Not long ago, Jeff Mills (@goldmills) got a hold of my book, Source Control, and was cool enough to invite me to talk to his thriving group of entrepreneurial coaching students. Coming in at about 2 hours long, this isn’t for the faint of heart when it comes to system design and agile outsourcing. There’s some solid Q&A at the end, and we don’t shy away from getting into the details.
I dig deep into how I started outsourcing, including all the things I screwed up along the way. We blow apart the issue of screening assistants, managing without micromanaging, and why hiring extremely talented assistants is just an excuse for your doing a half-assed job defining your process. I also explain why I’ll be naming my first-born child Dropbox.
I’d love to get your thoughts, especially if there’s anything you want to call me out on, or want me to go deeper into, or clarify.
I’m getting a TON of questions from people that are hitting a wall in creating systems & process around their work and in their life. It’s often inside a service/freelance business, but also startups & product-based ventures. There are those things you just feel like you can’t get someone (or something) to handle for you - but you know are not the best use of your time.
It’s usually things like…
- In-person meetings, phone calls, meetings, review sessions (ie: anything based on perceived value in relationships/human factors)
- Communication (handling email responses, social media, customer support, vendors, contractors)
- Tasks that require exclusive skills, expertise, context, or knowledge (ie: it would take longer to convey and ensure quality, than it would do to it yourself)
- Unique or unpredictable situations or projects (ie: more time spent figuring out what to do than actually doing)
Here’s the deal: Keep reading, tell me what pisses you off, and get a book…
A while back I sat down to talk with Byron Davis (@coachbyron) from Niche Profit Journal. He’s a refreshingly personable guy with some interesting projects in the works. I was immediately impressed and flattered at how aggressively he was adopting some core ideas from my book, and systematically unpacking, deconstructing and streamlining his work.
We keep it broad and talk about Muselife, Dangerous Ambition, Arsenal, Audio Mixology, M6 Creator & Source Control, with a lot of focus on process design. Give it a watch and let me know if it sparks any ideas or questions.
Thoughts? Questions? Disagree with anything?
Yeah, you read that right - go check out The Lifestyle Business Podcast (iTunes link) where Dan & Ian talk about the side of things that support the wide-eyed, idealistic orgy of good intention commonly called lifestyle design.
(Warning: rant coming) Designing a lifestyle and ignoring the finance to fuel it is like blueprinting your dream home without a plan to pay for its construction. Yes, it’s beautiful on paper - but living in it requires a few dollars…
What’s this about? Another Muselife? No, not another. Think of this as Muselife’s… new little brother. Don’t worry, big Muselife will get past the vicious, bitter jealousy towards the new addition and they’ll get along just fine.
Here’s the deal: I’ve always found proper blogs to be a bit… limiting. I always have something to say, but I don’t like burying substantive, lengthy video posts with a flood of random tips, ideas or quick videos. This is where those will live.
Somewhere between Muselife (the blog) and Twitter (the private text message to absolutely everyone I know) - is Muselife Stream, a ultra raw, simple place to keep the conversation going between blog posts…
Everything I post here will also push out a Twitter link, so just follow @muselife and @dvdwlsh and you’re all set… if there’s anything you want to talk about, or questions/ideas, leave a comment or Twitter me..
Simple as that, yeah? Cool.
David
