Scale the leverage ladder

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I’m not going to flex that I only work ‘4 hours a day’ or that I make ‘infinite passive income’.

Why?

Because it’s simply not true.

While I do enjoy time and location freedom, I still work a lot.

When I wake up, I immediately work for 2 hours. Then throughout the day, I find pockets of time to get smaller, non-creative tasks done. Before bed, I have another work block to close loops.

But as an entrepreneur, you’re not rewarded for how hard you work. You’re rewarded for what you actually get done.

So the question that’s been on my mind recently is, “How can I do more, while working less?”

Naturally, this led me to study the concept of Leverage.

Leverage is how you do more with less.

It’s how you disconnect your time from money.

As the famous mathematician Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

When I first discovered the concept of leverage, I was skeptical.

“That sounds cool and all, but how do I actually get leverage?” I thought.

What I’ve learned, is there are 4 types of tasks.

And you gain leverage, by working on tasks on the right side of the matrix and avoiding ones on the left.

The Leverage Matrix

The Death Zone

As an entrepreneur, The Death Zone is… well, death.

You want to avoid this quadrant at all costs.

These are tasks that take a lot of time and effort but don’t actually move the needle forward.

Any time you find yourself working in The Death Zone, pull a Randy Jackson, and say, “That’s gonna be a no for me dawg.”

The Zombie Zone

A great way to think you’re doing a lot is to stay in The Zombie Zone.

Since these tasks are low effort, they feel easy (which makes it a dangerous trap).

For example, scrolling through social media and checking your notifications.

You think you’re making progress, but you’re really not.

Don’t mistake movement for achievement.

The Momentum Zone

Here’s where things get fun.

Now you’re using your creative juices for things that truly matter.

Like this newsletter for example :)

The Leverage Zone

This is where the best entrepreneurs spend most of their time.

If you operate in this zone for long enough, you start to make quantum leaps.

The drawback is it takes a lot of upfront work to get the ball rolling in your favor.

For example, it takes a lot of effort to get your first 10,000 followers.

But once you have a community of people who know, like, and trust you?

Everything else in your business gets amplified.

Not bad, eh? Leverage is such an exciting topic.

Now, where should you start?

4 steps to start building leverage:

1. Audit your calendar

Step one is to go through your past week and look at all the tasks you completed.

Then assign each task to a quadrant.

Simply the act of reviewing your calendar will bring awareness to where you can better invest your time.

Pro Tip: Want a simple hack to get back 3-4 hours of your time? Check your screen time. Be surprised by how much you’re on your phone. Turn your phone to grayscale mode. Win.

2. Get out of ‘busywork’

Next, we want to get out of ‘busywork’ by:

1. Eliminating

2. Automating

3. Delegating

4. Systemizing

Pro Tip: The key is to go down the list sequentially. Never delegate what you can automate and automate what you can eliminate.

Let’s take random calls for example.

Do they need to be done? Probably not. So for the most part, I try to eliminate them.

How about publishing social media posts? Do they need to be done? Yes. By me? Nope. So I use Hypefury to schedule my posts weeks in advance.

Okay, what about tracking all my clients’ KPIs? Do they need to be done? Yep. By me? Nope. So I have my team manage the spreadsheets and reporting.

Do you see where I’m going with this? Little by little, you’re freeing up your time to work on high-impact tasks that only you can do.

3. Refine & Repeat

Each time you do a task, ask yourself, “How can I make it easier for my future self?”

1/ Checklists

Checklists help you not have to think about what you need to do. You follow the checklist, and bada bing bada boom… task complete.

A few more checklists I’ve created:

• Newsletter publishing checklist

• Twitter publishing checklist

• SOP creation checklist

2/ Templates

Every time I come across a tweet that captures my attention, I create a template for it.

After creating many templates, you’ll realize that writing (for social media) is more of a science than an art. It’s plug-and-play.

A few more templates I’ve created:

• Newsletter structure template

• Client project management dashboard template

• Long-form Twitter thread template

3/ Content Multiplication System

Social media is great for capturing attention but horrible for keeping it.

That’s because it operates on a 24-hour cycle.

Once you publish a piece of content, after a day it gets lost in the void.

The solution?

Repost your best pieces of content every 90 days.

Remember: Work smarter, not harder.

Like most things in life, building leverage is an iterative process.

It will take time to move from the left side of The Leverage Matrix to the right.

You’ll naturally be pulled back into doing ‘busywork’ tasks.

Trust me, I’ve been there. But being busy is not a badge of honor.

You want a business that revolves around your life, not the other way around.

Start building leverage before you think you need it.

That’s how you work less, earn more, and enjoy life.

See you next Sunday,

Jay “The Leveraged Entrepreneur” Yang

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Top Tweets of The Week

"If you already live a comfortable life, then choosing to make more money but live a worse daily life is a bad trade.

And yet, we talk ourselves into it all the time. We take promotions that pay more, but swallow our free time. We already have a successful business, but we break ourselves trying to make it even more successful.

Too much focus on wealth, not enough focus on lifestyle.” — James Clear

“The most successful people I know believe in themselves almost to the point of delusion.” — Sam Altman

This is the way.

As the saying goes, “Pessimists get to be right. Optimists get to be rich.”

The most compelling communicators I know have a library of stories, quotes, and anecdotes in their heads.

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