Starting My Adventure in Not Having a Job

[Andrew Russell]

Hi everybody,

I've just started a new blogging project and I'm keen to get some feedback.

It's called "Job-Free" - if you've enjoyed Steve's various "Experiment" post series, then you will probably be interested in this. The premise is that I'm starting with no income and no projects, and I want to get to a place where I'm earning the same amount of money as I would with a job, without actually getting a job.

You can read my first two posts here:

• The Job-Free Introduction
• The Job-Free Goal

As well as having this goal and blogging about it, I want to find a (good) answer to the question "how does someone go about not having a job?"

I know Steve tries to answer this in Podcast #6 ("How to Make Money without a Job"), where he basically says "find a way to make $10/month, find a way to do more of it". Which is ok, I guess - but it leaves some enormous blanks that need to be filled in.

At the moment my answer is "ask me again in two years". But if someone here could perhaps tell me the answer, it would save an awful lot of time?

[Andrew Brunelle]

Go for it. I haven't had a job for 6 months. Of course, I'm not making money with my blog yet, but I am proud of the content I've put out on my blog in the past few months. I feel the spark I felt two years ago when it comes to writing again. Keep it up. It could lead somewhere very bountiful.

[bbdream8]

Originally Posted by Andrew Russell

Hi everybody,

I've just started a new blogging project and I'm keen to get some feedback.

It's called "Job-Free" - if you've enjoyed Steve's various "Experiment" post series, then you will probably be interested in this. The premise is that I'm starting with no income and no projects, and I want to get to a place where I'm earning the same amount of money as I would with a job, without actually getting a job.

You can read my first two posts here:

• The Job-Free Introduction
• The Job-Free Goal

As well as having this goal and blogging about it, I want to find a (good) answer to the question "how does someone go about not having a job?"

I know Steve tries to answer this in Podcast #6 ("How to Make Money without a Job"), where he basically says "find a way to make $10/month, find a way to do more of it". Which is ok, I guess - but it leaves some enormous blanks that need to be filled in.

At the moment my answer is "ask me again in two years". But if someone here could perhaps tell me the answer, it would save an awful lot of time?

Hi Andrew,

The first step is to find a mentor to help your shorten your learning curve. It is important to find a mentor as learning everything by yourself would take a huge amount of time.

Originally Posted by Andrew Brunelle

Go for it. I haven't had a job for 6 months. Of course, I'm not making money with my blog yet, but I am proud of the content I've put out on my blog in the past few months. I feel the spark I felt two years ago when it comes to writing again. Keep it up. It could lead somewhere very bountiful.

Hi Andrew Brunelle,

Are you just living from savings or do you have any other incomes aside from the blog.

Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger

[Trey Baird]

I left a comment.

I think that this is a really good idea. This is the type of thing that could catch on and end up on the news. I wish you luck with it.

As for advice, I don't have any, but succesful people without a job usually wake up every day and think about ways to make money. It's always on their mind because they can't take it for granted.

[saif]

This is a great idea. Though I think the income you whish to replace by your wage should be more calculative. I mean if your previous income was $56k then do you really need $56 to live, I know we all wouldn’t turn down more money but if you make the number more realistic and personal I think it will be more achievable.

Best of luck

[Andrew Russell]

Thanks for the replies, guys!

I've put a new post up: "Don’t Make Me Sit in a Box and Program". I was trying to write a blog post but somehow I wrote a poem instead. Oh well.


@ bbdream8 - I think finding a mentor, while a terrific great and fantastic idea, is something that's much easier said than done.

I disagree with you (and I think you might agree with my disagreement, when you hear it) that it's the first step. I mean - if I stumbled across a mentor right off the bat - that would be great. But one thing I have learned (something which, as you say, took a huge amount of time) is not to hold off waiting for not-really-necessary prerequisites to be fulfilled. And I think I'm much more likely to attract people to help me if I have already started myself.

And, while I wait, I'm hoping that my blog acts as a conduit for a kind of "group" mentoring (for example: this conversation we're having now ).


@ Trey Baird - Funny you should mention that. One of my blog entries in my pipeline is about a system that I have for doing just that (coming up with, and more importantly - implementing, a way to increase my income each day). It's still early days, though. I'll post about it when I have more data (subscribe to my RSS feed).


@ saif - I don't really understand what you mean. Suffice to say, I'm of the opinion that my target income is realistic and achievable, while still being quite a stretch. That seems like a good goal to me

[Matt Willard]

Son, I've been livin' the adventure for two years now. It's no good. XD But I'm sick of it enough to do more about it with immediate results.

[Andrew Russell]

Huh?

What's the less-vague, preferably practical and actionable, version of that, Matt?

[ssandra]

Not having a job is much much harder than having a job. Also (in my opinion) much more rewarding.

To make money it is quit simple. You need to have something that others want to pay for.

If you are a software developer you have several options. You can work freelance (work short projects, sometimes from home or at the company itself) for a fixed amount of time or outcome. This can always be second choice as well if you need some quick cash

Second you can create your own project (develop you own software) and sell the end result.

Short term success could come from developing short games on a website and charging people money if they want to download the full version (see Zylom etc) or let them play for free get lots of trafic and get money from add income.


Anyway.... hope this helps.

Just a questions about your blog. When I am on there i cannot seem to be able to go from 1st blog to second etc... there is also no bar on the side or before where I can choose which post i would like to read. This means that if i don´t want to add your rss feed I can only read 1 post, or the one you post a link to here...

Or did i miss something?And if i did maybe you can consider changing it because maybe other people will miss it as well..

Anyway.. good luck with your experiment.

Sandra

[Andrew Russell]

Thanks for the reply Sandra!

As it turns out - the first thing I'm planning on trying is making some free games, very quickly. And the second thing I'll be trying is making some shareware games, guided by the data I gather from those free games.

(I'm about to start this project up very, very soon - baring disaster, first post within hours - so if anyone is interested: subscribe here. - EDIT: new post is up: A Pottery Class.)

I'll be holding freelancing in reserve, as a last resort should nothing else work.

Thanks for the heads-up on the blog design usability. It's still a work in progress. I think adding a "back to category" button (and maybe better archive pages) will solve the problem. At the moment I think you have a choice between paging one post at a time and manually editing the URL.