Zen: A total state of focus that incorporates a total togetherness of body and mind. Zen is a way of being. It also is a state of mind. Zen involves dropping illusion and seeing things without distortion created by your own thoughts.
As I mentioned in other posts I have been trying to work less and earn more. I call it Zen Freelancing.
So far it’s working well to maintain my average monthly income. I worked somewhere around 60 hours total in January, and still billed my normal amount for the month. Normally it would have been a 100+ hour month.
That’s INSANE. I literally cut out 40 work hours. That’s an entire week if I worked in a office.
How am I doing this?
The following are just a few things I’m starting or already doing to help me work less and be more efficient. Hopefully they help you as well.
1. Going Zen
This is kinda the easy part.
If I’m having difficulty with something, I don’t do it. So instead of banging my head against a wall I did things like:
- Hit the gym
- Go for a drive
- People watching at Starbucks
- Worked on personal projects
I basically did a mini-unplug for an hour or two and would come back frustration free to tackle client work.
2. Removing distractions
The post 5 Tips to Separate Work from Life also talk about a few of the things I have been doing to make sure I’m free of distraction when working.
Shutting off social media has been instrumental in achieving the zen like state I need to crank out work.
Think about how much time you spend just browsing Twitter or Facebook. How about sites like Reddit? I could waste my whole day on Reddit.
3. Relaxing my work environment
You probably just said “Do what?? How do you relax an environment??”
Yeah, I know. But here’s what I did:
- Moved my office into an empty room.
- Cleaned off my desk! Only items I absolutely need stayed.
Further Reading:
- Creating a minimalist workspace
- 18 Ways to Create a Relaxing Home Office
- 10 Ways to Relax Your Workspace
4. More Flat-Fee pricing and less Hourly
This is something I’ve done for awhile but its definitely relevant.
I have a few clients that prefer hourly billing because they can buy blocks of hours at a time and have my handle random tasks as they come up. But for the most part I try to flat-fee everything.
Flat-fee works better because the client knows the full costs. It works better for me because I don’t have to spend time starting and stopping timers… which is a pain.
I say use the Buddy System, too. It has helped de-stress me to find a like-minded colleague who enjoys and dislikes many of the same things.
Someone to kick ideas off of, someone with complementary skills and drive to have a reciprocal learning relationship with, and definitely someone to tell you to GTF to work or STFU or that you’re a complete L7 wienie.
Either one of you can feel free to remind me to STFU and GTF to work. I started working on my presentation for the next meetup…the working title is “21st Century Marketing for the Uniformed, Impatient and Lazy Small Business Owner”