You can read about the purpose of this list and how to use it here.
In order to browse the list, start by clicking on the Concepts link and continue with the links (the concept names) that you find interesting.
- Resources
B1 - Tim Ferris, The 4 hour workweek
- Concepts
- productivity & TM
Just a few words on time management: Forget all about it.
Being selective—doing less—is the path
of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.
1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20).
2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson's
Law).
Identify the few critical
tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very
short and clear deadlines.
resources
B1
- perfection
Recognize that this is often just another W4W excuse. Most endeavors
are like learning to speak a foreign language: to be
correct 95% of the time requires six months of concentrated effort,
whereas to be correct 98% of the time requires 20-30 years.
Focus on great for a few things and good enough for the rest.
Perfection is a good ideal and direction to have, but recognize it
for what it is: an impossible destination.
resources
B1
- learning
- language learning
Language learning deserves special mention. It is, bar none, the
best thing you can do to hone clear thinking.
Quite aside from the fact that it is impossible to understand a
culture without understanding its language, acquiring a new language
makes you aware of your own language: your own thoughts.
The benefits of becoming fluent in a foreign tongue are as underestimated
as the difficulty is overestimated.
Gain a language and you gain a second lens through which to
question and understand the world.
resources and complete how-to
guides can be found on www.fourhourworkweek.com
resources
B1
- travel
traveling and
relocating provides unique conditions that make progress much
faster.
I
rarely travel somewhere without deciding first how I'll obsess on a
specific skill.
I tend to focus on language acquisition and one kinesthetic skill,
sometimes finding the latter after landing overseas. The most successful
serial vagabonds tend to blend the mental and the physical.
resources
B1
- questions
terms so undefined as to make attempting to answer
them a complete waste of time
What do you
mean, then? Until the question is clear—each term in it defined—
there is no point in answering it. The "meaning" of "life" question is
unanswerable without further elaboration.
1. Have I decided on a single meaning for each term in this
question?
2. Can an answer to this question be acted upon to
improve
things?
Questions about things beyond your sphere of influence like "What if
the train is late tomorrow?" fail the second and should thus be
ignored. These are not worthwhile questions. If you can't define it
or act upon it, forget it.
Most questions without answers are just
poorly worded.
resources
B1
- ambiguous
For the duration of this trip, note self-criticisms and negative
self-talk in a journal. Whenever upset or anxious, ask "why" at
least three times and put the answers down on paper. Describing
these doubts in writing reduces their impact twofold. First, it's
often the ambiguous nature of self-doubt that hurts most.
resources
B1
- meetings
Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that
corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only
because they cannot actually masturbate. —DAVE BARRY, Pulitzer
Prize-winning American humorist
- multitasking
Do not multitask
If you prioritize properly, there is no need to multitask.
resources
B1
- reminder
Am I being productive or just active?
Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?
Put a Post-it on your computer screen or set an Outlook reminder
to alert you at least three times daily with the question, "Are you
inventing things to do to avoid the important?"
resources
B1
- time
There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do.
—BILL WATTERSON, creator of the Calvin and Hobbes
cartoon strip
- having more
- too much
Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one
kind of labor by taking up another.
—ANATOLE FRANCE, author of The Crime ofSylvestre
Bonnard
I've Got More Money and Time Than I Ever Dreamed
Possible . . . Why Am I Depressed?
Too much free time is no
more than fertilizer for self-doubt and assorted mental tail-chasing.
Subtracting the bad does not create the good.
But This Is What I Always Wanted! How Can I Be Bored?! Don't freak
out and fuel the fire. This is normal among all high-performers who
downshift after working hard for a long time. The smarter and more
goal-oriented you are, the tougher these growing pains will be.
Learning to replace the perception of time famine with appreciation
of time abundance is like going from triple espressos to decaf.
resources
B1
- to-do list
the key to having more time is doing less, and there are two paths
to getting there, both of which should be used together: (i)
Define a short to-do list and (2) define a not-to-do list.
Compile your to-do list for
tomorrow no later than this evening.
I don't recommend using
Outlook or computerized to-do lists, because it is possible to add
an infinite number of items. I use a standard piece of paper folded
three times to about 2" x 3 yb", which fits perfectly in the pocket
and limits you to noting only a few items.
resources
B1
- setup time
There is an inescapable setup time for all tasks, large or minuscule
in scale.
resources
B1
- 2 critical items
There should never be more than two mission-critical items to
complete each day. Never. It just isn't necessary if they're actually
high-impact.
Do them separately from start
to finish without distraction.
"If this is the only thing I accomplish today,
will I be satisfied with my day?"
"What will
happen if I don't do this, and is it worth putting off the important
to do it?"
resources
B1
- MIT
complete your most important task before 11:00 A.M. to avoid
using lunch or reading e-mail as a postponement excuse.
resources
B1
- criteria
unless
something is well-defined and important, no one should do it.
resources
B1
- deadlines
Use Parkinson's Law and assign tasks that are to be completed
within no more than 72 hours. I have had the best luck with 48
and 24 hours.
short deadlines does not mean avoiding larger tasks (e.g.,
business plan), but rather breaking them into smaller milestones
that can be completed in shorter time frames
resources
B1
- helpful questions
resources
B1
- 9-5
Most entrepreneurs were
once employees and come from the 9-5 culture. Thus they adopt the
same schedule
This schedule is a collective
social agreement and a dinosaur legacy of the results-by-volume
approach. How is it possible that all the people in the world need
exactly 8 hours to accomplish their work? It isn't. 9-5 is arbitrary.
resources
B1
- waste
For the entrepreneur, the wasteful use of time is a matter of bad
habit and imitation.
Don't ever arrive at the office or in front of your computer without
a clear list of priorities.
resources
B1
- lack
lack of time is actually lack of
priorities.
resources
B1
- measure
What gets measured gets managed.
—PETER DRUCKER, management theorist, author of
31 books, recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom
- effectiveness
effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goals.
i. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.
2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.
resources
B1
- effectiveness vs efficiency
Being efficient without
regard to effectiveness is the default mode of the universe.
I would consider the best door-to-door salesperson efficient
but utterly ineffective
He or she would sell more using a better
vehicle such as e-mail or direct mail.
What you do is infinitely
more important than how you do it. Efficiency is still important,
but it is useless unless applied to the right things.
resources
B1
- efficiency
Efficiency is performing a given task (whether important or not)
in the most economical manner possible.
resources
B1
- the "80/20 Principle"
Pareto's Law can be summarized as follows: 80% of the outputs
result from 20% of the inputs.
