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For me, the thing that most helped me feel financially free is the same purchase that I strongly believe is the best thing money can buy: time. The subject of this article makes $750k a year, yet complains about being busy all the time. He has the means to solve his problem, so why is he still so busy? It is often one of two reasons: he isn’t aware of his problem, or he wants to have his problem. Both situations are extremely common. Busy people often misdiagnose their probl

Hormozi has had some controversy around him recently, just as most people in the public eye do . However you feel about his personal views, he does have some insights that are worth listening to. One of his videos was probably the best video about business I watched last year. It also inspired multiple points made in Work Smart Wednesday . Ignore the cringy title, the video is full of incredible insights. Well worth a watch. P.s. his books are also worth picking up, they’re

A new road is being built in your local area. Two construction crews are both working on the same project. Crew 1: Working 40 hours a week. Crew 2: Working 60+ hours a week, including overtime. Who do you think will finish the project first? If you said Crew 2, you’d be wrong. Because of the negative productivity costs of overtime, Crew 2 actually finishes the project SLOWER than Crew 1, despite working 50% more hours each week. This isn’t a hypothetic, but a real study. You

This Monday was “Blue Monday”, which is considered by some to be the most depressing day of the year (though widely discredited). One of my best friends sent me this article almost 10 years ago and, looking back, it radically changed my life. I would like to share it with you. It has one of the most memorable openings of any piece of writing I have ever read and ChatGPT tells me the article will take “roughly 2 to 3 minutes to read”. I highly recommend it. Link: https://www.

HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is a free tool/email database I use that connects journalists looking for information with sources (me and you!) who can provide relevant answers. It is great for SEO and backlinks, improving PR and awareness, and building credibility. It will help you get more customers and is often worth it (especially in early stages when you’re doing less than $300k per year). It is simple - you receive a big list of email enquiries and then reply to the journa

Mindlessly optimising your productivity without clarity is a formula for failure. Being productive WITHOUT clarity looks like this: Being the best possible employee at a job you know you hate. Working a long 10 hour day and realizing you got nothing important done. Crossing off a to-do list item without questioning if it was actually needed. There is no greater waste than to do with excellence that which shouldn't be done at all. If your goals suck it doesn’t matter if you’re

People often have spurious claims when it comes to their income. Some are true, some are not. This one stands the test of truth for me. This great blog post was recently recommended to me. In it, Jack details his journey from $58 in the bank to $1,000,000 in one year. Jack Butcher is the creator of Visualize Value . You’ve probably seen his work (or one of the many copycats!) on Instagram . ​The post is short, actionable, and worth a read. Link: https://visualizevalue.com/bl

I strongly believe that truly learning how little time we have is the most valuable lesson you can learn in your life. Understanding your time helps you appreciate what has been, and to strive for what could be. Unfortunately, most people don’t learn that lesson until it is too late in one way or another - either because they themselves have reached life’s end, or because they have lost somebody dear to them. Learning the time lesson is often not enough. People forget. It is

It is that time of year again where we set goals with the greatest of intentions, but which most of us then swiftly abandon or forget. There is a very simple, small, tweak I make to how I set goals to help ensure that they actually work and that I actually stick to them. The secret: Process-based goals. Most goals suck for the same reason - the goal is outside of the person’s locus of control . If I had a goal like: “Get 1,000 new followers a week” I’d be in trouble. I have a

I adjust my prices at least once per year. The raise reflects my improved skill and ability to solve problems quickly and effectively for clients. My clients received an improved average financial ROI of 28x this year , that figure jumps to 59x if you account for the value of time savings and improved efficiency I helped them achieve. So far, I have routinely adjusted my rates once annually on 31st December to reflect market value and new capabilities - though I always honour

Does Jeff Bezos work harder than I do? Does a footballer work harder than a cleaner? Does a celebrity actor work harder than a doctor? These are often futile debates. Each demand different skills and face unique challenges. The argument at its core is a debate on different ways to measure value. What I find difficult or useful, you might not agree with - and that is okay. However, there are two fundamental lessons I hope we can all unite behind: Just because something is diff

I had a conversation with a coaching client recently about reposting old content. I could see they were hesitant so I asked them what made them feel uncomfortable with the idea. They provided a few reasons: The audience has already seen it. The audience likes new stuff better. The algorithm (and they) prefer fresh content. We then revisited why we were posting content at all in the first place. It came down to just two reasons: to help people, and to get clients. With this in

While I am primarily a productivity coach, specialising in helping business owners to work less and make more money thanks to systems, I often help my clients with customer acquisition. One of the first steps we go through is to analyse the time they spend in the business. We separate time into categories, broadly summarised as working ON the business vs working IN the business. Shockingly to them, but disquietingly common, we often find that they are spending less than 5% of

How do you decide what to do when every option seems like a good option? I use even-over statements. Would you rather have $1m or a new bicycle? That seems fairly straightforward. Should you work on hiring a new salesperson or redesigning your sales process? Now, that could be a difficult choice to make. Meet "even over" statements. They force you to take a principled (and explicit) stance on your priorities. Some examples of even-over statements: - Systems design EVEN over q

I am not working today or tomorrow. Today is my birthday. This email you are reading was written and scheduled weeks ago. I will also not be working at all between 22nd December and 3rd January. I don’t work on Wednesdays, Saturdays, or Sundays. On Tuesday and Friday, I play badminton from 13:00-15:30. Non-negotiable. I check email just once or twice per week. Over the last two years, I have worked an average of 10 hours per week. I went to Kazakhstan for almost 4 weeks over

Summary: Charging low prices creates a vicious cycle - it attracts bad clients which then keeps you trapped in the low-prices cycle. Having bad clients is more damaging to you than having no clients at all. Fire your bad clients. Charge your worth, or you will encourage bad clients. DEPTH: It is easy to get caught in a trap of charging low prices. That trap can be very difficult to escape from. Not all clients are created equal. The customer is not always right. Bad clients

I have a very clear order of what to focus on when I start a new business. After years of starting businesses, and many more years of helping others to start and grow their businesses, I have identified a pattern. An order of operations. I like to call it the business hierarchy of needs. Adapted from Maslow’s original. You can do all the right things, but the right things in the wrong order still won’t get you anywhere What is the order? Sales You must focus on creating cash

I, like most people, consider myself to be a fairly okay person. For those of you who don't know, I'm British, so that's quite a strong statement.  Recently, I've been reflecting about my relationship with a particular company I'm currently engaged with, and I've realised that according to my own frameworks they should probably consider me to be a bad customer. This company provides regular water deliveries to me, which is essential in Thailand due to the unsafe tap water. I

This point ties in well with my point about “ stop doing the wrong things well ” I made in the November 1 issue of Work Smart Wednesday . If me and my team are working hard, but it feels like I’m going in circles, I ask myself the most important question: “is everybody prioritising the highest value tasks?”. When you pick the right priority, it often doesn’t really matter if you do it well or not. Doing the right thing poorly is still worth more than executing the wrong thing

I have a fairly large family. Large enough that a few years back we all decided to switch to a family-wide secret santa rather than everybody buying individual gifts. This is a practice I have extended to my friends and employees (can be great for teams!). Done well, these work wondrously, it is both easier and more fun. Unfortunately, organising a secret santa is a pain. It takes a long time and usually it is obligatory that at least one person knows who everybody has been