What I’ve been up to

I’m not going to reveal everything, because a) you probably won’t be that interested and b) I have no interest in pushing products or services on my readers. I’ve spent a lot of time exploring options for making money online, and one thing I have identified is that whilst there are a lot of opportunities out there it is important to establish a number of different income streams to establish a more reliable income source. So there are simple things like promoting affiliate products, to more complex activities like providing consultancy and services within my skill set. Needless to say, I have been working hard on both research and more importantly implementing these income streams. Whislt I’ve probably been running at 50% learning 50% doing, the balance is tipping now and I’m aiming to focus my time 75% on doing action orientated, money making activities whilst ticking over 25% of my time on exploring new opportunities and learning. As each day passes I learn more and it I think that it is important to keep learning to maintain interest and grow.

Lifestyle Projects

My main focus at the moment is the above activities related to quitting the 9-5 and establishing an income through other means. I am still focused on fitness too, though as always envisaged that is more of a habit that I maintain than a particular goal at the moment. I’ve dropped being in a band as a project now as it doesn’t fit too closely with traveling but I have plenty more to keep me going. I’ve got research to do for my trip, preparations for leaving to take in to account so I’ve certainly got plenty to do.

I’ve got a lot more to say, but I’ll get back to working on the above. I’ll post updates here on progress and other snippets of useful things as I see fit. Hope you are all well and taking action!

Brilliant FREE Musclebuilding/Fat Loss eBook

Before I go I’d like to point you in the direct of the latest copy of Total Anabolism from Mark at the excellent Musclehack blog. This all natural muscle building system is the best resource I’ve ever found about weight training, fat loss and nutrition. I highly recommend you check it out it’s FREE and Mark’s blog is the best source of information on these areas I’ve ever found. This eBook is a well research, refined and proven method that I use myself.

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Considering when I started blogging I used to read a lot of information about how to grow blogs, and how a lot of them have don’t survive past a few posts I think I have done fairly well. Also with my track record for losing interest in things, I’ve done especially well. That’s enough of a pat on my own back there.

I’ve never subscribed (no pun intended) to the ‘post everyday to build content’ way of doing things on blogs. Firstly, although I have no problem churning out that many ideas, I do have a problem with producing that many completed posts. As I have talked about before I find that hardest thing about blogging to be the actual polishing and finishing of my posts.

Blogging in an interesting past-time and certainly has it’s up and down moments. Here are some of my highlights and lowlights from the last year.

Highlights:
1. Getting my first comment on my about page, a very positive it was too.
2. The day that my post 10 Ways To Implement GTD Simply was listed on the front page of Wordpress.com I got a lot of hits and comments that day, and my post got listed on Stumbleupon. The good old days of when I wrote about productivity.
3. When I moved to being a Self-Hosted Blog: I enjoyed the process of setting up my blog and though “wow now I can have advertising”. And boy did the advertising pay off - a whole $45 I have earned out of my blog in a year. I need $50 of earnings for the affiliate to pay out! Anyway, making money is not what the blog is about.
4. The day I ran a competition - it did increase my subscriber numbers quite a bit, but I was doing other activities to try and get my subscriber numbers up at the same time. It was nice to run a competition in a small attempt to ‘pay something back’ to my readers.
5. Reaching the 1 year milestone.
6. I have never received a negative comment. Maybe I’m not being controversial enough. I’ve had lots of spam - really what is the point?
7. Getting linked to on Zen Habits (albeit a small link).

Lowlights:
1. Not really getting that bigger a subscriber base. I am very thankful to each and every one of my subscribers and I am deeply grateful for every genuine comment and piece of encouragement I receive. It really makes a difference.
2. When blogging feels like a chore - This is something I’ve experienced in my other hobbies, namely when my triathlon training became like a chore or something I ‘had’ to do, rather than something I wanted to do.
4. When google migrated the feedburner to their system - seriously what went wrong?
5. I’ve only a couple of guest posts, and none on blogs really that stand out in my niche, though the posts I did were great and on great blogs.
6. Staring and not finishing my eBook. Maybe to be resurrected in the future.

