Part 3 - Extra Bits
The Art Of Non-Conformity: Legacy Work
(Excerpt from https://lifeclub.org/books/the-art-of-non-conformity-chris-guillebeau-review-summary)
While you can do almost anything you want with your life, you probably wouldn’t be satisfied with a life that revolves only around you.
So after you have thought hard about what you really want to get out of life, you’ll want to begin to consider how you can improve the world for others by doing work that leaves a legacy and makes an impact.
This is where legacy work comes in – it offers you meaning and fulfilment through deeds which have a lasting impact on others.
Regardless of what you’ve done before or where you are in life now, you can help others in a unique way that would’ve been impossible without your influence. That’s what legacy work is all about.
There are many ways to do legacy work. You just need to answer the question: “How will this really help people?”
Take, for instance, Dr. Gary Parker, who lives in Africa doing free reconstructive surgery for patients who lack adequate medical care. It wasn’t until he first decided to help others there that his work started giving him meaning and fulfillment.
And staying focused on legacy work can be achieved in several ways:
You can do what the author did and create a continual metric for your most important work – for example a 1,000-words-a-day standard if your legacy work consists of writing, or one set of sketches a day if you’re an artist.
Alternatively, you could use Jim Collins’ method (author of classic business-strategy books) for ensuring he spends most of his time on legacy work: He carries a stopwatch with three separate timers to adhere to the strict goal of spending 50 percent of his time on research and writing, 30 percent on teaching and 20 percent on “other” tasks.
Legacy work will ensure that what you bring to the world will continue to be valuable for a long time. Are you up for it?