I know. You probably see that title and think that I have gone positively insane.
Michael, we read John Chow dot Com because we want to escape the shackles of working for the man. We read John Chow dot Com because we want to strike it rich on our own and make money online. We want to live the dot com lifestyle.
I get it. I understand. For me, the most important thing about making money online as an Internet entrepreneur is the time freedom that it affords me. It’s because I work for myself and I make my living on the Internet that I am able to spend more time with my daughter. It is because I have this freedom of time that I can avoid the crazy weekend crowds at the mall and go when it’s much quieter on a Wednesday afternoon.
The thing is that many people assume that living the dot com lifestyle means that you don’t have to work at all. That’s not true. You may be able to break the connection between dollars earned and hours worked. You may be able to work fewer hours and earn more money. However, you still have to put in the hours to establish those systems in the first place if you want to generate a consistent and reliable source of passive income.
And this is above and beyond the kind of maintenance that you would need to do if you want to keep your blog updated on a regular basis or if you wanted to maintain your affiliate marketing income. Batch processing can make you more efficient, but you still have to put in some time to get the job done. So, how do you do that?
Well, let’s start with batch processing itself. There is a misconception that if you want to update your blog daily that you need to actually blog every day. You don’t. What you can do instead is set aside a larger block of time, perhaps once a week, to write a number of blog posts in bulk. You can then timestamp them so that they are published on a predictable and consistent schedule. A lot of the other things that you do, like updating your social media or releasing videos on YouTube, can be accomplished with the same strategy and mindset.
And in line with the concept of batch processing is understanding the location freedom that the dot com lifestyle affords you. What this means is that you can work from just about anywhere. A great example of this combination is the Driving with John Chow video series. First, most people don’t accomplish anything while driving aside from the actual act of getting from point A to point B.
When John records a Driving with John Chow video, he is working while he makes his way to a meetup, lunch or wherever else he happens to be going. This gives him more free time when he’s not driving to do other things, working-related or not. And by recording several videos all in one trip, he’s batch processing too.
Even when you are not actively producing new content, you can be productive by expanding your mind and learning new things. Listen to a podcast or audiobook while driving. Read books related to your niche and industry rather than material that is less relevant. With the dot com lifestyle, you don’t need to separate work from life. It’s all just living… it’s just that it happens to make money for you too.