#019
Welcome to this week's edition of Freelance Fuel, where, as always, we share curated content that can hopefully inspire your business, or be the starting point to get started.
Today we look at 5 Japanese rules for a calmer life, how the founder of Morning Brew is building his "new" life around several smaller businesses (there's a lot of gold here), a minister who thinks we need to step up our work, the best tools for project management and 7 freelance mistakes you don't need to make.
Let's get started.
/Jannik from Factofly
🎏 5 Japanese rules for a calmer life
Ichigo Ichie: Treat everything you do as the last time you can do it instead of wishing it to be over.
A little Japanese philosophy always helps to slow down and put everyday life into perspective.
🎬 A successful newsletter and an existential crisis
I love hearing about how others have built their business, and especially the stories that move a little closer to reality.
Steve Jobs had speed, but there is a limit to how much Apple inspiration you can draw from a one-man business. And in the end, so ranks freedom infinitely higher than being able to stick your name on a new piece of tech.
Alex Lieberman built the newsletter empire Morning Brew up, which he was skilled and lucky enough to sell for a staggering $75m.
The time after the sale shot him directly into an existential crisis (it is hard to become financially independent) that has now taken him to a place of focusing on a balanced life rather than building the next unicorn.
An extraordinary amount of value has been packed into the 18 minutes and 20 seconds here, and plenty of inspiration for where you can take your business.
(If you want to see more of Alex, you can follow him on LinkedIn here.)
🗃 “A dangerous trend”
So for it!
Social Democratic Minister, Kaare Dybvad Bek, has clearly been working hard on his upcoming book, The Land of Work.
Kaare is concerned about the Danes' increasing desire to slow down, or to jump off the hamster wheel altogether.
A bold move when recent studies indicate that 3 out of 4 Danes suffer from stress, and at the same time we are the people in the Nordic countries who experience the greatest amount of work-related stress.
Also in our latest survey, 61% of freelancers cite “Higher degree of freedom and flexibility” as the primary reason for being your own boss.
Perhaps the land of work can accommodate a population that enjoys their careers, whether they work 20 or 80 hours a week, and at the same time does not submit stress reports in a row.
⚙️ 4 tools for project management
With all the well-designed tools available today, there are no excuses for not getting your project safely managed.
Here are four of the best project management tools:
👏 Notion
Price: free starter plan or $8/month
👏 Asana
Price: free starter plan or €11/month
👏 Trello
Price: free starter plan or $5/month
👏 ClickUp
Price: free starter plan or $7/month
😨 7 mistakes you don't need to make
Last week we looked at a blueprint to carry your business forward.
So let's also look at what mistakes we don't need to make.
