Working Remotely
Killing Your BlackBerry
ZEN AND THE ART OF ROCK STAR LIVING
Hi Tim,
Here’s the story. I’m a musician based in Munich, Germany. I’m running my own label and it has been difficult to get it off the ground. While working on that, my creativity slowly decreased until I hit rock bottom (a couple of times).
While it is still difficult to survive in the music industry I find it not hard at all now to do what I want to do. And that’s all I do. I do what I want to do. It includes being a father, making music, composing, taking care of business, traveling, learning languages (mostly Italian), riding my bike, etc…. It’s all in the following paragraphs.
I read the book step by step for about two months from September/October 2008 (plus surfing your blog) and just made tabula rosa with my life. (Lots of brainvomiting on paper.)
I started outsourcing things that bothered me most (and therefore kept hanging out in my to-do list the longest). I outsourced:
research, most of which is music-industry related (research outsourced saves about 2–3 hours/day)
website maintenance (social websites like Facebook, Myspace, etc). I’m planning on doing most of my marketing through these sites in 2009 and I’m on about 25+ sites as an artist.
My VA (getfriday.com, as recommended in your book) does all the updates and checks the sites once a week to gather e-mail messages, comments, etc., filters them and sends me a report once a week including all the details for me to respond to. (Saves about one to two hours/day.)
photo retouching for my press pics is done by elance (saved five hours of work time and about $500).
management of my mailing list for gig dates, album updates, etc. (Saves about one hour for each mailing.)
I started testing muses (learning languages with music to sell online). I’m still testing!
I decided to open a publishing operation online for film companies to license music for film with just a mouse click, without having to negotiate deals for months. It will happen in 2009 (I start testing soon). People are generally surprised and amazed that a person who doesn’t seem to be very corporate (I look like a retired punk rocker, haha) outsources parts of his life and lives like a millionaire (I guess we do although we’re far from it!).
I realized that I could do it after I got the first positive feedback from my outsource VA. I got the results of my project posted on elance and a day later I got the results. I went, yeah baby, this is MINE! The biggest change is, that I now have my life under control. I take care of my little daughter (20 months) half the day (second half, my wife takes care of her), I take care of business, and I take time to do things I always wanted to do. Revenue-wise I’m pretty much the same I was before but I have a lot more spare time and a clear head (so I guess I’ve gotten a lot richer!).
I work whenever I want (no boss) about 24–30 hours/week (including office hours and music-studio hours) and what I do now is only what I really love to do. I’m still step-by-step optimizing efficiency to reduce office hours (currently about 10 hours/week). My dream is to dissolve my office altogether, go paperless, and basically only have my laptop as an office.
I eliminated all work that has gotten me down or was wearing me out (eliminated an extra workload of about 10 hours/week). I do not take on jobs (writing/producing music) unless I really love the project. I eliminated all complainers and haters (saves my stomach).
I just started my blog juergenreiter.com, “zen and the art of rockstarliving,” where I want to share the changes I made to my life (mostly for musicians to see the light at the end of the tunnel).
And I recorded an album of my music and for the first time in my life did all the lyrics myself! It’s going to be out in spring on my label ORkAaN Music+Art Productions.
I’ll be on mini-retirement in New York this year for six weeks. I’ll be in Sicily to learn Italian for about two weeks in May. I’ll be back in Sicily to travel the island by bike for another 2–3 weeks in September. And am planning on going to either Mexico, Central America, or Australia in the winter.
I learned to shave with a straight razor within about 30 minutes, which I wanted to do for years. Shaving is a real exciting ritual now and a lot of fun! I will do a master course for coffee experts in April (I’m a coffee junky!) and become a “maestro del cafe.” I helped my wife quit her teaching job and fulfill her dream to run a cafe in Munich, Germany. It’s called Frau Viola and opened its doors in October 2008. It is running great! (www.frauviola.wordpress.com)
Can you measure all of that? I think it speaks for itself!
The general mindset of 4HWW has given me the calmness of being able to take time to play with my daughter and enjoying my “free time” without getting the fear of missing out on something or wasting my life. I’d say overall (with all the above-mentioned changes) my productivity increased at least 70% and doubt decreased by 80%.
For those just getting started:
start small think big.
identify what excites you vs. what bores you
eliminate and focus on what excites you
stick to what excites you no matter what people say. It’s your life, live it the way you know is right for you.
read
ART LOVERS WANTED
I saw my father work himself to the bone for 20 years as a garbage-man when we immigrated from Mexico. As I looked at my life in April 2007 in a lonely hotel room after another endless week of travel for my employer far from my family and those I love, I realized that at 33 I was on the same path to work myself into the ground and give up on my lifelong dream of pursuing my love of music and theater.
In life there are no accidents and that night as I was checking an e-mail from an old friend he suggested the 4HWW. I devoured the book in a few hours and began immediately to apply the key principles. When I told people about the book and about what I intended to do everyone said I was crazy. I focused most of my efforts on Dream- lining, Elimination, and Liberation. As an employee I wanted to first achieve liberation with a remote work arrangement. Despite several failed attempts I persevered (great lesson in negotiating) and was granted the opportunity to work remotely. This changed everything. I went from 9+ hours of work a day with weekly work- related travel to four hours a week, one week of travel per month, and I managed to get a $10,000 raise and deliver 2x the productivity in my job from the previous unproductive year.
As a result I now live with my once long-distance girlfriend in Seattle (my hometown). I spend my newly found time pursuing my passion for music (I sing in a choir and write my own folk-rock music), theater (I am performing in my first fully improvised 60-minute play this weekend), and fitness. I am training for my second marathon now.
Most of my friends cannot believe that I can actually spend most of my time pursuing my love for the arts and still make a full-time income on only four hours a week. The best part of this is that I have found mentally the
