My “Ditch the Office” freedom strategy part 1/3

Author: Jason Category: tips Tags: ditch the office, financial, freedom, objectives, principles, salary, strategy

Saturday
Mar 7, 2009

Do you have an idea of how you’d get out of the office to “do your own thing” or to be “free”? I’ve got a strategy. It’s not particularly novel as I’m sure other people are doing something similar, but it’s serving me well so far.  Originally I was going to write this as the one post but I think it serves better as a series of three so it’s digestible.  My strategy is three fold so I’ll do a post about each of the three elements:

1. Objectives
2. Principles
3. Projects

So for this post, I’ll run through my immediate three objectives in my race to Ditch the Office:

1. Learn.

This is the biggest investment up front. I need time to learn. Marketing, outsourcing, negotiations, pricing, advertising, public relations, people management, discipline. I need to experiment, fail, succeed, confuse, improve. I tried doing an MBA in the not to distant past and, to be blunt, I really really disliked (hated) it.  Now doing an MBA or something similar is not for everyone and I should have known before I started it.  Since then I’ve really come to the realisation that there is plenty of opportunity to try this stuff (i.e. business ventures) for yourself. I thinks it’s much more fun out in the field learning from experience.  I’m enjoying experimenting much more than traditional study.

2. Multiple ideas.

I’m pursuing multiple ideas at one time. This is challenging, mostly from a time perspective but it’s necessary as not every idea is going to be successful. Not every idea maintains momentum either so it’s good to have multiple things on the go so that one can slot in if another is a little slow.  I did find that once I started looking for ideas and speaking to various people about them, more ideas flow so now I’ve got a list of ideas that I can experiment with in the future if one falls by the wayside.

3. Replace the salary.

This is where the rubber really hits the road. I need to apply the previous two “folds” to replace my salary as a starting point. Find something that takes off enough that I don’t have to go to the office every day. Once this has happened, it will be a case of trying out further ideas that I’m gathering on the way to see if they are more effective in allowing me to Ditch the Office.

As with all good strategies I’ll be continually re-evaluating it so that I can make sure I stay on target. It’s serving me well so far but I’m still sitting in my office chair five days a week aren’t I?  Time will truly tell if this approach is going to work.

So that’s it for part one of the series.  Here’s part 2.  Part 3 is to follow shortly.

Share:

Do you have an idea of how you’d get out of the office to “do your own thing” or to be “free”? I’ve got a strategy. It’s not particularly novel as I’m sure other people are doing something similar, but it’s serving me well so far.  Originally I was going to write this as the one post but I think it serves better as a series of three so it’s digestible.  My strategy is three fold so I’ll do a post about each of the three elements:

1. Objectives
2. Principles
3. Projects

So for this post, I’ll run through my immediate three objectives in my race to Ditch the Office:

1. Learn.

This is the biggest investment up front. I need time to learn. Marketing, outsourcing, negotiations, pricing, advertising, public relations, people management, discipline. I need to experiment, fail, succeed, confuse, improve. I tried doing an MBA in the not to distant past and, to be blunt, I really really disliked (hated) it.  Now doing an MBA or something similar is not for everyone and I should have known before I started it.  Since then I’ve really come to the realisation that there is plenty of opportunity to try this stuff (i.e. business ventures) for yourself. I thinks it’s much more fun out in the field learning from experience.  I’m enjoying experimenting much more than traditional study.

2. Multiple ideas.

I’m pursuing multiple ideas at one time. This is challenging, mostly from a time perspective but it’s necessary as not every idea is going to be successful. Not every idea maintains momentum either so it’s good to have multiple things on the go so that one can slot in if another is a little slow.  I did find that once I started looking for ideas and speaking to various people about them, more ideas flow so now I’ve got a list of ideas that I can experiment with in the future if one falls by the wayside.

3. Replace the salary.

This is where the rubber really hits the road. I need to apply the previous two “folds” to replace my salary as a starting point. Find something that takes off enough that I don’t have to go to the office every day. Once this has happened, it will be a case of trying out further ideas that I’m gathering on the way to see if they are more effective in allowing me to Ditch the Office.

As with all good strategies I’ll be continually re-evaluating it so that I can make sure I stay on target. It’s serving me well so far but I’m still sitting in my office chair five days a week aren’t I?  Time will truly tell if this approach is going to work.

So that’s it for part one of the series.  Here’s part 2.  Part 3 is to follow shortly.

Share: