do it yourself FREEDOM

Impacts: Mind, Home, Work, Money, Time

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” – Thomas Alva Edison

“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Innovation is a strange animal because it can’t thrive when we’re working a hundred miles an hour. It likes the peace and quiet of an outside perspective.

Some major corporations actually understand this simple truth and give their teams members time to innovate. For the past decade I’ve been working in technology and marketing roles in corporate America and from my perspective I’ve noticed a simple trend. The companies that are able to strike a balance between innovation and delivery succeed. Those that focus too closely on the tasks in front of them without the occasional moment to look up and plan for the future find themselves running out of steam and opportunity.

When you take the time to innovate at home or work you are giving yourself permission to be creative. Not necessarily in an artistic way but in a puzzle solving sense. The feeling you get from finding a new or better way of completing a task or approaching a problem pays you back ten fold. How we feel about ourselves is often the most important part of of lives.

Taking time to innovate gives you the opportunity to take a leap forward and reap the rewards. If your boss doesn’t give you the time to innovate at work find a way to take the time because the best employees are the people who take it upon themselves to be proactive and do a better job. If that’s not rewarded where you work look for a better job.

Short Example

Back when I was a starving artist I discovered a little truth about innovation and getting work done. I was making pottery and every weekend I loaded up my little car and hit the road to make enough money to get through the next week.

I was working seven days a week and found that the I just had to give myself a break on Mondays. Instead of really taking a break I let my self play with new ideas in the studio. Over the weekend I would get a lot of feedback from customers and it would inspire me to try new ideas that I could test the following weekend. My innovation Mondays were essential for my peace of mind. The rest of the week I focused on production to make the things I knew I could sell.

Take Action

• Give yourself time to innovate at work and home.
• Look for ways of doing things faster.
• Look for ways of doing things cheaper.
• Give yourself permission to think outside the box and try not to squelch any brainstorm. You can always discard ideas later.
• Separate innovation time from production time especially in the beginning.

Impacts: Mind, Home, Work, Money, Community, Time

“Remember, time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labour, and goes abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides.” – Benjamin Franklin

When you choose to live life strategically you quickly realize that time is not on your side. In fact if you’ve ever taken economics in school one of the first things you learn is that time is our most limited commodity. Once you realize that achieving any goal requires a plan, action, luck and time, you’ve already burned up one of those ingredients and there’s no way to get more of it. Since much of our lives are spent doing things that don’t move us forward, making the most of every moment should be a priority.

As you go through your day take a moment from time to time to ask yourself if what you’re doing is moving you forward. I’m not suggesting that you run yourself ragged being proactive all the time; I’m simply suggesting that you take the occasional reality check. I personally find it useful to kick myself in the butt when I’m slacking off. My usual answer, to myself, is that I’m relaxing, or this is important. Sometimes I give in but lately I’ve been realizing that if I really want to accomplish my goals I need to spend more time moving forward.

Take Action

• As you do necessary work let your mind drift to brainstorming ways of working more efficiently.
• Consider the end goal of every task and the actions required to complete the task. Do only what is needed, cut your own red tape.
• If tasks involve multiple people make an effort to improve communication. Red tape and procedure often surfaces due to a lack of good communication.

Impacts: Mind, Money, Community, Time

“The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.” – Theodore Roosevelt

The desire for instant gratification may be our biggest cultural weakness. Americans love it fast, especially when it is money. In fact that may be why we like to gamble and the idea striking it rich. No wonder it’s so easy for us to fall victim to things that offer quick rewards for little effort and why its hurts so much when it’s finally time to pay the piper.

Schemes take on a variety of shapes and sizes. A simple scheme might be something like buy one get one free. In fact that simple phrase is a marketing tool used so commonly we often mistake it for something other than a scheme. But if you widen your definition of scheme to include all things that promise a quick benefit for what seems like little effort, you’ll quickly realize that schemes surround us.

Should all schemes be avoided? You should definitely be on the lookout for them all the time, avoid the gimmick and reap the rewards when it makes sense. For example, should you avoid buying stuff on sale simply because it’s a marketing scheme? No, of it’s something you need then by all means buy it on sale. If the sale is buy one get one free and you don’t need two then pause and carefully consider the purchase.

