Monday
May092011
The 4 Hour Work Week
Monday, May 9, 2011 at 12:49PM I'm still activley looking for advertisers for Financially Digital. I'm looking for reputable businesses who would like to enjoy the benefit of being affiliated with an equally reputable content producer. I've turned down a lot of less than adequate requests but I will be starting the next round of posted ads soon. Please email me for details. Thanks!
As of late I have been on quite the Tim Ferriss kick. I’m about half way through his latest addition of The 4 Hour Work Week and I can hardly put it down. Now I’m all for being more efficient but I’m also not naive. I know that just by reading, which is a passive activity, I won’t instantly be implementing every tool he lays out nor will everything he lays out be appropriate for me. But man is it interesting to read about the lifestyle that some of these guys have and the work environments they have created for themselves. So for today’s post I wanted to try to pick out a 3 of the biggest brain nuggets I most identified with and try to convey them in little small business or lifestyle nuggets for you to digest - kind of a partial review meets book report.
Be clear on your intentions - Concepts around your values, mission, and your intentions can be found all over the internet. From books like Tim Ferriss’ to writing like The Secret. What these texts and very educated people are trying to tell you is just to get focused - Ferriss calls it Dreamlining. But what he’s really getting you to do is be clear on what you want to achieve so that you can start breaking it down. It’s great if you want to be rich, or have a big house, or retire early but if it’s not specific then how can you break it down. The idea is to take your big goals and create smaller actionable steps to achieve them. Rich is relative and so is retirement but if I have a specific income goal then I can start to brainstorm the ways that I will come to earn that income. From there I can break down what I need to monthly, weekly and even daily. You can also create benchmarks and start to measure how efficient you are - all that can’t happen unless you are clear on what you want your end result to be.
Automation and Delegation - Ferriss spends a lot of time teaching you how to outsource and delegate so that you can spend more time on doing the things that will yield you the biggest return. I loved every word of it. With Financially Digital’s clients I try to help people remove themselves from the investing/savings/operations equation as much as possible. Not only because we all battle a spout of irrationality from time to time but because “setting-it-and-forgetting-it” is one of the best ways to teach new (positive) behavior. The same goes with business processes. Whether you run a bakery or a cleaning company, if you have clear procedures and trusted employees you can focus your attention not on the micro picture but on the macro one. It also works great for scheduling - if members of a family, not even a business, all share a GCal and update it regularly then think about how easy it can be for mom or dad to make sure that everyone gets to where they need to be for that week.
Process Management - Ferriss talks a ton about controlling how information flows to and from you. He basically brags that his systems are to the point where they are so self sufficient that he himself only needs to check his email once a week. Wow. Personally, I couldn’t do that right now but being a more effective communicator is definitely on my list of things to do. The biggest point I pulled out was to not measure work by how busy you are but by how effective. Being busy does not equal being more productive - it just means you’ve done a great job of putting yourself in the middle of everything. Not to overlap with the Automation and Delegation tip but information really is our biggest tool and bane. Whether you are dealing with family members, employees, or clients, how accessible you are and the information you process all has an impact on how effective you are. Adjustments can be as simple as setting up a time for when you and are not reachable for certain things. It’s the adage about leaving work at work kind of thing. It’s also about assigning an order of operations to things. This ties back into a to-do list of sorts but it’s not only important to manage your time but also to manage the priorities you assign to things. If everything and everyone has the same sense of urgency then sure, you are pleasing those people and situations that are constantly popping in but what about your planned actions. You run around putting out all the little fires all day long and don’t give yourself the time to finish what you actually had planned to. Make some decisions! You decide when and where you will be engaged and how to follow up with people. Take back control of your time.
Like I said at the start of this post, I’m not done with this book yet. Now I know it’s not the be all end all in getting to the lifestyle you want but it’s been a huge influence on me. I can honestly say that I’ve started to implement some of Ferriss’ tactics and it’s working. We all have different paths and I might not ever be on the exact same one as Ferriss but I can assure you that my goal is to absolutely be within waving distance :)
PS - A while back I wrote a post on pay day loans. Now I was not endorsing them as a viable source of funding. What I was trying to do was educate people on the risks involved if you are considering an instant payday loans. If you are stuck in a corner and something like this is what you are considering then just make sure you do your homework.