One year on and I’ve made some great friends and contacts in the blogging world. I’m still not sure if ‘writing’ as opposed to blogging is something I want to pursue. There is obviously some difference between being a blogger and a writer. I like the idea of being a writer, but I still find the process very difficult. I think I need to pursue another path for my passion and money making potential. As many of you know I have started another blog, WorldTroubadour.com which is my foray in to travel writing. One thing’s for sure, I love to travel and experience new cultures place and meet new people - but will I love (and be any good at) writing about it. Who knows, but It’s a slow start that will get more involved as I quit my day job and travel the world.

Goals Update
I’ve certainly learned a lot about blogging and online in the last year, but I’ve also learned a lot about the subjects that I cover of productivity, lifestyle design, goal setting and beyond. When I started this blog I coined the team Lifestyle Project as encapsulating what we are all working towards in our lives. A very successful part of my site has been the ‘What’s your Lifestyle Project’ section.

I have learned that Personal development is both under and over rated. It is underrated because I think that a lot of people could benefit from making a more conscious attempt to improve themselves. It is overrated by the fact that I think that there is a lot to be said about making a change (talking action) rather than just talking about or researching it. Personal Development is all around us, and essentially we are all the result of the people we meet, the places we go and the experiences we have. Go out and grab these rather than sitting in front of endless blogs learning about how to keep your inbox to zero. Think about what you will regret on your deathbed and make sure that it doesn’t happen. You can be sure having an empty inbox won’t be one of them.

1. Quit the 9-5 - Although I’m still very much working on it, we have set a date and by October we will be free of our day jobs and seeing the world. Financially I don’t know, I’m working on that. Do something that scares you and don’t hold back on what you might regret.
2. Maintain Fitness. I’m still doing this and I’ve managed to persevere through injury, etc.
3. Be in a band - OK this is where I have slipped. Although it might now be sort of happening in directly. The reason it hasn’t happened it because I haven’t taken my own advice and taken the direct action to make it happen. I’m sure if I had I would have made a big progress if I had taking the right actions to achieve this goal.

My personal goals and development have been what has driven the content on the blog on the whole, and that is how it will continue.

Thanks
I would like to thank you each and every one of my readers who has made it to this part of my article. I hope that my waffle strikes chord with you, as does my open and honest style of blogging.

The Future
So what does the future hold for Lifestyle Project? I suppose the question is more what does it hold for Chris, the blogger, the potential writer and / or online entrepreneur. As I’ve said several times, I have learned a lot over the past year and now I am putting this all in to practice. I have aligned my lifestyle project with the required actions to make it happen and this leads me to the unknown territory of traveling the world without a full time job. To make this happen I need to create an income so I’m working on my 4HWW muses, my Location Independent Business and my internet marketing stuff. I won’t be writing about this here, well it’s unlikely. Lifestyle Project will continue to explore lifestyle design in it’s purest and dirtiest forms (yeah like I’m that cool). Stay along for the ride.

Image by PinkCakeBox

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There comes a day in the life of many 9-5 workers, when you realise that staying static, doing the same job, traveling the same stretch of tarmac to work every day only to be delegated meaningless tasks and earn money for someone else, is not enough. We are conditioned from an early age, throughout our education and into the working and tax life, to strive for success and to follow a culturally acceptable path.

Realisation
This is not how life has to be. The greatest thing about living in the free world is the opportunity it affords us, and if we don’t stop dreaming and grab on to the life it is possible to have, we are destined to look back in five, ten or twenty years time and wish that we had made the most of the opportunities we have today.

The Questions Start
So you’ve decided that the 9-5 is not for you, and then the questions creep into your conscious thought. Some of these will be from friends and family in whom you have confided your plans, others will be pondered sub-consciously.

Money
For most individuals, the primary concern is likely to be financial security. Can I afford to quit the comfortable lifestyle I have now and risk not being able to earn in order to do this? The question should be, can your life afford to not to do this? Start saving now. If you are planning to run your own business to finance your lifestyle, you need a certain level of intelligence, and I’m sure that as a by-product of this requirement you will be able to set yourself a budget and start to understand what it is going to take to be free. Of course you may have to quit your job, if you are not in a profession where you can negotiate a remote working agreement, but you’ve held a job before and reached where you are today so there is no reason why you couldn’t do it again.

