what you’re missing in the move from grunt to owner. Here’s my real life experience.

Outsourcing Results

I detailed the automation process theory in a previous post, but it boils down to a lot of upfront work (that’s just reality) breaking down tasks that are worthwhile and capable of being automated, and then documenting the exact steps to accomplish those functions. My tasks in question were related to my IT business which right now consists of web development services and mostly mac support. Although my IT services won’t be a residual income producer, (I hope future information based products will be) I needed a business playground to test outsourcing with. Results? Better than I hoped.

VA Search, VA Found

I searched through several VA directories online (Google “virtual assistant directories”) and assessed them by their website design, and advertised prices. I’m cheap so I wasn’t going over $5 an hour. I shot the admin contact a quick prewritten e-mail (edited from Source Control) if they made my snap judgement for being a qualified virtual assistant. The e-mail wasn’t anything special but I specifically asked for a 10 hour trial, so I knew exactly what I was getting into. The other search I ran was Craigslist for the cities that were usually listed on the VA directory websites. I searched for “VA”‘ and responded with the same prewritten note. I received about 10 out of 15 e-mail replies. It was pretty easy to scratch off anybody that came back with $15 an hour price tags or completely broken English. I narrowed it down to 3 candidates, and sent them all different “dummy” tasks…just to see who would jump on them and how their writing skills were. One company stood out (Cubesquare Informatics), from a Manilla Craigslist ad I responded to. The rest is history…we worked out a PayPal payment with specific details and a 10 hour trial. Hourly cost, $3.

I wrapped my head around IT Arsenal being a launching platform for things to come. I’ve had this passion to help people with their technology all my life, but until I “owned” the business instead of “ran” it, I never realized the potential.

VA Managed, Business Automated (mostly)

It’s all in the documentation, I won’t try to beat this horse again, so here’s the specifics of how it went down. I have one task tracking google spreadsheet with task titles on them, then for each task I breakdown the steps in detail or link to other documents (mindmaps, screen casts, whatever flavor of instruction works best) that in detail describe how to do that task and what is expected as a result. The document is written so any techy off the street could accomplish the goal. I request an e-mail before my VA starts the task telling me in his words, what the task is about, and at the end of the task when it’s finished. Below are snap shots of both so you can absorb how this works in real life.

What sucks is this takes time to set up, what’s awesome is this actually works. (and is repeatable) I went from grunt worker in my own freelancing nonsense to feeling like CEO of a tech support and web design company. It’s not as glamorous as that, but my eyes are opened to employee management, and working on my business not in my business. I haven’t blown apart ALL my IT tasks yet for outsourcing or automation, but I’ve successfully outsourced and automated finding gigs online, and for the cost, I don’t have to go hunt down work again. I “get” it, holy crap, that’s the difference between owning a business and running one.

2 Weeks of VA testing later, I have converted myself from “do it all grunt” in my own freelancing business to CEO, at least in my mind. The big ticket here is perspective, again I find perspective is paramount to a lot of things in business. As an entrepreneur I have a hundred ideas a minute, with this system in place and a front name (IT Arsenal in my case) I have a platform to move forward instead of stagnate. For instance, after I finish redoing www.ryanchristophersbyob.com and www.triesterphoto.com (two recent clients), I’m going to take time to break down even more how I build a site so I can offload that many more steps to a VA and focus on an information product to guide people who aren’t backing up their computer to do so. I would never have thought to attempt this if half the IT business processes weren’t offloaded to automated processes or a virtual assistant.

The impact is huge, in real life it hits me like running a computer application. Run task 002, IT Arsenal Gig Finder. VA spends 4 hours sending out 100 customized e-mails on job boards, costs me $12 dollars. I pick 2 of the 12 potential gigs, roughly 2k worth of work. VA manages x, y , and z of task 003, THIS WEBSITE while I make the important decisions, etc.

I have a platform in place, so I won’t be going at it all willy nilly, I’ll be writing down the procedures, quickly and concisely, ones I can repeat and update as I’ll undoubtedly have another business idea or direction in the near future…stop starting from square one each time you haven an epiphany, have good documentation and passion. I’m working on moving swiftly as well, I have a tendency to harp on the details. I’m eager to finish with these two clients, and actually looking forward to working on more documentation. Sounds bizarre, but it’s addicting once you realize the productivity. It literally does feel a lot like the business is automated. So while the business is “maintaining” I can work on growing it (offering more products, easier web design options for small businesses, screen casting services, etc.) I’ve decided to do it this way because in todays digital world you can test an idea for profitability and usefulness in a matter of weeks (more on that as I move to the next stage, producing income through easily managed businesses). It’s simply not worth it to crack up a brilliant idea, put months of R & D into it and then realize your product is gold but your target market is poor as dirt…or any other number of things that kill good ideas. I’m all about (and unless I’m getting it wrong, so is lifestyle design)…creating streams of income that you manage, not find yourself in the trenches of.

More Real Life at thelifedesignproject.com

• Finished reading Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, started Getting Real by 37 Signals. (set this goal, read 10 pages a day, it’s like paying yourself first for knowledge)
• Researching effective copy, sales page design, and PDF guidebook writing skills.
• Researching testing niche product ideas.
• Still re-learning how to check my e-mail twice a day and work in blocks.
• Loving the contacts I’ve made by simple reaching out, commenting and creating with people. (Thanks David, Cody, Greg)
• Working on a Resources page, even though I think they are a dime a dozen.
• Enjoying helping people with their technology more than ever, need help? www.itarsenal.com

What are you working on?

I’ve recently finished time with two incredible resources. One that came by means of community and friendship and one by a search for “living life with a plan” on twitter. The sources in mind are “Work the System ” by Sam Carpenter and the Under 30 Rockstar Business Series which was led by Greg Rollett (Rock for Hunger Vice President)

I’m not one for nonsense and I’ve realized my wordyness throughout this blog so the details are below. The two resources combined equalled a tornado of productivity and creation in my life. The systems structure by “Source Control” reviewed in a previous post was thoroughly expanded on by Work the System and the Rockstar Business Series was the most solid foundation and reassurance I’ve had since I started taking my “freelancing” to a different level. One not stuck in traditional advertising or business ideas.

Work the System

Warning: If you’re not a structured person, this book will slap you in the back of the head (in a good way). On the other hand if you don’t mind a few documents (that you’ve created) giving you guidance in your life and you admit that having a few guidelines to live by could do you good you’ll take to this book like a fish to water, and you’ll be 10 times better for it.

The book is an easy read and seriously outlines a rock solid structure for doing business and living your life (don’t worry it’s the same system) The basic premise is held together by 3 documents, one in my opinion enveloping the other. The “strategic objective”, “operating principles” and “working procedures”. These documents are created and then used as a foundation for operating in life, but they are more than that. They are to be referenced often and used to refresh your mind when lost. They are to be leaned on. I breathed in this book like fresh air. The system Sam Carpenter presents is simple, yet something we overlook in our business life constantly. We clamor for a “wholistic” reasoning or aim in our business endeavors, and because of that, we don’t make much progress toward our vaguely defined future. I (we) are lifestyle designers, but what does that even mean, have we defined an objective for ourselves? What’s worse is when we get in deep, we become fire killers, instead of fire preventers to issues in the very “projects” we inevitably create. Work the System rectifies that and puts in place a solid system for getting things done and maintaining control. Documentation is our friend. From Sam Carpenter…

In Western culture, the word “control” has an undeserved bad rap. It conjures up the image of a type-A personality gone wild with power, who, headed down the road of personal self-destruction, cuts wide swaths of anxiety among all those encountered. “Control freak” is the term that often surfaces, and in order to avoid that label we’re anxious to “lighten up and go-with-the-flow.” But if hyper-control is a bad thing, do we want the opposite, to be out of control? (And, let’s say it here: As we search for a middle ground, let’s not forget this brutal reality: Each of us will someday lose control of all that we have. Life is ephemeral and survival is temporary. Sooner or later, for each of us, it’s over.)

So, as we “go with the flow,” we want to avoid navigating without reason, care, or attention to detail. Control, in fact, is a good thing. Truth is, control’s four horsemen of self-discipline, planning, efficiency, and consistency are mandatory for securing freedom, wealth and life-satisfaction. How can we lighten up if our world is confused?