Get rich schemes are the easiest to spot because they make outlandish claims and promise gigantic rewards. Avoid these at all costs. The only people with any chance of getting rich quick are the people running the scheme.

The most important reason to avoid schemes isn’t the money you loose but the mental distraction they create. They will cause you to loose focus on your real pursuit of happiness and replace it temporarily with an artificial instant gratification high. If you find yourself getting caught up in schemes often you should try asking yourself some tough questions about instant gratification and what really makes you happy.

Take Action

• Watch out for anything that promises quick rewards for little effort.
• Watch your wallet. Schemes are easily spotted because they always ask for money up front.
• Avoid buying lottery tickets.
• Avoid gambling.
• Focus on long term goals and make every step count.

Impacts: Work, Money, Time

“Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells.” – J. Paul Getty

Many people have a single source of income, their job. Finding additional ways to make money can help relieve your financial dependence on your day job. The more sources of income you can find the closer to financial freedom you get.

You might think this is just for rich people with money to invest. I would agree that the more money and time you have the easier it becomes to diversify but the first steps aren’t impossible to take, just hard.

Before you begin be careful of opportunities that sound to good to be true. The old saying is true, if it looks too good to be true it is. Real opportunities tend to be the ones you make for yourself doing things you know best, not the schemes cooked up by others.

Most of us have hobbies or interests and have built some level of expertise. It might even be something you thought could never make any money on the side. Start by looking for examples of people making a living in that field. Look carefully to see what they are doing to make it work. Ask questions, talk to people online, continue to explore this area of personal interest with an eye for business opportunities.

Before jumping off into a business venture be careful and take on little risk. Remember you’re trying to make a little money on the side to remove burdens, not add them. If your plan includes taking out a loan, spending a lot of money, or a lot of time, rethink your plan. Instead start small. Test the water. Have fun with it and don’t gamble.

Some people may tell you that taking risk is a requirement of any business venture but if you’re not an experienced business person any risk may be too much. Once you get the hang of it taking on more risk for the potential of more gain may seem like the right thing to do, but by then the experience you’ve gained will tell you how much risk is acceptable.

One simple example of a young entrepreneur I met illustrates what I’m taking about. He was trying to run a little eBay business online. He’d buy and collect things to sell. Often he wouldn’t make any money on things and sometimes I suspect it cost him in time and money. It’s easy to get caught up in the adventure of the venture. Try not to loose sight of the real goal like he did.

Taking on more jobs might also seem like one way to diversify your income. The trouble with jobs is that you’re essentially selling your time. Your time is really the most valuable thing you have. Instead look for things that continue to make money without your constant direct involvement.

A simple example that has popped up in the last few years is blogging. When people write about things they know, other people want to read it. Sharing ideas online through blogging has become an effective way of connecting with other people and sharing ideas.

Google and others have made it easy to monetize blogs with ads that are relevant to the content. These ads provide some value to the reader because they usually compliment the topic of the web page. They benefit the writer by providing a small steady source of income. As the popularity of the blog increases the revenue from the ads tends to increase.

The blogger end up spending time writing about something that interests them and the writings live on indefinitely, drawing more readers and more revenue without any more work. So every quality post you write can be considered an investment in a sense.

You could think of writing books in the same way. When an author writes a book they receive royalties over time as more people buy the book. The revenue fluctuates with the popularity of the book but until it goes out of print the author receives some side income.

Finding alternative ways of making money shouldn’t be your top goal by any means but it can give you more flexibility to do the things you like to do especially if you can find ways to automate making money.

Take Action

• Make a list of the things you like doing.
• Looks for books on these topics and research the author online. Try to imagine their life and how they might be spending their time.
• With a grain of salt, read the The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss.
• Learn more about Google Adsense.
• Learn about self publishing at Lulu.com.

