Multiple streams of income are surely the dream, especially in our economy. Who wouldn’t want money coming from different angles and filling their coffers? Even better if some or all of it is passive. Well, I hate to be the one to bring you back to reality but I gather for many of us we are somewhere in between multiple streams of income and setting them up. As someone who has some experience with this I thought I’d share some tips for others who want to try or have tried and found it difficult.
Focus
This is going to seem like a contradiction straight off the bat but I encourage you to read on. One would think multiple streams of income are about spreading yourself over many things and while that is true from an overview one of the best things you can learn to do is focus. However many disciplines you choose. you need to dedicate yourself to all of them. If your approach to building multiple streams of income involves half-hearted effort at some things you are firmly on your way to creating multiple sources of stress. You have to treat each thing like it is the only thing. How do you do that while maintaining multiple streams of income?
Scheduling
You will have to get used to the idea of living by a schedule. Your schedule, but a schedule all the same. With so many things demanding your attention you will have to get clear about what you’re doing when you’re doing and what you’re not doing. The rest of the world doesn’t know this. It will make demands of your time that most likely don’t work with this. Some of your streams of income will interfere with the time you have set aside for other streams of income. So when it comes to living by a schedule there are two very important tips I will give you. Firstly, schedule honestly. If it takes you 2 hours to complete a task schedule 2 hours for it. You will get a great feeling when you schedule 1 hour for a 2-hour task but when you fail to complete the task in 1 hour it will do more harm than good. Secondly, keep to your own schedule. This sounds like second nature but a lot of people really struggle with this. People and objects will only respect your time once you teach them to respect your time.
Rest before you’re tired
I often see people give the advice “rest when you’re tired”. Good advice but good is the enemy of great as the saying goes. The best advice is to rest before you’re tired and there are a few reasons why this is the best thing you can do. Firstly, when you’re tired you need much more rest time but resting before you’re tired means you need less time to rest and get back to your condition. Secondly waiting until you’re tired means you are going to spend some time working while you’re in poor condition. Nobody can argue that your energy is at its best when you are fresh and rested and productivity is almost always at its peak. As you tire your work rate or the quality of your output diminishes. Working until you’re tired therefore isn’t the best idea because towards the time you tire both work rate and quality suffer. Learn to rest before you are tired allowing yourself to refresh. Even with your mobile phone, you are advised to keep the battery between 30% and 90% for best results.
Mastery
The last one might be a bit of an unpopular opinion because it goes against a lot of what we are told about multiple streams of income. The idea is to create many paths for income to flow to you so how can mastery be a tip? Well, how well you are paid or rewarded by a stream of income simply comes down to how good you are at the skills that are part of it. In fact, mastery may be the most important thing because clients and the world at large don’t care how much you are juggling. They care about how well you do what they need you to do. So while multiple streams of income may be about managing multiple things, mastery is your best friend. Aim for mastery when starting or learning something. This may require complete focus on that thing. Once mastered you can start to learn something else and add that to a stable environment.
Whether the additional streams of income are passive or active these tips will set you up for the best outcome in them.
