There is this idea that when we aren’t finding success it’s because we aren’t doing enough. That can be true if you aren’t doing anything at all.
But what I’ve often found when I look back at my successes and failures is that it has nothing to do with adding more things to the list. It’s about doing fewer things.
It’s about putting your focus on the important things.
And here’s the kicker. When you focus on doing fewer things you can get them done quicker and with higher quality.
What does that mean for your business? Greater growth. More money. Life-changing happiness.
But for some of us (*cough*) this goes against our very nature. We want to add more things because we like more things until we don’t like more things. We add more things because we feel they are necessary since we are not where we want to be yet.
However, you quickly reach a point where all of the things that you’ve added become overwhelming which leads you to do none of the things. And that doesn’t get you anywhere.
One of the big struggles with growing an online business is that so much of it is out of your hands. Even when you try to accelerate the growth there is only so much you can do.
If I wanted to sell more through email then writing and sending 12 emails a day isn’t going to work. In fact, it’s going to make things worse. I’m doing more things hoping that more of those things get me more results.
They don’t.
But then some people add so many other things to their daily to-do list for their business that they don’t email at all. What if you decided that you were going to email once a day? I know that sounds like a lot to some of you, but that depends on what else you add to your plate.
What if your list looked like this:
- 1 email a day (I’m not telling you to do this, just run with this example)
- 1 high-quality Thread a day
- 10 high-quality comments a day
What if you got to the point where that was your day? Do you think you would get better at writing emails? Do you think you could finish them faster? What about the Threads? The comments?
You know the answers to those questions.
This is one of the reasons why it’s important to have Systems in place that allow you to do fewer things but this only works if you do the right fewer things.
The Right Things
One of the reasons why we continue to do more things for our business is because we don’t know what are the right things that will generate the most results. But if we look at the simple Pocket Business Formula then we can start to have an idea.
Audience x Offer = $$$$$$The offer simply needs to be created. That’s it. Yes, there is research and all of that other fun stuff but once it’s done, it’s done so we won’t focus on that.
We need to turn our attention to the Audience because that always seems to be the thing everyone complains about.
It’s so much work creating content daily.
It can be when you don’t have a system in place and that system needs to allow for us to do fewer things.
An Effective System for Content Creation
In Cash Flow Content, I talk about the two layers of traits that should be added to your content.
- Layer 1: Outcomes, Problems, & Mechanisms
- Layer 2: Opinions, Experiences, & Worldviews
Coming up with content by looking at these layers isn’t hard. The problem is that when you sit down to create content you shouldn’t be thinking about what to create.
It’s similar to writing. You shouldn’t try editing when you’re in writing mode and you shouldn’t try writing when you’re in editing mode. And yet, how often do we find ourselves stuck in the trap of sitting down at the computer and trying to figure out what to create?
You should be able to pull something off the shelf and go with it. This is why having a Mind Garden can be extremely beneficial. It’s also why it feels like we are doing a lot when many times that thing that feels like a lot is simply us sitting down and trying to figure out what to do.
There is enough time in the day even when there doesn’t feel like enough time in the day. You can’t create time for yourself in the present, but you can create time for yourself in the future.
Let me show you.
Set the Trap
The way I look at it is that every good idea comes to you when you’re not trying to create content. So what you need to do is actively set traps that you can go back to and discover what ideas are on the other side.
I know this doesn’t make sense but bear with me.
I use Obsidian as my Mind Garden for all things Makers Mob. It’s a great tool to have traps laid out.
Whenever I have an idea or I come across something on social media that I would like to explore myself, I put it in Obisdian. Here is The Hub note in my Mind Garden.
The purple text represents links to other notes. I won’t get into the details of how Obsidian works, but let’s go to the Explorations note.
You must think I’m trying to pull a fast one on you or that I used the wrong image, but it’s the right image. There is nothing in this note because there doesn’t need to be.
But when I check to see what other notes link to this one, then I see an easy list of ideas that I can explore.
All of these are ideas I have. I call them Traps because I don’t know what’s on the other end. Or to say it another way, I have no idea where my thoughts are going to take me once I explore them.
For example, I might think that it would be interesting to see if you can build a business in 47 minutes. I don’t take the time to try and figure it out in my head. I simply create a Note titled 47 Minute Business and then I link it to my Explorations note.
When it’s time to create content I see that note and decide whether or not I want to explore it. Because I don’t spend any energy trying to figure out what to create, all of my energy gets put into creating the content.
Do fewer things.
But we can take this further. Maybe I want to add a Hook to it to spice things up a bit. I could either think about a Hook or I can go to my Hooks note and see what I have available.
But remember that if we want the content to become Cash Flow Content then we need to add the layers to it. As I create the content I might be able to come up with something on the spot or I could always go to the different notes that I have on the layers.
This is what I mean when I say you can’t create time for yourself now. You can only create it for your future self and taking notes of things today makes the creation process easier tomorrow. In fact, this essay started with a note.
I was watching a video where one of the ideas was to do fewer things. Then a couple of days later I saw a Tweet by Justin Welsh that I wanted to remix. And so here we are with a brand new essay.
And the thing is I have dozens (or maybe hundreds) of explorations and remixes to do. I’ll never run out of content to create and more importantly I’ll never have to figure out what to create.
