ePersonal Development

I’ve been reading the 4-hour workweek by Tim Ferris, and I’m quite impress so far. Much of what is said throughout the book is “Do more while working less”. Many of you have heard about this, some may not. It’s said that the vast majority of people believe that it’s by doing more that you gain more, well, this book goes against it all.

I won’t write a book review yet since I don’t know how the rest of the book will unfold, but from the small advices I’ve learned so far, I think many are worth sharing.

1. If you’re following the GTD method (Getting Things Done), look at your list of to-dos and see if you could cut that list in half. Find stuff that aren’t worth working on, or stuff you could delegate, but you didn’t delegate for any specific reason.

2. If you’re working on many different aspects of your life right now, take some time and analyse what brings you joy. Use the 80/20 rules to help you out. 20% of what you do actually brings 80% of your happiness. By the same token, 80% of what brings you stress, anger and such is brought by 20% of the people you know, stuff you do, tasks you have, etc. If you can do without them, wipe them out of your life for good.

3. If effectiveness and efficiency is what you strive for, ask yourself at least twice per day “I’m I being productive or just active?” If it is the latter, stop what you’re doing at that moment, and focus.

4. On effectiveness. It’s not worth being efficient if you’re not doing something effective, meaning that you must work toward your goal. If what you’re doing is “productive of a result”, that’s what you’re looking for. If you’re only doing without any goal in mind, it’s not worth doing. Note that those “results” must be toward the accomplishment of goals you’ve set yourself. Goals toward a life you want to live.

5. Do stuff that get you out of your comfort zone. I’ll never repeat this one enough, getting out of your regular stuff is something you MUST be able to do by yourself. When it’ll be normal for you to be incomfortable, you’ll have a huge advantage compared to other people, and you’ll have knowledge they don’t have: scary stuff isn’t that scary when done once.

6. This tip is GTD related (I’ve been reading this one too). Daily, set yourself one goal you want to accomplish. Then, find what the next action toward that goal is. Be the most explicit possible. i.e. “Call Joe at 555-1010 and ask prices for the new Madza RX-8″. Someone else must be able to do the next action for you only by reading the description. But don’t use more than one sentence, that’d be overdoing it.

7. “Cut the fat”. Stop looking at your email each half hour. Decice on ONE time per day which will be your email reading and replying time. Don’t be afraid of doing it. Many think they’ll miss opportunities by doing so, but it’s pretty impossible. If you’re afraid of missing such opportunities, set up an autoresponder which will say “If your email is urgent, please call me @ 555-5555″. This will prevent you from missing “that” opportunity.

8. Try doing stuff in batch. This is related to the last point. If you can do a task once instead of spreading it through the day, it will be much more efficient since you won’t be disturbed while doing it. Yes, make sure you don’t get disturbed during those “intensive” work period.

9. Stay focused. When you’re working on a specific task, avoid at all cost going to email, msn, phone or doing something else than what you primary focused yourself on. This will allow you to be much more efficient and will produce better results.

10. Do the impossible instead of the possible. Make goal impossible to reach in order to make sure that you do more than required. It’s not by setting up easy stuff to do that you’ll be considered someone who achieve. It’s by going for what you truly want that you’ll be able to make those “impossible” goals possible.