Work : The Art of Non-Conformity

Work

What to Do About That Thing You’ve Been Putting Off

You know how there's something you've been putting off? Maybe you've had it on your to-do list every day for the past fifteen days. Every morning, you think, "I'll finally do that thing today" ... but you don't. The next day, you dutifully carry it over again ... and you still don't complete the task.

Never underestimate the strength of psychic resistance. Dread is a powerful emotion.

I speak from experience, of course. And after I noticed I was spending a ton of energy worrying about something I had to do but not actually doing it—I made a plan. The plan is two-fold, and I offer it here for your use as well.

Work

How to Get Better at Saying No

Every request you accept comes with a cost.

If you want to be more effective, if you want to "get more done," or even if you just want some breathing room in your life, you need to say no more often.

For some of us, of course, this is easier said than done. The inability to say no is one of the things that contributes the most to overwhelm. It can even lead to feelings of guilt or shame—you feel guilty for “letting someone down” even though you’re struggling to keep up on your own.

What should you say no to? That's up to you! But here's a start: anything that you don't want to do.

Work

The Great Resignation: If Your Job Sucks, Now Is the Time to Stop Doing It

If you don't like your job, what would happen if you walked away?

I've been asking this question off and on for over a decade. Unless you plan on living forever, why in the world should you devote the majority of your productive hours each week to something you don't enjoy?

All that time, I haven't exactly been speaking into a void. I hear from people almost every day who have followed through on some sort of exit plan.

It's clear, however, that something is different now. Very different. What's different is that millions of people are actually quitting their jobs! Four million Americans just in April 2021, according to government statistics, and many millions since.

Work

Working Hard at Something That Doesn’t Matter

“Our greatest fear should not be failure but succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.”

Last year, pre-pandemic, I went to a three-day yoga retreat in Arizona. I'd never done such a thing before and was thinking of signing up for a longer one, so this seemed like a safe introduction.

The yoga itself was good. I enjoyed the classes and met a few nice people.

Among the group of one-hundred or so attendees, I noticed that several of them spent a lot of time working on their selfie game. Some even had a pro photographer in tow, who documented their poses, attempts at acro yoga, and bikini collections.

Work

How to Write a Novel

First up, thank you so much for your support of THE MONEY TREE! Despite the numerous challenges of current events, the book is getting out to lots of people.

Now that it's out, a number of readers have asked me to explain more about a big change I made. Specifically, my new book is unlike any of my six others: it’s fiction. I created an imaginary world of characters, and did my best to bring them to life.

It started partly because I wanted to do something new. The more I thought about it, the more nervous I felt ... which of course is often a good sign. A sense of nervousness and even feeling a little afraid can be helpful in showing you what you need to do next.

Life

The Second Best Thing You Can Do Right Now

Wondering what to do during this time of chaos? I have a proposal.

First, the best thing you can do is what you already know about: keep people safe by washing your hands, refraining from gatherings, etc.

But unless you’re on the front lines (THANK YOU to everyone who is), most of those actions are passive. When you’re sitting at home with clean hands, what can you do besides turn on Netflix?

This is my proposal: the best thing you can do is be safe, but the second best thing is to be productive.

Et Cetera

Language Matters: Lessons in Editing from Mr. Rogers

This week I went to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and found it as heartwarming and uplifting as I expected.

If you’re able to see it in a theatre, don’t hesitate. At the screening I attended, everyone applauded at the end. This doesn’t happen much in Portland, Oregon. It felt like we were on a flight landing in Miami from Central America (it’s a thing).

Afterwards I stumbled on an article that details the level of precision that Fred Rogers put into editing the language used on his show. The man was relentlessly focused on connecting with children. He would go back and edit previous episodes if he found they no longer stood up, or if language had changed and required an update.

Work

168 Hours: What I’ve Learned Tracking Every 15 Minutes of My Week

For the past two weeks I’ve been tracking every 15 minute interval of my life. I’ve borrowed this time-tracking practice from Laura Vanderkam, who writes helpful books including 168 Hours, which outlines the practice in a lot of detail.