I had a chance to chat with Sam after he stumbled on this blog and reached out. He really understands how the world works. The great perk for this community and myself has been how easy it is to apply the book to a “project structure” and managing virtual assistants…the “working procedures” especially will work not only for executing tasks yourself, but for any digital workers that come across your path. I bet that breaking out on your own, contemplating a non-traditional lifestyle and creating your own business agendas you already take part in some form of the methodology behind Work the System, but after reading about the results and experience of Sam and his company Centratel, I’m positive I wouldn’t have worked out as good a system. I highly recommend this book for gaining a document structured laboratory for success in the projects and growth your currently planning. Check it out on Amazon here.

Under 30 Rockstar Business Series

Greg Rollett is the man. I can’t thank him and his team (Jared O’Toole, Matt Wilson) enough for putting on the program that they did. These guys are all leaders and practitioners of the online marketing, social media, blogging and branding world. All those words I just mentioned get a ton of hype, but you absolutely need the basics and will invariably use some mix of them

for launching any sort of business idea or making any type of income on the web. That’s a fact. The program was a 4 week interactive video series. It was recorded and included accompanying materials for take away. Read here for full pitch. Although the program is over, I’m sure it will be run again and I can’t stress enough how useful the information was for confirming a lot of the social media information I already knew, but more importantly linking me up with other like minded individuals. It’s strange, but knowing others are using those 4 wordpress plugins you are and struggling with 100 ideas just like you, goes a long way. If you’re interested in the business minded aspects of lifestyle design and the one’s I’m hunting right now, get to know Jared and Matt at Under 30 CEO and Greg Rollett at Rockstar Lifestyle Design (his last post was awesome) they are feeding my fire for creating possibility.

Where am I?: You find me in the midst of transforming my life into one that is designed. Currently, I’m grappling with heavily automating and system optimizing my passions turned freelance business while I view life with an elevated perspective to generate useful, easily managed income producing products and services. All in hopes to live a life of dream fulfilling, unencumbered by the drug that can be a paycheck, one that has a tendency to fuel unnecessary materialistic living. Whew, in simpler terms…I want to live a good life on purpose.

Where are you?

Ever find yourself in a mental haze, staring at projects (with great singular focus mind you) and tasks you know you want to do, yet have no drive to do them? I certainly have. We’re on the cusp of major business automation and passive income products, how could this be! Call it ordinary life relapse or lack of motivation, but it’s completely wasted time.

You can’t be productive ALL the time you say? Well, maybe but I had enough of watching The Office, on repeat…for days that I finally devised a method to clear out my head, regain my drive and reboot my brain into action mode. It worked like a charm. We all lose our way or hit a block when trying to accomplish something big, here’s a quick 3 step plan to move past that block, out of your rut, or just actually get something done. It should take about 10 minutes.

This post is a real life experience post and falls in between the lifestyle design stages of automating life’s processes and developing easily managed online income sources.

Recalibration of our goals should be a regularly scheduled event. Here’s a system for getting you fired up and action oriented on life again. The steps start broad, get specific and give you a new lease on the things you already know you should be doing.

Hint: You actually have to do this to get back on track.

Step 1 Priorities

List out your priorities in life, they should come naturally without having to do much thinking and be fairly broad. I imagine we all share several priorities in life.

Examples: Fitness, Passive Income, Girlfriend, Work, God, Giving back, Reading, Fun

Step 2 Goals (6 months)

Ponder on your priorities for 2 minutes. Create goals for some or all of them that are tangible real things with a deadline. (#parkinson’s law)

Examples: Find your 6 pack, $100 in passive income per month, read a book every 3 weeks, volunteer somewhere twice a month, complete 5 client websites, buy new car, fly to california with passive income money, etc.

Step 3 Actions

If any of the goals in step 2 can be accomplished immediatly, schedule to do them ASAP, otherwise use action systems (see below) to put steps in place to accomplish these goals. Actually accomplishing these goals right now isn’t the aim, and it’s not feasible, but taking the first step is.

Examples:

• healthy eating, 6 meals a day high in protein, (input phone reminders at lunch tomorrow)
• read one men’s health article a day
• workout consistently
  • scheduled races and workouts (ical)
  • dailymile challenge people

$100 passive income (1 muse, 1 affiliate campaign)

• launch backup informer from itarsenal (ical)
• launch affiliate campaign (automate with twitter/outsource with VA)
  • try lifedesign affiliates
  • try tech related affiliates (through adwords, forums, twitter, ect.)
• use VA’s with itarsenal for %50 autopilot

read 1 book every 3 weeks (average book is 280pg, 10 pages a day)

• schedule reading time (ical)
  • book list (9 books)
    • finish work the system & letters from a stoic by seneca
    • rapid reading
    • getting real by 37 signals
    • walden
    • Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life by Neil Strauss
    • The 80/20 Principle: The Secret of Achieving More with Less by Richard Koch
    • The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki
    • All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin
  • schedule purchase all books with free shipping

Step 3.1 Action Systems

Use systems for scheduling, minimizing, efficiency, productivity, automation and outsourcing to enhance the rate at which you accomplish tasks in step 3. These systems are often customized to your life but require putting the first step (or more) towards a goal into a place and time. Without action systems, we just have a list of nice things we want to do “someday”.

Examples: calendar, txt reminders, “finding your zone”, listening to audiobooks in the car, limiting information, blocking time, organized google documents with text highlighted for what I need to do next to finish this website, or promote my friends brand, or launch this product, etc.

Your life is a semblance of systems whether you realize it or not, take an elevated view and do some maintenance on the ones that actually drive you to get things done.

Step 3.2 Information Sources

A general list of where you’ll gather information for completing goals, compiled using your favorite methods.

Examples:

• current hotness on minimalism living – Exilelifestyle, also my post on how not throwing out your junk costs you
• productivity – tim ferriss on protecting time, and negative realization for productivity
• efficiency – an ever evolving topic, read zenhabits or see my brimming post on doing more with less
• automation – all about your systems and tools. explained here.

The biggest take away to this process is the motivation that is generated from seeing the big picture and the tangible steps to accomplishing something you really want to accomplish. That is a brain reboot. These steps are more therapeutic than mind blowing and should be repeated every 3 to 6 months to regain focus. They are perfect as a follow up to the original dream-lining process but are substantial enough to stand on their own.

thelifedesignproject Update

In a recent post I mentioned that I would be reviewing a few resources I’ve started using for automation and the beginnings of easily managed online income. I apologize but those will have to wait a few days longer because I didn’t write the reviews just yet. I’m back on track though and still fighting the fight. I’m utilizing my new VA (he sent out 52 e-mails today for prospective gigs), automating large tasks in my IT services business, and creating an online product for passive income. The vision is still clear, the goals have been named. Results, lessons learned, and resources used coming soon. I’m excited to dive into a more business oriented stage.

Does your brain need a reboot? What are you working on?

…be a master of selective ignorance and limited information to actually accomplish your goals. here’s how.

i define my goal (a single goal) for a designated time usually at night (one hour, two hours), write a blog post, read 10 articles, read 200 pages, clean out my design work que, empty out e-mail…etc. i write it on a piece of paper in big letters. i do this when i get home from work and sit down at my desk to accomplish something for the night (usually IT Arsenal work, or lifestyle design reading or contributing, or most recently information product oriented).

i think through or jot down the systems i must have open to do that goal, not in detail, just a run through in my head and a scribble on my paper. i hang (pin) this goal to the wall (tack board) near my line of site.

here’s the crazy part. i take off my electronic information whore armor. the equipment that in a “double edge sword” kind of way keeps me unfocused and distracted from progress. zombified. i turn everything i don’t need off. i set a time limit for this goal. i turn my iPhone off (gasp), i close down AIM, gmail, tweetdeck. i close my door, or leave my familiar desk sometimes for a library or coffee house. i do what i need to find my zone…put on some hypnotic melody (dynamic symmetry pandora station), light a candle, drink some soda. i freaking love diet soda. i then do what needs doing.  even if just for an hour or two.

this process of finding your zone is talked about and recommended by all who act instead of procrastinate (ramit sethi, tim ferris, leo babauta just wrote a post on it). it might have a scientific name, it might not.

the act of turning back on my phone is like putting back on my weird electronic information armor. it’s familiar and safe but heavy and burdensome at times….incredibly useful others.

make sure you find time to take off your digital armor from time to time. thanks J.D for your article.

do you “unplug” or limit information in a specific useful way?

Let’s get going. By the time we’re done talking, it’ll be 9am somewhere in the world, where people will be walking into work – ready to do yours.