80% of the consequences flow from 20% of the causes. 80% of
the results come from 20% of the effort and time.
Most things make no difference.
resources
B1
- process
you will need to try a lot to identify what
pulls the most weight
it should not take more than a
month or two.
resources
B1
- questions
1. Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and
unhappiness?
2. Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired
outcomes and happiness?
applying these
questions to everything from my friends to customers and advertising
to relaxation activities
The goal is to find your inefficiencies in
order to eliminate them and to find your strengths so you can
multiply them.
resources
B1
- result
That left the two larger customers to
deal with, who were professional ball breakers but contributed about
10% to the bottom line at the time.
My monthly income increased
from $3oK to $6oK in four weeks and my weekly hours
immediately dropped from over 80 to approximately 15. Most important,
I was happy with myself and felt both optimistic and liberated
for the first time in over two years.
resources
B1
- Parkinson's law
a task will swell in (perceived)
importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its
completion. It is the magic of the imminent deadline.
If I give you 24
hours to complete a project, the time pressure forces you to focus on
execution, and you have no choice but to do only the bare essentials.
If I give you a week to complete the same task, it's six days of
making a mountain out of a molehill.
Most inputs are useless and time is wasted in
proportion to the amount that is available.
Use Parkinson's Law on a Macro and Micro Level.
Shorten
schedules and deadlines to force focused action and prevent
procrastination.
resources
B1
- micro
On a micro task level, limit the number of items on your to-do
list and use impossibly short deadlines to force immediate action
while ignoring minutiae.
resources
B1
- macro
On a macro weekly and daily level, attempt to leave work at 4
P.M. and take Monday and/or Friday off.
resources
B1
- busy
Focus on being productive instead of busy.
Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically
important but uncomfortable actions.
Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing,
and is far more unpleasant.
Being busy is a form of laziness
There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than liv
ing; there is nothing harder to learn. —SENECA
resources
B1
- laziness
—to endure a non-ideal existence
to let circumstance or others decide life for you, or to amass a
fortune while passing through life like a spectator from an office
window. The size of your bank account doesn't change this, nor
does the number of hours you log in handling unimportant e-mail
or minutiae.
resources
B1
- quantity
Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of
greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for
most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal
sacrifice instead of personal productivity.
Few people choose to (or are able to) measure the results of
their actions and thus measure their contribution in time. More
time equals more self-worth and more reinforcement from those
above and around them.
In the strictest sense, you shouldn't be trying to do more in each day,
trying to fill every second with a work fidget of some type. It took me a
long time to figure this out. I used to be very fond of the results-by-volume
approach.
resources
B1
- timing
By working only when you are most effective, life
is both more productive and more enjoyable.
resources
B1
- NR
D: To work for yourself.
NR: To
have others work for you.
D: To work when you want to.
NR: To prevent work for work's sake,
and to do the minimum necessary for maximum effect ("minimum
effective load").
D: To retire early or young.
N R: To distribute recovery periods and
adventures (mini-retirements) throughout life on a regular basis and
recognize that inactivity is not the goal. Doing that which excites
you is.
D: To buy all the things you want to have.
NR: To do all the things
you want to do, and be all the things you want to be. If this includes
some tools and gadgets, so be it, but they are either means to an end
or bonuses, not the focus.
D: To be the boss instead of the employee; to be in charge.
NR: To
be neither the boss nor the employee, but the owner. To own the
trains and have someone else ensure they run on time.
D: To make a ton of money.
NR: To make a ton of money with
specific reasons and defined dreams to chase, timelines and steps
included. What are you working for?
D: To have more.
NR: To have more quality and less clutter. To
have huge financial reserves but recognize that most material wants
are justifications for spending time on the things that don't really
matter, including buying things and preparing to buy things. You
spent two weeks negotiating your new Infiniti with the dealership
and got $10,000 off? That's great. Does your life have a purpose?
Are you contributing anything useful to this world, or just shuffling
papers, banging on a keyboard, and coming home to a drunken
existence on the weekends?
D: To reach the big pay-off, whether IPO, acquisition, retirement, or
other pot of gold.
NR: To think big but ensure payday comes every
day: cash flow first, big payday second.
D: To have freedom from doing that which you dislike.
N R: To have
freedom from doing that which you dislike, but also the freedom and
resolve to pursue your dreams without reverting
to work for work's sake (W4W). After years of repetitive work,
you will often need to dig hard to find your passions, redefine
your dreams, and revive hobbies that you let atrophy to near
extinction. The goal is not to simply eliminate the bad, which
does nothing more than leave you with a vacuum, but to pursue
and experience the best in the world.
resources
B1
- phone
Free and Low-Cost Internet (IP) Telephones
International Multi-Band and GSM-Compatible Phones
resources
B1
-EMBRACING THE MOBILE LIFESTYLE
TOOLS AND TRICKS
- freedom
It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom
than to go right in chains.
—THOMAS H. HUXLEY, English
biologist; known as "Darwin's Bulldog"
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
To be free, to be happy and fruitful, can only be attained
through sacrifice of many common but overestimated
things. —ROBERT HENRI
commitment to the mobile
lifestyle and long-term adventuring
Don't be afraid of the existential or social challenges. Freedom is
like a new sport. In the beginning, the sheer newness of it is exciting
enough to keep things interesting at all times. Once you have learned
the basics, though, it becomes clear that to be even a half-decent
player requires some serious practice.
Don't fret. The greatest rewards are to come, and you're 10 feet
from the finish line.
resources
B1
- speed
true freedom is much more than having enough income and time
to do what you want.
One cannot be free from the
stresses of a speed- and size-obsessed culture until you are free
from the materialistic addictions, time-famine mind-set, and comparative
impulses that created it in the first place.
This takes time. The effect is not cumulative, and no number of
two-week (also called "too weak") sightseeing trips can replace one
good walkabout
Learn to slow down. Get lost intentionally. Observe how you
judge both yourself and those around you. Chances are that it's been
a while.
Slowing down doesn't mean accomplishing less; it means
cutting out counterproductive distractions and the perception of
being rushed.
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
—MOHANDAS GANDHI
if you are accustomed to working 50 weeks per year, the tendency,
even after creating the mobility to take extended trips, will be to go
nuts and see 10 countries in 14 days and end up a wreck. It's like
taking a starving dog to an all-you-can-eat buffet.
like watching life on fast-forward
I recommend doing the exact opposite.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower.