Family & Friends
No doubt you will have concerns about missing family and friends, and absolutely you should take into consideration your feelings for these people. A head-strong, independent person will be the kind of person who can fend for him- or herself. Technology is advancing all the time and staying in touch is easier than ever before. If you think about it, a lot of the communication you have with friends and family will not change from the phone calls, email, twits, IMs etc. that you do now - it’s just that you have more exciting stories to tell of your new lifestyle.

Life out of the office
So you’re accustomed to your big screen TV, your dishwasher and all the mod cons you currently have. You like your comfy bed and the fact that your local take-away knows your usual order when you call. Although there is comfort in routine and familiarity, this is exactly the lifestyle rut you have already identified that you don’t want to be stuck in (not that there is anything wrong with that if it is what suits you) and you are ready to make a change. Ask yourself if you can pack your life up into a single suitcase and say goodbye to your home comforts. I feel that you should look on this as an opportunity to simplify and refine your life - a lot of people find that this provides them with mental clarity and self-exploration like they have never found before.

Can I Make Money?
Can you work for yourself and run your own business? I’m tempted to go with a cliché and say that you don’t know unless you try. The fact is that you know your own strengths and weaknesses; you just have to admit them to yourself. Although, for cost reasons, often you will need to do a lot of tasks outside your skill set, there are support options out there. You can hire remote workers to take care of specific aspects of your business. Make sure that you network with people who already run their own businesses, or are in a similar market and who could therefore offer advice and support. Like many things, you really need to believe in yourself and trust your instincts. Make sure that you can work independently and put in the effort required to make it work.

Taking the Leap & The Bigger Picture
If and when you take the leap it will be scary, yet it is likely to be like ripping off a plaster. The anticipation is worse than the action and once it’s over you will wonder what you were worrying about (even if it hurt like hell for a few seconds). Try not to get bogged down in the details, but focus on the bigger picture of what you want for your life now and in the future. Don’t live in regret; grasp the life you want now.

What concerns have you had on the road to independence?

Image by Jef Safi on Flickr via Creative Commons

——–

• Yep, I know my posting and Twittering has dwindled slightly recently. I’m still here, I’m just slowing things down, really. Interesting stuff coming!
  

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Why I Blog

So what is the definition of Frugal Living? To me, it is living below your means. Taking less from this blue planet than you give back. Spending less than your make so you have something for a rainy day. Better yet, it is about having a purpose and a goal. For me this is part being environmentally conscious.

Being “frugal” also means making the best of a situation with what you already have, and appreciating the fact that you have so much more than many people living today. Many people forget that Life is a “Gift”, and you need to live each day knowing this. You never really know whether you will still be around tomorrow. Just don’t let this fact stop you from living or preparing for the future. It’s all about having balance in life. Balance, in health, finance, spiritual and every other aspect of your life.

To really succeed, you have to be extraordinary. You need to believe that “YOU” are special and unique. You are the only one who can do things your special way. I’m not talking about self conceit. In a way, you have to fool yourself into being someone better than you are Today. That’s the journey I’m taking with my latest blog - Frugal Kaizen, and with all my other blogs. I aim to help and to be of help to anyone who find my writing useful.

Typical Tips From FrugalNYC

So what kind of tips do I usually have on my blog? I write about things that come across in my life. Things that inspire me to think and then write. Things that I can share and others in similar situations can benefit from. Some of what I write about are things that I find helpful as references for others as well as myself. I write a good deal about things to do in NYC for free. Public parks, Libraries, computing and I also delve into career and health. Frugal lifestyle practices are one of the staples of my blog as well.

FrugalNYC is part Travel blog, Finance blog, Tech blog, and little bits of other aspects of me mixed in. Initially, I had content about nearly everything of interest to me. Currently, the focus is more on Frugality, Finance and NYC as a destination for both visitors and locals.

I hope this post helps you identify who I am and what I believe in. I hope you’ll have a chance to drop by my blog and leave a comment or two on topics of interest to you. My blogs are in part, my “Lifestyle Project”.  I welcome any constructive criticism and ideas for improving my blogs.

I would like to thank Chris for giving me this opportunity to guest post on his blog!

For additional links to frugal tips and tricks follow me on Twitter. If you would like to contribute to FrugalNYC in any way feel free to contact me via email. Click here to add FrugalNYC to your RSS reader or Subscribe to FrugalNYC by Email.

