If this were a Monday morning, I would have my caffeine just before I write, I’d eat a square meal just before I plan my day, and I’d put on motivational music to carry me through the afternoon.

The internet is flush with food bloggers who claim they have “the secret sauce,” or the perfect way to get the most flavor out of a skillet. I’m not so sure. I just think cast irons produce more flavor because you never really wash them. That’s it.

The consistent freelancers I know show up almost every day anyway, even if there is no work. They do another round of outreach. They tighten up their sales funnels. They chip away at passion projects.

Technically, working out for longer blocks of time is more efficient. Sticking to a program that targets specific muscle groups maximizes time and energy. But it’s not always the most psychologically successful.

Ditch The Common Metaphor. Common metaphors are a dime a dozen. What does a dime a dozen really mean to you, though? Probably not much, because you’ve never spent a dime on a dozen of anything.

This is the most magical thing to me. In almost every other creative discipline, you need to have supplies, materials, gear, or a team to pull them off. In writing, all you need is a blank page and an idea.

There are thousands of topical self-development books that you could read to try to get a leg up in a specific area. Then there are free PDFs from bloggers and influencers that boil down ideas from dozens of these books, and create an actionable plan.

Freelancing can be discouraging. Losing a pitch, or being dropped by a client, or not hearing back from someone you admired can take a toll on your confidence.

It’s one thing to make an ad with a few lego characters. But creating an entire village of classic Lego characters, all working together for some goofy goal? That’s special.

The Big Three is a list of three things you want to accomplish in a day. They’re small enough to be completed over the course of a day, but big enough to make it a productive day when they are completed.

Do you consider yourself a creative person? Do you have creative projects that you’d like to complete within the next 30-90 days? Do you have trouble committing to your creative projects for longer than 7 days?

Trust is greater than attention. A community is greater than an audience. Impact is greater than inspiration.

“I’m one of the few people who can chill with the Migos backstage and drink tea with Donatella [Versace] in her home. I’ve done both comfortably and I belonged.”

I’ve been giving his productivity system a shot, called the 6P’s Productivity Scheduler. It’s pretty good. I’ll link it here for anyone who wants to try it out.

Often, everything we’ve committed to stacks up to tell us that we’re stuck. That we can’t change course. We’ve come too far, we’ve spent too much, we’re in too deep.

I drove traffic from my Instagram, and got about 100 people to sign up for the newsletter. That same day, I got caught up in responding to messages, comments, and scrolling the feed. It slowed down my productivity immensely.

I consider consuming content part of my job. This can be a difficult line to walk, as you try to avoid irrelevance on one side, and redundancy on the other.

The exciting thing (or not exciting, depending on who you are) is how profitable agencies can be when they’re set up the right way. I’ll break down a step-by-step process for an agency business model, and then you’ll see how the business works, and how profitable it can be.

Since there’s more advertising now than ever before, there are fewer ways to stand out. Consumers don’t care that you ran an ad. They click “skip ad” faster than you can proposition your value. That’s not enough anymore. You need to be creative.

In the best-case scenario, you’ll get a return on your investment. Even if you break even, you’ll have added value to yourself and taken a risk on yourself.