Be clear on your intentions - Concepts around your values, mission, and your intentions can be found all over the internet. From books like Tim Ferriss’ to writing like The Secret. What these texts and very educated people are trying to tell you is just to get focused - Ferriss calls it Dreamlining. But what he’s really getting you to do is be clear on what you want to achieve so that you can start breaking it down. It’s great if you want to be rich, or have a big house, or retire early but if it’s not specific then how can you break it down. The idea is to take your big goals and create smaller actionable steps to achieve them. Rich is relative and so is retirement but if I have a specific income goal then I can start to brainstorm the ways that I will come to earn that income. From there I can break down what I need to monthly, weekly and even daily. You can also create benchmarks and start to measure how efficient you are - all that can’t happen unless you are clear on what you want your end result to be.
Automation and Delegation - Ferriss spends a lot of time teaching you how to outsource and delegate so that you can spend more time on doing the things that will yield you the biggest return. I loved every word of it. With Financially Digital’s clients I try to help people remove themselves from the investing/savings/operations equation as much as possible. Not only because we all battle a spout of irrationality from time to time but because “setting-it-and-forgetting-it” is one of the best ways to teach new (positive) behavior. The same goes with business processes. Whether you run a bakery or a cleaning company, if you have clear procedures and trusted employees you can focus your attention not on the micro picture but on the macro one. It also works great for scheduling - if members of a family, not even a business, all share a GCal and update it regularly then think about how easy it can be for mom or dad to make sure that everyone gets to where they need to be for that week.
Process Management - Ferriss talks a ton about controlling how information flows to and from you. He basically brags that his systems are to the point where they are so self sufficient that he himself only needs to check his email once a week. Wow. Personally, I couldn’t do that right now but being a more effective communicator is definitely on my list of things to do. The biggest point I pulled out was to not measure work by how busy you are but by how effective. Being busy does not equal being more productive - it just means you’ve done a great job of putting yourself in the middle of everything. Not to overlap with the Automation and Delegation tip but information really is our biggest tool and bane. Whether you are dealing with family members, employees, or clients, how accessible you are and the information you process all has an impact on how effective you are. Adjustments can be as simple as setting up a time for when you and are not reachable for certain things. It’s the adage about leaving work at work kind of thing. It’s also about assigning an order of operations to things. This ties back into a to-do list of sorts but it’s not only important to manage your time but also to manage the priorities you assign to things. If everything and everyone has the same sense of urgency then sure, you are pleasing those people and situations that are constantly popping in but what about your planned actions. You run around putting out all the little fires all day long and don’t give yourself the time to finish what you actually had planned to. Make some decisions! You decide when and where you will be engaged and how to follow up with people. Take back control of your time.
Like I said at the start of this post, I’m not done with this book yet. Now I know it’s not the be all end all in getting to the lifestyle you want but it’s been a huge influence on me. I can honestly say that I’ve started to implement some of Ferriss’ tactics and it’s working. We all have different paths and I might not ever be on the exact same one as Ferriss but I can assure you that my goal is to absolutely be within waving distance :)
PS - A while back I wrote a post on pay day loans. Now I was not endorsing them as a viable source of funding. What I was trying to do was educate people on the risks involved if you are considering an instant payday loans. If you are stuck in a corner and something like this is what you are considering then just make sure you do your homework.
tagged Productivity, consulting, entrepreneur
Productivity, consulting, entrepreneur 
Reader Comments (6)
Ferriss is known for his application of both the Pareto principle and Parkinson's Law to business and personal life. He has also taken the position that technology such as email, instant messaging and internet complicate life rather than simplify it.
There are some days that I believe that 100 percent :) its almost too much info to process sometimes.
In our fashionable life, beautiful and lovely appearance are the pursuit of many girls. How can we miss fendi replicaorversace replica handbags?
Really great post, Thank you for sharing This knowledge.Excellently written article, if only all bloggers offered the same level of content as you, the internet would be a much better place. Please keep it up!louboutin uk
ed hardy
polo shirts
ralph lauren
Wow! That's really grateful when you have to work that way. Four hours seems less I think but I guess you can have more fun.
<h1>cheap designer bags</h1> To force promotion
<h1>cheap designer handbags</h1> Pack bag
<h1>nike shox r4</h1> Different response
<h1>super street</h1> Do not hesitate
<h1>mario shoes</h1> quality
<h1>air max tn</h1> Price satisfaction
<h1>cheap puma shoes</h1> Fashion classic new
<h1>cheap gucci shoes</h1> Popular brands
<h1>gucci shoes cheap</h1> Christmas Maijiu
<h1>louis vuitton handbags outlet</h1> Different respons
<h1>air max 90</h1> most allow you to just pick a favorite