Tag: future of work

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State of Solopreneurs 🏄🏻‍♀️

Featured Artist: neirfy

Welcome to issue #87!

I signed up for Groove this week, a digital co-working community for solopreneurs.

‘Get shit done, and meet some pretty rad people while you’re at it.’

Productivity, but fun.

50-minute focused sprints with 2-4 solopreneurs. Or set aside time to rest, meditate or learn. They are beta-testing, so it’s free for now – join the waitlist.

Interesting to read on their blog that they’re taking a break from posting on certain social channels to focus on creating longer-form content and experiences for the community.  

I’ve heard a few people talk about quitting social media lately. It’s not something I can afford to do as a small business owner – clients want it. And most of the time I enjoy it! Chatting to Twitter friends, learning, and sharing useful stuff. It’s how I find internet gold for this newsletter, and it helps me feel connected to the world wfh. 

Having constraints is helpful. I time block and use Hootsuite to schedule posts. I’ve set up my dashboard so it’s quick and easy to find good content and comment. I don’t use the Twitter interface or app much anymore, as it’s super distracting.

I’m focusing on just two platforms: Twitter and LinkedIn, so I can show up and be consistent. I’ll try Notes when they open it up. Basic UI, I like that. Simple is good. It’s all about the ‘network factor’ after all – if it takes off, Medium, watch out.

Groove: Take the survey and help create their first State of Solopreneurs report.

An opportunity to stop and reflect on your creative career! There’s not much research out there about this growing field – solopreneurship – vs freelancing, so I’m curious to see the findings. 

👀 🎬 Everything Everywhere All at Once

Something for the week. The multiverse. Parallel work lives. Angry tax officers. The overstimulation of 21st-century life. Big ideas and butt jokes.

Motivation to get my tax return done!

– Nika

5 Things 🔗 🏄🏻‍♀️

Why we love (async) voice memos – Growmotely was founded by voice memo. How we can use them to shape company culture – and our lives for the better. A unique tool for your productivity box. Intimate, easy – and an opportunity to step away from your laptop.

By marketers – a marketplace for buying and selling your original marketing content. Find case studies, templates, and resources that the community shares online. Save time, help someone, and make money from your work. Very cool! 

Work smarter, not harder, with automation. A 54-page guide on how to increase your income while decreasing the time you spend working so you can set yourself free from the daily grind for good. Turn your knowledge into an online course that runs on autopilot… Thanks to Marianne at The Green Techpreneur for the tip-off. 

Creative Doing: 75 practical exercises to unblock your creative potential in your work, hobby, or next career. A collection of activities, mental models, and true stories – Herbert Lui spent a decade researching and talking with practising artists and creatives of all kinds. 

Another brilliant book from Holloway. Where tech meets publishing…

Let’s talk about how to find new forms of collaborative work. 5 July, 5 pm GMT. A chance to check in, share your experiences and gain insights from TPC community. Every other week, they focus on one area of portfolio working life to help your career journey. 

Find clients: they’ve launched a talent-matching service, connecting startups and scaleups with entrepreneurs who want to make a difference.

Written by Nika Talbot – a content designer, tech storyteller and strategist based near Brighton.

Get in touch if you have something to share, a link suggestion, or just want to say hi.

PS. I’ve started a new band: The Digital CEOs! Come backstage and meet the crew. Smart, funny and passionate people on a road trip to financial freedom, creative fulfilment – and an extraordinary life 💃💥

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Why you get more done when you work less 🤓

Art: Marina113

Thousands of UK workers started a 4-day week on Monday with no loss of pay, in the world’s biggest trial of the new working style.

The pilot is running for 6 months and is being organised by 4 Day Week Global.

It’s based on the 100:80:100 model – 100% pay for 80% of the time, with a commitment to 100% productivity.

I can’t wait to see the results. It’s exciting to see the variety of companies on board – local chippies, software firms, recruitment agencies, tax specialists, Charity Bank.

Researchers will be measuring the impact on business and productivity, stress and burnout, life satisfaction, gender equality, and the environment.

As we emerge from the pandemic, more and more companies are recognising that the new frontier for competition is quality of life.

Joe O’Connor, 4 Day Week Global

As with output-focused working, this will give companies a competitive edge.

Wacky office perks don’t cut it. Life is for living, and we want our time back. As you get older, you don’t want to waste your time on things or people that don’t make you feel good.

👀Juliet Schor | Ted: The Case For a 4-Day Workweek.

