The 1-Month Work Year
My plan to “1-up” Tim Ferriss’ and Beat His 4-Hour Work Week!
What if you could work like a madman for the entire month of January, then take the rest of the year off?
What if you could do that every year going forward?
I have spent the last 3 years lining things up to enable this diabolical plan, and now it’s time to shake things up and act on it.
Just how do I plan to accomplish this?
Using a Three Legged Stool.
What, what?
It’s a metaphor, read on….
I have built a lifestyle-oriented multi-income-stream support system out of the bones of creative automation and now I am scaling it.
How exactly does this work?
For this concept to work effectively, it requires at least 3 Independent but Mutually Supporting Income Streams, Not Tethered to a Location to break free without really needing to be a multi-millionaire, all of which feedback loop into each other to mutually support each other, but are not totally dependent on each other, and which can all function with as little input as possible once moving.
Meet the 3 legs of my stool:
Automated Crypto Trading / Investing
Automated E-commerce Shops
Semi-Automated Content Creation (+Affiliate Marketing)
Note: this exact model may not apply to you.
Your stool might look something like:
Your favorite passion and hobby made into a source of income and scaled and refined until you have it going strong
Content Creation related to that passion, used to draw traffic to your passionate business, and which feedback loop off of each other, eventually becoming profitable on their own, but enhancing the first.
Affiliate Marketing to add another layer and dimension of income
I mention this because most content creators are working on various businesses of their own and not necessarily looking to become automated crypto traders.
Automated trading is just one leg of income I have built that is unexpectedly performing better than the others, but it doesn’t need to be involved and isn’t required for the concept I am illustrating to remain useful.
Any good stool consists of:
The Seat (Your ultimate lifestyle desire, defined)
Being supported by:
At Least 3 Legs (income sources which support, and DO NOT interfere with the seat)
With only two legs, you will probably loose balance and fall at some point.
You will end up using your own strength to stay upright when this happens and…. gasp…. working again!
You can always add more legs of income, then the stool becomes more stable, but with only two legs it is not the most stable stool you could ever sit on, and the disruption of a broken leg is magnified significantly.
At any time, one of our income streams can be disrupted for some random reason.
It can happen when we least expect it.
If you only have two streams and you loose one, you now have one stream. How stressed are you going to be as a result?
Also, If all legs can still be strong independently of each other, it is not very likely you will ever loose two legs at the same time.
Thus, having at least three income streams that aren’t dependent on each other, yet can still push and support each other — becomes a solid foundation for achieving the goal.
The 1-Month Work Year
That third leg mentioned above — Content Creation — is the 1-Month Work Year I speak of. This Work Month consists of creating ALL content in January and scheduling it to publish for the rest of the year.
YouTube, Medium, Substack, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and Linkedin. ALL of it.
One month of non-stop content creation, followed by scheduling that content to publish throughout the year-all the way through December 31 of 2025, while I do other things.
That’s all. Bye.
Just kidding….
I have a very methodical plan here and wanted to share it, along with the tools that will be used to execute on it.
Project Action Timeline:
I will create no less than 2–3 Videos per day in January, 5–30 minutes in length, for the first 20 days. Full working days — 5AM to 7 or 8PM. I selected January because I am less active outdoors in winter. That is about it.
You can really choose any month that works better for you.
My content niche is automation software tutorials and now I am adding “faceless YouTube” content. I made a list of every video I want to make based on feedback and interaction with my audience this last year.
I have about 55 tutorial videos planned for topics like:
Make.com automations and integrations, Print on Demand, Blogging, etc
Crypto Trading Bots
Faceless YouTube channels (more on that later)
52 weeks in a year = 1 widescreen full length video per week will be scheduled to publish, approx. Then I’ll cut shorts from them and post those too, all pointing to the full length video.
I fed my topics and general outlines into Straico AI, which has helped me structure my videos a bit better when recording them. This saved a lot of time, because instead of spending days generating outlines, I just put the video idea down, get an outline in seconds, modify it to suit my liking, and boom, all 55 video outlines were done in less than 1 hour of work.
When I record my YouTube content, I will spend the afternoon editing it with a tool called FlexClip that speeds up removing errors, adding graphics, B Rollish clips, endscreen, titles, subtitles, my themesong, audio, etc. Each pair of videos will be done before I finish the day.
So far I have been able to finish a video or two, complete with edits, all in a single day (from my experience doing it this last year). That is my fastest speed.
In the last few days of January, I will upload the finished videos to YouTube in an Unlisted state, and begin automating my publishing.
The Automation Begins
Taja
All titles, tags, descriptions, thumbnails, and clips will generated and optimized using an AI tool called Taja.
I copy paste the URL of each video that I have uploaded, then publish the optimized changes after I audit and approve them.
After this, each video is broken into shorts, which I will schedule using the internal calendar feature.
Taja generates up to 20 shorts for each video, depending on the length of the video.
These shorts can be published to ALL platforms I use.
But wait, before my 1 Month Work Year is done, I have a few more tasks to complete.
