Work Less Wednesday: August 9

👋 Hey Reader!

This is issue #93 of Work Less Wednesday, where I share with you 5 things you should know about, in 5 minutes or less. That leaves you with 10,075 other minutes this week.

🏖️ 1. How To Work Less Cohort 5 Starts In 4 Weeks! - Join The Waitlist!​

Friendly reminder that we are kicking off Cohort 5 of my live cohort-based course 🏖️ How To Work Less on September 4th...

That’s in just 4 weeks!

Doors officially open for enrollment on August , but my VIP Waitlist will get you in early.

If you want access to:

🗓️ Early Enrollment

💸 Exclusive Discounts

🔥 My Best Deal

​You must be on my VIP Waitlist.

🤔 Who is How To Work Less for?

You’re perfect for How To Work Less if…

• 💼 You’re self-employed (solopreneur, freelancer, service provider, etc.)
• ⏰ You’re maxed out on time (no time left in the day).
• 💸 You’re maxed out on money (you’ve hit a ceiling with income).

In just 4 weeks, you’ll learn how to:

• 🤑 Scale your business without working more hours.
• 🛠️ Create systems that run your business for you.
• 😍 Do the things you love and delegate the things you don’t.

👥 226 incredible students have already been through our program.

Here’s what they said:

“What I’ve been putting off in my business for years, Rich helped me accomplish it in just 4 weeks. This course really lit a fire in my soul.”

“This course has overdelivered value 10x of it’s price (you could easily charge 10k for the value you get)”

“I saw near instant results in my business after implementing Rich’s techniques.”

“I would have never thought you could pack so much value into one course. It has definitely changed my life and how I will run my business.”

“I would have paid 5x for this course if I knew what was waiting for me on the other side.”

“This course has ALL the answers to my Solopreneur problems.”

There will be more information on HTWL coming soon.

​But remember, if you plan to enroll, do yourself a favor (and save some money) and get on the VIP waitlist.​

🤔 2. Maintenance vs. Growth Tasks In Business

Two types of tasks

If you’re self-employed, you spend your time doing one of two types of tasks: Maintenance tasks and Growth tasks.

Maintenance tasks are the tasks you need to do to keep your business running at the current level of income and input (hours).

Things like:

• Client projects
• Creating social media content
• Answering emails

Maintenance tasks keep the wheels spinning.

They are the necessary work that needs to be done to maintain the current level of performance.

Growth tasks are tasks that create growth in income and/or a decrease in input (hours worked).

Things like:

• Working on your strategy
• Creating a new product
• Building systems

This is the optional work that must be done to reach your goals.

The problem with Maintenance tasks

Maintenance tasks are required to keep your business running, but they have an inherent problem.

If you spend all your time doing Maintenance tasks, your business won’t ever grow.

Most people who are burnt out are spending 90% of their time on Maintenance tasks.

This is where you end up plateauing on scaling income or reducing input.

How to spend your time as a business owner

Here’s the secret: BIG leaps your business will ONLY COME from Growth tasks.

Your goal as a business owner is to spend as much time as possible on Growth tasks, and as little time as possible on Maintenance tasks.

Here’s a quick exercise. Ask yourself:

• What percentage of your daily tasks are Maintenance tasks?
  Ex. Fulfillment, Admin work, Production
• What percentage of your daily tasks are Growth tasks?​
  Ex. Strategy, Delegation, Elimination, Automation, Leverage

Based on those numbers, you can evaluate yourself:

• 80%+ Maintenance tasks: BAD
• 50-80% Maintenance tasks: GOOD
• <50% Maintenance tasks: AMAZING

If you want to work less and earn more, start by looking at how you spend your time.

✅ 3. How To Make Social Engagement Work For You - Twitter Thread by Tom Youngs​

If you’re early in your social media journey, every follower is hard won, because you have no social proof.

Think - are you more likely to follow someone with 100 followers or with 100,000 followers?

During this time, “engagement” is a great strategy for growth.

But, you’re probably doing it wrong.

​This Thread from Tom Youngs on Twitter (X?) breaks down an engagement system that actually works.

Here’s the summary:

• Gamify your engagement.
• Crack the code to growth.
• Be a part of the conversation.

