Previously, I posted about chasing a thousand rabbit holes, when I spent almost 24 hours on the Internet jumping from one interesting topic and website to another. Whatever I said about it, it was simply about information overload, a sickness best articulated and obliterated by Tim Ferriss's "low information diet", one of the many invaluable concepts from his book "4 Hour Work Week".
Tim is unbelievably successful at such a young age (30, a year older than me). He has the very profitable BrainQuicken company, he travels around the world regularly, he is a Kickboxing champion, his book is a bestseller and on and on...
To save time I'll bullet point some of his most important ideas as I understand them:
DEAL
Define - what you want to achieve, your dreams and where you are right now
Eliminate - non-essentials, things that waste your time.
Automate - processes for your business and personal life. Delegate.
Liberate - yourself from your comfort zones and from physical, environmental limitations
ON TIME MANAGEMENT and PRODUCTIVITY
Refuse unimportant information. Read only what you need to read and act on immediately.
Combine Pareto's 80/20 principle and Parkinson's Law:
a. limit tasks to important to shorten work time
b. shorten work time to limit tasks to the important
Multi-tasking is stupid. Do one thing at a time with full focus.
GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONES
Identify and do the things you avoid, most probably they are the things you have to face and learn. For me they are talking to strangers, studying accounting and finance, etc. Act outside the box.
DREAM BIG, IT'S MORE REALISTIC
Goals that are seemingly "impossible" have more power to inspire you to move and act on than goals that are "achievable, feasible".
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
4 Hour Work Week of Tim Ferriss
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2 comments:
Just stumbled upon this book and am reading it. How has it changed your days? Are you realizing more relative wealth? What stuck after close to a year? Interested in your insights.
Thanks, Steve
Hi Steve,
It's one of those books that I would put effort to reread more than 3 times and have personal notes on. I think Tim himself suggested to read Covey's stuff first to help define purpose of your life, then 4HWW to streamline and start achieving dreams, then "Getting Things Done" of David Allen to manage everything.
After almost a year, I'm still very fascinated how Tim used the 80/20 obsessively with his work and personal life. In terms of my own finances, still struggling but I have been able to work at home for the pas year.
Thank you for your comment ...
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