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$200k Freelance Newsletter

Not Sure What To do next? [Issue 013]

When it comes to your freelance career, it can be hard to know what to do next. It feels like there are an endless number of things that all feel important.

Here are just some options you’ve probably considered this year…

  • Redesign your website

  • Update your portfolio

  • Create case studies

  • Start a blog

  • Start a YouTube channel

  • Create a passive income stream

  • Start networking

  • Create a personal project

  • Finish one of the dozen abandoned projects you started

Use this simple framework to decide what do next.

  1. Identify your most important goal.
    - Income goal?
    - Want more creative projects?
    - Want clients that align with a specific mission?
    - Want to raise your rates? And work less?

  2. Brainstorm lots of ideas that could help you reach your goal.
    - Write them down.
    - There are no bad ideas at this point.

  3. Narrow down your big list to your top 3-5 ideas.
    - Pick things that could have big impact and low effort.
    - Drop things that have a ton of moving parts or don’t really inspire you.

  4. Rate each idea.
    For each idea, give it a 1-10 for these four categories…
    1. Ease of execution (1 is hard, 10 is easy)
    2. Potential ROI (1 is no impact, 10 is life changing impact)
    3. Time Commitment (1 is high and potentially indefinite commitment, 10 is low and potentially one-off commitment)
    4. Excitement level (1 is meh, 10 is HELL YEAH)

  5. Tally up the points and listen to your gut.
    - The higher the points the better.
    - But listen to your gut and/or ask someone you trust what they think you should focus on.

This is a great exercise to do every quarter… but you can use it anytime you feel unsure of what to do next. The trouble we get in is trying to all of the things all at the same time. This shotgun approach isn’t usually fruitful and often leads to burnout... or paralyzing overload so we don't end up doing any of them.

So give yourself the gift of focus.

You don't HAVE to do all the things. In fact, you will achieve more goals and be less stressed if you let yourself do LESS to get MORE done.

 

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Austin Saylor