Leaning Into My Dream Writing Business
It's authentic, impactful, time efficient, and fun
Yesterday an email from
landed in my inbox. He talked about his dream side hustle and included links to several of his followers’ dream side hustles too. You can check them out over at his Minimalist Hustler Daily publication.This got me thinking. This writing life isn’t a side hustle as such for me. It’s my whole job, although the decline in my mother’s health this year means I’m also now a registered carer with a range of care-giving and admin responsibilities alongside it.
This means that more than ever I need a plan. I recently announced on Notes that I was stealing
’s entire business model. I have a thing about advice that can be summed up in four words, so a four-word business model seemed like a good idea.
While I’ll be sticking with that in principle, I’ve fleshed it out a bit into a five-bullet plan that includes what I don’t want to do as well as what I do. This is how I want my average work day to look.
Almost all work time is writing time, primarily on topics that interest me and have a real impact on my readers.
No coaching, phone calls, video calls etc, very few meetings, and minimal emails.
Connection with community fulfilled primarily via online forums that feel authentic and drama-free.
Location independence – I can run my whole business out of my laptop bag.
No more than three to four hours of deep work each day.
Even though I already knew all this, it feels good to clarify it. And I feel more ready to plan out my writing schedule, my newsletter content, my community and audience building activities, and even my book outlines now.
Do you have a brief and simple plan for your creative business in the coming year? Feel free to share in the comments (or elsewhere online – tag me if you do).
Some thoughts from others I’ve been enjoying this week
How I published my book backwards by
&The 13 funniest marketing ideas of all time by
How to Use Platforms to Build Communities in Search of Greater Truth by
What else I’ve been up to this week
Reading: Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne (from my books for entrepreneurs reading list)
Watching: This YouTube video: Build an ROI-Driven Marketing System with this 4-Step Framework
Studying: The first few modules of a course that digs into the science behind dementia and cognitive decline
This week’s Medium post
(Friend link, as always, so you can read for free if you’re not a member.)
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Thank you so much for mentioning my guest post for Veronica Llorca-Smith, grateful you resonate with it (and I agree with Angelina‘s business model, too).
Thanks for the mention, and I love your ideal work environment!