When it’s time to write then all I have to do is pick a note and start writing.
Your Ideas Must Pass Through a Quality Filter
What’s great about this type of system is that it allows ideas time to marinate. When you try to come up with content on the spot then many times what happens is that you create mediocre content.
You want to get something out the door so anything can pass through the door.
But when you have a list of things waiting for attention you can look at the list and know which ones are ready or not. You’ve read more books. Had discussions with other people. You know more now than you did yesterday.
There are deeper connections that you can now make with one of the Traps and so when it’s time, you’ll know it.
This means that higher-quality content gets out the door instead of anything and everything. One of the reasons that people feel they need to create more content is because the content they are putting out isn’t having an impact.
Do yourself a favor and scroll through social media for two minutes. Just two minutes.
Take note of every piece of quality content that you come across. You’ll be lucky to come across one. The bar is not that high for quality content and yet many people continue to fail simply because they just want to get something out the door.
Because the stuff they put out isn’t working hard enough they start to feel like they need to do more things.
Do fewer things.
The Best Way to Get Noticed
“Nobody ever takes note of [my advice], because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear. What they want to hear is ‘Here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script,’ . . . but I always say, ‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.’” – Steve Martin
The best way to get noticed is to be so good they can’t ignore you. This might sound crazy but that doesn’t take as much work as you think in today’s world. By no means am I trying to undersell it, but for most of the things we want to do it doesn’t take years to be good at it.
Not with all of the information at our fingertips.
But most people don’t allow themselves to be good at anything because they keep on doing more things.
Do fewer things so you can do them well.
The Effects of Slow Productivity
Cal Newport has an amazing concept called Slow Productivity. The idea is that when we think about productivity we try to measure things.
We view productivity as output when we should be viewing it as outcome. Think about it.
At a 9-5, your manager might look at the following:
- Emails sent
- Meeting scheduled
- Lines of code written
- Time talking in Slack
They look at these things because they can be measured. That’s an outdated system from the Industrial Revolution. It causes us to base our performance on busyness instead of effectiveness.
Slow productivity is a way of measuring useful effort that is now much more focused on the quality of things you produce over time as opposed to your visible activity in the moment.
It’s based on 3 principles:
- Do fewer things
- Work at a natural pace
- Obsess over quality
We’ve been talking about doing fewer things so let’s turn our attention to the other two to see how we can make this all work to build a better business.
Work at a Natural Pace
When do you get to stop and take a break from your business? Ever? Do you feel guilty if you do take a break?
The problem is that our bodies aren’t meant to be wired 24/7. Our bodies and minds are seasonal. They need natural breaks so that they can push hard when it is time to put in the work.
But this can be hard to imagine when you have so many things to do on your list.
Let’s go back to the simple list we came up with before.
- 1 email a day
- 1 high-quality Thread a day
- 10 high-quality comments a day
We can even add a fourth thing in there if we want.
- 1 high-quality essay/video a week
The list doesn’t look like much when you write it out. For some of you, it might feel overwhelming but that’s probably because you’re winging your content. If you keep tending to a Mind Garden then you’ll find that creating this content becomes extremely easy because you’re thinking about the content constantly (in a good way).
So when it’s time to create it you’re off to the races.
It also allows you to plan out your seasons and when you need to take a break. If you know you want to take a break in 2 weeks then you can spend time working hard during the period before and working hard doesn’t feel like working hard because you have a system in place.
Obsess Over Quality
We’ve already been hammering on this point throughout this essay. But it’s important to understand that none of this is about perfectionism.
Perfectionism has more to do with your ego and how you believe others will view you.
This is about being able to put in the best work on the right things. This requires you to find the things that produce the most value so you can put your focus on them.
We’ve done that already with the list above.
- 1 email a day (again, just coming up with a random timeframe, make it 1 email a week if you want)
- 1 high-quality Thread a day
- 10 high-quality comments
- 1 high-quality essay/video a week
Do this for 3 months and you’ll see a big change. Do it for 6 months and you’ll be in a different place. Do this for a year and I’ll be asking you for tips.
When you follow this line of thinking you start to see that the other 80% of tasks that you used to believe you had to do weren’t ever of any importance.
The Real Goal: More Consistency, Quicker Output, & Better Outcomes
Doing fewer things has the goal of quicker output and better outcomes. But because we get stuck in this cycle of wanting more, we mistake hustle with more instead of fewer and better.
By doing less we can accomplish more as long as we focus on doing the right things and we do them often. When we bring consistency to the table it makes it hard to fail.
You get extraordinary outcomes by doing ordinary things for extraordinary periods of time. It’s the commitment to the act, not the act itself that creates the outsized return. – Alex Hormozi
Consistency is hard when we continue to add more to our plate. We can easily get a rush looking at the massive to-do list, but what happens when you’re only focused on doing 2 to 3 things a day? At the very least you should always be able to get 1 of them done.
Consistency compounds.
Sending an email every single day can change your life. You’ll build relationships. Become unforgettable. Make more money.
But doing something like this becomes impossible when there are 27 other things to do. We haven’t even talked about the things that you need to do outside of your business.
The family, the job, the health, the fun, the unexpected problems, and everything else. Building a business isn’t simple, but it is easy.
We make it hard when we add more things to it which doesn’t allow us to get really good at anything.
Do fewer things.