If you’re new to this blog then welcome! Check the about page out first, read through the below and you’re then free to choose your own adventure. Cool? Cool.
“Time unobstructed” represents two concepts I subscribe to. One is the dream perpetuated by lifestyle gurus the world over – the freedom to chose every day where and how you use your time. This is the goal and some will say it is overly simplistic, but nobody ever did the work without a compelling reason why.
The second meaning is a little less obvious and use the rest of this page to explain. It is the value of time when you are trying to create meaningful income streams.
Think on this for a moment. You work 8-10 hours each day, commute for two more, socialize with friends and colleagues and spend the rest of your time with your family. How much time do you have to work on that side project? Maybe an hour snatched at the end of day when you’re at your most tired and would really rather switch off instead. Add in the odd evening phone call or overtime and even if you do manage to spend an hour working on something 3-4 days pass before you come back to it. Momentum, zero. You want to strike out on your own and you know you need to create extra income, but its impossible to get anything off the ground.
Meanwhile Johnny un-jobbed puts 30-40 of his best hours per week into product development, sales, strategy and networking, making it look easy. Depressing huh.
In three weeks Johnny puts more time into his business than you can in three months. Even you both start at the same place is there any wonder Johnny moves further and further ahead while you are still frustrated back at the planning stage?
Well you’re going to have to pull yourself out of this well of self pity to get ahead, so lets go ahead and address this problem right now.
Project Killer #1 – Not Enough Time
Not enough time is probably the obstacle you are letting stop you from following through on your dreams. It certainly was for me for a long time and there’s a good chance you’re nodding as you read this. But honestly, whether you stop and give up at this obstacle or any other is actually your choice. On this site I will share and the systems, processes, tools and habits thousands of others have used to create unobstructed time and re-word that first sentence so it no longer applies to them, ie “Not enough time is the obstacle other people are letting stop them from following through on their dreams.
Notice the difference there?
My Commitment To You
On this site I will teach and share approaches, mindsets, structures, processes and productivity hacks to change your side business into your real business. I will talk about at when to spend and when it makes sense to DIY, leverage, generating and validating ideas, business partners, marketing, joint ventures and all the other “aha” trigger moments that add up put other entrepreneurs in control both of their lives and their time.
To keep me organised For your benefit I group everything into a few core categories:
Offense represents anything that produces income and increases your ability to fund your lifestyle. You need to score points to win (duh) so offense is important.
Some will say you should focus on increasing your means over being “frugal”, as if this was a binary choice between one or the other. Why not do both and get there faster?
Defense means controlling expenses and managing money. It is solid, unpopular and boring yet defence lowers how much offense you need to win. Scoring 50 points doesn’t help if you give up 70. Some will say you should focus on increasing your means over being “frugal”, as if this was a binary choice between one or the other. Why not do both and get there faster?
Effective Productivity. Repeating “earn more, spend less” does little good if we never get anything done. Productivity means getting more done with our time, effective productivity is doing more of the right thing with our time. It’s the difference between a great filing system and great sales. We need maximize the right outputs from what time we invest at each stage of our business to have any chance at all. You will read about time management, productivity and allocating time effectively a lot in this blog.
Motivation does get a mention but I try to preach action, not warm and fuzzy feelings. “The Secret” this is not.
WARNING: I will sometimes ask you to do stuff. That means exercises, mini-projects and action items. Consuming books and blogs is great fun but business is a learn by doing topic. You will be challenged occasionally but don’t worry, once you have a company you do stuff that is challenging every day so this is good practice.
That’s it, enjoy the site. If you haven’t done so already please register to receive an evaluation exercise to work through and evaluate yourself on offense, defence, effective productivity and motivation. I will refer to this exercise throughout the site (and what’s more I will give you personal coaching on your results via email for free).
Best,
Nick
PS: Not finding what you want? Let me know what you’re looking for.