“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” — Hunter S. Thompson
Stop looking for the right choice.
You’ve got a million options in front of you and no single one of them is the right one.
Instead of agonizing over which choice is right, just make a choice and invest your energy into turning it into the right one.
Now, on to this week’s ideas…
1. How To Make Something People Will Buy
“There’s only one way to get people to buy something: Create value for them.”
If you want people to invest money, time, or attention into something you created, you need to first understand what they value.
In this post I break down how to make something people will buy including the ways transformation, perception, price, and timing influences value.
Plus, I share a chart of the 30 things most people value to help you figure out how to make things that deliver the value people seek.
Related: Want to make money from your expertise? Start here.
2. How To Maximize Your Time
“Whether you’re a company of 1 or a company of 1000, things are going to happen that are outside of your control. What we can control is WHEN we deal with it.”
What if instead of worrying about how to manage your time, you tried to maximize it?
Ryan Deiss explains how to maximize your time by theming each day, planning your week, determining a daily Big 3, and documenting your days.
Btw, I found this in Elisa Doucette’s newsletter.
Related: How I got more done and mastered time management in just 10 minutes a day.
3. How To Write Usefully
“Useful writing tells people something true and important that they didn’t already know, and tells them as unequivocally as possible.”
It’s great to be interesting, but it’s better to be useful.
Paul Graham breaks down how to write usefully including how to write something readers will find important, novel, correct, and strong.
Btw, I found this in Trevor McKendrick’s newsletter.
Related: How to write something useful to others.
4. 101 Things To Know Before Going Freelance
“You are worth more than you think you are. Be brave and charge accordingly.”
As someone who works for himself, the observations in this one rang true for me and are worth reading if you work for yourself or would like to some day.
Iain Broome shares 101 things to know before going freelance including tips about tools to use, how to get clients, and how to deal with the ups and downs of being your own boss.
Related: How to land a dream client with a blog post, a Facebook ad, and $100.
5. How To Build A Weird Internet Career
“Weird Internet Careers are weird because there is no one else who does exactly what they do. They’re internet because they rely on the internet as a cornerstone, such as bloggers, webcomics, youtubers, artists, podcasters, writers, developers, subject-matter experts, and other people in very specific niches. And they’re careers because they somehow manage to support themselves.”
This article is actually a series of articles about a topic that’s near and dear to my heart: Making a living by using the internet to reach the world with your creations.
Gretchen McCulloch breaks down how to build a weird internet career including the story of how she built a career as an “internet linguist,” what it takes to get started, and how to take your own weird internet career to the next level.
Btw, I found this link in Austin Kleon’s newsletter.
Related: My Creative Mornings talk about the value of weird.
Three Quick Things Before You Go…
Want me to help you with your project? Check out my Creator Accelerator.
Last week’s most popular link was 10 valuable lessons you can learn from Seth Godin.
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