52: Simplicity

2023-01-04

• Oh, for a bit of simplicity!
• Today I had a catch-up with a good friend of mine, a long overdue meeting. We had some important D&D related things to discuss as he is joining our campaign but really it’s an opportunity for us to both provide some informal mentoring.
• During our discussion today, we both ended up talking about our pursuit of simplicity in our working lives.
• When you run your own business, it’s easy to make everything hideously complicated. Processes, meeting external expectations; this list is endless, but neither he or I started our business to be the next Elon Musk.
• We’re creative entrepreneurs for sure, and we both operate at the top of our fields, but for us, the businesses are a means to an end. For him it’s to give him time to write. For me, it’s to explore new product ideas and concepts (most of which will never be viable)
• He likes to write. I want to create new digital product concepts.
• A decade or so ago, these business vehicles would be called mom-and-pop businesses. A pejorative term meant to separate the real business people from those who are happy to make a good living and be free from employment.
• These days, thanks to millennials staking their place in the business world, they have much sexier names, such as multi-hyphenated businesses or lifestyle businesses and they are considered a viable and desired way of working.
• The gist is that you will do many things to generate the income you desire rather than putting all your energy into a single business entity (risk diversification).
• The point is that work is a means to give you time to do the things you want to do, like write or tinker with new product ideas.
• Thinking about it, it’s similar to the 4-hour work week written by Timothy Ferris, except rather than creating meaningless muse projects to generate income so that you can be permanently retired, its goal is to make time to focus on the ‘work’ you love. (for some, it’s not feasible, or even desirable, to spend your life pursuing hobby-type activities)
• So as we sat, eating and chatting, I realised its time to make my life easier and start to simplify my business and life goals. To enable me to work on the things I love and not just the business I have.

• Reading: Agency by William Gibson (53% Complete)
• Wordle: 560 -/6