Hear the music Before
the song is over.
resources
Click (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389860/)
B1
STEP IV: L IS FOR LIBERATION
-Q&A: QUESTIONS AND ACTIONS
B1
-AN E-MAIL YOU NEED TO READ
- sequence of steps
1. Revisit ground zero: Do nothing.
Before we can escape the goblins of the mind, we need to face
them. Principal among them is speed addiction.
2. Make an anonymous donation to the service organization of your choice.
This helps to get the juices flowing and disassociate feeling good about
service with getting credit for it. It feels even better when it's pure
3. Take a learning mini-retirement in combination with local
volunteering.
4. Revisit and reset dreamlines.
Following the mini-retirement, revisit the dreamlines set in
Definition and reset them as needed
5. Based on the outcomes of steps 1-4, consider testing new
part- or full-time vocations.
resources
B1
STEP IV: L IS FOR LIBERATION
-Q&A: QUESTIONS AND ACTIONS
- result
"life hubs"—starting points that lead to
opportunities and experiences that otherwise wouldn't be found.
There is no right answer to the question "What should I do with my
life?" Forget "should" altogether. The next step—and that's all it is—
is pursuing something, it matters little what, that seems fun or
rewarding. Don't be in a rush to jump into a full-time long-term
commitment. Take time to find something that calls to you, not just
the first acceptable form of surrogate work. That calling will, in turn,
lead you to something else.
resources
B1
- doubt
Without the
distraction of deadlines and co-workers, the big questions (such as
"What does it all mean?") become harder to fend off for a later time.
In a sea of infinite options, decisions also become harder—What the
hell should I do with my life? It's like senior year in college all over
again.
Most of this can be overcome as soon as we recognize it for what
it is: outdated comparisons using the more-is-better and money-assuccess
mind-sets that got us into trouble to begin with.
These doubts invade the mind when nothing else fills it.
If you find a focus, an ambitious
goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow, these
doubts disappear.
Doubts are no
more than a signal for action of some type. When in doubt or
overwhelmed, take a break and 80/20 both business and personal
activities and relationships.
resources
B1
Frustrations and Doubts:
You're Not Alone
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA
- secure
If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do
not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You
are better than you think.
resources
B1
- questions
In the process of searching for a new focus, it is almost inevitable
that the "big" questions will creep in.
Two popular examples are "What is the meaning of life?"
and "What is the point of it all?"
resources
B1
- social life
Surround yourself with
smiling, positive people who have absolutely nothing to do with
work. Create your muses alone if you must, but do not live your
life alone. Happiness shared in the form of friendships and love is
happiness multiplied.
resources
B1
- social isolation
The job itself might be a dead
end, but it's the web of human interactions—the social
environment—that keeps us there. Once liberated, this automatic
tribal unit disappears, which makes the voices in your head louder.
resources
B1
- companies
The new mantra is this: Work wherever and whenever you
want, but get your work done.
resources
B1
- mobility
Being bound to one place will be the new
defining feature of middle class. The New Rich are defined by a
more elusive power than simple cash—unrestricted mobility.
resources
B1
- dissapearing
It wasn't half as hard as I thought it would be.
The key to cutting the leash was simple—he asked for forgiveness
instead of permission.
resources
B1
-HOW TO ESCAPE THE OFFICE
Dave Camarillo's story
B1
Trading Bosses for Beer:
An Oktoberfest Case Study
B1
-HOW TO ESCAPE THE OFFICE
-Q&A: QUESTIONS AND ACTIONS
- technology
How does a lifelong blue-chip employee escape to travel the
world for a month without his boss even noticing? He uses technology
to hide the fact.
resources
B1
- the hourglass approach
it can be effective to take a longer period of absence up front in what some NR
have termed the "hourglass" approach, so named because you use a long proofof-
concept up front to get a short remote agreement and then negotiate back up
to full-time out of the office.
Here's what it looks like.
resources
B1
Trading Bosses for Beer:
An Oktoberfest Case Study
- mentor
Call at least one potential superstar mentor per day for three days. Email
only after attempting a phone call.
resources
B1
- clarity
People can dislike you—and you often sell more by offending some—
but they should never misunderstand you.
resources
B1
- per-hour rate
your personal per-hour rate
resources
B1
- remote management and communication
the most critical of NR skills
resources
B1
- GEOARBITRAGE
To exploit global pricing and currency differences for profit or lifestyle purposes
Fun things happen when you earn dollars, live on pesos, and
compensate in rupees
resources
B1
- rights
you only have the rights you fight for
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or
justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it. —MALCOLM
x, Malcolm X Speaks
resources
B1
- difficult
Learn to be difficult when it counts. In school as in life, having a
reputation for being assertive will help you receive preferential
treatment without having to beg or fight for it every time.
Think back to your days on the playground. There was always a
big bully and countless victims, but there was also that one small kid
who fought like hell, thrashing and swinging for the fences. He or
she might not have won, but after one or two exhausting exchanges,
the bully chose not to bother him or her. It was easier to find someone
else.
Be that kid.
resources
B1
- interruptions
a few simple routine changes make bothering you much more
painful than leaving you in peace.
It's time to stop taking information abuse.
Limit access to your time, force
people to define their requests before spending time with them, and
batch routine menial tasks to prevent postponement of more
important projects. Do not let people interrupt you.
Learn to recognize and fight the interruption impulse. This is
infinitely easier when you have a set of rules, responses, and
routines to follow. It is your job to prevent yourself and others from
letting the unnecessary and unimportant prevent the start-to-finish
completion of the important.
resources
B1
- minutiae
even if you
can do something better than the rest of the world, it doesn't mean
that's what you should be doing if it's part of the minutiae. Empower
others to act without interrupting you.
resources
B1
- status quo
Establish
yourself as a consistent challenger of the status quo and most people
will learn to avoid challenging you, particularly if it is in the interest
of higher per-hour productivity.
resources
B1
- resume
There is a
psychological switching of gears that can require up to 45 minutes to
resume a major task that has been interrupted.
resources
B1
- empowerment failures
instances where someone needs approval
to make something small happen. Here are just a few:
fixing customer problems (lost shipments, damaged shipments,
malfunctions, etc.), customer contact, cash expenditures
of all types.
refers to being unable to accomplish a task without
first obtaining permission or information
It is often a case of being
micromanaged or micromanaging someone else, both of which consume
your time.