📚The Practical Magic of the 5-hour Workday, by Trevor G. Blake. Read the free pdf and pass it on. Trev has built and sold three startups for $600 million in a decade. All while never working more than 5 hours daily from a casita at home.

He shares his personal work schedule for enhanced creativity and revenue generation, and the history and science behind the rationale for never working more than 5 hours a day (via Do Lectures).

The Medieval workday was no more than 6 hours, nature-driven, and in the hamlet. We now have the tools and tech to get back to that with remote working and less commuting, but we’ve gone too far the other way, working even longer hours.

We have a steady stream of information. Drip, drip, drip. It’s hard to switch off when your phone is an extension of your hand.

If you run a company of one and work remotely, you already have a competitive edge. You’re agile, committed to your cause, and you run your own schedule.

Getting more done in less time is down to discipline, deep work, mono-tasking – and delegating what you can!

📚 Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. How active rest and deep play – walking, hobbies, sports, good conversation – are the keys to happiness and success. That’s when we come up with those crazy, creative ideas.

Alex points out that a four-day week creates an entire year of extra free time every five years 👀

What would you do with that extra year? Imagine the problems we could fix!

Bikini on and soak up the summer 🏖 😎 🙏 We had Ziggy Marley on Hastings Pier tonight – doing a live tribute to his papa!

Written by Nika Talbot, founder of award-winning Firebird Studio. Content designer and UX writer. Based near Brighton, heart in Italy 🇮🇹

Something to share, or just want to say hello? Send me a note: nika@nikatalbot.io.

Enjoy reading this? Why not buy me a glass of Prosecco? 🥂

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I got fired over Zoom 🤯

Art: Joshua Coleman on Unsplash

Ever been fired over Zoom? 

This week, it happened to me – halfway through a six-month contract. I got a calendar invite for a ‘catch up and chat’ with my manager.

Big budget cuts and the client wants to focus on paid social media, not organic posts (I’ve been writing playbooks for them).

I’d done what they hired me to do, and none of the other teams had any work left for me, so that was it.

She did it nicely and better via Zoom than email – though it felt hardcore and surprised me.

You’ve done a great job. We couldn’t have done it without you. Love to have you back next year when budgets are back to normal. Let us know if you need a reference… 

Bit more than a ‘catch up and a chat’ !!

Two conversations were happening in tandem. The one on Zoom with my manager and the internal one in my head with Anxious Annie. FUCK. I can’t believe it. How are you going to pay the bills? What about the yoga holiday! Have you been slacking again? 

She’s good at her job 🙄

I find these short-term contracts with agencies exhausting. It’s hard to relax and do your best work when you’re on float with multiple projects. I feel disposable (had a week’s notice on this one), so my LinkedIn profile is always ‘open to work’.

How much energy do you put into precarious work, even if it pays well? It’s hard to get the balance right. 110% usually, all or nothing, which is a route to burnout. 

Here’s what I did to get over it.

1. BREATHE. Wrote down what just happened. Seeing it on the page helped get it into perspective – a tip I picked up from the author of The Kindness Method, Shahroo Izadi, on the Solo Collective podcast.

2. Went for a walk.

3. Finished the job and sent a friendly email to the team and my agent. Set my boundaries for future roles (3-months minimum, it’s hard to do strategy and make a difference in less time). A longer notice period.

4. Booked a Rapid Rewire masterclass with Steph Kwong via Growmotely. “Learn a proven, cutting-edge methodology to confidently create rapid change for yourself, guaranteed.” Gotta feel it to heal it! Powerful stuff.

Have you ever been fired? How did you deal with it? I’m taking a break from Agencyland.

– Nika

Justice for Johnny! 🎉 😁 I’m happy you’re at peace and have your life back. 

Highlight: watching his doorman Alejandro Romero deliver his pre-recorded testimony from his car, vape and then drive off. “I’m tired … I don’t want to deal with this court case … everybody’s got problems, and I don’t want to deal with this no more.” Modern law. Remote justice.

5 Things 🧠 💥

Talent to Money Summit is on 7 & 8 June online. The first global summit run by The Ask, helping you to start (and grow) a business you love. Great speakers who will be sharing their stories and strategies for success. I heard about this via the Newsletter Mastermind group (Ness Labs).

How ‘digital nomad’ visas can boost local economies (HBR.org). A visual overview of the current visas via country and how they might play a key role in fostering entrepreneurship and the creation of technology clusters around the world. Time for the US to get on board or risk being left behind.

Recommended Substack newsletters related to the future of work (Workforce Futurist). It takes a village to grow a newsletter. Thanks to Andy Spence for the shoutout and profiling work you’re enjoying. Some new writers to check out!

