The basic notion is to get rid of as many repetitive and/or remedial responsibilities as possible. 

One of my main goals over the past year has been to live a more artistic life. To live more like an artist, I have outsourced most of my daily responsibilities and stressors. 

For example:

-I do not run errands or shop. I use amazon subscribe and save for all household goods, which means everything I need is automatically delivered. I also use Amazon’s grocery delivery service, so I have no need to waste time doing these repetitive tasks. 

-I own less stuff than I used to. The more things you have—the more upkeep and cleaning you also have. 

-I skip out on driving except for when I work. Driving in my city is very stressful and thankfully I live next to a lightrail. The train system gives me access to many coffee shops and a whole downtown for street photography. // I have found it more or less pointless to drive to the nearest Colorado mountain for personal photography work. I would rather seek light in frequented places or travel to other countries for more interesting photos. 

-Automate things like paying bills. One less thing to think about. 

Unable to automate or outsource a task? Batch it. The next best thing to getting rid of a responsibility is only doing it once per year if possible. 

Design your life // allow for artistic and worthwhile pursuits // 

Ambient people as a productivity hack for entrepreneurs 

I work for myself and only work on-location 30 to 40 days a year. Much of my time can be used to think, research and work on creative projects. I truly am able to live like an artist, but many of my daily human interactions have been outsourced or are not needed. 

 I imagine that many people who chose to become solo-entrepreneurs, like myself, don’t miss small talk from working a corporate job one bit. Still, after being a freelancer for five years, I  feel the need to be in environments with people around to be more productive. (Especially on heavy computer work days.) 

What might take me eight hours working from home, takes me four hours in public spaces. I find the places I’m most productive have a sort of ambience of people around. Meaning that, I’m not required to interact with anyone, but there’s people around getting their own work done or going about their day. 

My advice: FIND SPACES WITH PEOPLE AROUND THAT YOU DO NOT HAVE TO INTERACT WITH TO BECOME MORE PRODUCTIVE

Best places to get work done with ”ambient people”

-public libraries 

-public city spaces with WiFi 

-coffee shops with bottomless cups

-if I don’t require WIFI that day, I have also found that working on my iPad Pro in a park to be a productive experience. 

Basically: If you have no clear direction or bigger vision // photos don’t have as much meaning. 

You can get in a cycle of shooting random people, things, and places with no clear meaning behind the photos. For me, it turned into a game to take photos, post to social media and observe the engagement or how many views it got. 

The end goal (WAY TO FIND MEANING) may be to think of your photographic life in longer term projects // like how a musician sees an album. A well thought out (COHESIVE) album is something to admire. Imagine if your favorite musician was only allowed to make radio singles. I would imagine (IF THEY ARE A TRUE CREATIVE TALENT) the artist would feel constrained and unfulfilled. 

In the world of photographic art/entrepreneurship, you are free to post whatever you want. Therefore, posting for other people is essentially like giving yourself a self imposed artistic block. If you are able to get out of the instant gratification cycle, then you are free’d up to think about and look through your photos for longer period of time to create a more meaningful photography life. 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 It can be hard to not feel pressure to post the latest and greatest to social, or create some sort of media content that leads to immediate gratification. I’ve found that posting photos to IG for likes // or posting gear videos to youtube for views // is no sort of END GOAL. Likes have no inherent value when you’re long gone and no one cares what a photo was taken on if it is GOOD. If I see a photo that is truly great in my eyes, I admire the creative vision or work ethic that it took to get the shot.💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 

Why have social media then? Well, the key is to free yourself from the numbers and post whatever you feel like, whenever you feel like it. 

AND when you are finished with your photography project, you’ll want it to live everywhere – so post it EVERYWHERE. 

I embraced randomness in photography for many years. 

The good parts of shooting photos without any planned direction or bigger project vision:

• It’s fun to go out and challenge yourself to see if you can make interesting compositions // similar to a real life video game.
  
• It’s a way to get a few rounds on a new lens or camera to see what the pictures look like.
  
• It gets you out making work. I can be a HUGE procrastinator due to feeling like I don’t have the perfect scenario/location/people to make photos. Allowing myself to shoot whatever I feel like that day (or whatever comes along) gets me out of the procrastination dilemma.