I would like to establish a new policy for my account that
overrides all others.
Keep the customer happy. If it is a problem that takes less
than $100 to fix, use your judgment and fix it yourself.
resources
B1
- review
I reviewed
the financial results of their independent decision-making on
a weekly basis for four weeks, then a monthly basis, and then on a
quarterly basis.
resources
B1
- time consumers
repetitive tasks or requests that need to be
completed but often interrupt high-level work. Here are a few
you might know intimately: reading and responding to e-mail,
making and returning phone calls, customer service
resources
B1
- batching
Batching is
also the solution to our distracting but necessary time consumers,
those repetitive tasks that interrupt the most important.
check e-mail and phone calls twice per day at specific
predetermined times (between which we let them accumulate).
resources
B1
- routinize
what tasks can I allot to a specific time each day, week, month, quarter,
or year
resources
B1
- fixing
If the problems cost more than hours saved, scale back to the
next-less-frequent batch schedule. In this case, I would drop from
once per week to twice per week (not daily) and attempt to fix the
system so that I can return to once per week. Do not work harder
when the solution is working smarter.
resources
B1
- calculations
resources
B1
- setup time
The setup time is often the same for one item as it is for a hundred.
resources
B1
- time wasters
those things that can be ignored with little or no
consequence. Common time wasters include meetings,
discussions, phone calls, and e-mail that are unimportant.
the easiest to eliminate and deflect
resources
B1
- voicemail
Respond to voicemail via e-mail whenever possible. This
trains people to be concise.
resources
B1
- communication
steer people toward the following means of communication,
in order of preference: e-mail, phone, and in-person meetings. If
someone proposes a meeting, request an e-mail instead and then
use the phone as your fallback offer if need be.
resources
B1
- meetings
I don't want the story. Just tell me
what we need to do
Meetings should only be held to make decisions about a predefined
situation, not to define the problem.
ask
that person to send you an e-mail with an agenda to define the
purpose:
resources
B1
- Puppy Dog Close
Use the Puppy Dog Close to help your superiors and others
develop the no-meeting habit.
resources
B1
- focus
resolve to keep those around you
focused and avoid all meetings, whether in person or remote, that do
not have clear objectives.
Over the following weeks, he trained me to recognize when I
Was unfocused or focused on the wrong things, which meant anything
that didn't move the top two or three clients one step closer to
signing a purchase order. Our meetings were now no more than five
minutes long.
resources
B1
- end-time
if you absolutely cannot stop a meeting
or call from happening, define the end time. Do not leave
these discussions open-ended, and keep them short.
If things are
well-defined, decisions should not take more than 30 minutes.
If you still cannot deflect an invader, give the person a time limit
on your availability
resources
B1
- phone
The second step is to screen incoming and limit outgoing phone
calls.
resources
B1
- 2 numbers
Use two telephone numbers if possible—one office line (nonurgent)
and one cellular (urgent)
Use the cell number in the e-mail autoresponse and answer it
at all times unless it is an unidentified caller or it is a call you
don't want to answer. If in doubt, allow the call to go to voicemail
and listen to the voicemail immediately afterward to gauge importance.
If it can wait, let it wait. The offending parties have to
learn to wait.
The office phone should be put on silent mode and allowed to
go to voicemail at all times.
resources
B1
- greeting
Jane: Oh, hi, John. How are you? (or) Oh, hi, John. What's going
on?
John will now digress and lead you into a conversation about nothing
Jane: Hi, John. I'm right in the middle of something. How can I help
you out?
resources
B1
- chitchat
John: Oh, I can call back.
Jane: No, I have a minute. What can I do for you?
Don't encourage people to chitchat and don't let them chitchat.
Get them to the point immediately.
resources
B1
- postpone
John: Oh, I can call back.
Jane: No, I have a minute. What can I do for you?
If they meander or try to
postpone for a later undefined call, reel them in and get them to
come to the point.
Don't give them a chance to bail out. The "thanks in advance"
before a retort increases your chances of getting the e-mail.
I wouldn't let them "get back to me" but
rather force the person to give me a five-second summary and
then send me an e-mail if necessary.
resources
B1
- email & messenger
limit e-mail consumption and production. This is the greatest
single interruption in the modern world.
Turn off the audible alert if you have one on Outlook or a
similar program and turn off automatic send/receive, which delivers
e-mail to your inbox as soon as someone sends them
Never check e-mail first thing in the morning.
This habit alone can change your life. It seems small but has an enormous
effect.
resources
B1
www.aweber.com
- advantage
The e-mail medium forces people to define the desired outcome
of a meeting or call. Nine times out of ten, a meeting is
unnecessary and you can answer the questions, once defined, via
e-mail.
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- if..then
streamlined to prevent needless back-andforth.
Thus, an e-mail with "Can you meet at 4:00 P.M.?" would
become "Can you meet at 4:00 P.M.? If SO __ If not, please advise
three other times that work for you."
This "if. .. then" structure becomes more important as you
check e-mail less often. Since I only check e-mail once a week, it
is critical that no one needs a "what if?" answered or other information
within seven days of a given e-mail I send.
Get into the habit of considering what "if. . . then" actions can
be proposed in any e-mail where you ask a question.
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- twice-per-day
Check e-mail twice per day, once at 12:00 noon or just prior to
lunch, and again at 4:00 P.M. 12:00 P.M. and 4:00 P.M. are times
that ensure you will have the most responses from previously sent
e-mail.
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- important requests
I was initially terrified of missing important requests and inviting
disaster, just as you might be upon reading this recommendation.
Nothing happened. Give it a shot and work out the small bumps as
you progress.
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- autoresponse
Before implementing the twice-daily routine, you must create an
e-mail autoresponse that will train your boss, co-workers, suppliers,
and clients to be more effective.
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- sample
For an extreme example of a personal autoresponder that has
never prompted a complaint and allows me to check e-mail once per
week, send an e-mail to timothy@brainquicken.com. It has been
revised over three years and works like a charm.
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- once-per-day
MOVE TO ONCE-PER-DAY as quickly as possible. Emergencies are
seldom that. People are poor judges of importance and inflate minutiae
to fill time and feel important. This autoresponse is a tool that,
far from decreasing collective effectiveness, forces people to reevaluate
their reason for interrupting you and helps them decrease
meaningless and time-consuming contact.
