Here’s a great way to boost your income in an hour

A few months ago I shared how my income was falling. The recession had been taking away established clients for months, and I was out of practice in drumming up new work.

In tackling this slide, I hit upon a motivational technique that’s really made a difference to my earnings and my outlook.

Let me explain how just an hour’s work can put your income back on track.

The technique works best if you’re self-employed, but I believe there are applications for those in full-time employment, too.

Beware the greener grass syndrome

Before I share my new technique, I’ll describe how it came about.

I had lost two clients within two weeks of each other. Wondering when it would stop, I started pondering the unthinkable — getting a job!

There was even a company employing people I knew that was advertising a tempting looking vacancy I’d be confident of filling.

Going back to full-time employment would be a drastic step.

Being a self-employed freelancer suits me, and I’ve done it on-and-off for over a decade. The downside is my career has somewhat flat-lined, but the positives are far more freedom both in my personal life and the work I do.

Yet here was this job offering reasonably interesting work, a decent salary and paid holidays; it even included iPhone on a contract.

As I was pondering the downsides — a boss, commuting, office politics and doing stuff I’d rather not — it suddenly struck me that the salary on offer was well below what I expected to earn this year, even assuming lost clients weren’t replaced.

By taking the job I’d be crystalising the loss of earnings that I feared!

Why then was the job so appealing? Thinking about it, I realised I was drawn to the security and perks of the job, all spelled out in clear type.

I saw that I’d become very uncertain about what I was trying to achieve as a freelancer. It’s been many years since I’ve not had all the work I wanted to do, and as a result I’d grown complacent about my job motivation.

Could spelling out my freelance rewards and responsibilities fill this void, I wondered?

Yes, better than I could have expected.

Here’s how I did it.

Write yourself a job description

What I decided to do was to write myself a contract of employment, all in the third-person, as if I was an employer.

I wrote it just like I’d give to an employee when I had a start-up company, with the big ticket items like the salary and job title at the top, and then a clear list of what I was expected to do to earn it.

Obvious things to include:

• My hours (I prefer to work six days a week but only from 8.30am to 2.30pm for maximum productivity).
• The average on-target day rate I had to earn to keep my job.
• My non-core responsibilities (particularly stressing prospecting for new clients!)
• A strict, set holiday allowance.
• Flexi-time possibilities to ensure I work away from home for at least two weeks of the year — a perk too often lost in the bustle.
• My self-employed job comes with an iPhone!

There was plenty more detail that was specific to my own business. Once you start, you’ll find it easy to do the same thing with your own work.

When you formally employ yourself, my advice is to get your job description as detailed as you can (for example include lunch hours and working conditions).

It felt a bit stupid when I was spelling that out, but now I’ve got it all written down I refer to it several times a week — and I slack off less!

Best of all my income has gone up, almost automatically it seems, as I’ve relentlessly focussed on what I’m looking to achieve.

What if you’ve already got a full-time job?

Perhaps you don’t need to do this if you’ve got a traditional job that you’re happy with — or else you should talk to your employer about raising your salary.

However many people are trying to earn a passive income on the side, while so-called portfolio working is also becoming much more common.

Some people treat share investing or buy-to-let property management as a big part of their earnings, too, and those that don’t might consider doing so.

I certainly suggest you try rolling up your job and your extra income into your overall on-target earnings.

In my experience, this is a powerful way of focusing on your day-to-day salary and income goals.

Paying yourself first is a proven way of boosting your long-term savings. Why shouldn’t employing yourself first grow your income, too?

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Filed under: Earning

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