My buddy Leo is a freelance writer. He’s a surfer of LA coffee shops, sipping espresso and writing on his laptop all across the county. I was chatting with him yesterday about a project, and he told me that he just ordered a sticker that says “Writer for Hire” to put on his laptop.

No one likes delivering bad news. But when bad news is leveraged to position good news as even better, we can inspire positive action from our communities and audiences.

We’ve all stretched one task into an entire day. And we’ve all accomplished dozens of tasks in just a few hours. The difference between the two is a centered mind, and a focused schedule.

A niche is simply the topic you create about and the people you create for. If you don’t have a niche, you’ll create work without a strong perspective, or clear lane. Most travel content is just that. An oversaturated market without a strong perspective, aiming to be simply “inspirational.”

When I started my career, things were a lot like the way I just described. I was busy all the time, hustling to network and make rent, working late nights. I developed a grit, and a sort of illogical conviction that I could do it. I wasn’t sure it was true, but I believed it was because that was the only way I could make it happen.

Accounting becomes a major chore when you only do it just before tax day. But if you do it every day, it takes 45 seconds.

Customers were feeling a whirlwind of emotions, as were restaurants, bars, brands, and all businesses. No one knew what was coming next, and everyone was so busy putting their own affairs in order, and hunkering down, that no one had time to say a word. Except Guinness.

We must automate our own decisions to counter these corporate giants’ automations. Not many people had a social media addiction when the feed was chronological. But when more content became automatic, the problem began. And it hasn’t stopped.

The good news with these is that we don’t have to come up with 75 completely unique concepts for each video. They’re almost identical except for the copy we’re split testing. The bad news is that if we make one mistake, it usually gets applied to all 75 assets. Then we have to fix and re-export each one.

Delayed gratification is the backbone of most long projects. We stack small bricks on the city of our dreams, each day, knowing that the bricks we carry today will become incredible views in a few tomorrows. However, avoiding all immediate gratification is a path to exasperation.

The advantages to breaking out line items for people is that it takes a lot less thinking and story management. The advantages to pitching an all-in rate are usually that you can find more profit on all ends, and keep the client from parsing things out and finding leverage on specific line items.

It’s simple yet profound: if we create a frictionless environment in which we can create, it becomes much easier. Those who achieve extreme consistency don’t necessarily have more willpower than the rest of us—they simply have designed an environment in which a large amount of willpower isn’t necessary.

Hiring someone for a role you aren’t familiar with is a scary task. You aren’t sure what to look for, and once you find it, you don’t know if what you’re looking at is good or not.

Brands, hear this: A recommendation from a trusted source is the holy grail of marketing. You can’t achieve a more effective form of marketing than this. So when creators are on board for a paid sponsorship on their channels, let them recommend the product the way their audience is used to hearing from them.

This is the magic of the daily creative routine. Most days are good. Some days are great–lightning strikes and everything comes together. And even on the bad days, it’s still good.

“One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. New habits seem achievable when you see others doing them every day.”

If you decide to take a week off, it’s unlikely most of your audience will notice. This isn’t a reflection of you or your content, but of the platforms. There’s an endless stream of content, personalized to each person. If you don’t add to the stream this week, no one will be knocking on your door.

You can be the most brilliant person in the world. You can know everything. But unless you’re kind and generous, no one will listen to you.

As a freelancer, I’m pretty protective of my time, as the optimal freelance business model delivers a high-quality service in the most efficient way possible. I didn’t want to spend time driving to pick up furniture, because that would mean I couldn’t spend time working or relaxing.