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- cubicle
The cubicle is your temple—don't permit casual visitors.
Some
suggest using a clear "DO NOT DISTURB" sign of some type, but I
have found that this is ignored unless you have an office.
put headphones on, even if I wasn't listening to
anything.
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- interrupting interruptions
Cite other imme
diately pending work tasks as the reason.
Cite other commitments at odd times to make them more believable
(e.g., 3:20 vs. 3:30) and force people to focus instead of
socializing, commiserating, and digressing.
If they go into a long description of a problem,
cut in with, "Name, sorry to interrupt, but I have a call in five
minutes. What can I do to help out?" You might instead say,
"Name, sorry to interrupt, but I have a call in five minutes. Can
you send me an e-mail?"
If you
have to, feign an urgent phone call. Get the hell out of there and
have someone else update you later.
Don't make
up elaborate lies or you'll get called on them.
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- replacing yourself
Becoming a member of the NR is not just about working smarter.
It's about building a system to replace yourself.
this
is the ultimate continuation of our 80/20 and elimination process:
Preparing someone to replace you (even if it never happens) will
produce an ultrarefined set of rules that will cut remaining fat and
redundancy from your schedule
Lingering unimportant tasks will
disappear as soon as someone else is being paid to do them.
If I can do it better than an
assistant, why should I pay them at all? Because the goal is to free your
time to focus on bigger and better things.
If you spend your time, worth $20-25 Per
hour, doing something that someone else will do for $10 per hour,
it's simply a poor use of resources. It is important to take baby steps
toward paying others to do work for you. Few do it, which is another
reason so few people have their ideal lifestyles.
Even if the cost is occasionally more per hour than you currently
earn, the trade is often worth it
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- delegate
never
delegate something that can be automated or streamlined
Eliminate before you delegate.
Each delegated task must be both timeconsuming
and well-defined
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- leadership
It is your job to train those around you to be effective and efficient.
No one else will do it for you.
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- empowerment
It's amazing how someone's IQ seems to double as soon as you
give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them.
People are smarter than you think. Give them a chance to prove
themselves.
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- outsourcing
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let
alone. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU, naturalist
most of the ultrasuccessful companies in
the world do not manufacture their own products, answer their own
phones, ship their own products, or service their own customers.
There are hundreds of companies that exist to pretend to work for
someone else and handle these functions, providing rentable
infrastructure to anyone who knows where to find them.
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- India
- YMII
- Brickwork
- risk
The good news is that misuse of financial and confidential information is
rare.
like most
nightmares, it's not that big a deal and is reversible
never use the new hire. Prohibit
small-operation VAs from subcontracting work to untested freelancers
without your written permission
Never use debit cards for online transactions or with remote
assistants.
If your VA will be accessing websites on your behalf, create a
new unique login and password to be used on those sites
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- team
I don't like being dependent on one person, and I don't recommend
it in the least. In the world of high technology, this type of
dependency would be referred to as a "single point of failure
I recommend that you hire a VA firm or VAs with backup teams
instead of sole operators
use a small
group (three or more) rather than a single individual who can become
overtaxed with last-minute requests from multiple clients.
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- how to choose?
How do you know which to choose? That's the beautiful part:
You don't. It's a matter of testing a few assistants to both sharpen
your communication skills and determine who is worth hiring
Request someone who has "excellent" English and indicate that
phone calls will be required (even if not). Be fast to request a
replacement if there are repeated communication issues.
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- cost
The
important metric is cost per completed task, not cost per hour.
The biggest challenge with overseas help will be the language barrier,
which often quadruples back-and-forth discussion and the ultimate cost.
If you need to spend time restating the task and
otherwise managing the VA, determine the time required of you and
add this
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- Where on Earth
The pros of jumping
time zones and visiting third-world currency are twofold: People work while
you sleep, and the per-hour expense is less. Time savings and cost savings
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- virtual assistant (VA)
getting a remote personal assistant is small-scale training
wheels for remote management and
communication.
This is an investment, not an expense, and the ROI
is astounding.
have some fun with it
resources
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- choosing tasks
Look at your to-do list—what has been sitting on it the
longest?
Each time you are interrupted or change tasks, ask,
"Could a VA do this?"
Examine pain points—what causes you the most frustration
and boredom?
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- quantity
I advise sending one task at a time whenever possible and no
more than two.
prioritizing them
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- rephrase
Ask foreign VAs to
rephrase tasks to confirm understanding before getting started.
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- report
Request a status update
after a few hours of work on a task to ensure that the task is both
understood and achievable. Some tasks are, after initial attempts,
impossible.
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- negative cash flow
My domestic outsourcers are paid on performance or when
product ships. This creates a curious business phenomenon: Negative
cash flow is impossible.
resources
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- simplicity
Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to
take away.
—ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY, pioneer of international
postal flight and author of Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)
- comfort
the most important actions are never comfortable.
Fortunately, it
is possible to condition yourself to discomfort and overcome it.
There is a direct correlation between an increased
sphere of comfort and getting what you want
resources
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- emergencies
But what if someone has an emergency? It doesn't happen. My
contacts now know that I don't respond to emergencies, so the
emergencies somehow don't exist or don't come to me. Problems, as
a rule, solve themselves or disappear if you remove yourself as an information
bottleneck and empower others.
If you check mail and make bill payments five times a week, it
might take 30 minutes per instance and you respond to a total of 20
letters. If you do this once per week instead, it might take 60 minutes
total and you still respond to a total of 20 letters in two and a half
hours. People do the former out of fear of emergencies.
there
are seldom real emergencies. Second, of the urgent communication
you will receive, missing a deadline is usually reversible and
otherwise costs a minimum to correct.
resources
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- decisions
develop
the uncommon habit of making decisions, both for yourself and for
others.
propose solutions instead of ask for them, elicit desired responses instead of react
Stop asking for opinions and start proposing solutions.
It is impossible to have perfect and complete information at any
given time to make a decision.
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- consequences
The consequences of bad decisions do not get better with age.
resources
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- nonfinishing
Starting
something doesn't automatically justify finishing it.
If you are reading an article that sucks, put it down and don't
pick it back up.
More is not better, and stopping something is often 10 times
better than finishing it.
just because something has been a lot of work or consumed a lot of
I time doesn't make it productive or worthwhile.
