No Tech Weekends – Unplugged And Off The Grid For Two Days
I’ve been experimenting with doing no tech weekends, instead of constantly checking Facebook and Twitter, looking at email and news, actually scaling down to nothing by avoiding using laptops, social networks, tech in general. Imagine doing social things and not having an eye on my iPhone during conversations, going on outdoor hikes instead of inside with my eyes fixed on a flat screen, just trimming it way down to almost nothing. I say almost, because it is tough to go cold turkey, but a dramatic reduction is not that hard. I’ve learned a few things along the way during this tech elimination.
As for news, not much happens over the weekend, so things that are posted online tend to be pretty fluffy. I find most critical things I may want to know happen on Mondays and Tuesdays. E-mail is also not critical typically. I recently read an article where a CEO never checked e-mails on the weekend. He reasoned that if he did, he would start answering them. And if he started answering them, clients and associates would be notified that they can and would reach him on the weekends and get a response. As for social networks, the more you interact the more reaction you get. So if you don’t post and comment, you typically don’t get much for responses, which trims things way down.
The one item I would suggest is to have everything ready for Monday, ready on Friday. Unless you have your task lists and items completely covered and scheduled, your mind will keep running about work all weekend, which defeats the whole purpose. Ever leave for vacation on a Friday? You work so hard all that day to have everything buttoned up that when you set off your mind is free and relaxed and ready to have some fun. Imagine having that feeling every weekend? What has happened to me is that I approach Monday and the work week with much more renewed energy and excitement. I am recharged and ready to roll. As opposed to working though the weekends and having a never ending cycle, which can cause burnout. This may not work for everyone, but I am guessing that it could. Give it a tumble, if you think you can’t not work weekends because of client commitments, start to rethink the efficiency of your actual work week. Try going tech free for a stretch and see how refreshing and recharged it can make you.
Do you go tech free now? Can you do it?
Media Artist Secrets TV #3 – 4 Creative Career Steps
On this episode of Media Artist Secrets TV we discuss the 4 Creative Career Steps. You can look at the original blog post this is based on right here.
The 4 steps are Hours, Talent, Ideas and Who.
You can also watch the show in HD on YouTube or in HD on Facebook (podcast version coming soon)
This show is all about the business of being creative, advancing your creative career and ramping up your empire. Each episode will feature creative career development advice and inspiration, cool guests, new thoughts and ideas. Join the conversation by leaving a comment, let me know what you think.
Thanks for checking it out. 
http://www.FranklinMcMahon.com / http://www.fmstudio.com
http://www.Facebook.com/FranklinMcMahon
http://www.Twitter.com/FranklinMcMahon
Which of the 4 steps are you at right now? What step do you want to be on?
Can You Specialize In The Nearly Impossible For Your Clients?
Your career success often hinges on what you are offering. Can the client do it themselves, but it is just easier to have you do it? Or is it a service that the client could (almost) never figure out on their own, unless they went through months of training and research?
The more you match up a service with a client correctly, the more successful you will be. Move from pawn to knight, specialize in the nearly impossible for your clients, not just the inconvenient.
Let’s take photography for an example. A client needs pictures of a building or an event. You offer photography services, you can do this job. The client could snap some pictures, it would be quick, but it’s just not convenient for them. Since it is just grabbing some shots, they could have someone in their office do it, in fact they could have any number of local photographers do it. You would do a great job, but it is hard to have any kind of leverage against others in this scenario. If you charge the going rate, they may come back and say, well we can just grab the shots this time, but we’ll keep you in mind.
Along the way you discover that what they really want is to create an on-line photo gallery for their company, that is constantly updated. They also would like the pictures to look professional and be updated with regular events. Oh and they want them to come up randomly, so a different one appears each time someone visits the website.
You discover all this as you talk more and more with them. You investigate and find out what the bigger picture (so to speak) is and how you can offer a solution. You have a friend who is a web guy, so he can do the back-end coding for the slideshow, you subcontract him to do it for you. You also work out a monthly agreement with the company to shoot a certain amount of images per month. You also promote to them your Photoshop skills, you will tweak and sharpen the images so they not only look fantastic and professional, but they are highly optimized for fast web delivery. You also work out a method where you upload the pictures via a server to the client, supplying them with web optimized versions as well as print versions, that they can use for their brochures and newsletters.
Through constant communication and talks with the client, you have gotten a grasp of the bigger project and taken a lot of the burden off the client to make the process happen. You moved from a pawn, who is utilized but not very valuable and quickly sacrificed, to a rook or a knight, who is pivotal to the bigger strategy, and who must be held on to longer for on-going success.
I love chess metaphors.
Start to think about expanding your scope, offering products and services that branch off in directions you enjoy. Move from being a small circular bush, with just a few services, to a large expanding tree, with a combination of client solutions.
