A Four-Hour Work Week??
Hello world! Long time, no blog! A lot happening, though. Lots. Much. But are they things worth writing about? Some of them, but not many.
Matt recently lent me a copy of The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris and while I think that Ferris is an arrogant jerk, I think the book is quite good. Would I do everything he suggests? No, probably not. But I am currently doing some of the things and it is working.
The whole idea is not to work only four hours a week, but instead to do what you want — instead of filling your days with working you instead should be doing the things that you want to do. To put it more succinctly, you should work to live, not live to work.
Here are some questions from the book that got an interesting discussion between Gina and I — If you had $100 million in the bank, what would you do every day? Or what would about your day would get you excited just as you woke up in the morning?
Here are some work tips that I am trying to implement. I’m not as adamant about them as he is, but they are working.
- Avoid meetings whenever possible. Simply say that you don’t have the time.
- Avoid any and all interruptions. I have big headphones and they help avoid the “chatters” who walk by my cube.
- Only check email twice a day — and never right away in the morning. He suggests 11am and 4pm. Due to my 7am-4pm schedule, I do it 10am and at 3pm. And not checking it right away in the morning is a huge help.
- Work in batches. This is especially helpful and something that I was kinda going anyway. Save common task at one time and just get * them done. It’s amazing how fast you get things done when you do this.
All of the above things are related — they really just come down to two of the rules — work in batches and avoid interruptions.