Just because you are embarrassed to admit that you're still living
the consequences of bad decisions made 5, 10, or 20 years ago
shouldn't stop you from making good decisions now
Being able to quit things that don't work is integral to being a
winner. Going into a project or job without defining when worthwhile
becomes wasteful is like going into a casino without a cap on
what you will gamble: dangerous and foolish.
resources
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- pride
Pride is stupid
resources
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- complex vs difficult
Don't confuse the complex with the difficult. Most situations
are simple—many are just emotionally difficult to act upon.
The problem and the solution are usually obvious and simple.
You are just terrified
that you might end up worse off than you are now.
I'll tell you right now: If you're at this point, you won't be worse off.
resources
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- sources
get in touch with
someone who knows the answer instead of spending too much
time in books or online, which can turn into paralysis by analysis.
The best first step, the one I recommend, is finding someone
who's done it and ask for advice on how to do the same. It's not
hard.
resources
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- dreamlining technique
a process that I use to reignite life or
correct course when the Fat Man in the BMW rears his ugly
head
Dreamlining is so named because it applies timelines to what most
would consider dreams.
It is much like goal-setting but differs in several fundamental respects
Determine three steps for each of the four dreams in just the 6-
month timeline and take the first step now.
resources
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B1
Revisit and reset dreamlines.
- mistakes
If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard
enough problems. And that's a big mistake.
—FRANK WILCZEK, 2004 Nobel Prize winner in physics
There are two types of mistakes: mistakes of ambition and mistakes of sloth.
The first is the result of a decision to act—to do something. This type of
mistake is made with incomplete information, as it's impossible to have all the
facts beforehand. This is to be encouraged. Fortune favors the bold.
The second is the result of a decision of sloth—to not do something—
wherein we refuse to change a bad situation out of fear despite having all the
facts. This is how learning experiences become terminal punishments, bad
relationships become bad marriages, and poor job choices become lifelong
prison sentences.
Only those who are asleep make no mistakes.
—INGVAR KAMPRAD, founder of IKEA, world's largest
furniture brand
resources
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- list
Here are the slipups you will make. Don't get frustrated. It's all part
of the process.
1. Losing sight of dreams and falling into work for work's sake
(W4W)
2. Micromanaging and e-mailing to fill time
3. Handling problems your outsourcers or co-workers can handle
4. Helping outsourcers or co-workers with the same problem more
than once, or with noncrisis problems
5. Chasing customers, particularly unqualified or international
prospects, when you have sufficient cash flow to finance your
nonfinancial pursuits
6. Answering e-mail that will not result in a sale or that can
be answered by a FAQ or auto-responder
7. Working where you live, sleep, or should relax
8. Not performing a thorough 80/20 analysis every two to four
weeks for your business and personal life
9. Striving for endless perfection rather than great or simply
good enough, whether in your personal or professional life
10. Blowing minutiae and small problems out of proportion as an
excuse to work
11. Making non-time-sensitive issues urgent in order to justify
work
12. Viewing one product, job, or project as the end-all and
be-all of your existence
13. Ignoring the social rewards of life
resources
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The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes
- naming fear
Conquering Fear = Defining Fear
Why don't I decide exactly
what my nightmare would be—the worst thing that could possibly
happen as a result of my trip?
In other words, I was risking an unlikely and temporary 3 or 4 for a
probable and permanent 9 or 10, and I could easily recover my baseline workaholic prison with a bit of extra work if I wanted to.
This all equated to a significant realization: There was practically no
risk, only huge life-changing upside potential, and I could resume
my previous course without any more effort than I was already
putting forth.
Define
the worst case, accept it, and do it.
resources
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA
B1
- death
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every
morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my
life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And
whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a
row, I know I need to change something . . . almost everything—
all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment
or failure—these things just fall away in the face of
death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that
you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of
thinking you have something to lose. —STEVE JOBS, college
dropout and CEO of Apple Computer, Stanford University
Commencement, 2005
- rebuttals
there are several principal phobias that keep people on sinking ships,
and there are simple rebuttals for all of them.
resources
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Like Pulling Off a Band-Aid: Its Easier and
Less Painful Than You Think
- getting fired
Getting
fired, despite sometimes coming as a surprise and leaving you
scrambling to recover, is often a godsend: Someone else makes the
decision for you, and it's impossible to sit in the wrong job for the
rest of your life. Most people aren't lucky enough to get fired and die
a slow spiritual death over 30-40 years of tolerating the mediocre.
resources
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- risk
All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding
danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting
decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of
sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength
to suffer. —NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, The Prince
It became clear that the biggest risk in life wasn't making mistakes but regret:
missing out on things.
resources
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The Bora-Bora Dealmaker
- inaction
Don't only evaluate the potential downside of
action. It is equally important to measure the atrocious cost of
inaction.
if we define risk as "the likelihood of an
irreversible negative outcome," inaction is the greatest risk of all.
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- boredom
boredom is the enemy, not some abstract "failure."
resources
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- exercise
Resolve
to do one thing every day that you fear.
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- paradox
I'll repeat something you
might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing
most is usually what we most need to do.
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- set of questions to overcome fear
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- team
Whenever one of us began to set our sights lower, lose faith, or
"accept reality," the other would chime in via phone or e-mail like an
AA sponsor: "Dude, are you turning into the bald fat man in the red
BMW convertible?"
The
worst that could happen wasn't crashing and burning, it was accepting
terminal boredom as a tolerable status quo.
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- vehicle
The truth was, nothing was
wrong with me. I hadn't reached my limit; I'd reached the limit of my
business model at the time. It wasn't the driver, it was the vehicle.
If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the
rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.
— CHINESE PROVERB
resources
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The Renaissance Minimalist
Douglas Price's story
- cash flow and time
With these two currencies,
all other things are possible. Without them, nothing is possible.
resources
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- income
you have to free that time. The trick, of course, is to do so while
maintaining or increasing your income.
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- TDI—Target Daily Income
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- Target Monthly Income (TMI)
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- profit
profit is only profitable to the extent that you can use it.
For that you need time.
