Right now a big problem in my life is incurring time debt. It’s driven, in part, by the insecurity that has been created by the 80k beast that I have to feed each month. Making progress there. But right now, there’s a balance sheet problem that is created by time debt.
I take a gig. Some gigs I have are worth $3500, some are worth $5,000, some more. That creates an income event. Because this economy is full of flakes, I generally am paid upfront fro anything less than about $5k. I generally don’t want to work with someone that has more to deal with.
That creates something I owe someone right away. A time debt. I owe them, and am honorbound to spend time with them. My cash position means that I have probably spent them money. That creates anxiety in me because I’m beholden to someone.
I want to do a good job, and it’s hard when you’re screwy financially. When you can’t say no to work, because you’ve got the beast of overhead that needs its coin. When you are tense about ANYTHING, you don’t do good work. And the tension between doing an honorable job with your clients, making a living and staying OK financially is severe.
This way–being prepaid–is better than being in revision hell and at risk of having someone say ‘screw it’ at the end. But, it’s still makes your work–emotionally speaking–subject to the caprices of your feelings. That leaves the door open for procrastination, for other things that are kind of uncool. Moneyproblems hurt every aspect of your business. Converting moneydebt into timedebt is not cool.
Here’s how I’m fixing it:
By August 17th, I will put myself out of that spot. I will keep the money from being spent till the work is 100% done. It’ll take 4 weeks of serious hustle to get there. I’ll do it this way:
Week one, I’ll hold back 25% of the cash, till the work is done.
Week 2, 50%. Etc.
This will put me in a good spot, and segue into being able to have both predictable cash flow, and some incentive to get stuff done faster. I’m doing OK on the speed front, but not OK on the balls dropped front right now. This will hopefully change things.
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