This is one of the opening lines of Source Control, and it sets the vibe for the entire book, commanding, gripping, and action oriented. It’s a great resource I’ve recently found in cutting out time wasting action in my life, I leaned heavily on it in picking apart the systems in my life and felt it appropriate it to review. The ebook is geared toward outsourcing and has been my go to guide for starting outsourcing right. I’ve literally cut, pasted, and adapted several sections. If you’re up to speed on my last rather too long to absorb post you’ll remember I mentioned that setting things up right the first time means you won’t have to come back and redo them later, Source Control is the perfect tool for doing just that.

The well illustrated, 159pg title takes a commanding voice and pulls you into the wrongs and rights of how to outsource effectively. I was surprised by how compelling it was, I mean, it’s a book on outsourcing. A majority of its “meat” speaks to well designed task systems and what stances to take when starting out. Dave’s wordage actually had me flipping through the pages in want of absorbing the whole thing. If you’ve been thinking about dabbling in the time freeing practice of outsourcing, it’s a definite read. Here are a few page highlights I bookmarked while reading.

Note: With these techniques I’ve found an incredibly cheap VA who for a week now has been nailing all the low level tasks I’ve been giving him, most importantly finding me new freelance gig leads, a previously time sucking weekly repetitive event. He also takes out a lot of the front work, so I can focus on the most profitable actions. The ebook comes chalk full of easily personalized documents which make hiring, task processes, and finding the right VA a trivial chore.

Take aways: grade A, funny, logical, do it once do it right, resource for hiring and managing a digital employee.

Highlights (get Source Control here)

This post is 1 part life, 2 parts instruction and resource. Finally, stage 3 of this program, automation, outsourcing and a making money mindset. After weeks of testing how one can really automate life to gain value, I have a lot to say. Here are the hitting points: automating your finances, setting up a user independent system for yourself or others (virtual assistants) to run the digital parts of your life like clockwork, and building yourself out of the day to day tasks of running any type of online business. Added bonuses include: Mac OS time savers and healthy lifestyle tips.

Enter yet another lesson in perspective. In regards to automation, (and outsourcing) I’ve now gained an upper view and I’m sharing it. Here’s the key, making life easier is more about systems and doing some hard front work, then simply finding your life’s “automagically do it” lever. Sorry non-detail oriented persons, you’re going to have to suck it up. Here’s what I discovered after honestly digging into how my day to day life can be automated. Scarily enough, life can be so much more simple than it is. More importantly, once you do the front work, the next step, outsourcing, actually seems realistic, even “easy”.

Objective: Take steps to actual automate several parts of my life and quantify the hours gained. Use the information aquired to take steps in outsourcing what can’t be automated. Move in the direction of online “muse” businesses and more time freed to live out dreams.

Warning: This takes effort in a “do it once” type of way.

The key words in the definition above are “convert” and “largely” … automation always requires a set up process, and the process does not always finish a task 100%. If I’ve learned anything through searching for ways to make my life efficient and looking for ways to automate both my personal life and business endeavors, it’s that it will require set-up. Thankfully, if you “convert” a process well, you only have to set things up once, and tweak seldom. I’ve read posts on automating your life before and usually I take away little I can apply to my life. I haven’t posted in a while because I’ve gone to great efforts to provide content of quality. I blew my life into little pieces, so an assembly line of actions could put them back together and we could all learn from it.

The repeatable process. Break apart the actions you take to accomplish everything, clean it up, then have a system or someone else, run through the process each time you need that task accomplished.

Step 1: Figure out what you do, and put it on display. If you don’t already have a grasp on what you do with your days, you’re a few steps behind, go back a few posts, do not collect $200. I have promoted on a several occasions the use of a calendar, I’ve amped up my usage since starting this project and because of  that, I was able to see a rough visual view of where I spend my time. I took that idea, and turned it into a map (this is called mind mapping, the tool I use is called mindmeister ). I then separated what I digitally do all day, this is where things really took shape. See below

click to enlarge

Step 2: Break apart tasks by creating a decision tree or similar on what actions are taken to complete said task you’d like to rid yourself of. Example below.

click to enlarge (opens wide)

Step 3: Automate processes in part or in whole by finding a system or hiring someone that can now easily accomplish some or all of the tasks involved. (see below for real life examples, virtual assistants are primarily useful for online tasks)

The whole analyze everything you do seems a bit crazy at first. It won’t be when you’re done and realize 4 of the 9 steps you’re doing to complete a task are useless or your little brother can do.

Finances  and Accounts

Autobill pay. I always knew it existed, but did I do it? No, why? I was scared. What if I miss something? What if I don’t have enough money. Yet every month I sign into a website, check off “use same payment method as last time” and pay the phone bill, power bill, credit card bill, etc. I finally gave it up. It’s a good bet most services you use allow auto payment, and there are websites like mycheckfree.com or Bank of America’s eBill pay to automate them if they don’t. Bank of America will even send out paper checks, for free. Don’t stop checking on your bills, but at least automate the process and check less often. I was able to break down that I spent about an hour a week, sometimes more when I wasn’t batching looking at several online payment systems. It’s been roughly a month and although I still have the due dates in my calendar, I have not logged into one of those systems. Time saved, 2-4 hours monthly. Fully automated. I wouldn’t have been able to see this without recording in my calendar for a month. I reinvested this time in running, and raced a 5k two weekends ago.

Money. Mint.com . I won’t go into detail, if you haven’t heard about this web application, check it out. It will save you time and give you a commanding view of how you spend your money. It won’t pay your bills, but it’s like signing into all your accounts at once, so you can partially automate checking up on every money type account you have, even investments. I use the iPhone app to take quick peeks and rarely take any longer than 15 minutes to sit down and see where my money is going anymore, I already know. Time saved, about 1 hour a week. Partially automated.

Ever waste time on hold? Well stop. Fonolo.com will call ahead, get to a certain point in an automated menu, then call you and connect you, for free. You can eliminate this step all together by hiring a VA (more detail below) but that takes a little more set up and costs. Time saved, varies. Partially automated.

Account messages. I get updates from Twitter, LinkedIn, ING, Bank of America, etc. all week long. I used to click into each of these messages then file or delete. Make use of your E-mail clients filter options, easiest when using Gmail (simply hit “filter messages like these”) and have all these account messages go into one folder/label automatically as they are received so you can batch reviewing them or delete them all together. I no longer, ever, waste time checking an e-mail of someone responding “lol” to a random comment on a social network. It’s batched information at it’s greatest. Time saved, roughly an hour a week. Partially automated, enhanced by batching.

Freelance ie. Online Business ie. Entrepreneurship

Note on Outsourcing: I’ll dig deep into the how to and system behind finding and using a good virtual assistant in my next post, but here I’ll highlight some of benefits I’ve already seen from the experience in my IT Services business, “IT Arsenal ” and how I wouldn’t have been able to do it without unpacking automation as a necessary lifestyle design step.

First, before even attempting to find a VA (virtual assistant), I needed to address what they would do. Same as you would for any employee. All the tactics employed in automating a task come into play. Step 1 was to break apart my IT Business, what do I do? See below.

click to enlarge

I took several of my most commonly requested tasks and started to break them down into decision trees and documents with details. It dawned on me that any web monkey could do %85 of my job. It also dawned on me that it took hours and hours to break apart the tasks. Once I had a blueprint for what I do to get paid, I thought about how I would hand tasks off to someone else, multiply workload, and only focus on high level tasks.

Workflow automation. I’ve started on the process of building myself out of my business only after breaking apart processes and then making bookmarks, Gmail labels/folders, Google Apps available to a virtual assistant all in my name, or my business’s. The flow isn’t complex, it includes a shared file system (MobileMe iDisk), a shared e-mail and document system (Google Apps) and a set of instructions on how to deal with an assigned task. I relied heavily on a book I’ll be reviewing in my next post titled Source Control by David Walsh. I’ve currently been working with a VA who is part of a firm based in Manilla, Philippines for $3 an hour. I found them by hunting through Manilla’s craigslist. Time saved, roughly 4 hours a week so far. Business capacity increased.

Processes being outsourced

• IT gig posting and finding (uses template e-mails)
• IT service correspondence (under review since it deals with interaction)
• Market research
• Craigslist/eBay selling
• Partial product/link promotion
• Initial web development actions, resource gathering

Bonus: I used this process of task breakdown for creating an information product which has left me with a clear path for a VA to rinse and repeat on new ideas.