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- business model
THERE ARE A million and one ways to make a million dollars.
most of them are unsuited to our purpose
not for
people who want to run businesses but for those who want to own
businesses and spend no time on them
resources
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- case studies
There is a case study for every
situation, problem, and business model.
resources
www.hbsp.harvard.edu
B1
- muse
Before we create this virtual architecture, however, we need a
product to sell.
resources
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- credit card
Muses are low maintenance but often expensive in one or both of two tactical
areas: manufacturing and advertising. Shop for providers of both that are willing to
accept credit cards as payment, and negotiate this up front if necessary by saying,
"Rather than trying to negotiate you down on pricing, I just ask that you accept
payment by credit card. If you can do that, we'll choose you over Competitor X."
resources
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- math
How do you
know if it's big enough to meet your TMI? For a detailed real-life
example of how I determined the market size of a recent product, see
"Muse Math" on this book's companion site.
Let's
suppose that your current
dreamline—to compete in the 1,150-mile Iditarod dogsledding race
in Alaska—requires $5,000 to realize.
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- minimal customer base
Those 50 customers are what I call the "minimal
customer base"—the minimum number of customers you need to
convince of your expertise to fulfill a given dreamline
resources
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- goal
to create an automated vehicle for generating
cash without consuming time
resources
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- change the world
that isn't our goal here
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- IPO or sale
that isn't our goal either
resources
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- requirements
our target product can't take more
than $500 to test, it has to lend itself to automation within four
weeks, and—when up and running—it can't require more than one
day per week of management.
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- service
If you own a service business, this section will help
you convert expertise into a shippable hard good to escape the limits
of a per-hour-based model.
resources
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- automation
The first rule of any technology used in a business is that
automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify
the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an
inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.
—BILL GATES
Never automate something that can be eliminated
Principle number one is to refine rules and processes before
adding people. Using people to leverage a refined process multiplies
production; using people as a solution to a poor process multiplies
problems.
resources
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-MBA—MANAGEMENT BY ABSENCE
-TOOLS AND TRICKS
- architecture map
resources
B1
THE 4-HOUR WORKWEEK VIRTUAL ARCHITECTURE
- principles
There could be
differences—more or fewer elements—but the main principles are
the same:
1. Contract outsourcing companies that specialize in one function
vs. freelancers whenever possible so that if someone is fired,
quits, or doesn't perform, you can replace them without interrupting
your business.
2. Ensure that all outsourcers are willing to communicate among
themselves to solve problems, and give them written permission
to make most inexpensive decisions without consulting you first
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- scalable
It wasn't scalable because there was an information
and decision bottleneck: me.
It was endless. Hundreds upon hundreds of different situations made
it impractical to write a manual, and I didn't have the time or
experience to do so regardless.
Eliminate the decision bottleneck for all things that are nonfatal if
misperformed.
By "scalable," I mean a business architecture that can handle
10,000 orders per week as easily as it can handle 10 orders per week.
resources
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- phases
Phase I: 0-50 Total Units of Product Shipped
Do it all yourself. Put your phone number on the site for both general
questions and order-taking—this is important in the beginning
Phase II: >10 Units Shipped Per Week
Add the extensive FAQ to your website and continue to add answers
to common questions as received. Find local fulfillment companies in
the yellow pages under "fulfillment services" or "mailing services."
Phase III: >20 Units Shipped Per Week
Now you will have the cash flow to afford the setup fees and the
monthly minimums that bigger, more sophisticated outsourcers will
ask for. Call the end-to-end fulfillment houses that handle it all—
from order status to returns and refunds
Before signing on with a call center, get several 800 numbers they
answer for current clients and make test calls, asking difficult
product-related questions and gauging sales abilities.
resources
B1
-MBA—MANAGEMENT BY ABSENCE
-TOOLS AND TRICKS
- start with the end
starting with the end in mind—an organizational map of what the
eventual business will look like—is not new.
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- absence
This intentional absence has enabled him to create a processdriven
instead of founder-driven business. Limiting contact with
managers forces the entrepreneur to develop operational rules that
enable others to deal with problems themselves instead of calling for
help.
Our goal isn't to create a business that is as
large as possible, but rather a business that bothers us as little as
possible. The architecture has to place us out of the information flow
instead of putting us at the top of it.
I'm often asked how big my company is—how many people I
employ full-time. The answer is one. Most people lose interest at that
point. If someone were to ask me how many people run Brain-
QUICKEN LLC, on the other hand, the answer is different: between
200 and 300.1 am the ghost in the machine.
resources
B1
- profit
I recommend calculating profit
margins using higher-than-anticipated expenses. This will account for unforeseen
costs (read: screwups) and miscellaneous fees such as monthly reports, etc.
resources
B1
Splitting the Pie: Outsourcer Economics
- information
Increased
output necessitates decreased input. Most information is timeconsuming,
negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your
influence.
resources
B1
- observer
Genius is only a superior power of seeing.
—JOHN RUSKIN, famed art and social critic
How did I come up with the most successful BodyQUICK headline ("The Fastest
Way to Increase Power and Speed Guaranteed")? I borrowed it from the longestrunning,
and thus most profitable, Rosetta Stone headline: "The Fastest Way to Learn
a Language Guaranteed™" Reinventing the wheel is expensive—become an astute
observer of what is already working and adapt it.
resources
B1
- reading
It's not productive to read two fact-based books at the same time (this is one)
I know. I said not to read too much. Hence, the recommendations
here are restricted to the best of the best
Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from
its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses
his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
resources
B1
- faster
Here are four simple tips
that will lessen the damage and increase your speed at least 200% in 10 minutes
with no comprehension loss
resources
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- people
This personal contact
approach is not only more effective and more efficient than all-youcan-
eat info buffets, it also provided me with the major league
alliances and mentors necessary to sell this book.
Rediscover the
power of the forgotten skill called "talking." It works.
I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can
borrow. —WOODROW WILSON
resources
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- that you don't know
what if you need to learn to
do something your friends haven't done
1. I picked one book out of dozens based on reader reviews and
the fact that the authors had actually done what I wanted to do. If
the task is how-to in nature, I only read accounts that are "how I
did it" and autobiographical. No speculators or wannabes are
worth the time.
2. Using the book to generate intelligent and specific questions,
I contacted 10 of the top authors and agents in the world via email
and phone, with a response rate of 80%.
resources
B1
- that you know
I let other dependable people synthesize
hundreds of hours and thousands of pages of media for me. It
was like having dozens of personal information assistants, and I
didn't have to pay them a single cent.
resources
B1
- cost
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the
attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information
creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that
attention efficiently among the overabundance of information
sources that might consume it. —HERBERT SIMON, recipient of
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics7 and the A.M. Turing
Award, the "Nobel Prize of Computer Science"
resources
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- selectively ignorant
Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner
peace. —ROBERT J. SAWYER, Calculating God
The first step is to develop and maintain a low-information diet.
