How to Work Less and Earn More

How to Work Less and Earn More

I am an easy going person, until I was told my worth by the hour…

Allow me to explain.

Not so long ago and for most of a little less than a decade, I worked from home. Although, I worked round the clock, I kind of relaxed during the evenings and followed the 9-5 routine barring a few days when I worked well into the night. As I was pleased as a punch with my progress, I wasn’t complaining…

…Until this year…

What happened now that did not then?

Many things…

For starters, there was my work which I did as if it were a hobby. Nothing serious. But the price tag they  put on my work was astounding…

Then there was this blog, which was doing not too badly although the readership statistics were dismal. But, hey, people liked it… and then they put a price on that work which was for want of a better word, astounding…

An aside: why do I always talk about me when I intended to about you…? (Hee-haw!)

There’s a lesson to be learned here…

You have to be good at your art, such that you know what you are worth by hour or by the blog post.

Calculate your price by the hour and try to complete your blog by the hour. Then try to improve on it and reduce the time set to half an hour. That way you will have half an hour to correct typos and have some time to proofread your work.

Do your writing work at the time you work the best.

 For me, it is early in the mornings at around 4 am. I work for two hours in the morning writing, then do the cooking and the laundry and ensure that the house is in order for the next two hours. After a bath and a prayer, I am refreshed to do what I do best, copy writing.

My folks don’t realize that what I am doing is good work, so there are a lot of interruptions and  so as not to sound rude, I listen and chip in and then go back to my work.

To say that I am highly productive would be a lie. I do relax my mind when I am not getting it right or to just check what my friend in Kolkata is saying as opposed to my Nagpur friend.

But I digress.

Continue work in this fashion until the evening falls and it is time to prepare dinner. With that done, revise your work and redo some of the headlines you are unsatisfied with. Also, find some time for a little bit of music, gardening or your passion for stamp collecting and you’ve had a really productive day.

 I pretend I have only three months to live and I am so nervous that I work like the Devil is behind me; either that or that I forever hold my peace.

No prizes for guessing which option I opted for! (Wink, wink!)

And, yes, I go to sleep early, nine-ish, so that I can wake up early, but not before writing a list of things or clients I must work on the following day.

Yes, it’s grueling. But when you realize your value to the company, you feel it is worth it, so long as you spend some precious moments with your loved ones. Don’t ever forget them. You work to see them smile.

That is my work schedule. What is yours?

Don’t forget to write your work habits in the space below…

Until the next,

Adieus!