Personal Share: Since taking up lifestyle design not only have I freed a lot more time in my schedule, but my IT services business has flourished (not to mention become easier), and I’m seeing the doors open for future more easily managed businesses/products.

E-mail / Calendaring / Time Management

It’s pretty lame that time management takes time. I pondered on how to automate time management. It turn’s out there are several steps to doing this, mostly through reminders and guides. These are moving targets and time saved is less easily quantified, but here’s hows I’ve cut back on time wasted by time managed.

Use a calendar for repeating events. At first I thought calendaring obvious actions was lame, but once I started I really came to appreciate the initial effort. Examples include: bills, fitness, cooking, and working in blocks. Too lame for you? Use a calendar to at least remind you of certain events. Automation works with triggers, take the stress away from forgetting to take out the trash by an automated txt or e-mail. Great tool for this is Apple’s iCal, or Remember the Milk . Using a calendar will come up in several other automation steps. Ignore it at your peril.

Actually use E-mail auto responders. I’ve heard this one before and always thought, who really does this? I took a negative approach to it, and it’s of course become a favorite tool of mine. I provide several IT services and thats usually the bane of my e-mailing. I decided to look back on the last month of e-mails to clients and see what I’m always e-mailing about. I typically am asking for content or information, or updating clients on the progress of a project. I took the time to craft a few e-mail templates to those effects leaving room for customization. BAM. I’ve been able to return responses like lightning during my batched e-mail checks and no longer need to drum up  ”custom” messages that say the same thing. I still personalize it per project, but it’s a time saver to create the same headers and general info in a template. Again, use Gmail for easiest access to “Canned responses”. Bonus: Use a virtual assistant to reply for you. I’d be glad to help anyone incorporate this with their e-mail client of choice.

Web Surfing / Networking

Automate the web? Yep. I’ll touch more on outsourcing, but I’ve since outsourced any topics I look up for research and have a VA mark articles of value, or that I’d want to comment on. Take a moment and think about how many blogs or websites you might have scanned last week, now think about how many were worth it. Note: Make sure to have a decision tree or document to breakdown why you think an article or website has value. Don’t want to outsource? At least batch your web reading, use a tool like Evernote to rip articles and sync them across computers or to an iPhone.

Skip 4 steps ahead. If you already own a business, some sort of brand, or simply like blasting out links on your social network of choice, promotion takes time. I’ve found some great tools to simplify such events when I was exploring each step I took to promote links or check up on sites like facebook, twitter, digg, and so on. These tools will help cut down on information overload, and futher cut down on time taken to push information out.

Tweetdeck – View multiple twitter and facebook accounts in columns. Easily absorbed.

Su.pr – Push and track information out to multiple status updates (twitters and facebook) with shortened URLs all from one interface.

Bookmarklet folder – Social media is a conversation, and if you’ve realized it’s potential…setting up a folder in your browser with each services “bookmarklet” will make the difference between being on the court, or in the stands. Google your social networks services “bookmarket” for the latest one.

Fitness and Eating

Automate cooking through batching. I’ve taken to cooking on Sundays and Wednesdays to provide food for the rest of the week. It’s not fully automated, it may be more “simple steps” than automation, but try buying snacks in bulk, like string cheese, yogurts, nuts, etc. it will save hours shopping and cooking in the long run.

I even tried to automate my health and fitness. It’s hard to make automated progress when dealing with such physical actions, but there’s a few things to note here. Eating 6 small times a day is healthier than eating 3 large ones, but most people don’t because it’s a lifestyle change. Set a calendar  or phone reminder/alarm, and train your body to eat 6 small times a day. Do this for 3 months, and you’ll have raised your metabolism and lost weight.

Dreamin The Life

Wage Slave Rebel

Almost Fearless

Location 180

Want to share your life design experiences? Become a guest writer or leave a comment below.

Short post, the gap in time from my last has been too long and I don’t want recording my experiences to get cold. I’ve been more than busy delving into the next stage of lifestyle liberation. Let me resound from my last post though, life has never been more exciting! I’ve never had so much context for breakthroughs and realized potential. I’ve never experienced this much quality free time or been so productive. Here’s whats coming next in posts, resources and experiences shared.

• Real life, repeatable examples of automating finances, business decisions, shopping, e-mail and more.
• Incredibly useful books that opened my eyes to an elevated view of my day to day actions.
• Resources (online) for breaking down the systems that seem so “holistic” and vague in life into identifiable processes for elimination, automation, and outsourcing!
• My experience with hiring a $3 an hour virtual assistant, turning my freelance hobby into a scalable partially outsourced branded business AND a platform for easily managed products built for passive income. All in the working stages now.
• Action oriented process on exploring if you could use a virtual assistant while building a framework for managing them at the same time.
• BONUS: Technical info on Google Apps, Mac OS X, Gmail, and social media posting tools all in relation to efficiency and automation.

Lastly in the works is another real life experiences post on the Under 30 Rockstar Business Series event going on right now. The event has been ripe with great conversation and resources hitting on a majority of what’s involved or can be in lifestyle design. I was lucky enough to meet Greg Rollett, thee under 30 rockstar and be invited to this event by reaching out to him. I said “relationships” we’re fuel a few weeks back, it’s no joke!

Keep on seeking to live out your dreams, what have you been up to lately…seriously.

I’m about 70 days into thinking life can be anything I want, but what the heck does that look like in cold hard facts? What have I read, how have I changed, where have I gone, and how can you learn from it?

Objective: Layout how “Lifestyle Design” has changed my world thus far. Chart progress in the new currency that matters, time and passion.

One of the most valuable things I’ve learned so far is to surround yourself, physically and virtually (phone, e-mail, video chat, etc.) with like minded people. It’s worth its weight in gold when trying to achieve a goal. I’m talking about “lifestyle design” here, but it can be applied to any passion. It’s something that usually happens naturally but can be easily overlooked. I’m voting it one of the best uses of your time and here’s why.

We aren’t all extroverted or think to call every product, service and blog owner out there, so I’m urging those who wouldn’t do so of their own accord to try it. The support, new ideas, encouragement and vast amount of knowledge to be tapped is too great to ignore. Most people love to give back. I thought it ripe to mention now as I’m soaking up extreme value from new found friends in the next stages of this project (cutting out non productive tasks, outsourcing and passive income product development). Tim Ferriss in his book The 4 Hour Work Week continually drives home the point to go ask people who are doing what you want to do, how they do it, it’s one of the best ways to learn. I decided to try it; here’s what happened.

Meet some Players.

I took to heart Tim’s book challenge of contacting a celebrity for experience and a potential resource. I set my sights on Tim himself. Along the way I decided to ask these other lifestyle designers what “lifestyle design” means to them as a way of meeting them and learning more about unconventional/entrepreneurial living. I had no clue what would follow by trying to contact people with established brands and thousands of readers but I’m glad I did.

Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-conformity – “To me it means doing what I want while making a lasting difference in the world. Purposeful living.”

Chris has helped me shape what a product launch looks like through personal e-mails and blogs.

David Walsh of Muselife – “Lifestyle design is a trendy way to do something absurdly obvious: ruthlessly own your time and live a life pursuing solely the experiences that engage your mind and make your heart race. Lifestyle design is not it’s own pursuit, and it means something different to each person. You need passion to make your life worth designing. In two words, with entrepreneur encoded in my DNA, lifestyle design just an outcome of dangerous ambition.”

David and I have actually met in person and are collaborating on two different products of his, one that’s become an invaluable source for setting your business up for outsourcing. Source Control. David’s challenged me to really cause an income generating product to happen, and it’s going to be soon.

I asked Cody and Corbett what was the catalyzing product/idea/venture that sparked them to design their life.

Cody McKibben of Thrilling Heroics – “And what really sparked my “success” or ability to have the live-anywhere lifestyle was actually the realization that I didn’t need thousands of dollars per month to live the way I truly wanted to! It was realizing that I don’t have to play the game like most people do”

Cody and I have shared several e-mails and are currently working on putting together a team of like minded productivity and business guru’s to share each others thoughts, skills, and products.

Corbett Barr of Free Pursuits – “I took a 6 month sabbatical from work and it changed my life” Read about it here.

Corbett has been a great encouragement, and pseudo coach. I’ve developed my spanish speaking skills through his new service which falls in line with my dream goals posted a few months back. We’ve also shared web design tips.

There are many more and I’m greatful to them, Nate, J.D., Greg, John, Jun…I’ve had conversations with amazing people. They’ve all contributed to the books I’m reading, the ideas I’m researching and the freedom I’m already living. My gratitude goes out to them. Whether you’re creating a product, breaking free from materialism America, or looking to become more effective at collating, go get in front of the best on the planet, it will pay off.

