Prioritising my time as a free agent

In his excellent paper “Knowledge Synthesis: A conceptual model and practical guide, Joel Chan makes passing reference to the idea of “funded time”.

We don’t always have the luxury of being able to devote (funded) time and attention at an intense level for a given project.

As an academic, I assume that most, if not all, of Joel’s work is funded through grants for specific projects and areas of research. Unfunded time still exists, but it’s an investment from individual academics who consider the work to be, for example, important for its own sake, more efficient to ‘just do’ than bother with applying for a grant, or useful to identify new fruitful topics to pursue more deeply.

A similar dynamic shows up in consulting, where I spent much of my professional life. Charging time to a client project—ideally a large one that is well below budget with an engagement manager who is more interested in content than admin—is ideal. The alternative is to assign time to non-client (unfunded) codes, like business development or training, which are ultimately paid for by the consultancy itself.

I’ve been a self-employed free agent for about three years now, with my income coming from a mix of online course sales, writing, coaching and the occasional workshop. As I drift further from traditional work, though, I notice my concept of what work looks like becoming a little fuzzy.

In terms of the model described above, I’ve been doing what feels like ever more unfunded work, to the extent that I’ve started to lose focus on what’s important to make money, both in the short and long term. And although I am not in any hurry to impose academic or consultancy-level systems on myself, I don’t think this lack of focus is serving me that well.

To remedy this, I’m going to start loosely thinking of my work as falling into one of the four quadrants on this 2x2, noting that in my context, “funded time” basically means anything that will lead to money.

Short-term funded time: Immediate Cashflow

This is about making money to pay my bills. The focus is on driving sales of existing products and services.

For me, this means:

• getting more eyeballs on the sales page for my Alexander Technique course
• scaling up coaching (nearly, but not quite ready yet)

Long-term funded time: Revenue Growth

This is about getting new revenue-generating offers into the market. This might include a focused sprint to create a new course, learning new skills that I can monetise easily or reading around a domain where I already make revenue to enhance the value of what I offer.

For me, this means:

• Scoping out and working on major upgrades to my Alexander Technique course
• Reading and taking detailed notes on Alexander Technique materials
• Aletheia Level 1 Advanced Coaching Program
• Building some version of a “Let the others find you” course I have mapped out

Short-term unfunded time: High-Velocity Serendipity

This is about being strongly involved in the world on a daily basis, talking to people and staying highly attuned to fast-moving opportunities as they present themselves. I’ve found that spending time here can lead to some really fun ‘right place, right time’ serendipities, particularly on Twitter.

For me this means:

• Hanging out on Twitter and talking to people
• Having lots of conversations with interesting people
• Saying yes to invitations to things, unless this would restrict the other three quadrants too much

Long-term unfunded time: Self-Renewal

The world is changing fast in fun and weird ways. One of the best ways to prepare for whatever comes is to be flexible, adaptable and to focus on building resilience and even anti-fragility through self-renewal. Sam Sager wrote an excellent piece on self-renewal if you want to read more.

For me this means:

• Reading broadly and developing my analogue Zettelkasten
• Writing prolifically about whatever interests me
• Publishing a newsletter consistently
• Introspection and training for self-unfoldment (e.g. the Art of Accomplishment Decisions Course I just finished)
• Intentional and fully ‘permissioned’ time off-grid, playing, not thinking about work at all

For now, I want to shift my attention in two directions.

First, I want to spend more time even existing on this map at all, as opposed to where I easily find myself, which might be characterised as “screwing around”. I have a lot of screwing around time I can redirect into any of these four quadrants.

My definition of screwing around is “engaging in low-value distractions (scrolling reddit, online chess) while ostensibly looking like I’m in one of the four quadrants, but not really doing anything”. This can also manifest as bouncing rapidly from thing to thing with a sense of perceived effort, but with no actual progress in any direction.

Second, since my revenue has been progressively dropping as a result of the aforementioned screwing around, and since I want more abundance in my life, I want to focus more on funded time. At first I just plan to keep this framework loosely in mind as I plan my day. If I feel a need later I’ll introduce more structure (e.g. minimum time targets in particular quadrants), but that feels altogether too institutional for my liking and I’d much prefer to be able to follow my nose. I am a free agent for a reason, after all.