Are you living the Internet marketing lifestyle? You know, laying on the beach sipping Mai Tais, occasionally tapping away on your laptop. (Just to see how much money you’ve made this hour.) Or do you feel like you’re chained to your computer? Are you working longer hours than ever before… and not getting any closer to the dream lifestyle?
Either way, it’s your fault.
Your daily actions are either moving you towards the lifestyle you want, or dragging you further away. There’s no in between.
Look, it’s easy to fall into the “busy being busy” trap. That’s why it’s so important to design the lifestyle you want. Don’t let life just happen to you. Choose how you want to live it and make it happen.
Here are 7 easy ways to make more money working less and get you closer to living the lifestyle you want…
1. Work Less
Parkinson’s law says work expands to fill the time allocated to it. If you choose to work 7 days, you’ll magically find 7 days worth of work to do. The flip side is that work must also contract in a similar fashion. If you choose to work 5 days you’ll make sure you get all your work done in 5 days.
So the quickest and easiest way to make more money is simply to work less!
However many days you work now, choose to work one less. You’ll find it amazing how much you get done when you cut out all the busy work.
2. Outsource
Our school system teaches us a dangerous lesson: you must be good at a wide range of subjects. The only place this applies is in school! In the real world specialists get paid more than generalists.
Focus on your strengths and outsource everything else.
Don’t waste time working on your weaknesses when you can outsource those things to someone else that specializes in them. (Often for pennies on the dollar!)
3. Charge More
Most people grossly undercharge for their products and services, simply because they think they are selling products and services. Look, people won’t pay very much for an ebook, but they’ll pay dearly for a new lifestyle.
Stop selling products and services and start selling results!
Raising your prices allows you to sell more to fewer customers, meaning you have less customer support issues and bigger profit margins.
4. Schedule Your Day
At the end of every day take 5 minutes to plan the next day. Focus on business building actions first. Don’t check emails or blogs or put out any fires until you’ve spent at least 1 hour on activities that directly build your business and bring cash in the door.
This alone can make a dramatic difference to the amount of real work you get done every day.
5. Live By The Pareto Principle
Otherwise known as the 80/20 rule, the Pareto principle says that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts.
That means 80% of the work you do is only responsible for 20% of your profits! If you’re working 10 hours a day you’re doing 2 hours of productive work and wasting 8 hours on the little things.
Identify the 20% that is making you the most money and do more of it! Be ruthless in cutting out the 80% that has little value.
6. Take A Wooden Stake To Time Vampires
Instant messaging, “quick” phone calls, checking email, browsing forums, blog hopping… these are your enemies! You’d be shocked at how much time you’re wasting every day on these low value activities.
Keep your email closed and check it at scheduled times during the day. Stay invisible on IM. Schedule phone calls and web surfing time, and stick to your schedule.
7. Understand Opportunity Cost
Every activity you do, and every project you take on, has an opportunity cost. It’s the cost of choosing one option over another.
You have a set number of hours every day you can work on your business. Before taking on any new project step back and take a look at the bigger picture. What else could you do with that time? Is there something else with a higher likelihood of success? Something else that will be a lot more profitable?
Understand the opportunity cost of everything you do before you do it. Make sure you’re choosing the most promising projects at all times.
All of this really comes down to the 80/20 rule. It’s about understanding which 20% of your efforts are responsible for 80% of your results and focusing more energy on those areas. Cut out the 80% of activities that do little for your business and you automatically free up that time for you.
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The way to work less is to work only on things you love. When your passion is in it, it ceases to be work and it becomes worshiping. I don’t work 15+ hours per day, I worship 15+ hours per day.
MrAchievement
Stanley F. Bronstein
Attorney, CPA, Author & Professional Motivational Speaker
MrAchievement.com (Stanley Bronstein)’s last blog post..Law #9 - Position Yourself To Be Candid
Changing careers or should I say going back to do what I love, your post helps me put my values in check, no seven day work weeks for me ever again. Nothing is easy but if you work smart it makes getting through life a lot better.
Cheers and thanks for the post,
Tabs
Hi,
These are very practical suggestions. However, I don’t understand how working less can fetch you more money..
I’ve found outsourcing an amazing thing to do. Thanks for another wise post!!
greate tips and a wonderful article that i have read in recent times for more information regarding leadership communication development refer to Princeton Public Speaking
I guess it comes down to analyzing ourselves to see what our strengths and weakness’s are. We need to speed time sorting this out so that our time is used productively and not just spinning our wheels.
The key to using this effectively is, of course having the data handy in order to analyze one’s strengths and weaknesses.
Then, however, the returns are easily reaped.
senile simian’s last blog post..End of the year cleanup - 80/20 in Action
Great tips! I feel like I am not as productive working from home. So hopefully these tips will help mend that problem. I need to impliment a stop time…instead of working from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep. I really seem to get sidetracked a hundred times a day…I will only check my email a few times a day. I may even try scheduling a time. Hope it helps, I would love to work less and make more!
Nice tips. I completely agree with the principle of 20% will give you 80%. If you have the required skills, your results can come up in just 20%. But if not, even if you put your 80% - you will only get 20% return.