June 16, 2022, 8 p.m.
The Three-Body Problem of Indie Consulting: Time, Energy and Money
Tom Critchlow
I've said before that being self-employed is a continual process of becoming. Holding yourself together is a balancing act between your time, energy and money.
But it's not a balancing act like a set of scales - it's a balancing act like the three-body problem. The three-body problem is a famous mathematical problem trying to figure out how three bodies with gravitational mass interact in space. It's about putting these things into orbits and trying to stay sane (here I'm talking about either the three-body problem, or an indie consulting career).
Time, energy, money.
The fiendish thing is that what appear to be stable orbits always have chaos bubbling underneath. You can watch these orbits gracefully rotate for 6, 7, 8, 9 rotations:
Until, suddenly - KABLAMMO - chaos explodes out of nowhere:
Same system, nothing changed. Just pure chaos. (Play around yourself with a visualization of your own career. Be sure to select chaos mode: three-body problem in Javascript).
Honestly, you could apply the same visualization to parenting.... Chaos, masquerading as stability.
Hi, it's me Tom Critchlow, your friendly internet weirdo / independent consultant / blogger / tinkerer / course creator. You might have signed up for this email a while ago - I don't send them very frequently. As always, unsubscribe links at the bottom.
Last time I sent out an email I was just entering unknown territory - having spent the last 7 years with 100% of my income coming from consulting, I launched the first SEO MBA course in November. 2021 ended 60/40 revenue-wise between consulting/courses.
I launched the second SEO MBA course (The Art of Client Management) a few weeks ago and 2022 has flipped - 60/40 courses/consulting.
I guess I'm in a different line of business now? My time/energy/money orbits are wildly different now. KABLAMMO - chaos.
Surfing the chaos of independent life requires a kind of optimistic, curious, playful mindset. You have to prize optionality above all else. It's why consulting has been such a powerful foundation - it's a route to "cash AND calendar" freedom.
Here's a blog post that has quietly turned out to be one of my most popular: a map for indie living. It's not THE map, but it's A map. It's the best articulation I have on why consulting is a powerful bedrock for any independent career - it's a great way to derive cash and calendar freedom while retaining optionality. Whether you're thinking of starting an independent consulting career, or if you've been doing it a while - you might dig the post.
Listen, I'm a weirdo, you know that. But I think there are two great economic engines for indies: consulting and blogging. Consulting, as a driver of time and financial freedom feels more obvious. Blogging, as "just writing on the internet" feels less obvious but it's no less powerful.
Writing on the internet is an incredible economic engine for individuals. It's a kind of force multiplier and serendipity engine. Blogging is a way to build your network, reach more people with your ideas, create connections and also stand out from the crowd. It's an unfair advantage with an activation cost of $0.
There's a reason that Stripe, a $10bn+ company, talks about blogger and walker Craig Mod in their annual "GDP of the internet" letter.....
Anyway - a few months ago I decided to start blogging weekly. This weekly streak idea was 100% inspired by Matt Webb (the bloggers blogger). I've written 19 blog posts this year. Here's some of my faves:
A map of inquiry lays out some of my various interest areas. Specifically, attaching active questions to each interest. This is a good signpost of where I'm going (if it's possible to even know where I'm going... watch out for the kablammo chaos). I went on to explore this idea of "questions as scaffolding" more directly in Building a Digital Homestead, Bit by Brick
Electric Tables V0.1: is a prototype I made at the intersection of internet research / URLs / web crawling / comparison shopping. I love tinkering with the web, what I call "digital bricolage" and this is a perfect example.
Notes on teaching and chairs lays out some reflections on building courses, creating a syllabus, teaching and falling asleep during lectures.
Some notes on executive dashboards looks at why executives hate their dashboards, but don't do anything about it. Most of my consulting work this year (oddly) has been around building better dashboards for c-suite execs so this is relevant to my interests...
Reflecting on things I failed to get done at Google is mostly therapy if I'm honest. This one sat in my drafts for 3 years while I plucked up the courage to publish it. My time at Google was a mixed bag but maybe we can learn some things from the way I tried to get projects off the ground?
Rejecting specialization just went up yesterday and is the second-to-last chapter in my book about indie consulting! I'm really hoping to turn this body of work into a physical book before the end of the year. With a bit of editing help and a following wind I think I can do it.
Anyway, this email is too long already for a summer Friday so I'll pause here.