Instead of focusing on a small group of services that can be found anywhere, with little to differentiate you, start to package up solutions that do more and more of what the client needs. You begin doing what is a huge task for them, instead of just saving them a bit of inconvenience.
It’s one thing to hope a client calls you, as they survey a sea of other candidates doing the same thing. It’s another matter entirely where they have to call you, you are the person who can make it happen, solve their problems and offer a range of services and solutions that the others cannot.
Can you offer services others cannot? Can you expand what you offer?
How valuable now are you to your clients and potential clients?
4 Expert Tips From 4 Career Development Gurus
How do I sum up the wisdom of four talented career development gurus in one blog post? Impossible! But I will certainly try. This past week here on the blog I mentioned these four individuals, Anthony Robbins, Stephen Covey, Tim Ferriss and David Allen, so I thought it was time for a recap on these people who made a huge impact, and still do, on my career. Below are four of the bigger concepts these guys cover:
Anthony Robbins: Consistent Focus, Repetition and Immediate Actions
Tony always says that “repetition is the mother of skill”, which means the more and more you do something, the better you get at it. Doing is the key, the more you actually put something into practice, the better and better you become. He will be the first person to tell you that all the self development in the world will do nothing until you actually start putting the methods to use. Focus is important as well, whatever you focus on consistently, starts to come to fruition. A lot of people spread their focus too wide or it’s constantly changing. He also talks about immediate actions. Once you set a plan in place, you must take a step or two immediately towards the goal. No delay. You cannot plan to work on it next week, the first steps must happen right away to create momentum.
Stephen Covey: Find Your Voice and Inspire Others To Find Theirs
He wrote the 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, and the quote above is actually the 8th Habit, from the book of the same name. Find what you truly love to do, find what your career path should be. This takes lots of soul-searching and exploring, and it often takes making a move, but it must be done. The next step is to inspire others, help them find out what they want to do. Help can be in many forms. The more you help others with their dreams, the more you will see your own dreams come to fruition. He also talks about sharpening the saw, keeping your skills top notch as well as focusing on what matter most to you, not urgent items pushed on you by others.
Tim Ferriss: Get Rid of the Clutter, Get Help and Focus on the Important
Tim says in his book the 4-Hour Work Week that when you work 9 to 5 for years (or decades) and then branch off on your own, you still retain all the same methods, even if they don’t work. You still get up and work at 9am (even though nighttime may be your most productive) and you still work within the 8 hour (and more) grid. Conform your new business to you, not to dated office methods. Use virtual assistants and delegate your workflow of mundane items. Stop taking in info from the web all day, go on an info-fast, most of that info is quickly dated and not relevant to your empire. Most importantly, don’t work 8 hours just doing busy work if you don’t have work, scale back and focus on what matters.
David Allen: Get Things Done by Collecting All Your Info, Sorting, Reviewing and Doing
David Allen created GTD (Getting Things Done) and it’s a great system that actually can be explained fairly briefly. Find a system, electronic or paper, to collect all your thoughts, ideas, tasks, goals and projects. All of them must be captured/collected or else your mind will keep thinking about them. Next is to process them, stuff that can be done in 2 minutes, just do them, things that need to be scheduled for a certain time or location, track them. Work through these 5 steps: Collect, Process, Organize, Review and Do. Put items into these 6 areas of focus: Current Actions, Current Projects, Areas of Responsibility, Yearly Goals, 5 Year Vision and Life Goals.
Saying the above items are the tip of the iceberg is an understatement. Google them all, read what they have to say, get their books and products. Check out their blogs. Even if you just start with one, most anything by any of these four will be highly enlightening and will definitely help you ramp up your career to where you want it to be.
Google: Anthony Robbins, Stephen Covey, Tim Ferriss and David Allen
Websites: Anthony Robbins, Stephen Covey, Tim Ferriss and David Allen
Of course these are my interpretations of my favorites, do you have any favorite methods? Or favorite authors?
Media Artist Secrets TV #2 – Creative Career and Being Shameless
Franklin McMahon Show #2 – Creative Career And Being Shameless..this episode is about being OK with being shameless, not being humble and ramping up your creative career by being confident.
Are you shameless? Leave a comment!
You can also watch the show in HD on YouTube or on Facebook (podcast version coming soon)
This show is all about the business of being creative, advancing your creative career and ramping up your empire.
Each episode will feature creative career development advice and inspiration, cool guests, new thoughts and ideas. Join the conversation by leaving a comment, let me know what you think.
I will also be looking for guests to interview in the coming weeks, if you are interested, please leave a comment with your links. The show will be a work in progress, but I plan on making it informative and fun.
Thanks for checking it out.
http://www.FranklinMcMahon.com
http://www.fmstudio.com
http://www.Facebook.com/FranklinMcMahon
http://www.Twitter.com/FranklinMcMahon