It is imperative that you learn to ignore
or redirect all information and interruptions that are irrelevant,
unimportant, or unactionable. Most are all three.
I read the front-page headlines through the newspaper machines
as I walk to lunch each day and nothing more.
per month, a grand total of approximately
four hours. That's it for results-oriented reading.
resources
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- relevance
Develop the habit of asking yourself, "Will I definitely use
this information for something immediate and important?"
It's not enough to use information for "something"—it needs to be
immediate and important. If "no" on either count, don't consume
it. Information is useless if it is not applied to something
important or if you will forget it before you have a chance to
apply it.
I only read the sections of the book that were relevant to immediate
next steps, which took less than two hours.
resources
B1
- principles
As to methods there may be a million and then some, but
principles are few. The man who grasps principles can
successfully select his own methods. The man who tries
methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
- customers
I lost one customer, but the other corrected course and
simply faxed orders, again and again and again. Problem solved,
minimum revenue lost. I was immediately 10 times happier.
more customers is not automatically more
income. More customers is not the goal and often translates into 90%
more housekeeping and a paltry 1-3% increase in income.
maximum income from minimal necessary effort (including
minimum number of customers) is the primary goal.
I duplicated my
strengths, in this case my top producers, and focused on increasing
the size and frequency of their orders.
resources
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- customer filtering
once you reach Phase III and have some cash flow, it's time to reevaluate
your customers and thin the herd.
Instead of dealing with problem customers, I recommend you
prevent them from ordering in the first place.
Those who spend the least and ask for the most before ordering
will do the same after the sale. Cutting them out is both a good
lifestyle decision and a good financial decision.
here are a few additional policies that
attract the high-profit and low-maintenance customers we want
Make your customer base an exclusive club, and treat the members
well once they've been accepted.
resources
B1
The Art of Undecision: Fewer
Options = More Revenue
- customer service
Serving the customer ("customer service") is not
becoming a personal concierge and catering to their every whim and
want. Customer service is providing an excellent product at an
acceptable price and solving legitimate problems (lost packages, replacements,
refunds, etc.) in the fastest manner possible. That's it.
I recommend looking at the customer as an equal trading partner and
not as an infallible blessing of a human being to be pleased at all
costs.
Be professional but never kowtow to unreasonable
people.
Here are a few methods
that I and other NR have used to reduce service overhead 20-80%
Eliminate phone orders completely and direct all prospects to
online ordering.
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The Art of Undecision: Fewer
Options = More Revenue
- priorities
Take time to stop and smell the roses, or—in this case— to
count the pea pods.
(reffers to applying to 80 / 20 principle)
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- action
Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no
happiness without action.
—BENJAMIN DISRAELI, former British Prime Minister
There's no difference between a pessimist who says, "Oh, it's
hopeless, so don't bother doing anything," and an optimist
who says, "Don't bother doing anything, it's going to turn out
fine anyway." Either way, nothing happens. —YVON
CHOUINARD,6 founder of Patagonia
Measure the cost of inaction, realize the unlikelihood and repairability
of most missteps, and develop the most important habit
of those who excel and enjoy doing so: action.
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- stress
The New Rich are equally aggressive in removing distress and
finding eustress.
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- wealth
Assuming that the total absolute
income is where it needs to be to live my dreams (not an arbitrary
point of comparison with the Joneses), relative income is the real
measurement of wealth for the New Rich.
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- lifestyle design
Lifestyle Design is thus not interested in creating an excess of idle
time, which is poisonous, but the positive use of free time, defined
simply as doing what you want as opposed to what you feel
obligated to do.
Lifestyle design is based on massive action—output.
mistakes are the name of the game in lifestyle design. It requires
fighting impulse after impulse from the old world of retirement-based life
deferral.
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- excess
Things in Excess Become Their Opposite.
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- failure
I can't give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give
you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the
time.
—HERBERT BAYARD SWOPE, American editor and
journalist; first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize
- success
Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite
simple, really. Double your rate of failure. —THOMAS J. WATSON,
founder of IBM
- strengths
Emphasize Strengths, Don't Fix Weaknesses
It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead
of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor. The choice
is between multiplication of results using strengths or incremental
improvement fixing weaknesses that will, at best, become
mediocre. Focus on better use of your best weapons instead of
constant repair.
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- dealmaker
The manifesto of the dealmaker is simple:
Reality is negotiable. Outside of science and law, all rules can be
bent or broken, and it doesn't require being unethical.
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- child
Learn to imitate any good child: "Just this once! Please!!! I
promise I'll do X!" Parents fall for it because kids help adults to
fool themselves. It works with bosses, suppliers, customers, and
the rest of the world, too
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- reverse
don't fall for it. If a boss asks for overtime "just this
once," he or she will expect it in the future.
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- Puppy Dog Close
The Puppy Dog Close is invaluable whenever you face resistance
to permanent changes
Get your foot in the door with a
"let's just try it once" reversible trial.
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- productivity
Repeat this routine and ensure that
you achieve more outside of the meeting than the attendees do
within it; repeat the disappearing act as often as possible and cite
improved productivity to convert this slowly into a permanent
routine change.
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- troublemaker
If it isn't going to devastate those around you, try it and then
justify it. People—whether parents, partners, or bosses—deny
things on an emotional basis that they can learn to accept
after the fact.
If the potential damage is moderate or in any way
reversible, don't give people the chance to say no.
Most people
are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitant to get in the
way if you're moving.
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- sorry
saying sorry when you really screw up.
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- assumptions
Test the most basic
assumptions
Different is better when it is more effective or more fun.
If everyone is defining a problem or solving it one way and the
results are subpar, this is the time to ask, What if I did the opposite?
Don't follow a model that doesn't work. If the recipe sucks, it doesn't
matter how good a cook you are.
What does an igloo-dwelling millionaire do that a cubicle-dweller
doesn't? Follow an uncommon set of rules.
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- options
Options—the ability to choose—is real power.
see and create those options with the least effort and
cost.
Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player,
not the chess piece. —RALPH CHARELL
In the world of action and negotiation, there is one principle
that governs all others: The person who has more options has
more power. Don't wait until you need options to search for them.
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- first step
The options are limitless, but each path begins with the same first
step: replacing assumptions.
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