Blogify
After automating YouTube, I will need to automate my video-blogs and to do this I will run my videos through another AI solution called Blogify.
Blogify takes the video transcriptions from my videos and outputs a more editorialized output that is more suitable for an article or a blog.
I then spend a about a 2–3 days editing blog output and getting it ready, adding new images where needed, and proofreading with Quillbot.
Then, you probably guessed it, I will schedule all of these blog posts to publish throughout the year, on the same week that the corresponding video is released on YouTube.
Blogify can schedule and publish to Medium, Blogger, Linkedin, Wordpress, etc.
My preferred blog platforms are Medium and Substack.
Each blog post will contain the video version at the end of the blog, and each video will include a link to my blog in the description.
For Medium, this means increased reader time spent on each story, increasing the reading metric, and hopefully increasing the likelihood of cross pollination of my platforms.
Desired Effect: Medium users subbing my YouTube, and YouTube users subbing my Medium and Substack accounts.
Substack does not have an API, so I will be copy pasting my Medium content right into Substack and scheduling it for publishing throughout the year.
I will also spend some time at random writing and publishing, because I enjoy writing, and publish from time to time spontaneously when the mood strikes.
Content Creation at the end of January will also include creating video ad content for my businesses and various affiliate products I promote, etc — scheduling sales and marketing campaigns, affiliate marketing laid into all content and campaigns.
Faceless AI Automated Content
For other shorts content, I am testing several “faceless automated channels” and to build that content — I am using a solution called VidWiz.
I am using VidWiz to publish a simple 20 second motivational statement series of shorts on my Automated Income Lifestyle channel.
I don’t lift a finger here, these videos are automatically generated and published to both YouTube and TikTok, and they include my affiliate link to VidWiz. (Yes, I am open to the possibilty of earning more from VidViz affiliate referrals than from actual VidWiz video monetization).
Just create prompt that defines the subject of your video series, and select a schedule, and VidWiz does everything else.
I am not at all certain that any of these “AI Slideshow” style videos I have been testing with this tool will be able to see monetization stand-alone as their own channels, so I may fold these channels and publish the video series as playlists on my current monetized channel, Automated Income Lifestyle.
All of these AI generated videos do not require my input once the system is running, and every video can be enabled for ads, and thus, turn into money.
The question is — will the earnings from ads and affiliate referrals exceed the monthly cost of VidWiz? ($39).
I predict the answer is yes, but I’ll only know at the end of next year.
Either way, these shorts will grow my subs and views for my YouTube Channel. They already are.
Then, if all of that automation wasn’t enough, my YouTube channel is connected to sync all content through BitChute, another platform that drives views, clicks and sales, and this happens automatically when I publish a new video to YouTube.
If I can do this kind of sync with other video platforms too, I will find a way to implement it.
My Magic Wand
Want to know what else happens automatically?
All of those AI generated video clips that are published to YouTube and TikTok, but not yet scheduled to publish to all of my social media accounts…. I have an automation for that, too.
My Social Media Magic Wand takes care of this.
I have a YouTube video watch workflow that waits for new videos published to specific playlists, it then automatically grabs them and makes social posts for me using my Magic Wand workflow.
This way, I don’t have to stop and schedule anything else during the year.
This workflow posts my videos automatically to all my socials when YouTube publishes them.
My Magic Wand automates more than just YouTube posts.
I’ve made versions of this workflow to auto-post new product listings when my Automated Print on Demand shops publish new products.
The automations I am using for this Content Feedback Loop are being used by every online store I test.
If you want this automation for your own content and stores, I have it available as a free download!
Scroll to the bottom of the following link, and you’ll find it:
https://automatedincomelifestyle.xyz/maketemplates
That’s It. My Work Year is Done.
More Information About This Crazy Stool of Mine:
First Leg: Automated Trading
Ok. We started off talking about Content Creation, but that actually is not my first leg of income. Content Creation is actually my last leg of income, the leg I am developing right now to further support the others.
My first leg and my primary source of income was Automated Ecom, but this year Automated Crypto Trading took the lead.
This is now my big enchilada.
In the last 4 years I found a trading strategy that is working for me, this income stream has become by far the least effort, most reward.
How I Earned $6,000/mo from with Semi-Automated Crypto Trading on my Mobile Device
There is no upsell at the end of this blog.
Automated Crypto Trading also has the lowest barrier-to-entry thanks to modern easily-accessible mobile apps and being able to start with small amounts.
After four years learning to use crypto bots, I now earn enough with crypto trading bots to pay most of my bills, but there is a flaw — this income stream is NOT consistent.
My best months; I earn several months of former salary.
My worst months; can be breaking even or negative.
This is purely at the whims of the market, and my learning and progress.
All of this trading is done via automated bot, and because it takes almost no time to receive a notification and stop/start a bot, this can be running all year and not really be “work” at all, even if I have to babysit the bots sometimes to squeeze out more profit.
This leg of income has no location depencence, it can be done anywhere, anytime.
In order to fill in the income gaps during slow months, I have created a “rolling-reserve” to draw from and keep bills paid, but I have also created other income sources like Content Creation, Print On Demand stores, and writing my first book.