Get in the Game.

The advice received as I mentioned is often invaluable. I don’t think I’d be as resolved as I am or amped about my future if I had not made the connections I did. At first It just started out as some late night e-mails titled “a slim chance”.

They quickly turned into business conversations, recommended resources and stories to be shared. The relationships are fuel. The vision of creating sources of passive income and living out dreams is not something you can just hustle through. There are ways to get on the speed walking straight escalator things you see at airports, but you still have to get in the game, understand what’s going on and play smart. There’s no churning out affiliate linked, blog for SEO, junk product dribble in life design, this is a quality endeavor dangit! Take the time to meet people and be in the game, it will champion long term results and the freedom you can scale and multiply as you master your time, income, and life.

How can you Meet someone successful in your field?

It goes a long way to simply reach out. Most people, even of high importance, will give you the time of day if you earnestly express interest in their work, their skill, and exemplify a passion for doing something complimentary. Often times, a phone call at the right time with a prepared question will get you through.

Why?

You may not think it, but just hearing from an expert in a field you’re passionate about does all sorts of things to your world. It lights you up to pursue your passion. It provides conversation that may guide you to what was successful for them and how you can imitate it in your current state. The process also shakes you up, creates a serious mindset for your ideas (creating a “am I really doing this?” moment). Lastly it creates community, a conversation, a shared interest and exchange in ideas. Growth often comes from relationship. It’s similar to meeting with a mentor, trainer, or teacher.

How.

Here are a few key tips if you’re looking to reach someone you thought you couldn’t otherwise. As you can surmise, it’s about timing, tact, and pointedness. Sometimes though, it’s just about saying hello.

• Call big shots before 8:30am or after 5:30pm to avoid secretaries and executive assistants.
• Call or e-mail admiring their work, and positioning to only take a few minutes of time with a couple small questions.
• Be resilient but give space if rejected (this worked for me in contacting Tim Ferriss)
• Be ready with a question or two in mind you think you could learn from.
• Be ready to ask permission for everything. (may I ask you a question, if it’s alright, could we e-mail later?)

Follow your passion, meet some players, get in the game.

picture courtesy Storm Crypt

We all make mistakes. Some bigger than others, but what constantly shines as more important than the mistake, is how you handle it.

I’m roughly 60ish days into lifestyle design and somewhere in the last two weeks I’ve gotten completely stuck. I see now why everyone isn’t breaking free from work, creating new products, living their dreams and generating income. I think it’s because we’re victim to our habits and we get lost in managing this thing called life. It’s also challenging, but that’s really not it. It’s time to get unstuck. The “Elimination” stage of lifestyle design testing is one that takes some serious mental re-training. Looking into our dreams as realities is fun (stage 1), understanding misconceptions about being productive is eye opening (stage 1), but transforming how you operate takes work (stage 2). Sure, I’d like to skip ahead and just focus on income streams (of quality), but it just wouldn’t be worth it if all I end up doing is working more like most business owners.

So somehow I’ve managed to fall back into the illusion of multitasking, doing small repetitive tasks myself, and checking my e-mail and phone constantly. I’ve wasted time on useless information and generally fallen back into drone behavior. I know better, I wrote how to conquer these things, but life management creep is a sneaky bastard. All the sudden I was moving at a snails pace, but because it was comfortable, because I kept thinking I’d catch up, I stayed there.

Have you ever been caught in a rut…thinking you’ll get out as soon as you catch up, as soon this project is done, or you’ve saved “this” much money. I don’t blame you, we’ve been conditioned to be cogs in the system, but there’s a way out, and it starts in your mind where you can’t be stopped. Start (or restart) now, here’s what’s working for me.

Getting Unstuck

Take a breather…

It’s obviously apparent and needs no scientific research to see that operating at 100% for 2 hours is better than operating at %30 for 6. if you’ve lost your focus, you’re not working at capacity. Go do something you love and really allow your mind some freedom. Come back and zero in.

Perspective re-loading

Keep your vision clear…I want to look back fully on this project when i’m making X a month in passive income, living out my dreams, helping others, and thinking differently about life…and say…this…this is a chronicle of how I did it. a clear vision of your goal helps you see the next steps. Use a tool like mindmeister.com to map out where you are or go back to a book or writing that allows you to step outside yourself and see what’s going on. Perspective is everything, and when you have it, your path becomes clear. I mapped out the impact life design has had on me in mindmeister and reviewed this blog to get me back on track. I’ve regained my dreamlines, re-read my wrong assumptions about the world, and look forward with singular focus to the next stages of testing, err I mean freedom! (automating, outsourcing, and the fabled income generation)

click to enlarge

Efficiency re-training

Re-enter the world of efficiency, limited information, batching tasks, singular focus and 80/20ing the crap out of life (past post on processes here). These practices remind me of Pavlov’s dog. I can train myself to see a more efficient path, just like I’ve lazily trained myself to waste hours organizing blogs, opening 12 things at once, going to the store 3 times because I didn’t think the first time, or watching TV I don’t even like, etc. etc. Approach tasks with the mindset to build yourself out of the process, it forces you to think differently, and more importantly I’m realizing, starts to train an automating / outsourcing thought process. More on that later. Besides, it’s now proven, multitaskers get less done! (Media multitaskers pay mental price, Stanford study shows) Practice makes an impact, set reminders, close your e-mail, go on a media fast. Do less and you’ll do more.

Moving Past Mistakes

If you’ve realized your moving slowly lately, try some of the tactics here. They don’t have to be for “designing your life”, the principles apply to fitness, relationships, work…living in general. Have some methods of your own? Do share.

Further reading I found to help along the way…

22 Inspiration Quotes to get you moving (read time 3 minute)

How to Stop Procrastinating and Start Living the Life You Want – you need to learn to minimize procrastination so you can work toward things that matter, things that directly relate to your goals. (read time 7 minutes)

A Brief Guide to World Domination – Probably the single most effective thing you can read if you are unmotivated and unproductive. (read time 1 hour)

Abolishing the Someday Mindset – “if you don’t set goals the end result is simple: you fail.” (read time 4 minutes)

Riding on the words of my last post and interest from a few readers I thought I’d take the time and give a fairly detailed account of how I’ve actually used the previously mentioned lifestyle design tactics (found here) to free hours of time at my job and make myself extremely valuable. The response received from my co-workers and boss were not what I expected. It seems odd because the point of learning these tactics is to eventually build yourself out of a 9-5 all together, but the fact is, the singular focus and effective productivity methods will down right make you a better, more valuable, impactful employee (for yourself too). Consider it practice. It’s the complete opposite of what I thought would happen and a perfect stage setter for preparing yourself to create income on your own terms. (Note: Nowhere do I recommend ditching your work responsibilities, in fact the opposite are what so far seem to be required in positioning yourself to get out of the 9-5 scene.) 

What specifically have I been doing?

• Checking work e-mail twice a day, web service e-mail twice a day, personal e-mail once a day. Same with voicemail, even work voicemail. Unless it’s the company owner, or my boss, I deliberately let my phone go to voicemail.
• Using a notepad and calendar daily to schedule tasks as they come. This creates peace of mind when I honor my calendar.
• Interrupting interruptions. You CANNOT please everyone. If you are trying to be productive, stop people mid-sentence, let them know you’re busy and if this isn’t an emergency, to e-mail you. I’ve never pissed anyone off, and get a lot less requests doing this.
• Not checking e-mail first thing in the morning, instead I find and do the most important thing for the day immediately. This tactic alone increases productivity and employee value greatly.
• Answering all work related calls with “What’s up”, or “How can I help you” to prompt quick action.
• Asking for forgiveness instead of permission with boss and clients. I’ve ended up impressing most of the time and having to undo almost never.
• Constantly and literally asking myself, is what I’m doing important? Be conscious about singular focus, you cannot multitask no matter what you think. Use priorities instead of the multitasking concept. I have a huge piece of paper staring at me all day that states “IF YOU COULD ONLY DO 2 THINGS TODAY, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?
• Giving 80% of time to the top %20 of design and IT service clients. The remaining %80 percent get %20 of my time mostly because they are not generating income, or consume more time than necessary; they are not efficient clients. It may seem harsh, but you’re not trying to make friends in business, let that soak in. Use speech as a tool, deal with everyone politely, use the same evasion tactics and productivity tools when you’re the boss or employee to produce the best results.
• Batching cooking meals. I cook generally once on Sunday and once on Wed for all meals. Saves hours nightly and makes lunch cheap.
• Batching cleaning. I find this one the hardest. It sometimes actually pays to not clean something until more mess has accumulated. Weekly.
• Non-finishing. Information is useless if you can’t apply it right away, stop taking in nonsense, follow a short list, fill in on the go.
• Batching and scheduling when to absorb information. In general, a low information diet boosts singular focus, there’s too much media around us. I struggle with this, so I schedule times throughout the week to devote solely to reading blogs I stumble on that I like, books I want to take in, audio I want to listen to and so on. I use Evernote to pack it all away so I know where to start reading when I get to that point on the calendar. This week, I finish the Tao of Jeet Kune Do.