Maybe I'll send the next email in the fall? In the meantime - how are you? Are your orbits stable or chaos right now? Much love to you either way
Tom
But it's not a balancing act like a set of scales - it's a balancing act like the three-body problem. The three-body problem is a famous mathematical problem trying to figure out how three bodies with gravitational mass interact in space. It's about putting these things into orbits and trying to stay sane (here I'm talking about either the three-body problem, or an indie consulting career).
Time, energy, money.
The fiendish thing is that what appear to be stable orbits always have chaos bubbling underneath. You can watch these orbits gracefully rotate for 6, 7, 8, 9 rotations:
Until, suddenly - KABLAMMO - chaos explodes out of nowhere:
Same system, nothing changed. Just pure chaos. (Play around yourself with a visualization of your own career. Be sure to select chaos mode: three-body problem in Javascript).Honestly, you could apply the same visualization to parenting.... Chaos, masquerading as stability.
Hi, it's me Tom Critchlow, your friendly internet weirdo / independent consultant / blogger / tinkerer / course creator. You might have signed up for this email a while ago - I don't send them very frequently. As always, unsubscribe links at the bottom.
Last time I sent out an email I was just entering unknown territory - having spent the last 7 years with 100% of my income coming from consulting, I launched the first SEO MBA course in November. 2021 ended 60/40 revenue-wise between consulting/courses.
I launched the second SEO MBA course (The Art of Client Management) a few weeks ago and 2022 has flipped - 60/40 courses/consulting.
I guess I'm in a different line of business now? My time/energy/money orbits are wildly different now. KABLAMMO - chaos.
Surfing the chaos of independent life requires a kind of optimistic, curious, playful mindset. You have to prize optionality above all else. It's why consulting has been such a powerful foundation - it's a route to "cash AND calendar" freedom.
Here's a blog post that has quietly turned out to be one of my most popular: a map for indie living. It's not THE map, but it's A map. It's the best articulation I have on why consulting is a powerful bedrock for any independent career - it's a great way to derive cash and calendar freedom while retaining optionality. Whether you're thinking of starting an independent consulting career, or if you've been doing it a while - you might dig the post.
Listen, I'm a weirdo, you know that. But I think there are two great economic engines for indies: consulting and blogging. Consulting, as a driver of time and financial freedom feels more obvious. Blogging, as "just writing on the internet" feels less obvious but it's no less powerful.
Writing on the internet is an incredible economic engine for individuals. It's a kind of force multiplier and serendipity engine. Blogging is a way to build your network, reach more people with your ideas, create connections and also stand out from the crowd. It's an unfair advantage with an activation cost of $0.
There's a reason that Stripe, a $10bn+ company, talks about blogger and walker Craig Mod in their annual "GDP of the internet" letter.....
Anyway - a few months ago I decided to start blogging weekly. This weekly streak idea was 100% inspired by Matt Webb (the bloggers blogger). I've written 19 blog posts this year. Here's some of my faves:
A map of inquiry lays out some of my various interest areas. Specifically, attaching active questions to each interest. This is a good signpost of where I'm going (if it's possible to even know where I'm going... watch out for the kablammo chaos). I went on to explore this idea of "questions as scaffolding" more directly in Building a Digital Homestead, Bit by Brick
Electric Tables V0.1: is a prototype I made at the intersection of internet research / URLs / web crawling / comparison shopping. I love tinkering with the web, what I call "digital bricolage" and this is a perfect example.
Notes on teaching and chairs lays out some reflections on building courses, creating a syllabus, teaching and falling asleep during lectures.
Some notes on executive dashboards looks at why executives hate their dashboards, but don't do anything about it. Most of my consulting work this year (oddly) has been around building better dashboards for c-suite execs so this is relevant to my interests...
Reflecting on things I failed to get done at Google is mostly therapy if I'm honest. This one sat in my drafts for 3 years while I plucked up the courage to publish it. My time at Google was a mixed bag but maybe we can learn some things from the way I tried to get projects off the ground?
Rejecting specialization just went up yesterday and is the second-to-last chapter in my book about indie consulting! I'm really hoping to turn this body of work into a physical book before the end of the year. With a bit of editing help and a following wind I think I can do it.
Anyway, this email is too long already for a summer Friday so I'll pause here.
Maybe I'll send the next email in the fall? In the meantime - how are you? Are your orbits stable or chaos right now? Much love to you either way
Tom