joshua
05-01-2007, 09:08 PM
I picked up the book because it rang true to what I've been doing now for the last 18 months or so and wanted to see what the author had to say on the subject. I got some great tips, especially on efficiency and effectiveness. I "spend" a lot of time on un-necessary junk.
I moved out of the office environment about a year and half ago, and transitioned from an employee to a contractor about 8 months after that. Getting out of the office turned out not to be very difficult, but it was scary proposing it. I was working in the Los Angeles area, but am not from there and after being with the company for for a year, had had enough of the city grind and commute. I put a "proposal" in to my VP detailing how I would be more productive and efficient working from a remote location. I read a book called "Getting to Yes" (audiobook actually) and followed that plan. I put together a Win-win situation for my company and myself, saving office space, being on call during my normal commuting times, delivering products on time, etc. It turned out to be a great intermediate step for time and location freedom. Taxes are also a great reason to make the switch to become a contractor and generally is easy to convince your current employers to make that switch as well. From there, I set myself up as a corporation and located out Alaska (no state taxes) and all my travel to SoCal is now write offs. I provide services as work, as a GIS manager and Cartographer in the real estate industry, and am now writting software to automate what I have been doing for my 24 month career and intend to license it back to the company I work for to further free myself. Subsequent iterations of the software I'm going to outsource to code writers.
I'll be posting some more later. I just picked up the book yesterday and am not yet finished with it, so I'm sure I will have more to add. My plan for the year to spend summers in Alaska and winters in Central America, with travel to other destinations in the spring and fall (generally the most pleasant weather and without as many tourists).
Another great read about getting finances set up to automate are Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad series, especially his first three works.
I moved out of the office environment about a year and half ago, and transitioned from an employee to a contractor about 8 months after that. Getting out of the office turned out not to be very difficult, but it was scary proposing it. I was working in the Los Angeles area, but am not from there and after being with the company for for a year, had had enough of the city grind and commute. I put a "proposal" in to my VP detailing how I would be more productive and efficient working from a remote location. I read a book called "Getting to Yes" (audiobook actually) and followed that plan. I put together a Win-win situation for my company and myself, saving office space, being on call during my normal commuting times, delivering products on time, etc. It turned out to be a great intermediate step for time and location freedom. Taxes are also a great reason to make the switch to become a contractor and generally is easy to convince your current employers to make that switch as well. From there, I set myself up as a corporation and located out Alaska (no state taxes) and all my travel to SoCal is now write offs. I provide services as work, as a GIS manager and Cartographer in the real estate industry, and am now writting software to automate what I have been doing for my 24 month career and intend to license it back to the company I work for to further free myself. Subsequent iterations of the software I'm going to outsource to code writers.
I'll be posting some more later. I just picked up the book yesterday and am not yet finished with it, so I'm sure I will have more to add. My plan for the year to spend summers in Alaska and winters in Central America, with travel to other destinations in the spring and fall (generally the most pleasant weather and without as many tourists).
Another great read about getting finances set up to automate are Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad series, especially his first three works.