One of Laura’s principles is that “you have more time than you think.” Through her research, she’s found that most people who claim to work more than 50 hours a week tend to over report their work hours, sometimes dramatically so. In other words, a lot of the time they think they’re working, they’re not. It’s not just that their priorities are out of order; they also waste a lot of time.

Work

Don’t Make Important Decisions Out of Desperation

One of the best things about having more than one source of income is that it provides security when something goes wrong. You’re not dependent on your employer—so that even if a job loss would be a major problem, at least it wouldn’t be an all-out disaster.

But what if you don’t have that security set up, and you lose your job... what do you do?

Work

What Is Your Personal Moonshot?

A moonshot, according to the ubiquitous WikiPedia, is a "is an ambitious, exploratory and ground-breaking project undertaken without any expectation of near-term profitability or benefit and also, perhaps, without a full investigation of potential risks and benefits.”

For a long time my moonshot was going to every country in the world. Then I accomplished that goal (without ever getting to the actual moon—it's not a country, after all) and had to figure out what came next...

Et Cetera

Join a Supportive Community and Create a New Source of Income

Link: Side Hustle Society

Short version: my new training program (the first I’ve made in 3 years!) is now available for registration. Join during the introductory launch—one week only—before it closes for at least a month.

-OFFER ENDS January 16, 2018-

Life

The Limits of Lifehacking: What Happens When You Approach Optimization?

I have a weird memory of my dad explaining math to me when I was a kid. I never actually learned real math, at least once it went beyond how to pocket extra lunch money, and still haven’t learned 30-odd years later.

But my dad was a good storyteller, and often taught me lessons using examples. One time he told me how if you stood across the room and moved halfway toward the wall, and then halfway again, and then kept moving only halfway over and over, you would never actually reach the wall.

As a ten-year-old, my mind was blown. You'll never reach the wall if you only move halfway, even if you spend 10 years moving over and over?

Work

201 More Stories of People with Day Jobs Creating Side Hustles

Listen to Side Hustle School:

-in iTunes or Stitcher
-on the website

On January 1, I began a new project: to share a story every day of someone who starts an income-generating project (a "side hustle") without quitting their day job.

The project failed and I decided to give up. Just kidding! We are relentlessly moving along, publishing story after story—and it's getting better and better!

I recently completed the first ~~100~~ ~~200~~ 300 days. There's much more to come, but I'm excited about everything I've learned since beginning back in January.

If you're just joining in, you can also catch up on any recent episode from the links below.

Download all episodes from each month:

JAN | FEB | MARCH | APR | MAY | JUN | JUL | AUG | SEP | OCT

Work

What If All Your Work Disappeared At the End of the Day?

Over the past ten years, I’ve thought a lot about building a legacy. In particular, I’ve thought about it as it relates to a body of work that you produce and share over the years. This model has kept me going for a long time.

One of the most attractive qualities of writing the blog, starting in 2008 and continuing until now (albeit in several distinct forms), was the idea that I was building a portfolio of sorts. I could write something today, and it would still be around tomorrow, next week, next year, and so on. It would, as I’ve said more than once, “go on to live a life of its own.”

But is that really true?

Work

101 Stories of People with Day Jobs Creating Side Hustles

On January 1, I began a new project: to publish a story every day of someone who starts an income-generating project (a "side hustle") without quitting their day job.

The project failed and I decided to give up. Just kidding! We are relentlessly moving along, publishing story after story—and it's getting better and better!

I recently completed the first 100 days. There's much more to come, but I'm excited about everything I've learned since beginning back in January.

If you're just joining in, you can also catch up on any recent episode from the links below.

Download all episodes from each month:
January | February | March | April

1 2 3 … 8 Next »

Link: Side Hustle Society

Listen to Side Hustle School:

Download all episodes from each month:

Download all episodes from each month: January | February | March | April

Download all episodes from each month:
January | February | March | April