Long form articles about Productivity for solopreneurs

Its counterintuitive but sometimes doing MORE of something requires LESS energy.

Allow me to explain this throiugh a gardening anaology, which you can apply to your business, to get twice as much done with LESS effort.

today in the garden, I’d just had a lot of fun chainsawing a whisky barrel in half,
to build large planters which I now need filled with almost a ton of soil.

Normally I’m always on the lookout for the easiest option, the best tool…
The path was too twisty and tight for a wheelbarrow,
and I even tried building a ramp up the edge of the large planters so I could tip the soil right in.

But In the end, the rule of Occam’s razer applied:
The simplest solution was the best.

It proved easier to simply lift buckets full of soil instead.
But here’s where it gets interesting:

What I noticed was that it’s physically easier to carry 2 full buckets of heavy soil,
Than it is to carry 1 bucket at a time.

2 buckets is, of course, more efficient:

I had to walk the distance from the bags of soil to the planters each time.
So it requires the same walking time to deliver X2 the amount of soil.
You’ll see this in business a lot.
Your smaller projects require the same amount of admin as projects which bill for X2 as much.

But I’m not talking about efficiency…
I mean physically easier.

Somehow X2 buckets needs less muscle power. Less energy.

My theory on this…
If you carry one bucket you have to use your abs and muscle power to awkwardly counteract the sideways pull of the bucket, which sites awkwardly outside your centre of balance.
But with 2 buckets the weight counteracts the other,
And the only effort is the vertical weight of the bucket.
And each arm can apply the same upwards power to each bucket with no extra effort.

In other words, the work is balanced.
One bucket balances the other,
and provides better lifting form.

But how is this relevant to running a solo business?

In lots of ways:

Raising your prices simultaneously increases your profit and attracts better clients, who require less admin.
(Low price clients are famously more work).
Which means you typically earn more money for less overall work.

How I’m applying this to my own business?

I’m bulk and batch processing my tasks.

Don’t write one social post at a time
I answer multiple emails in one go.
I focus on doing lots of one similar task at a time
I theme my days.

This is not the 1st time the humble bucket has led me to wisdom.
Here’s one more lesson in using leverage to build the life you want.

P.s here’s the planters: