Freedom is an Open Road

“Freedom is a fast car and an open road.”

Last week, this tweet from Naval immediately caught my attention. I completely forgot what I was working on and lost my focus altogether.

I always thought I was actively carving myself a path towards freedom. Or at least I thought I was. After reading his tweet over and over again, I realized I wasn’t.

I’m living in my dream apartment, dating an amazing partner, making good money, living in my favorite neighborhood in the world, and have a tight circle of friends.

But none of that means I’m free.

Sure, I can buy a fancy car and book a cabin in the mountains for the weekend. But where would my mind be on that drive?

It would be running through what work I’m behind on, which clients I need to check in with, and endless plans to grow quicker and go faster.

It wouldn’t be on the road. And that’s my point. That’s why I’m not free, because I know if I bought that car and booked that cabin, I still wouldn’t be present.

So what am I going to do about it? Well, I have some ideas.

Finding the Right Road

If freedom is finding a road where my mind is completely present, I have to put in the work to design systems in my life through which I can truly turn off.

And the answer isn’t just working harder to get shit done. Sure, that’s part of the answer, hard work is a necessity after all, but it’s not a sustainable engine.

Let’s start with the end in mind: a clear, peaceful mind.

Not dwelling on the past or fantasizing about the future. Mindfulness in a sense.

To reach this desired state, meditation won’t do the trick — but systems might just help. Systems through which I can automate and delegate certain aspects of my work to get the important things done in half the time. That’s the path forward.

1 — Learn to Automate

Step one is leveraging tools to automate repeatable tasks in my daily workflow.

I spend a lot of my time on email saying the same things over and over again. Turns out it’s easy to use snippets via email to automate repeatable messaging — done and done.

I also spend a lot of time reaching out to new folks and broadening my network, but keeping in touch with people can be incredibly time-consuming.

Building content in the form of newsletters and social broadcasts to my entire network at once can be automated to a pretty high degree as well. That should do the trick.

2 — Learn to Delegate

Step two is learning to delegate, which is the hardest part for me.

This is where I’ll be actively spending time over the next month or so. I need to learn how to scale up my work output while also decreasing time spent in the weeds of execution.

Rather than just hiring a VA or folks on Upwork to help me out, I want to intentionally seek out talented collaborators that I deeply respect and find ways to work with them.

3 — Build Constraints

Step three is building constraints that allow me to consistently slip into a flow state.

As much as automation and delegation are useful tools, I still need to crank out high-quality work on a consistent basis. To do so, I need to keep adding constraints to my daily routine, forcing myself to work under a tight deadline in a deep, focused state.

4 — Design Incentives

Step four is adding incentives to my calendar.

To put it bluntly, these are just fun things that I look forward to on a daily basis.

It can be as simple as a workout with a friend, a dinner at my favorite restaurant, or a weekend adventure to a new city. Incentives work wonders when correctly designed.

Taking the Drive

Now, let’s move on to the final step.

Once you’ve made headway in automation, delegation, building constraints, and designing incentives, it’s time to book the trip and take the drive.

Nothing behind you and everything ahead of you, to borrow from Kerouac.

Hop in the driver’s seat, jet out of the city on a late Friday evening, and take off as the sun starts to stretch its rays across the city pavement. With the right systems, I think I’m on the right track to get there, fully present and fully alive.

Clarity in every sense of the word. That’s my endgame.

That’s freedom.