Easily distracted as a content creator?

Becoming a successful creator requires a ton of discipline.

But so does waking up at 6 am, 5 days a week, for 40+ years to work for someone else.

However, when being your own boss, you need to be the employee AND the CEO, at the same time. 

You don't naturally get that same kind of accountability as you do at a workplace where you have a boss and colleagues who depend on you.

As a freelancer (and an employee), you need to:
✔️ Produce content consistently
✔️ Keep up with deadlines
✔️ Communicate with clients
✔️ Keep educating yourself

...but when working for yourself, you also need to:
✔️ Be a firefighter 👨‍🚒 (by solving urgent problems on your own)
✔️ Motivate yourself when no one is there watching you
✔️ Handle time-management and know how to prioritize right
✔️ Increase your prices over time (instead of relying on a pay raise)
✔️ Buy your own equipment
✔️ Market your services
✔️ Sell your services
✔️ Send invoices
etc...

This is why the mental aspect of being self-employed is almost harder than the physical.

You need the discipline to carry on even when you don't see instant results.

And sometimes you might even ask yourself:
"Is this worth it?"
"Should I keep going?"
"How do I solve this?"
"Why is nothing working?"
"How am I suppose to know this?"

And when these questions appear, it can be easy to get distracted from what we should be doing 👉 take one step at a time and learn from our mistakes.

You can't do more than your best, but your worst will get better and better if you continue to learn and analyze each outcome.

And if you work from home, there is an extra layer of challenges in place.

Your thoughts might drift away to:

💭 What should I cook for dinner?
💭 Should I do the laundry?
💭 I need to run some errands! 

...and suddenly life takes over your time for content and business development, you get less done and the problems consist.

You default into the easy tasks because you know how to do it, roughly how much time it takes and you know how the end result should look like.

The friction for the neccessary tasks increases compared to the friction of the easy maintenance tasks.

Sound familiar?

Humans are comfortable creatures. The uncertainty of not knowing the process or the outcome is what often stops us from doing tasks, despite knowing that we should do them. (This is another reason to have systems in place for everything you do.)

Growth occurs slightly outside of your comfort zone.
This is why most successful people are entrepreneurs because the entrepreneurial life is a constant journey of challenges that require both knowledge, experience, and confidence in uncertain situations.

You need to believe in yourself before you know if something works.
(Sometimes years before.)

This is why I've included sections about "mindset" and "time management" into my program "Streamlined Creator" (that starts on July 1, 2024), because it affects everything we do as creators and is a vital part of creating content consistently and in a sustainable manner.

(If you want to hear more about how "Streamlined Creator" can help you, read the section below.)

So how do you reduce distractions when working from home?

👉 By doing a task collection.

Walk room to room in your house with your phone 🤳 and snap photos of everything you see that you need to take care of. 

Put the images in a separate folder 📂 on your phone called “Household tasks”. 

Then, have a weekly task in your calendar where one of the steps in that task is to look through that folder on your phone and schedule the things you need to do in the next 7 days.

By doing this, you move the distraction from your immediate attention, knowing that it will get handled at the right time.

Less stress and less brain fog and more focus on what matters, when it matters.

How do you get boring tasks done?
(Especially when you don’t know what the required time is to complete it.)

Try “time-blocking”.

Add a recurring task (like “business development”) into your calendar for 1h every day.
When that time comes, start a timer and do as much as you can on that task in those 60min.

This makes it easier to plan and you won’t feel as stressed from having to reschedule your day/week when a task expands in time. If it expands in time, just simply pause it until the next day.

It helps to have these tasks in a separate list that you link to from your calendar.

So, schedule the areas you want to work on instead of the specific tasks in those areas.

(This works with other areas as well, such as lunch, workout, household tasks etc…)

I hope you found this blog post helpful! :)

Otherwise, check my other blog posts for more time-saving tips!

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MY NEW ONLINE PROGRAM:

"Streamlined Creator" launching July 1, 2024 🥳

If you want to jumpstart your YouTube journey, set the foundation for your channel, and get the systems in place to grow (rather than fumbling around in the dark for years without direction), consider joining "Streamlined Creator".

I've finally decided on a starting date (1st of July) and that is when I will close enrollment (or as soon as I fill up the 8 spots for this launch, whatever happens first).

If this sounds interesting, book a 30-min Discovery Call and I'll share all the details with you!

The call is completely free and you will get insights into my own channel growth and be presented with a launch price at the end that you won't find anywhere else (and it is the lowest price it will ever be since I'm opening enrollment for the first time, so take advantage of this one-time-opportunity).