Nov 15 2007
Buying My Time Back
When I think about my motivation for wanting to earn a living online it’s a pretty simple answer for me - freedom. I want to be able to do what I want, when I want. At the moment, travelling is what I want to do. Two years from now it could be a different story. I might want to settle somewhere and pursue other interests. Such as…
- Art - I used to draw and paint portraits when I was younger. Mainly sports art but I also did portraits of friends and family and stuff as gifts. I’d love to get back into this and spend more time being all artsy fartsy.
- Music - I’d also love to learn how to play guitar. I’m pretty sure I’m tone deaf (except when I’m singing in the shower) so this might be totally impossible but I won’t know until I try. Or I could just take the guitar with me into the shower where I will no doubt become a rock god.
- Photography - I was always convinced that the only way to take a really great photo was to have a really great camera. Now that I’ve got one of those fancy pants SLR things I have realised that I am, in fact, just a crap photographer. I really should read the instruction manual.
- Languages - I’ve been threatening for years to learn a language. I guess this sort of goes hand in hand with travel since it’s better to be surrounded by the language than to be sitting in a classroom 3 hours a week. I’d really love to head off to some random place like Yemen and learn Arabic. Yemen… yeah man!
- Study - I’d also love to spend some time honing my web skills in a real, live school. So far I’ve pretty much stumbled and bumbled my way through everything by trial and error. I don’t think I’ve even read a single book the whole time. I’d be really interested in taking an actual web design course and maybe, if I’m feeling brave and brainy, some PHP or programming stuff.
So I’m definitely not after money for money’s sake. I want to buy back my time and be able to pursue pretty much anything that happens to capture my imagination at the time. If I decide one day that I want to join the circus then, damnit, I’m going to join!
What sorts of passions other than travel would you pursue if you found yourself with loads of time on your hands?
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I've been travelling since January 2008 living off earnings from the web. Follow me as I bum around Asia and beyond, getting up to mischief and working online as I go.
All of those interests apply themselves nicely to website development. A good article is allways better with good art/photography. I’m pretty stunted musically myself but a site about learning to play guitar!? And languages, I wonder if this isn’t the next big growth venue online, for each and every language on earth there is a pocket of virgin internet territory!?
I’d definitely learn more Italian recipes.
Kirsty and Webjourneyman:
Check out Tim Ferris’s blog. He’s writing about how he’s learning a bunch of languages. Go to the blog entry from November 7.
http://fourhourworkweek.com/blog/
Phillygirl
Easy - music would be first on my list since it used to be such a huge part of my life. I also think everything on your list applies to me… art… photog… languages… Yup, that’s my list, too.
I think I’d rather like to learn drawing in ink oriental style, if I had loads of time anywhere in the world it would be in extremely rural China I suppose, with bamboo pen in hand and some rice paper before me. Capturing the sunrise over the mountains.
It’s so ironic that some of us (me included) devote a fair proportion of our time to, say, building a website, in the hope that it will free up more of our time in the long run (ie by getting revenue in and being able to quit the job etc and pursue our passion). Thats the ‘time’ one - and there is a ‘happiness’ one that seems to follow the same trend ie folks who work hard in the job they hate that makes them miserable, in the hope of it creating happiness in the long run. Wierd, huh?
Anyway, thats my pointless thought for the day…
good post Kirsty!
Philly I read that language post after I think you mentioned it over on the Working Nomad forum. All that stuff is WAY over my head but quite interesting how he dissects the language.
Nath I think, for me at least, the web development thing doesn’t feel like work at all. Even if I had to put in 8 hours a day, 5 days a week to sustain the web income I would much rather do that than a typical job because I really enjoy the work.
It’s just a bonus I guess that if things go well, the whole web empire can run on autopilot most of the time. I guess the main thing I want to do is move away from work that only pays per hour of my time. I want to create things that pay all the time - whether I’m working, travelling, or sleeping!
Even if I had loads of money and time I would still devote a large portion of my efforts to web stuff because I really do love it.
Nice post Kirsty, Buying My Time Back the one thing I want to do is go and do some type of volunteer work probably in africa either with animals or children. Another thing I would like to do is take a very long bike ride somewhat like the guy who did UK to Singapore. Posibly get in to sailing,
Continue to learn other Languages, Do a year or two in school more likely than not doing something web/programing based.
Phillygirl Thanks for the link I ended buying his book after spending some time on his site “Sign up for amazon prime $79 & you get free 2 day shipping for a year makes shopping on the web so much easier”
Thanks Kirsty,
Thanks for adding this article to my blog post “Get A Free Link For A Motivational Article” (http://www.fabnetrevenue.com/2007/11/13/get-a-free-link-for-a-motivational-article/).
I really appreciate it.
Anyone else interested to submit an article ?
Fab
Go after your dreams now…before marriage and kids hold you back…plus,time go fast…and the older you get, the more likely you will want to stay put. Myself, on the other hand, the older I get the more I want to shuck it all and travel, who cares about when I get really old, life is now, go for it!
I keep reading your entries. I am totally motivated to earn from the internet. I have made a bunch of websites but knew very little about how to monetize them. I experimented with Blogger. I just moved to France and have a blog that was on blogger but after reading this blog I bought a hosting package, a couple of domains, redesigned my blog using a word press theme, and even got a paid gig redesigning a site for a European Academic association, paid in Euros that is which is great because the dollar sucks right now. I love the look of your site, simple and clean but great content. I read every post. I know my readers don’t do that with my blog.
I’m just wondering, how many sites is too many to manage when just starting out? I have my own resume/portfolio site which I add just a little over time and run ads on. I have my new blog which is a joy to write in because I love writing and I just started seeing some income from the ads. I have this European Sociological Association site that I am being paid a nominal amount for but I also get to run a few ads using my Adsense account so I’ll earn some income from that. I’m hoping that many academic institutions will link to it because it is an import association and it will bring high quality traffic. I have ideas for about 2-3 more sites. Those sites are more geared towards target markets and ads on the sites could be lucrative, targeted, not just random.
Oh yeah, I don’t have to work for a while so i figure the best thing for me to do is get a bunch of sites designed and live and then tweak them to earn money or at the same time. Maybe I’m going about it the wrong way, but in any case your site has inspired me. It isn’t all, make millions of dollars, etc. I have a small income without work and if I could develop a modest income with web sites I could live a comfortable life.
i enjoy your writing style as well.
Neale, volunteering and learning to sail are a couple of other things high on my list.
Owen I’m glad you’re finding my posts useful! You seem to have the right idea. This isn’t really a science and I’ve pretty much stumbled my way to where I am now but I think writing because you like it is key early on and that means picking topics you know a lot about and are interested in. Looks like you’ve done that. Then just chuck as much content out there as you can, let your sites age a bit and keep adding good information. The fact that you’ve already assessed your target markets tells me you’ve got a plan and that’s never a bard idea!
Head to the forum over at http://www.workingnomad.com and you’ll find a lot of like minded people with varying stages of internet empires which I think you’ll find useful. Good luck!