Building a swarm of thoughts with the founders of Napkin (Ness Labs). An interesting experiment – gathering a group of 100 authors to help build the next-generation thinking and writing tool (it looks great – watch the video). Get a month for free when you sign up for their newsletter. 

Gitlab: The Remote Playbook 2022 – this is the 3rd edition of Gitlab’s famous playbook. This time focusing on how your team works, not where, evolving design, mastering future of work skills, reducing burnout, and boosting wellness at work. Learn how they’ve scaled as an asynchronous, no office company. 

Written by Nika Talbot, founder of award-winning Firebird Studio. Content designer and UX writer. Based near Brighton, heart in Italy 🇮🇹

Send me a note: nika@nikatalbot.io.

Enjoy reading this? Why not buy me a glass of Prosecco? 🥂

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Feeling the pinch 👀

Issue #74, February 6, 2022. Art: Rosie Johnson Illustrates

So there it is, Rishi to the rescue with a package of ‘support’ to offset rising energy bills, which covers less than half of the £693 energy bill hike for the average UK household from April 1 👀

£150 rebate on council tax for some and a £200 negative levy on energy bills from October to be repaid in instalments over the next five years. The Centre for Economics and Business Research forecasts a £1,980 rise in overall living costs. The government is trying to soften the blow, but it’s not enough for the brutal cost of living crisis.

All eyes are on the UK to see how we handle this.

And there’s Andrew Bailey, Bank of England boss, telling us not to ask for a big pay rise!! i.e. the 0.5% interest rate rise will be the first of many if we start demanding higher wages. All well and good if you’re earning half a million a year…

Sod that! I’m going to have to raise my prices.

We’ve had bankers’ tax cuts, billions lost to fraud on Covid loan schemes, losses on PPE, and Shell reporting mega-profits. Good to see Red Ed back on it – excellent timing – with calls for a windfall tax on energy firms to help with the price hike.

Time to transform the way we do business. The Better Business Act is collective lobbying for change in company law to ensure companies align their interests with wider society and the environment. 900 companies have opted to be part of the coalition for a cleaner, greener, fairer future for all 👏

Will you join them? You can nominate a leader here.

What help can you get?

Covid cash cut… a running summary from the NUJ London Freelance branch of what help’s available. If you’re going to apply for the Household Support Fund via your local council, do it now – it expires March 31. 

Write to your energy supplier. I’ve written to Octopus to ask for help – they have a £2.5m financial hardship fund and the Warm Homes Discount, which gives you £140 off your bill. This needs increasing and extending.

Turn2us – benefit calculator and grants search to find out what support you can get.

Join a union: the NUJ’s charity has been brilliant and helped me financially throughout Covid as I wasn’t eligible for the SEISS grant. They’ve also given other key workers and me a pay rise and backdated pay to offset inflation.

Citizens Advice are helping record numbers with energy help, advice and referrals for crisis support.

We all need to slowly adjust to paying more for energy bills, and that’s fine. I can be frugal when I need to. But a scarcity mindset isn’t great for my mental health, business and creativity.

I don’t need to cut back – I just need to earn more. So I will be raising my fees and retraining for higher-paying work.

Not going out and spending money locally won’t help small businesses either or create a thriving community to be proud of.

5 Things to Know 🖐

Growmotely’s Align Summit: Building the thriving business of the future. A global online event for entrepreneurs, business owners and leaders transforming the world of work. 7-9 February, free or pay what you can afford. Excellent speakers and topics. Excited about this! Love Growmotely’s vibe ✨

→ Join: Align Summit (Growmotely) 

Tallinn’s Got Talent: Why Estonia’s capital is the best city in the world for digital nomads. James Ware on his week working from Tallinn, recently ranked the best city in the world for remote workers: “not because of one wow thing, but a gazillion small things that accumulate into your experience.” On my list.Love theIgluoffice, a workspace set by the sea – like an Airstream with frills.

→ Read: Tallin’s Got Talent (The Independent) 

Unlearning the way we work – Alastair Simpson, VP of Design at Dropbox, has led the company’s virtual-first transformation. Great to see a design-led approach to the future of work rather than the usual Ops and HR focus – we need more of this! The framework they used for their distributed teams is a Virtual First Toolkit.  