Second Leg: Automated E-Commerce
I outsourced my production for the 3D print related business that I launched in 2017, and I now support my customers with a chatbot that rarely asks for my attention anymore. All marketing is automated according to the plan I am sharing in this story.
This also wasn’t built overnight.
It has taken since 2017 to build and refine my first ecom business, and only in the last year has Chat GPT enabled the kind of automation that can eliminate almost all work from a print on demand shop.
My Automated Ecoms at this time are:
an active operation Outsourced 3D Print Niche Business, all marketing automated, all customer support via chatbot (https://cannagartools.com)
growing, testing, and refining Automated Print On Demand shops until I find the right products to run with, and repeating the success of my 3D print niche (motherfunker.groovekart.com, and stankbank.printify.me)
These online stores all empowered by free marketing and advertising in the form of Content Creation.
Content Creation is the only advertising I have ever run with my first ecom business, and I still get business from that YouTube channel to this day, even though it has become age-restricted. (https://www.youtube.com/@cannagartools)
Third Leg: Content Creation
This is just a part of the modern world now. When I really think about it, if you aren’t making content, you probably have no visibility. Leveraging content is a no-brainer, but….how can we make it into less work?
By Scheduling in Advance!
Some people have full time jobs as content creators.
I would like to avoid that.
I use Content Creation for Advertising, and Affiliate Marketing.
YouTube and Medium, as much as I love them, don’t pay enough at my audience level to call a true source of income.
Affiliate marketing with creative content does quite well, even without a million subscribers.
It will look like I am active all year to the untrained eye, but to those watching my content and reading along, you’ll know I recorded everything in January.
All Things Flowing Into Each Other
Content Creation supports Affiliate Marketing >>>>> which in turn supports Automated E-Commerce (such as my 3D Print Business and Print on Demand Shop)s >>>>> which fills in the gaps when Automated Trading experiences a less profitable month.
The income gaps from Automated Trading are supported by Content Creation, and Affiliate Marketing providing extra income, but Automated Trading is NOT dependent on either, and will function without my other income legs.
Content Creation is supported by Affiliate Marketing, by attraction of people searching for needed time-saving solutions, but will continue to earn without it.
Affiliate Marketing income is dependent on Content Creation to some extent, but my multi-disciplinary Tutor Chatbot on my website is also shaping up to be an excellent Affiliate Marketer.
Each leg of income serves to supports the others, yet all can be more or less functional on their own too.
All so this guy can spend a good part of his year hiking, exploring, building other things when the mood strikes.
There it is, my stool.
Would you like a sample?
Joking…..
The End Goal
As I continue to repeat and refine this plan year after year, the goal is to slowly grow my YouTube Channel and all peripheral channels into a steady content creation affiliate marketing engine that can fuel investments into other income like Crypto HODL, Real Estate, Collectibles, and more.
All while doing it in such a fashion that it runs on it’s own most of the year, without my input.
Build ONE Leg of Income At A Time
This is important. If I happen to inspire you to embark on a similar journey, please note — it took almost three years of testing concepts, building chatbots, outsourcing my production, etc, all to be able to better manifest this kind of goal.
I built one business and made it to 6 figures before I attempted to automate it, then outsourced manufacturing and learned to automate that business and it struggled for a bit as I learned to make it work the way I intended it to. Now it functions mostly without my input.
Building an online business isn’t easy, and I am currently refining my Print on Demand business models to work with total end-to-end automation.
Once my 3D print store was functionally working with it’s chatbot, I had a template which I could apply to other things and refine it.
It is best to get each source of income functioning, before attempting to add another leg of income.
You don’t have to limit yourself. You can build yourself a spider stool with 8 legs if you want, or even a Human CentiStool with a hundred legs!!
But, consider this….
3 is the minimum needed for real balance and the lowering of cortisol.
Going too hard might reintroduce problems by requiring too much of your attention to maintain, or interfering with your ability to continue to execute your first 3–4 legs of income at a high level, risking their overall stability.
The stool pictured above doesn’t look like the most stable stool ever, does it?
If you are feeling inspired and want to embark on a similar journey but don’t know where to begin, I’d like to suggest a good spring board to start brainstorming:
What is your passion, what are you good at, what do you love to do?
Answer those questions.
The answers may reveal your first leg.
It should be the thing you can work ultra hard on and it doesn’t feel as much like working hard because you love to do it. This will be the thing you refine and become an expert with, BEFORE you start to automate it (or automate the marketing of it).
This can be something that generates income, or it can just be something you love to do.
Take one step towards building your first leg of income online, every day.
If you already have that leg, embark on the next, but master the automation of your first leg of income, first.
Small steps every day will lead you to cool places.
Save this story and share it.
Keep it in mind.
Thank you for reading!
Until next time….
Onward and Upward Everybody!
-Chris
A.I. Lifestyle
Lifestyle Income Automation Solutions. "There is always a solution for everything!" ⭐ Become a Member of this Channel…
#automation #automatingyoutube #content #creationengine #contentloops