———

• Check out the guest post I did on FrugalNYC, “An Englishman in New York” here.
• I’ve been slowing down. A post about what this means coming up soon. Cheers Chris.

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So you’ve made the decision that you want to transition into such a lifestyle. Unfortunately it won’t just happen overnight. By choosing to become location independent you have already realised that you will be working whilst changing your home location. This is probably for a number of reasons, but mainly because you understand that you are going to have to earn money to eat, and because you want to run your own business and hopefully will enjoy doing it. Just because you can’t start the location independent lifestyle overnight, doesn’t mean that you can’t start to make progress towards living that lifestyle now.

Here are 5 ways you can begin your location independent lifestyle today.

1. Brainstorm Ideas.
You need to come up with a business that will support you. To do this you need to understand that the work you will be doing requires the need to be remote and be able to work around the globe with clients in different time-zones. I would suggest that you should see these elements as opportunities rather than constraints. With this in mind jot down all of your skills and take a look at what products and services your location independent business should be able to offer. Think about what you enjoy doing and where you talents lie.

2. Build your Online Presence.
There is nothing stopping you registering a domain and knocking up a quick website (or hiring someone else to do it for you on a site such as Elance), to get you started. This will enable you to do a few things. First there is the psychological edge that you have a business to run. It will enable you to start practising the elements of running the business without quitting your day job. Secondly, you will be able to test markets and any work you do take on will be an important lesson in time management which will stand you in good stead when your next meal depends on it.

3. Build your Business Plan.
Start your business plan today. A business plan - if done correctly - is an evolving document that not only sets out the framework for your business, but also evolves with it. Focusing on getting this important document done (which many business owners neglect) will focus your mind on what you want to achieve and enable you to start ironing out and issues and refining your business offering now whilst you have all the resources you need available to you.

4. Research Potential Locations now.
Start researching locations now, even if you aren’t planning to go there anytime soon. This will make you aware of how to research accommodation and the office facilities that go with them. Make a few calls, try and get used to communicating with other cultures and whet your appetite for the lifestyle you are working towards. Build up knowledge of where to find this kind of information and the things to look out for.

5. Be Frugal.
In the initial stages of your location independent lifestyle, as you build up a client base, and also later on with any changes in the economy or seasonal demand, there will be times when you have less spare cash. Adapt this way of thinking into your lifestyle now, so that it becomes second nature down the line. Once you take the plunge you won’t need many of the possessions you have now, so ask yourself if you really would want to carry that extra gadget etc. For an extreme exercise in this aspect of the lifestyle pack up all your belongings in a suitcase and set yourself a budget. Try and live within that budget and only use items in that suitcase for a couple of weeks and see how it takes your fancy.

Whilst your mobile lifestyle may not be here yet, you can certainly start living the lifestyle now and preparing for the road ahead.

What tips do you have to start your journey to independence?

Image by /\ltus

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For various reasons - I’m keeping the post simple this week. The quote in the image above says all I want to say perfectly - so I thought I’d leave it at that.

Note: Whilst the quote in the above says ‘unknown’ as the source, a quick bit of googling attributes it to Mark Twain.

Have you regretted not acting on opportunities? Are you making sure you won’t regret not doing stuff in twenty years time? Let me know in the comments!

—-

• New Post on my New Blog: Sometimes you’ve got to be the tourist - hope you enjoy it!

Image by [Satbir] on Flickr via Creative Commons

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I recently realised that during my waking hours, I am always doing something. There is never a time when I am doing nothing. By doing nothing, I mean just having quiet time to think, mull things over or just relax and do nothing.

What is nothing?
To be clear, what I define as doing nothing is just that - just sitting there and breathing, that’s it. There are times when I am doing nothing productive, but I honestly can’t remember the last time I was doing absolutely nothing at all.

I wake, and then eat. When I am not at work I’ll be reading, writing, watching TV, playing the guitar or working out. I think that I get edgy when I have nothing to do, my attention span is so short that I always have to be doing something.

I read recently that the human brain is chemically conditioned to respond to new stimuli. This is why as humans, by nature we slip in to multi-tasking, the inevitable procrastination and the inability to finish anything. We chemically respond to new things to do and therefore we are always doing something, as new things crop up all of the time.

