Category: Work

WE’RE TOO AVAILABLE

This from Codie Sanchez:

Each day the average person gets:
• 41 texts
• 100 emails
• 5 calls

If responding to each takes an average of 3 minutes…

That’s 7 hours a day.

Yeah yeah yeah, give or take the three minutes number, but still – each one of those things is a distraction from what you’re doing.

So while it might not take 3 minutes to answer one text, I bet having that phone in your hand leads to checking out Instagram, or scrolling through Google News for 10 minutes.

We’re all too available, too often, and much time is given to being distracted instead of doing work.

Partly why I’m so glad I’m a freelancer and have nearly zero meetings every week.

DO THINGS YOU ENJOY

Saw this on Farrah Storr’s newsletter, an interview with Emma Gannon:

What’s one thing you wished you’d never done?

A Ted Talk. I was nervous for three months in the lead up to it and then came crashing down afterwards post-adrenaline. I’ve come to terms with the fact  I don’t enjoy public speaking in that way. 

What I love about this is the permission to just not do something.

Hustle / freelance / self employment cutlure would have us do everything as a means to promote and market ourselves.

But using the example above, at what cost?

Three months of being nervous? Being distracted with the worry of the upcoming event? Then the crash afterwards, once it’s all over?

No thanks.

Don’t want to start a TikTok? DON’T.

Don’t want to post on Instagram anymore? DON’T.

Don’t want to start an email list? DON’T.

Do what works for you.

GROWING YOUR BUSINESS WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA

I’ve been on a tear against social media for like, a decade or so, so it was refreshing to hear Amelia Hruby frame my distaste in such a new way.

(Also available on Apple Podcasts)

She really breaks down this whole thing about running a service business (coaching, editing, copywriting, etc) without using social media, and using actual, for-real selling techniques like emailing people, and talking to people!

Going that route instead of just throwing things up on the social media, and when the algorithms throttle your reach you can say, “well, I tried,” and blame the social media platforms for your lack of new clients.

And also – if you’re offering a service, you don’t want to scale. There’s only so many clients you can take on. Only so many hours in the day!

Like I posted on socials a few days ago:

Buy a domain name.
Set up a website.
All the stuff you shovel onto social media every day?
Put that on your website.

And here I am, a few days later putting that social media post on my website.

ARTISTS ARE ALWAYS WORKING

From ‘The life and the work are equally important‘

“Let’s face it—artists are always working, though they may not seem as if they are. They are like plants growing in winter. You can’t see the fruit, but it is taking root below the earth.”

André Gregory

My goodness, I believe this to be true.

I feel like my creative life has had so many stops and starts, as if it must be one continuous flow to be valid, but this quote above reassures me I’m wrong.

(via Austin Kleon)

PEOPLE ARE THE PROBLEM

I couldn’t imagine being a laid off Microsoft worker then waking up to this news.

Everything is cruel and cold. Be a robot. No emotions. Don’t rock the boat. Eh, you’ll probably still get laid off because paying for extra server capacity for AI bots is cheaper than rising health care costs.

People are the problem, it seems.

NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY’RE DOING

From ‘Forty Years In, Yo La Tengo Are Still Making It Up as They Go‘ over at Pitchfork.

When Yo La Tengo invited Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley to sit in with them for the entirety of their second-night set, the drummer pleaded, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” “You don’t have to,” Kaplan told him, adding, “We don’t know what we’re doing.” He only hopes that Yo La Tengo’s faith in their collaborators will spark “something interesting.” 

GO GETTERS GONE

The Wall Street Journal says “Bosses all over the U.S. are asking the same question: Where have all the go-getters gone?”

Are you kidding me?

I can’t say it any better than Georgia Garvey here:

That whole thread is a god damned treasure.