​Check it out here.​

Tom Youngs @TheTomYoungs Engagement is overhyped. That’s what I told myself after 6 weeks of trying (and failing) to make any progress. Turns out, I was just crap at engagement. But after a few weeks of tinkering, I’ve cracked the code. And, now - I’ve made engagement my bitch, and its resulted in a… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1686762441366003712 11:34 AM • Aug 2, 2023 14 Retweets 221 Likes Read 49 replies

​

⭐ 4. 9 Things That Actually Work For Productivity - Video by Ali Abdaal​

There is a lot of productivity advice out there.

Most of it is bad.

​Ali Abdaal (productivity YouTuber & author) put out a video this week called “I Read 107 Productivity Books. Here’s What Actually Works.”

I thought Ali was pretty spot on. Here are my notes:

Ali Abdaal’s 9 things that actually work for productivity.

Note: I starred the things that I currently do.

1. 🎯 Setting Goals* - Theres no way to figure out what to do unless you know where you want to go.
   1. Long term: What will define my legacy?
   2. Medium term: What’s the 3-5 year outlook?
   3. Short term: What are my goals for the year?
2. 📊 Breaking Goals Down* - What are the tangible inputs that I need to do to reach this goal?
3. 🗓️ Create Time Blocks - Make time for things in our calendar. Design your ideal week using time-blocking.
4. 📝 Plan Your Day* - Pick one Daily Highlight or Most Important Thing - whats the most important thing you want to do, if you do that, the day is a win.
5. 😔 Get Started - Use the “Unblock Method” to avoid procrastination. Understand the emotions behind why you are avoiding something:
   1. Name The Emotion
   2. Reduce The Emotion
   3. Overcome The Emotion
   4. Respond To Emotion
6. 👀 Stay Focused* - Don’t multitask. Just do the thing.
7. 😁 Make It Feel Good - The secret to productivity is not discipline, it is joy. What can I do to make my work feel good? Stop being so serious.
8. 🔋 Recharge Your Energy* - List things that drain you and recharge you.
   1. Drainers: TikTok, Instagram, Twitter
   2. Rechargers: Walking, Exercise, Reading
9. 🤔 Reflect* - Review your progress regularly.
   1. Daily Reflection: How did my day go? Did I do the things that mattered to me?
   2. Weekly Review: What were the top wins, challenges, learning points? What will this week look like?
   3. Quarterly Review: What are my goals? Are they still worth pursuing?

🎨 5. The 2023 State Of The Creator Economy - Report By ConvertKit​

​ConvertKit (my email marketing platform) just released their 2023 State Of The Creator Economy Report.

There are a ton of valuable insights in here.

​You can check it out here, but here are 5 interesting trends I highlighted:

• 15% of creators left a traditional “9-to-5” to pursue their creator role last year.
• Women are more likely to be creators: 64% of creators identified as female
• Podcasters are most satisfied with their work (7.5/10) and YouTubers are least satisfied (5.8/10)
• Tiny teams: 50% of creators didn’t have any employees or contractors last year, so it’s common for creators to wear every hat in their business. Creator teams tend to be small, with 26% of creators only having 1-2 employees and just 4% of creators having more than 10 people on their team
• Instagram is both the most popular platform for marketing content and also the 2nd most hated. More than 55% of creators use Instagram to market their content.

👋 Want to work together?

When you’re ready, here are 4 ways I can help you:

1. 🛠 (FREE) Take my email course Six-Figure Solopreneur Systems.
2. 🎧 (FREE) Listen to my podcast The Rich Webster Show.
3. 🏖 Join the VIP waitlist for Cohort 5 of 🏖How To Work Less. (226 past students. 5 stars).
4. 📬 Promote yourself to 21k+ subscribers by sponsoring Work Less Wednesday. (Booking into Sept.)

That's it! I can't wait to hear what you think. What was your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Just reply to this email. Also, if you have anything interesting to share, I want to know about it.

😊 Have a great week -

Rich

P.S. Did someone forward this to you? Subscribe here.

P.P.S. Thank you for trusting me with your time. If these emails ever turn into a burden, I encourage you to unsubscribe from Work Less Wednesday.