There is a trend for mediation in some circles. I don’t think that you need to go that far - mediation isn’t about being a hippy.

Here’s the simplest form of meditation that I am going to start to try:

1. Find somewhere quiet to sit.
2. Close your eyes.
3. Say a mantra (something like just saying “in and out” as you breath is fine).
4. If, and more likely when, you mind wanders, let it. Just relax, say your mantra and allow your mind to empty.

Before you approach meditation, it may be beneficial to do one of the following:
a) Not call it mediation. Just have quiet time.
b) Start with just 5 minutes.
c) Make time in your schedule to do this. You will benefit from it.

I’d love to hear other people’s experiences in this area. Do you meditate, or can you not remember the last time you truly did absolutely nothing?

Image by connordowney on Flickr via Creative Commons

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In the interests of limiting information overload, and partly because this post turned in to a bit of a rant, I’ve split this article in to several parts.

A few weeks ago I posted about how I was suffering from information overload. I decided to try and dramatically cut down on my consumption of information. Obviously this idea isn’t new, especially in productivity circles, with the much famed ‘media fast’ concept being coined by Tim Ferriss.

Here are my observations and learnings so far:

The amount of information we consume is directly controllable by ourselves. Aside from those snippets of information that we need to do our day jobs, or research a task that must be done - most of the information that we consume is unnecessary. Obviously there is nothing wrong with consuming all of this information, but there is a clear distinction (although it may not be clear at first) between required information, desired information and obligated information.

Allow me to explain:

1. Required Information
I class required information as that information, data or whatever that you require to do a given task, and more importantly a current rather than future task. It is important to make the distinction there - as you should only consume the information that you need to complete what you are currently working on or else the chances are that you will need to revisit the information which is inefficient use of both your time and attention span. Point to note here - only consume the information that you need to complete the current task.

2. Desired Information
This is information that you want to consume; this could be as it is related to a particular interest or hobby but not because it required to complete any tangible task. They key to this area is to make sure that you don’t control this activity so that it doesn’t take over your other tasks.

3. Obligated information.
This is information that you feel obligated to consume, but actually serves no purpose to further your own priorities. In our working lives there is a hell of a lot of this kind of information. This is why the CC field on email is a complete and utter pain! People CC the world on unimportant emails to justify their position or their worth. You feel that you need to consume this kind of information because if you don’t you might miss something important and be caught out in the future. Chances are that you will miss the odd thing but I doubt it will be disastrous, especially as most workplace ‘emergencies’ are false anyway.

When you think about the information you consume in these three categories, this is how I would suggest you limit your information intake:

1. Only use the required information you need to do the CURRENT activity. Learn to consume the right amount of information, don’t overload yourself with information, as this will only make the task harder to complete.

2. Understand the desired information that you consume because you want to or more specifically because it takes you towards your goals. Be careful not to kid yourself that you want all this information (see blogs and news point below).

3. Cut down 99% of obligated information consumption. I would suggest that you probably obligate yourself to consume far more information than you actually need to. So what if you miss something, it’s not going to be the end of the world is it? Understand the difference between required and obligated information.

In the next part I look at the cutting down blogs and news information.

———

• I’ve been working on my new travel blog: World Troubadour - check it out.
  

Image by Will Lion on Flickr via Creative Commons

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“What do you for a living?”

My eyes roll, my toes curls and I let out a small sigh.

“I work in IT, it’s really boring. What do you do?”

I find that this short, uninteresting answer does one of three things.

1. Shifts the focus back on them so you don’t spend the next 15 minutes talking about your day job.
2. Give them the opportunity to spout on about their day job for the next 15 minutes.
3. Due to the short uninterested response means that the small talk is over and the conversation is dead.

Here’s the thing, it’s not that I don’t want to be polite and get to know people. Of course work takes up so much of our lives that it is inevitable that people will spend a lot of time talking about it. It’s the fact that people (generalisation) define themselves and others by what they do.

The thing is, if you have a boring desk based job people don’t ask you any questions about it. However, my friends that work in the Police or Doctors get quizzed about what they have seen recently constantly. No-one asks me if i’ve sent any interesting emails recently.