→ Listen: unlearning the way we work (Remote First podcast) 

Move to Sicily for free: restored 1Euro house in Sambuca looking for a live-in Airbnb host for a year. Be the host of a designer house in Sambuca, learning Italian, experiencing local life, and helping regenerate the region. Great initiative from Airbnb – remote work is the way to regenerate small towns. Also good to see CEO Brian Chesky doing the product research… 

→ Read: move to Sicily for free (Evening Standard) 

Clear thinking for 2022 – topline findings from a new report surveying knowledge workers and what we want (flexibility, change, hybrid). Intriguing to hear Julia Hobsbawm (The Nowhere Office) say, “the world is going freelance,” with growing numbers of solopreneurs making their own luck. Ipsos: “we’re going to need offices, but just not for work.” I enjoy every episode of Bruce’s thoughtful podcast. 

Enjoy this newsletter?

→ Listen: clear thinking for 2022 (Eat Sleep Work Repeat) 

Send me a note: nicci@niccitalbot.io

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Productive morning routines 🌅

Productive morning routines
Art: Open Doodles
Welcome to the Sunday Shift: a weekly-ish newsletter rethinking how we live, work and play.
★ This week: Productive morning routines; The great American road trip, CEO style from an Airstream; Europe’s largest remote work conference; Sync vs Async communication; wrkfrce’s Playbook Project; The Great Resignation; 5G: A short course.

As the saying goes, if you “win the morning, you win the day”.

Tim Ferris has talked to many successful people about their morning rituals and shared the five things he does to set himself up for a day of positive momentum and minimum distraction – including making his bed and journaling.

I love the reference in this episode to “the bookends of the day” – pay attention to the small stuff like making your bed, and the big stuff will sort itself out.

Last August, Chris Reeves set up the group #WTMWTD after hearing the phrase on a podcast about getting out of your comfort zone to help with the stress and mental health decline amidst COVID-19. They meet first thing in the morning for a walk or swim, coffee and a chat, and it’s been transformational for many. A movement with global groups springing up and a Facebook group with 3K followers.

It’s less about productivity and the to-do list and more about putting yourself first, so you’ve achieved something no matter how the rest of the day goes. He says it works because:

It’s free, I’m not selling anything, and it’s a welcoming environment for anyone who wants to step outside their comfort zone. I don’t like the sea. I don’t like cold water. But the reason I do this is that it sets me outside my comfort zone.

All good as long as you’ve had enough sleep!

And a big shoutout to Chase Warrington for this chat with the founder and CEO of wrkfrce, Jesse Chambers, about morning routines, mental health, and the future of work. Jesse and his wife left San Francisco to hit the road in a vintage Airstream while founding a company and managing a global remote team. Wrkfrce is an excellent one-stop shop for remote work, and great to see it has a dedicated Wellness section.

Chase has also written this piece on having a more productive morning routine by “paying yourself first”. Some personal finance advice on putting your “non-negotiables” before work obligations.

How you work is just as important as the work you’re doing.

Follow the plan, not the mood 😁

– Nicci

🛠🖐5 Things

★ Repeople Conference 2021 – Europe’s largest remote work conference onsite + virtual. Debating the top five topics around the future of work, managing distributed teams, digital marketing, live VR work experience. Nomad City has rebranded as ‘Repeople’ (repopulate) to reflect the growing number of remote workers. Contributing to the remote work ecosystem in the Canaries.

– Repeople Conference 2021

★ Synchronous vs Asynchronous Communication: How to find the right balance for your team. Top organisations like Doist, Gitlab and Buffer have become more productive by cutting back on meetings and learning how to embrace async comms.The pros and cons of both forms, when to use them, and how to make the most of them.

– Synchronous vs Asynchronous Communication.

★ wrkfrce’s Playbook Project – the global rise of reactive remote work in 2020 spawned a proliferation of playbooks by many leading remote-first companies, which open-sourced the knowledge they’ve gained to help other businesses. Trouble is, they’re loooooong. Here’s wrkfrce’s condensed CliffsNotes versions with the most useful, actionable insights to help make working remotely rock for you.

– wrkfrce’s Playbook Project

★ Do we have to work? RSA replay. What does work mean in the 21st century? It allows us to pay the bills – but it’s become about more than that – finding purpose, identity, and meaningful work for many people. Digging into The Great Resignation, production vs consumption, and what needs to change in the new era of work: UBI, zero or low-cost economy, and the growth of self-employment and portfolio working.

★ 5G: A short course from Axios. 5G is cast as a technology that will revolutionise cities, transportation, education and more, but it faces hurdles. A five-part video intro into how it might apply to your life and work and the debates surrounding it. “What we’re facing is the possibility of a global surveillance machine.”

– Get smart by Axios: 5G

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