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This is another one that took me a long time to learn. Starting something doesn’t automatically justify finishing it.
More is not better, and stopping something is often 10 times better than finishing it. Develop the habit of nonfinishing that which is boring or unproductive if a boss isn’t demanding it.
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.
Greetings, Friends [or Esteemed Colleagues], Due to high workload, I am currently checking and responding to e-mail twice daily at 12:00 P.M. ET [or your time zone] and 4:00 P.M. ET. If you require urgent assistance (please ensure it is urgent) that cannot wait until either 12:00 P.M. or 4:00 P.M., please contact me via phone at 555-555-5555. Thank you for understanding this move to more efficiency and effectiveness. It helps me accomplish more to serve you better. Sincerely, Tim Ferriss
The cost- and time-effective solution, therefore, is to wait until you have a larger order, an approach called “batching.” Batching is also the solution to our distracting but necessary time consumers, those repetitive tasks that interrupt the most important.
Do not work harder when the solution is working smarter. I have batched both personal and business tasks further and further apart as I’ve realized just how few real problems come up.
Empowerment failure 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.
For the employee, the goal is to have full access to necessary information and as much independent decision-making ability as possible. For the entrepreneur, the goal is to grant as much information and independent decision-making ability to employees or contractors as possible.
It’s amazing how someone’s IQ seems to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them.
Blaming idiots for interruptions is like blaming clowns for scaring children—they can’t help it. It’s their nature.
The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet. —WILLIAM GIBSON, author of Neuromancer; coined term “cyberspace” in 1984
Becoming a member of the NR is not just about working smarter. It’s about building a system to replace yourself.
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.
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”—one fragile item upon which all else depends. In the world of IT,15 the term “redundancy” is used as a selling point for systems that continue to function if there is a malfunction or mechanical failure in any given part.
Confirming Sufficient Market Size Compete (www.compete.com) and Quantcast (www.quantcast.com) Find the number of monthly visitors for most websites, in addition to the search terms that generate the most traffic for them. Writer’s Market (www.writersmarket.com) Here you’ll find a listing of thousands of specialty and niche magazines, including circulation and subscription numbers. I prefer the print version.
Spyfu (www.spyfu.com) Download competitors’ online advertising spending, keywords, and ad-word details. Consistent and repeat spending generally indicates successful advertising ROI. Standard Rate and Data Services (www.srds.com) Check out this resource for annual listings of magazine and company customer mailing lists available for rent. If you’re considering creating a how-to video for duck hunting, check out the size of customer lists from hunting gun manufacturers and related magazines first. Use the print version in libraries instead of paying for the somewhat confusing online access.
LegalZoom (www.legalzoom.com) Company formation, trademarks, and nearly all legal documents. I know one founder who used this service to incorporate his tech start-up, which is now worth more than $200 million. Corporate Creations (www.corporatecreations.com) Domestic and overseas company formation.
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.
The more options you offer the customer, the more indecision you create and the fewer orders you receive—it is a disservice all around. Furthermore, the more options you offer the customer, the more manufacturing and customer service burden you create for yourself. The art of “undecision” refers to minimizing the number of decisions your customers can or need to make.
It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains. —THOMAS H. HUXLEY,
By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day. —ROBERT FROST, American poet and winner of four Pulitzer Prizes
While entrepreneurs have the most trouble with Automation, since they fear giving up control, employees get stuck on Liberation because they fear taking control.
If you decide to jump ship, consider letting them make you walk the plank—quitting is often less appealing than tactfully getting fired and using severance or unemployment to take a long vacation.
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. —NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI, The Prince
Most people aren’t lucky enough to get fired and die a slow spiritual death over 30–40 years of tolerating the mediocre.
Just because something has been a lot of work or consumed a lot of 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. If you let pride stop you, you will hate life 5, 10, and 20 years from now for the same reasons.
Now that we’re all on a level playing field: Pride is stupid. 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. “But, you don’t understand my situation. It’s complicated!” But is it really? 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. It’s not that you don’t know what to
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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
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
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I’ve seen one determinant of sex appeal to good employers: performance. If you are a rock star when it comes to results, it doesn’t matter if you jump ship from a bad company after three weeks. On the other hand, if tolerating a punishing work environment for years at a time is a prerequisite for promotion in your field, could it be that you’re in a game not worth winning?
I-Resign (www.i-resign.com [inactive]) This site provides everything from non-quitting options (work-leave, vacations) to sample resignation letters and second-life job-hunting advice. Don’t miss the helpful discussion forums and hysterical “web consultant from London” letter.
The Birth of Mini-Retirements and the Death of Vacations There is more to life than increasing its speed. —MOHANDAS GANDHI
Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything. —CHARLES KURALT, CBS news reporter
visiting seven countries and going through at least 20 check-ins and checkouts with a friend who had negotiated three weeks off. The trip was an adrenaline-packed blast but like watching life on fast-forward. It was hard for us to remember what had happened in which countries (except Amsterdam),69 we were both sick most of the time, and we were upset to have to leave some places simply because our pre-purchased flights made it so.
True freedom is much more than having enough income and time to do what you want. It is quite possible—actually the rule rather than the exception—to have financial and time freedom but still be caught in the throes of the rat race. 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.
In the experience of those I’ve interviewed, it takes two to three months just to unplug from obsolete routines and become aware of just how much we distract ourselves with constant motion.
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. Take at least two months to disincorporate old habits and rediscover yourself without the reminder of a looming return flight.
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. It leaves a vacuum. Decreasing income-driven work isn’t the end goal. Living more—and becoming more—is.
Learning to replace the perception of time famine with appreciation of time abundance is like going from triple espressos to decaf.
People say that what we are seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.
Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas. —PAULA POUNDSTONE
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.
“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.
Make this trade a habit. Let the small bad things happen and make the big good things happen.
One of the most universal causes of self-doubt and depression: trying to impress people you don’t like. Stressing to impress is fine, but do it for the right people—those you want to emulate.
Are you having a breakdown or a breakthrough?
Opportunities abound in bad times as well as good times. In fact, the opportunities are often greater when the conventional wisdom is that everything is going into the toilet.
Income is renewable, but some other resources—like attention—are not. I’ve talked before about attention as a currency and how it determines the value of time.
1. Considering options costs attention that then can’t be spent on action or present-state awareness. 2. Attention is necessary for not only productivity but appreciation.
I could have considered half a dozen types of ground transportation in 15 minutes and saved 30–40%, but I grabbed a taxi instead. To use illustrative numbers: I didn’t want to sacrifice 10 attention units of my remaining 50 of 100 total potential units, since those 10 units couldn’t then be spent on this article. I had about eight hours before bedtime due to time zone differences—plenty of time—but scarce usable attention after an all-nighter of fun and the cross-country flight. Fast decisions preserve usable attention for what matters.