I am often tempted to answer that question with “I’m an astronaut”. Unfortunately I have neither the confidence, acting skills or personality to pull of a convincing routine in that department.

There are some schools of though that state that you should answer they question with what you want to be, maybe I’ll try that next time. I’m trying to come up with a better bit of small talk to slot in place of that question, maybe I’ll start with asking “Do you play any instruments?” as I would be far more interested in anything people have to say about being musical than them talking about the internal admin they had to deal with this week.

What if I miss something great?
The thing is that you are still going to find out what people do, it’s still going to come up and you can latch on to it if it is something really cool. We must not forget that some people love what they do and are able to wake up pursuing their passion everyday - though you’ll probably find that these people are in the minority. If they do pursue such a path, I’m sure it will become obvious early in the conversation anyway.

Do you have any thoughts on this stance or any alternative questions that could be asked? Please share your ideas in the comments below.

Images by Arturo de Albornoz & candrews on Flickr via Creative Commons

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(There are a lot of links to great further reading in this post, so please set aside some time to have a look through them.)

A great blog, and therefore one I am likely to subscribe to is one that I can get lost in for a while. It will in someway connect with me and captivate my interest to make me click through the top posts and open up the archives for more nuggets of gold posted over the life of the blog.

In my current area of blogging there are some obvious ‘hero’ bloggers. There is Leo Babauta from Zen Habits who was one of the major inspirations for me starting a blog. There is Tim Ferris, the self styled guru of lifestyle design. These people enjoy the power of exponential growth in their following on an hourly basis. They all work very hard at what they do and collectively inspire millions of people around the world.

Aside from the above ‘A-List’ bloggers, I’d like to share some of my other favourite blogs. As you can see they all operate in different ‘niches’ and are excellent sources of information as they are aligned with my own Lifestyle Project. As with many blogs I can’t remember how I first came across them, and I’m sure if you are reading you might not remember how you go here. That’s how it rolls in the blogosphere.

Almost Fearless (@almostfearless )
I love this blog as Christine is on the journey that I am aiming for. A successful manager in an fortune 500 company, she earned a good living, worked hard and got great results. There came a time and, she just didn’t want to do it anymore. She had the realisation that there is more to life than a career and a few weeks away each year. The world is an amazing place. Don’t you want to do out and see it? Christine now travels funding herself through freelance writing and photography - and tells us all the story along the way.

Read Christine’s Lifestyle Project she shared on this blog here.

Posts to get you started on Almost Fearless:

• 8 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was 22
• 10 Unexpected Costs of Owning Things

Caroline Middlebrook (@cmiddlebrook)
Before you jump over to Caroline’s excellent blog which is essentially a blog about making money online, understand that it is not my primary motivation for subscribing to this blog. Caroline’s back-story is inspiring and this is what is important to the Lifestyle Project blog. Caroline also quit her day job to pursue what she wanted to do. She is an absolutely excellent writer and has a particular talent for teaching through writing. She demystifies the world of social media, blogging and making money online and shares here journey with you at a detailed level with monthly earning reports. Caroline is able to communicate simply the concepts in this minefield niche.

Posts to get you started on Caroline-Middlebrook:

• Big Juicy Twitter Guide
• Action-Based Numeric Goals That Get Results

MuscleHack (@musclehack)
Mark’s passion for muscle building, diet and communicating his message is outstanding. He has an excellent system for building muscle and loosing fat. His free eBook is exceptional if you want to learn about this. Mark cuts through all the fuzz in this area and gives you the cold hard facts based on his own learning. Currently I am working through Mark’s Total Six Pack Abs programme, the results are already showing! Expect a review of his book here soon. Mark is a great writer of focused informal posts, and has build up quite a following in just over a year of blogging.

Read Mark’s Lifestyle Project he shared on this blog here.

Posts to get you started on MuscleHack:

• How to Build Muscle Fast – Complete Guide
• 10 Ways to be Absolutely F*@king Miserable

One of the reasons I believe the above people are successful bloggers is because they have a genuine voice, and really make you feel that you can succeed doing what they do . They are passionate about what they do and are truly inspiring to my Lifestyle Projects and me as a blogger. An interesting thing to note is the above blogs, like mine, are all under 18 months old!

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