The actual processes I’ve used and continue to use are the same in concept if you’re self employed or working for the man, and they continue when you’ve broken free. You eventually want to build yourself out of “work” all together. The end game with lifestyle design (as I understand it and demonstrated by Tim Ferriss) is to create a lifestyle so effective that it’s nearly automating itself income while you live out dreams daily. I play both the self-employed and employee fields and have seen huge gains in both lately. I’ve noticed time gaps opening up in both areas by eliminating time wasters and increasing effective productivity givers. The “bonus” time provided by implementing elimination tactics have allowed me to do this project, find and consult with fellow life designers/entrepreneurs (post on who coming soon) and start developing the next stage of this project, the literal bread winner, creating a business solely for profit.

WHAT ABOUT FRIDAY OFF?!

Okay Okay. Yes, I have asked for Friday off, with pay, from my boss before. I did it in a very calculated way. Why? First because it was a challenge in a recent book I read, and secondly because I wanted to use the time to create other sources of income! I suggested it to my boss one day after implementing some of the above and aforementioned productivity improvements. I cited recently accomplished goals (actual e-mail) due to working when no one was in the office, or on Saturdays or when simply ignoring others for a short time (selective ignorance). I mentioned it would be a trial to see if I could continue to improve productivity, and I would of course be reachable by phone and able to come to work the second I was needed. I was absolutely set that my boss would laugh at this, but it couldn’t hurt to ask right?…to my utter surprise he looked at me and said, “I know what you mean, without everyone hounding you every second of the day, you could get a lot more done”. I staggered a bit trying not to act surprised. I mentioned trying it out in a few weeks. He nodded. I should have jumped on the idea right there, but I was satisfied with myself and backed away from the subject. It sounds completely absurd and I’m sure not all jobs could afford to trial out sending you home for the day, but is it possible? The answer is yes.

Who’s ready to start being more valuable at work, and in your own efforts to break free?

There’s something very elusive about actually getting work done. It really is baffling how good we are at not managing life. The key is realizing what’s holding you back. It’s a matter of waking up to how we waste our time and how we can combat it. It doesn’t take a class or a book to zero in on ways to instantly save hours of your day. The concepts apply to home life, but really shine when you realize your current 8 hour work day can be accomplished in two. Only a couple months into testing lifestyle design and I’ve seen what it looks like to cut out the fat and develop effective productivity in all areas of my life. I’ve gained hours in my day, stopped doing things that were simply unnecessary, and doubled on some work days what I’ve usually accomplished in one. If you’re looking to break free like we are, add some hours to your day, or want to be highly valued at work, here’s how…

Actions: Take at least three huge steps to cutting out time wasters and ineffective productivity at work. Replace the time with three practices that actually get work done.

Goals: Free at least one hour a day and then invest that time in reading about or acting on automating income or living your dreams.

What we waste our time on:

E-mail, ineffective work conversations, meetings, the web, managing bills/money, TV

When the workforce isn’t wasting 2 out of the 8 hours (salary.com) reported working, or watching the average 4 hours of TV (A.C. Nielsen Co) when they go home, they actually consider themselves to be working. The above categories are what inhibit producing reportable results while doing so. If you take a look at your workload honestly and imagined no red tape in the way, could you get everything done in 4 hours, in 2, in 1? I didn’t thinks so and I was wrong.

Before jumping on this life design road, I considered myself a very efficient person. Now I know I’m efficient, but mostly at wasting time. I bet you’re somewhat similar. The 8 hours a day we spend trying to produce results is amazingly cluttered with completely useless information and processes. We don’t know any better so we never switch channels.

Ready to change your life?

The concepts explained here will seem unreasonable. I assure you, they aren’t, I’m now living out each one. They take some practice getting used to, but save hours and hours, and take little more than a calendar to do.

Batch everything. Batching is the process of taking something you do more than once a day and performing it at planned specific intervals. Save hours a day example: Check your work e-mail twice a day, for a half an hour each time. That’s it. If you are in any type of corporate world this will seem impossible, it will also change your life. Immediately after attempting this, you start a cold sweat. After doing this for two weeks, I realized no one cared. I even told my boss who applauded me for the time management. His comment is below.

Rob:
Excellent strategy and definitely “Mission Control”.

You’re mileage might vary, you might need to set up an auto-response politely explaining how you are extremely busy right now and you’re currently check your e-mail twice a day, or to contact you through phone if its an emergency. You might need to start at 3 times a day. Advance tip, do the same thing with phone calls, explaining in your voicemail greeting that you check your voicemail twice a day, and if its an emergency to please call you on your cell phone. Currently, I almost never pick up the phone, I have my voicemails routed as audio files to my e-mail and check my e-mail twice a day, once at 11, and once at 4. This tactic alone saves me at least an hour and a half every day at work. I have not been confronted it about it, nor do I think I will be. I’m being more effective at work by doing so. Try batching your cooking, your cleaning, laundry, social time, you’ll be amazed at how much time you spend doing nothing.

Selective Ignorance, non-finishing and funneling. People inherently don’t want to get work done, so they will do anything they can to postpone it, including distract you. Lifestyle design takes some training, it reprograms your inherent want to do nothing and replaces it with habits for getting things done. Along the way you’ll need to develop a few tactics to help move through people’s inherent time wasting nonsense. Here are three easy examples to start practicing right now.

1. Selective Ignorance – Everything is not important. You can understand this first by defining your goals, and secondly by realizing you can’t make everyone happy. Hit delete, tune out un-needed information. A low information diet feeds thoughtful reflection, do not be a pack rat. You will not gain anything worth the effort in wading through the junk. Start ignoring now.
2. Practice Not Finishing – There is no better time waster than reading a book simply because you started it. If something sucks, stop doing it. If you’re half way through this article and realize it’s not going to be directly helpful to you, go away. There is something in us that says we have to unlock every mission and color in every box. The 80/20 rule shines clearly here. Only 20% of what you are doing produces 80% of the result…stop wasting 80% of your time getting 20% of the results, practice not finishing when its not directly useful to the task at hand. You can always come back to an article, video, project, etc.
3. Funneling useful information. Often times in communicating with people, there are several completely useless pieces of information. I have nothing against being personable, in fact its the best form of customer service, but if you’re focused on producing, you are not ready to shoot the breeze. We somehow have taken on a habit of thinking we can do both, or each half way. The art of funneling is to get at the point of what matters in a conversation quickly. The biggest time saver for me while in a work relationship is asking the simple question, “what can I do for you”. When someone is positioned with a questioned they innately want to answer. This process skips the how are you, oh I’m sorry your cat just died, what are you doing for the weekend conversation. Funnel through effectively selected word use. The action here is to take a minute to think about why you are speaking with someone to avoid the 5-10 you’ll end up wasting yammering on to them about nothing. Test these funneling methods below.

“I have a meeting in 5″ | ” i’m in the middle of something, whats up?”

Don’t make friends when productivity is involved

Avoid all meetings without clear actions

Use headphones, always be busy so you can focus on productivity

Multi-tasking. There is no such thing. There is only being present to several things for small amounts of time in succession. Stop having 12 windows open, stop chatting, surfing the web, using excel, word, powerpoint and the phone at the same time. You are not multi-tasking, you are moving an inch in every direction when you can be moving a mile in one. Study’s prove that after being distracted from a specific task it can take up to 40 minutes to “zone” back in. You are only slowing yourself to a crawl when you try and “multi-task”. I’ll use a technical example to demonstrate what I mean. When you use a computer, you generally understand that the more things you have open, the slower your computer goes. Eventually when you’ve opened the 23rd Internet Explorer window or Word document, the whole thing freezes and you start to flip out. Your brain is just like that, if you try to open more than one task at a time, all your doing is cutting productivity in half each time. Singular focus is the the second most important time saving concept I’ve learned behind batching. It’s easy and we don’t do it.