Impacts: Mind, Money, Time

If you have a storage unit, garage, or attic filled with stuff you never use choose to lighten your load and get rid of it. At the very least cull through those old things and dump all but the good stuff and then start using it again. No matter where your stuff is stored is it costing you money, time, and a certain level of stress.

Most people hold onto things for sentimental and financial reasons. The memories associated with stuff and the memory of how much you paid for it when it was new somehow justify throwing good money after bad. Fold you cards, this is loosing hand. Once stuff is stored it will begin to degrade and loose value. If the stuff has so much sentimental value it should be in your home. Prioritize and keep only the best stuff.

Stuff ties us down. It’s hard to move and it requires a lot of time to manage. For example, it seems easier to simply leave the stuff piled up and finding the time to deal with it is always difficult. But now imagine your house clean and clutter free. Imagine your work space organized and efficient. Imagine your garage, basement, or attic empty except for a few precious items carefully wrapped and stored. Does that idea make you feel less encumbered or does it make you feel empty?

If stuff makes you feel complete, safe, or successful you might want to do some serious thinking about why. I’m not trying to suggest that there’s some right or wrong way to think about stuff I’m simply suggesting that many people get caught up in accumulating things for reasons they never considered.

In any event when it comes to possessions, less can be more and less is definitely easier to care for, manage, and move. Choosing to reduce storage will save you money, time, and stress.

Take Action

• Visit your stuff in storage more often.
• Remove the most important stuff.
• Remove all the stuff and sell it at a garage sale. At the end of the sale post a free stuff ad on craigslist.org with a photo of the stuff. If your comfortable posting your address and leaving the stuff in your driveway this can make it much easier to get rid of stuff.
• Find local charities that are willing to remove everything from your storage once you’ve collected the stuff you want to save.
• Post an ad in craigslist.org and a photo of the left over stuff in your storage. Be sure to say they must take it all. This will save you time and multiple visits to the storage.
• Stop buying new stuff you don’t need.

Impacts: Mind, Health, Home, Work, Money, Community, Time

“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.” – Mark Twain

I don’t think anyone can honestly say that smoking has more benefits than draw backs. When you choose to smoke less you instantly remove several external limiting forces.

Your bank account will instantly have more money in it. Your health with start to improve. The second hand smoke you are not exhaling will also help to improve the health of people around you. I could go on but you get the point.

Like most addictions smoking is hard to kick, but like most addictions, overcoming them tends always seems to give us back something we’ve lost. Any addiction for example, no matter how mild, will always have an affect on the decisions we make. Some are grosely visible to the naked eye, others more subtle. But on our minds they all take a huge toll. Smoking less is simply one of those things that can instantly improve life.

Also notice that I’m not saying quit smoking. Sometimes going cold turkey is the only way we can really change ourselves but I think more often slow change works better in the long term. So the next time you light up think about that cigarette and smoking less. Try choosing to smoke it later. In any case every small step you take that moves you forward is a step worth taking. Don’t get discouraged if you can’t take big steps, just keep taking small ones.

Take Action

• Cut back. If you smoke two packs try one. If you smoke during breaks, try doing something else during breaks like a walk around the block.
• Pick up cigarette butts you see on the street. Don’t forget to wash you hands. Yuck!
• Get professional help.

Impacts: Health, Money, Time

“In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires.” – Benjamin Franklin

Americans probably have the largest selection of food choices of anyone on the planet, and it shows. We’ve got the best and the worst. Ironically it all costs about the same so choosing to eat better has very little to do with money.

For example I probably ate the healthiest food when I was a starving artist. I simply couldn’t afford to eat out or buy a lot of meat, cheese, desserts, sodas, or booze. I ate a lot of rice, beans, soups, breads, vegetables, and fruit. As I became more successful my diet ironically went down hill. It’s only recently that I’ve started to realize the benefits of eating better again.

Like most living organisms change in our bodies happens slowly. But we’ve grown accustomed to instant gratification which is probably what’s made dieting and fast food so popular. The idea of simply choosing to eat better gradually over time seems ineffective on the surface. But when you take a step back and realize that succumbing to instant gratification tends to distract your attention from long term benefits you begin to realize that dieting doesn’t work and that long term lifestyle change is the only thing that works.

