How to work more and less

The ultimate dream of most work-at-homers is to do more and work less. Although we want more time to do the things we love in life, we can’t completely give up our income. In fact, most of us are actually looking to make more money working from home than in our previous employer role. Fortunately, we have many opportunities to make this happen!

1. Automate everything you can

There are many great tools available today that can automate some of the simple tasks we perform on a regular basis. Even a minute or two here and there can add up to a lot over the course of a year.

Automation opportunities are two of my favorite places out of scope IFTTT.com And Zapier.com. Both of these sites can link different apps and services that you use to perform small tasks when a certain action occurs – if that.

A few automation examples I currently have set up:

• If you are a blogger and quickly realize the annoyance that bitbounce is and are currently manually removing these people from your list, I found the solution. When I remove these people from my newsletter via Zapier, a BitBounce email automatically arrives in my inbox.
• Any time I upload a new video to YouTube; An order is automatically placed with Rev.com to complete the captions.
• If you’re looking for work at home jobs, IFTTT has automation that will send you a weekly email of jobs posted on subreddits.
• Zapier has automation that will send you thank you emails whenever you receive a PayPal sale.

These are the little things that you might not think much of, but they add up. Take them off your plate entirely.

2. Recurring income

If you’re a freelancer, your ultimate goal should be to move from one-on-one projects to repeat clients. This is the client you are on retainer for a certain amount of work per month. If you are a writer, this could be a certain number of articles or blog posts. If you are a virtual assistant or social media manager, it can be a fixed number of hours or a predetermined task.

This will help you avoid the perpetual state of marketing. You will be able to rely on this income month after month which can also reduce the burden on your budget a lot. And, you can often work a 30-day termination notice into your client, so you have plenty of lead time if a client wants to end your relationship.

3. Residual income

If you are an affiliate marketer, keep your eyes open for residual income opportunities. These gems will pay you repeatedly for referring a single lead to a merchant.

An example of this would be my email service provider, service. They pay me every month that I have a client referred to their platform. There are a few people I referred to the site over two years ago, and I’m still getting 30% commission every month they stay as ConvertKit customers.

You should not search and sign up for programs strictly for their recurring commissions. Only promote things you know and can stand behind. But when you find one of these treasures, place it.

4. Re-purpose your content

I love repurposing content. This blog post was turned into a YouTube video before it was even published. At times, this may be part of an email newsletter or my autoresponder series.

You have many options to get more mileage out of your blog posts.

• Make a YouTube video of them.
• Make them an audio file.
• Turn them into a Facebook Live.
• Turn them into a tip sheet that you can offer as an opt-in bonus
• Add them to your autoresponder series.
• Turn them into an eBook or course

All of these opportunities expand your reach and possibly make more money.

5. Outsource the small stuff

As with automation, outsourcing has many opportunities for you – personally and professionally. Hiring someone to clean your house and mow your yard is common today. These two things my husband and I have outsourced.

I have someone doing my grocery shopping these days. Most stores offer it for free with a certain order amount. My only charge is $2.95 on orders under $100. $2.95 to save me an hour – and a lot of money because I’m not tempted to go to the store – is worth it. My time is worth over $3 an hour!

I also outsource a lot on the business side:

• I have someone to help me with my opt-in freebie
• I have two writers on staff.
• I just hired a social media strategist.
• Rev.com captions all my videos.
• I use Time, etc. to pick up straggler tasks throughout the month that I don’t want to do.

This outsourcing really gave me my life back. I’m no longer stressed about how I’m going to get everything done. And it’s often those little tasks that drain our days. Assign them.

6. Raise your rates

We should all be evaluated at least annually. If you haven’t raised yours lately, it might be time. Especially if you can offer your clients more value than you were in the beginning.

A rate increase on an existing client may drop pressure. But, maybe you can go and reframe their thinking. Maybe you picked up some new skills that will be useful to them. Put together some attractive retainer packages by combining those new skills with what you’re already doing (but at that new rate). This might make the term “rate hike” a little less painful for both of you.

7. Batch process

I’m a big fan of batch processes. If you’re not familiar with this phrase, here’s an example:

When I’m shooting my YouTube videos, instead of doing one from start to finish and then starting the next one, I’ll batch them.

• I will research and outline for several videos at once.
• Then I will shoot all the videos in one sitting.
• The next day, I will edit for all of them at the same time.
• After that, I will create all the graphics in one sitting.
• Then, I will upload and schedule all those videos consistently.

Batch processing not only saves me time because I’m allowed to focus on the task at hand as opposed to jumping around, but because of that focus I’m able to produce better work.

Your batch processing could be:

• Hitting your inbox only once or twice a day
• Working on your book once a month
• Freezer cooking
• Invoice customers
• Creating social media updates and photos

This streamlined process can save you a lot of time.

8. Weekend work

Maybe your dream weekend doesn’t involve. But let me tell you a little secret. You can do a ton of business in the off hours around here.

The online world is just as busy as the traditional 9-to-5 work world – emails, phone calls, social media, emergencies, distractions, anything to stress you out…

I am doing a lot in the quiet hours. We often pull out my laptop on Saturday evenings while we catch up on our DVR to write blog posts. On Sunday mornings before church I will have my social media updates scheduled for the week. These fringe hours are often not very long, but they allow me to get a jump start on my week without any distractions or interruptions.

9. Email funnels and one-time offers

The #1 way I’ve been able to get more and less done is through email funnels. Not kidding. When someone signs up for my email newsletter, they are taken to one of my sales pages that offer them a one-time discount on one of my products. This offer alone can earn me around $100 per day without any daily activity.

Whether they buy or not, they then go through a nurturing sequence that provides valuable information relevant to their interests (based on the freebie they signed up for). In the end, they are offered another thing to sell that will help them get where they want to go. This is more passive income coming automatically from work I did months or years ago.

These funnels take time to set up, but they are worth it. (Screw the nine to five There’s some great information about funnels.) And remember, you can outsource some of the smaller stuff while you focus on these money-generating activities!