Ask yourself these questions:

• If you could only work two hours per day what would you do?

R – if i was really at work, i’d do only core projects on my calendar, ignore e-mail and voicemail, and people for that matter. if i was redesigning life, i would at this point, do nothing but research niche groups that i am a part of or could speak intelligently about

B -video tape myself 1st and 2nd and show it to the rest of the class

• If you could only work two hours per week what would you do?

R – geez. at work i would speed through tasks that i had to do, do tasks that effected everyone or the partners only. deny everything else. if i owned or were planning a company i would come up with a directive and outsource all the work?

B -I would locate instructional videos that were interesting. And create classwork assignments and powerpoints.  Have students teach more sections of the chapter and create assignments that my TA’s could grade

• If you had to stop 4/5 of time-consuming activities what would you remove?

R – at work, it would be almost all verbal communication, e-mails that weren’t defined with tasks. at home..i’d eliminate anything i don’t use every 2 days.

B – stop grading as much or in as much detail.  stop following the news. stop watching any tv or movies

• What are the top three things I fill time with to feel productive?

R – at work, time sensitive tasks or requests, zeroing my inbox, helping when someone calls with an issue. at home, research/reading, supporting friends and family with tech stuff, creating resources for people, working out.

B -working out, getting through a to do list, creating a new lesson plan

• How do you invent things to avoid the important

R – i schedule them instead of just doing them. i make up rules for myself that things need to be clean or organized before doing something completely unrelated.

B – at school I consistently avoid big tasks (putting them off makes them even less effective though i.e. grading, curriculum binder)

Finally, Get a calendar. We all have more than a few things to do in a day, here’s a thought, schedule them, write them down, and honor the occasions to do them. If something comes up in the middle of doing one task, capture it on paper or the computer and have time scheduled to take what’s on that paper and put it into a calendar. Repeat process as needed. I no longer use a “todo” list because of this concept. Capture it, schedule it, forget it.

All these principles can be molded to fit your specific situation, and these certainly aren’t the only ways to go about saving time, but they’re the most effective I’ve found so far. Please add your two cents in the comments.

A big part of lifestyle design is learning how to live minimally and effectively to directly impact both life and business. I’ve picked up on these key time savers and practices that have easily added up to a few days (yes around 60-70 hours) of time since trying them out a couple months ago. I do have one caveat though. I’ve noticed a trend in my research with some lifestyle designers is to move out of the country (USA) all together for its affordability and the general mobility of working through the web. I’m not doing this, nor will I post on it. Although I really applaud the efforts, I personally don’t see that as a fulfillment of my dreams. It’s a great way to give singular focus and cut back on permanent living costs and time wasters, but I view it as a workaround for allowing income generation to appear bigger than it is. The ultimate goal of designing my mobile life is to create the ability for me to work independent of location at leisure, not as a cost saver. (Like many reading, I’m committed to a job for now, and several people in the states, I’m not leaving for any longer than a celebratory escape from the 9-5 mini retirement!)

Go forth and be effective.

Did you know your clutter might be costing you $3000+ a year? Proposterous you say! Maybe, for some of us, but for a lot of disorganized people, the time spent tripping over accumulated junk and searching through papers is quite literally costing dollars.  “In a recent survey of 200 executives of 1,000 of the nation’s largest companies, respondents were asked: ‘What percent of time do executives waste because they or their assistants can’t find things?’ The median response was 4.3 hours a week, based on a 40-hour week.” (When Time’s Money, Organizing Pays Off) At a salary of $30,000, the cost of searching for important papers, measured in lost time, is about $3,376 per year. Ouch. What’s worse is that even if you’re an organized person, the act of being so when you own more than you need still wastes time and money.

Before I eliminated all the time wasting actions in my life, I eliminated all the time wasting products I owned. The old running sneakers in your closet and that cashback coupon you can’t seem to find is starting to take its toll. It’s a fact, living with less, means less to manage. Less to manage translates into a lifestyle that naturally saves you money. It also keeps you free to change your lifestyle and travel without the worry of included baggage, insurance against damage, the need replace things when their lost, etc. It’s stunning how much “stuff” we own that we don’t use. I’ve had a practice over the last 6 months to “minimize” what I no longer need. It fits in perfectly with phase 2 of lifestyle design testing, elimination.

Actions: Evaluate how being disorganized and owning that which you don’t use is costing you. Sell or trash junk you haven’t used in months.

Goals: Live better, cheaper, and more organized with less to manage.

I understand why a lot of lifestyle designers promote living with less. Several of them are some sort of digital nomad, traveling from place to place working through the internets, but some are like Leo Babauta with 5 kids, and realize that it just makes sense. I won’t kill this idea, because its been done, but here’s my practice, one that will start you on the road to living with less. It will increase your productivity and save you money, upping your abilities to live differently.

The idea is straight forward. Evaluate what you own, if it’s not something you’ve used in the last 3 months or is completely seasonal, sell it, craigslist it, or trash it. Here’s what it looked like for me just last month…

• Craigslist sold 4 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, an old cell phone, an old router, a keyboard, and some computer memory. I trashed 6 pairs of sneakers I somehow thought I would use again, or needed as “backups” which have traveled with me across the country and through three different apartments, completely useless in all of them. I realized I have about 35 t-shirts and only wear about 11 of them, I threw out 8 of them. In the end, I freed up space in my closet, made roughly $55 and save a few pieces of furniture could fit everything I own in a medium sized truck.

What’s it look like for you?

The stereotypical grade school question comes to mind when I think of dreamlines. If you could be anything when you grow up, what would it be? Only instead the context here is, if you had a million dollars in the bank, or you knew you were more capable than anyone else, what would you do? My gut instinct was to say, well duh, I’d buy a Viper GTS, and lounge around all day but would I really? Sitting down to think of it, I realized I wouldn’t do anything of the sort.

Actions: Write out what fulfilling your dreams would really look like on a 6 month time line. Take four steps a day for three days toward achieving them. Cut out un-enriching monthly expenses.

Goal: Open your mind to what your dreams look like in reality and on paper.

The point of creating a dreamline is to first, wrap your head around actually pursuing your dreams and secondly to examine exactly how much money it would cost, monthly, and daily to live them out. The results are pretty interesting when you write them down on paper. I certainly can’t live out my dreams on my current income, but I see how it could be possible if I created a few successful sources of monthly income. (a topic I know we’re going to take our time with in the coming weeks)

Creating a dreamline at first seems like a silly exercise, but after doing it, and especially after laying it out on a calendar, it has proved it’s usefulness. The plausibility may seem absurd, but now I have goals. Dreamgoals. There’s a 50 year old saying turned “Law” that states “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” (Parkinsons Law) So if the theory holds true, just putting down the dreams (including cost) on a calendar, will push me to achieve them sooner than if they are loosely floating around in my head.  So here are my dreamlines.

CLICK FOR DISPLAY

WHAT I DID:

• Completed above exercise. Then went back and redid it.
• Put events on Calendar (try google calendar)
• Examined monthly expenses (Cut out…
• Steps taken day one.

looked up a stunt driving program to pull a 180 in

found speed reading product with reviews unlike the px-method (breakthrough rapid reading)

put times on calendar to achieve these

find a place that teaches keet kune do (found multiple people looking for classes in philly and nj based training)

• Steps taken day two.

tried to contact tim ferriss, had a delightful three e-mail back and forth with amy

looked up flights to china, roughly $1500. then looked up world travel tickets and found a trip from West Coast-Beijing-Shanghai-Bangkok-Kuala Lumpur- Los Angeles for $1499.

contacted three dojo’s, might get a web design gig out of it

read about successful blog tips for traffic (ie. you!)

• Steps taken day three.

started measuring my reading speeds and recording other actions

updated blog with simple tips, actually getting hits

re-branded online image during this testing

OUTCOME:

• Realized my dreams aren’t unreasonable
• Developed genuine interest in pursuing some awesome goals
• Understood I couldn’t do all of these if I worked 40 hours a week.
• I actually took steps toward doing them and now see myself completing them.

Try and let us know what you get out of it.

“Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.”
Fulton Oursler

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Actions:

1) Identify how you would approach life differently if you never had to worry about money and were not afraid of failing.

2) Identify what is the worst possible scenario that could happen if you were to approach life this way.