Your health is a major key to protecting your personal freedom. Food is simply one of the little things you can control that significantly impacts your health. Eating better means making a conscious shift in the way you think about food and choosing to adopt a healthier diet for life.

Take Action

• Avoid hydrogenated oils (including partially hydrogenated oils), sugar, high fructose corn syrup, enriched and bleached flour.
• Avoid processed foods especially those with ingredients you can’t pronounce which tend to be preservatives.
• Avoid meats grown with hormones.
• Avoid over eating.
• Avoid fast food or at least avoid the worst stuff on the menu.
• Avoid eating out, cook more at home.

Impacts: Mind, Health, Home, Work, Money, Time

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” – Henry David Thoreau

Habits usually just happen. Usually we fall into habits simply because we’re wired naturally to automate. If you take a step back and look at yourself simply as a living organism you might notice that your body pretty much runs itself without much conscious intervention from you. Your heart beats, your eyes blink, you breathe, etc. It even has automated ways to telling you to eat and drink.

If you’re proactive and make an effort to create positive habits, (healthy habits, time saving habits, work habits, etc), you can actually use your natural tendency to automate in positive directions. For example once you’ve been getting up early for a while you tend to automatically get up early. Bad habits form just as easily.

Breaking habits is very hard to do simply because you’re working against your natural tendency. Generations of biology are your obstacle. Try replacing one habit for another instead of trying  to break a habit. Smokers are onto this simple concept, and in fact often point to this natural tendency to explain sudden weight gain or other negative side effects after quitting smoking. To stay ahead of the habit curve consciously work to replace bad habits with beneficial habits.

Rituals are one way to create new habits. We tend to think of rituals in a religious context but if your break the idea down you’ll see that a ritual is simply an intentional act or series of actions.

To use ritual to build good habits make a conscious effort to give yourself a series of steps for simple tasks designed around the new habit you want to form. Ideally write the steps down to help you in the beginning. Eventually the list will be obsolete because you’ll quickly memorize the steps and even begin to refine and perfect you actions. In the end the simple ritual you designed will be as natural as a mindless habit.

Habits and rituals are key tools for increasing personal freedom because they help you remove bad stuff from your life and replace it with good stuff. Habits and rituals are not as powerful a tool as belief but nearly.

Take Action

• Learn about the Japanese tea ceremony. It’s a great example of ritualized tea drinking.
• Watch for habits you’ve already created. Begin by asking yourself if that habit is moving you forward of back. In other words notice what you’re doing.

Impacts: Mind, Money, Community, Time

“It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness” – Thomas Jefferson

This is different from want less. Consume less is more about changing your actual behavior and I’m going to take a slightly different angle on this topic from the majority that suggest that consumerism is a bad idea.

Most people tend to focus on the environmental, economical, and human impacts as the the primary reasons that consuming less makes more sense. In fact I personally agree with those strong arguments but I think there might be stronger argument that could help more people adopt an anti-consumerism point of view.

You see being an active consumer costs a lot of money and for money to be spent it must be earned or borrowed. Earning and borrowing money usually means that more of your time must be spent making money which in turn limits your choices. Compounded on top of that is the simple fact that many people tend to spend up to and beyond their income, no matter their income level. So while keeping up with the Joneses might be status quo and virtually second nature to many of us these days it’s a behavior that also tends to land us in trouble.

For example, imagine yourself right now with absolutely no debt and a small but livable steady source of income that requires little or no effort or time. How would that make you feel? Would you keep your day job? Lets say you decide that you’d rather quit your day job and enjoy your new found free time. What would you do? Would you start a little business? Would you travel? Would you write a book? What would you do?

Now let me ask you a harder question. If you knew for a fact that you could have that life in the next few years, what would it be worth to you? What is that kind of freedom worth to you?

I’ve been asking myself that question for over a year now. I’ve realized that there are literally thousands of ways of generating alternative income streams that don’t involve get rich schemes. They all take time to develop and not all of them work out but with persistance it is absolutely an achievable goal.

