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Wage Slave Rebel Dispatch
Category Archives: Blogging
What Aspiring Freelancers Can Learn From The World’s Greatest Web App Company
This weekend has been a business weekend. I’ve done almost nothing but read business related books to get me in the mindset I need to have for some upcoming projects. The first book I started on is one that I had always heard was great, but had managed to put off reading until yesterday. It’s a very fast read, though, made up of a series of bite-sized, wisdom-packed essays.
“Getting Real” is a collection of business philosophies and lessons as applied and learned by 37signals. For those of you who don’t know, 37signals is the web developer and web business community’s equivalent of a critically-acclaimed indie rock band. They aren’t the biggest or the richest, but, by God, they are the greatest. 37signals has revolutionized the web as we know it. Not only because their products (Basecamp, Backpack, Highrise and Campfire) have changed business management to something more suited to the 21st century, but also for their willingness to release their Ruby on Rails application framework to the public free of charge and restrictions. (The awesomeness that is Twitter was built using Ruby on Rails.)
If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it. It’s available on their website and for purchase.
Even though the book is more specifically about web development, I’ve noticed that a lot of the advice in the book can easily be applied (and should be applied) to the professional decisions of aspiring freelancers, bloggers, writers, consultants, entrepreneurs, etc. Here are the most important lessons you can take away from the book…
How to Stop Procrastinating and Start Living the Life You Want
It’s ironic that I’ve spent the last thirty minutes finding excuses to not work on this post. I’ve had to get some water, turn on a fan, check my email one last time, take off my shoes and on and on before I felt like I’d be ready to start writing. This is clearly my mind playing worthless games. Not only would having water or turning on a fan not help me be more productive, for those thirty minutes it actually hindered productivity. But I finally came to my senses and realized exactly what was happening and now I’m sitting here with a paragraph down feeling better and more focused than ever.
Truth be told, you’ll never overcome procrastination. You’ll have good days and you’ll have bad days. If you want to be a freelancer or a blogger or finally attain that location independent status, first you need to learn to minimize procrastination so you can work toward things that matter, things that directly relate to your goals. The best way to minimize procrastination is to be more aware and to recognize it when it creeps up on you.
The Non-Conformist’s Secret Weapon – or – How To Fuck Up Like A Winner
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re an aspiring iconoclast. Your target? The American Dream.
To you, nothing sounds less natural than slaving away for forty years at some insignificant job while constantly hoping you’ll be promoted so you can finally make six figures, afford the things you don’t need and spend even more time working with the expectation that when you finally get to retire in your late sixties you’ll have all the money you need to do all the things you ever wanted to do (which, incidentally, could have been done on less than half of what you made yearly). But, of course, you’ll end up in bad health or dead long before you ever get the chance.
It’s hard to say exactly who or what made the idea of a “deferred-life” so acceptable and so common. That we would choose to experience those things which are best enjoyed in our youth while we’re at an old, decrepit age and suffer menial, uninspired work until we reach that age are both testaments to what a lifeless, unexamined people we’ve become.
How can we avoid mediocrity? How can we avoid wage slavery? How can we be the people we want to be and do the things we aspire to do? How can we not only dream the dreams that great men dream, but also be great men in practice? How might we destroy this institution that places certainty above happiness?
The answer might surprise you. Our weapon of choice… is failure.