3) Identify what steps you could take to work your way out of this situation.

Goals: Realize that fear is probably keeping you from some good things and even if everything goes horribly wrong you can easily work your way out of it.

One of the truest things I found in Tim Ferris’s book (4 hour work week) was the idea that most people would rather stay settled in an unsatisfying situation than face the fear of change.  If I were truly unafraid of failure I would definitely try countless new things and seek out adventure.   And I think thats the whole point.  To seek out challenges rather than stability.  To find things that interest and excite you rather than hoping to avoid difficulties and things out of the ordinary.  When thinking about the “worst case scenario” I found it interesting that I didn’t really fear losing money (probably because I don’t have much to start with).

What I really feared was that if I were to take a risk I could possibly end up more stuck in a situation that I enjoyed less.   But I think that as pretty much anyone goes through this exercise they are likely to realize that the worst case scenario is not too likely, in fact it’s unlikely.  And the more realistic you become the more you realize that even if you were to take a risk you could probably work your way back to your current situation fairly easily. Here’s what our worst cases look like.

OUR CONVERSATION

1) What is the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering

• R – i would lose $1000-2500 dollars, get scolded at work for being distracted, seem like an idiot, babble about this to people, end up with nothing, waste lots of time and energy
• B – I could quit my job and always regret it because I couldn’t find another that I liked as much.  I could blow all my savings and regret not being able to buy a house or provide for family in the future?  I could leave the country and be bored by myself (possible die) and feel like I just wasted part of my life and time.

2) What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily?

• R – work extra freelance/craigslist gigs, sold stereo and tv, focus more on work productivity instead of financial freedom productivity, not babble
• B – sell body to the night. apply for minimum wage jobs until a teaching position opened up.  Move in with mom or dad and look for teaching jobs around country.

3) What are the outcomes or benefits of more probable scenarios?

• R – figure out financial success like books report and people have done before me, gain some life experiences people don’t have, actually make money and or have a start-up, meet tim ferriss like my brother claimed he did, travel.
• B – start a product and make extra money.  Have more fun and enjoy each day more.  Not feel like I am wasting time.  Actually meet people.

4) If you were fired from your job today what would you do to get things under financial control?

• R – sell everything except my computer, make…umm $2000 live off credit cards and craigslist jobs until i got another consistent IT gig
• B – look for a waiting job or something until I could get back into teaching.  Try to start own business.

5) What are you putting off out of fear?

• R – spending money on ideas i think will work. putting more money into savings because i think i’ll need it now. putting myself, my name, my face out on websites and products in case they fail.
• B – meeting people of the opposite gender.  traveling and being alone.  doing anything new.

6) What is it costing you to postpone action?

• R – its costing me experiences to look back on. the possibility of not living life, but just being another american robot working for a weekend. time and fun in exchange for dull security, thats not even secure.
• B – Wasting time.  actually living the way I am afraid of living. Feeling bored, trapped and alone. Wasting time.

Goal: Improve life, become people and money savvy.

For those of you who like to be resource intensive, there’s a plethora of information that will equip you with the people skills, technical skills, and positive spirit to move in the direction of financial freedom, time freedom and work freedom. Some of these books and certainly their concepts will be covered going forward. The tenants of effective productivity, the pareto principle, money management, and people management are the original life hacks. They are what influenced me throughout the years to take on this project. Knowledge is only half the battle though, action is the other. We can help you with the first. Here’s a quick run of the books, blogs, and audiobooks (I’m a huge fan) that have changed my life as a whole.

• Automatic Millionaire

takeaway: pay yourself first before every paycheck.

• Winning Results with Google Adwords

takeaway: technical “how to” on paying people to look at your product

• The 4 Hour Work Week Blog

takeaway: action oriented kick in the head that generating income and living your dream is doable.

• The Richest Man in Babylon

takeaway: money basics, a must read.

• How to Win Friends and Influence People

takeaway: people basics, obvious but overlooked. a must read.

• www.getrichslowly.com

takeaway: keeping current with using money wisely

• http://www.viralogy.com/experts/

takeaway: the best advice from people who have already broken free.

• http://zenhabits.net/

takeaway: makes me live more productive

Yours?

Goal: Gain some understanding about the game of life design and terms used.

First things first. I admit I want to jump right to building easily managed companies, making loads of passive income and traveling around the world for experience and fun. I have to admit also, I have no freaking idea how to do that, yet. Stage 1 of life style design is to wrap your head around changing some traditionally ingrained thoughts on “work”. We can’t do that unless we understand some new rules, or to put it bluntly understand why what other people are doing sucks.

I deem this the more boring part of lifestyle design, as freeing yourself from the rat-race (ie. 9-5) is what draws the most attention. Now that i’ve said that, understand that unless you’ve laid the groundwork, you don’t know where you’re going. Don’t worry though, stage 1 is just about taking in a few eye opening ideas, generating income will be covered in detail. We’ll see how some successfully work free people did it, and how we’re going to do it. Nothing here is blindingly new, but actually thinking it through will change you’re world.

«New Rich» versus «Deferrers»

• Deferrers work arduously until their retirement – their goal is to shorten the time until they retire. The New Rich spice up their lives with frequent mini-retirements – they use forms of automated (easily manage business’s) or location independent (consulting?) income to allow for untraditional hours.
• The untraditional hours allow for new experiences, traveling, taking classes, living out dreams.
• Deferrers want to work for themselves, New Rich want to have others work for them.
• Deferrers want to become bosses, the New Rich neither want to be bosses nor employees, but owners.

“Everything popular is wrong” – Oscar Wilde

It’s amazing how “set” people get. Generation after generation of people confident they are doing something right won’t ever pick their head up to realize there’s another route. Here are some popular things you see that are just wrong.

• Busy-ness is mistaken for productivity. Excessive overtime is considered admirable, less working hours as a symptom of lazyness, independent of the respective results. In post corporate positions, as long as you’re there 40-60 hours a week, you’re doing okay, despite your results.
• Instead of utilizing personal strengths to the maximum, people waste their lives on the improvement of their weaknesses.
• Think like a teenager. I remember no matter what job I had I constantly thought about the hourly rate. It kept me maximizing my efforts. Take your, and everyone else’s corporate job into consideration for you’re hourly rate.
• Asking for permission by default means to be confronted with naysayers by default.

Eye opening Questions we asked ourselves

1) How has being realistic kept you from the life you want.

• R – i don’t do fun things, i always thing there are more tasks to do. i don’t own a company. i don’t go on vacation every other month. i dont see my friends all the time. i get bored with life and people and want to get lost in fantasy video games. i save money because its safe, never considering potentially good risks.
• B – I have become “un-passionate” and don’t care about doing things or about people as much as I want. I have started to wait for each day to be over.  I have not met many new people in the last two years

2)What would happen if I did the opposite of the people around me?

• R – i would seem weird, like i spent a lot of money perhaps, was all over the place. never worked. was always switching projects, pursuing ideas.

• B – I would not care about the future.  I would not complain or be tired all the time.
  

3) What will I sacrifice if I continue on this track for 5, 10, or 20 years?

• R – i would sacrifice far fetched dreams, traveling, learning multiple skills, i could become cornered in one career, possibly be locked into one company.
• B – I could possibly die alone and wake up every day bored not appreciating anything about life.

Lifestyle design is yet to be defined by Webster, but explained as freeing yourself through changing assumptions on work, productivity, money, and living life. Is it possible to triple your productivity? Automate thousands of dollars into your bank account with a couple weekends worth of research? Free up hours in your day with some simple rethinking? How about own everything you dream of while opening yourself up to gain new skills, languages, arts, passions? We don’t know, so we’re going to try it. Watch us here.

So What? This is Fake, I’m going back to work like real people do….

Is it? We’re not so sure, but we’re going to find out. Follow us as we rip open the principles promoted by Tim Ferriss (The 4 Hour Work Week), the most popular lifestyle designer to date, interview those already generating thousands of automated dollars a month, and put to the test the specific actions that supposedly free us from our 9-5’s, our day to day drudgery and bring us into the world of living out dreams, daily.

The plan, which is assumed by  the word design is to mix the right elements of positive change in your life, with mind opening (free and accessible) experiences. The process is one rooted in speed research and education, and ends with automated income and living out your wants and dreams. This isn’t get rich quick or shirk your responsibilities, this is rule redefinition. Check back in July as we officially launch, introduce ourselves and lay out our tools, tests, and initial reviews.