If I tried to replace my current income that would be very difficult and take a long time. But If I worked it from both ends by adding a little side income and reducing my spending I’d get their quicker. The more I add and the more I take away the faster I move toward my goal.

Choosing to consume less, like choosing to make more money, is simply a choice and hard work. The hardest thing to overcome is the baggage in our own heads. When many of us were young and didn’t have things we assumed that things would make me happy. As we get older we begin to realize that it’s not the things we aquire but people and time we make for ourselves that makes us truly rich.

Take Action

• Watch The Story of Stuff.
• Buy what you need.
• Buy more value.
• Avoid buying things that don’t help you achieve your goals.
• Look for free stuff online first; you’ll be amazed what people give away. See craigslist.org and freecycle.org.
• Pay with cash or debit and avoid using credit cards.
• As you carry things you’ve bought into your home consider their physical weight. When you take out the trash consider the weight again. Ask yourself if you’re just throwing away the things you buy?
• Avoid packaging. Reward companies that use reusable packaging or  little packaging by buying their products. Recyclable packaging is better than non-recyclable but it’s still added to the cost of the product and you paid for it.

Impacts: Mind, Health, Home, Work, Money, Community, Time

“The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you.” – Jean Jacques Rousseau

“The Lord commonly gives riches to foolish people, to whom he gives nothing else.” – Martin Luther

“Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.” – Samuel Johnson

This one is really hard to achieve because we learn to consume at a very early age. Need and want are sometimes inseparable in our minds when it comes to how things make us feel about ourselves. Sometimes the desire for something is so overwhelming we become obsessed by it and we often don’t stop to discover why, we just work blindly to achieve it.

When I was a kid my family went for a day hike one weekend. When we got back my brothers and I noticed a little blue sports car parked next to our van that had not been there before. I asked my older brother what it was and he said it was a Porsche. From that day on I wanted one so bad it hurt. I know that sounds stupid but I had got bitten early by the sports car bug.

As I grew up an obsession grew and on a regular basis I’d browse the car classifieds in the newspaper and in time online, constantly imagining the car I’d buy someday. A few times I scraped together enough money to buy a used Porsche but talked myself into waiting for a better car. Over the years I spent a lot of time thinking and dreaming about the day I’d drive it home.

Finally when I was 38 I bought one. It was used but seemed to be in very good condition. But the day I drove it home it broke down. The dealer paid for the tow and repair so there was little financial damage but the experience sent a powerful wake up call into my head. Sitting on the side of the highway in a dead Porsche waiting for a tow truck helped a bit too. After a few months I sold it.

Looking back I realize that I learned an important lesson and the money I lost almost seemed worth it. Inside me there must have been some unmet need I was certain this car would fulfill. One thing is for sure, my crazy obsession had taken on a life of its own and most definitely distracted me from making progress in other areas. On the bright side at least I learned this important lesson before turning 40. This has given me few more useful years to refocus on the things that really matter. It’s also opened me up to looking at all my consumer desires with a different set of eyes.

I suspect that understanding deeply buried desires is probably the hardest thing for any of us to do. Wanting less or at least understanding why we want so much can unburden us in many ways. In my case I wasted a lot of time, energy, and money on a car that in the end proved to be more dream than car. Had I gotten a grip, and gotten over it sooner, I could have made a lot of progress on other more productive things. Although its arguable that until we learn this lesson the hard way we have to continue living the mistakes. That may be true of a lot of things.

In any event, at least for me, wanting less has become one of the most freeing decisions I’ve made. It continues to be a daily challenge but it pays me back dividends in time with my family and time for the things I like doing.

Exercise

• Make a short list of the things you want most. For this exercise limit this list to tangible things.
• Sort the list from most important to least important.
• Next to each item put an approximate number of years you’ve wanted it as a point of reference.
• Start with the least important things and write down why you want it.
• Move your way up the list.
• The goal is simply to open your eyes. Don’t try to talk yourself out of wanting these things, simply try to understand why you really want them.
• Once you begin to uncover your real unmet needs try fulfilling them in ways that don’t include obtaining things.