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The 4-Hour Workweek

June 8, 2009 By

Check e-mail once a week? Give your cell number to only a few people? Work less than 10 hours a week? That’s insanity…or a really good plan. Timothy Ferriss, bestselling author of “The 4-Hour Workweek”, not only goes against the business norm and breaks most business rules every written, he’s making a fortune doing it.51fsazava3l_sl500_aa240_1

Timothy’s book gives you ways to save time, outsource administrative help (he prefers overseas sources) and give people who work for you more authority to make day-to-day decisions. In the section, Time Wasters: Become an Ignoramus, he describes how e-mail time wasters are the easiest to eliminate and deflect. He feels that e-mail is “the greatest single interruption in the modern world” and offers a few suggestions.

  • 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.
  • Check e-mail twice per day, once at 12:00 noon or just prior to lunch, and again at 4:00 P.M.  (Because) 12:00 P.M. and 4:00 P.M. are times that ensure you will have the most responses from previously sent e-mail.
  • Never check e-mail first thing in the morning. Instead, complete your most important task before 11:00 A.M. to avoid using lunch or reading e-mail as a postponement excuse.
    Work less…make more…makes sense.
Filed Under: Time mgmt./Productivity Tagged With: , , ,

Not So Big Home Office

May 18, 2009 By

You know those folks who live in a house that’s twice the size it needs to be for their family to live comfortably? I used to be one of them but I’m happy to say that my current, realistically sized house meets my family’s needs perfectly. Who needs to take care of extra square footage? I love living smaller. Simplifying my life was one of the best things I’ve ever done—aside from having two incredible sons (of course I’m extremely biased).

A new house isn't always the best option for a new home office.

A new house isn't the only option for a new home office.

Sarah Susanka, the queen of the “Not So Big” empire (she’s written eight books on the subject) has stood on her smaller house soapbox for years and tried to convince all of us to reduce our square footage. I think she was ahead of her time. When people were building McMansions, she was telling everyone to lower their obnoxiously high ceilings and create smaller, cozier spaces. She knew what she was talking about.

In her latest book, “Not So Big Remodeling: Tailoring Your Home for the Way You Really Live” (Taunton Press, $32), Susanka and co-author Marc Vassallo, share valid points for remodeling over buying a new house. (Although if you want a good deal on a house, it’s not a bad idea to buy now.) She provides three main solutions for remodeling your home: working within the existing footprint; designing room “bumpouts” that extend the space by a couple of feet; and doing small-scale, cost-effective room additions.

She suggests creating a clear separation between your home office and the rest of your home including making the door to your home office different from the rest of your home. That provides you with a physical reminder to get to work.

A friend recently asked me if I missed my former house. After I told her what I used to pay in utility bills, property taxes and maintenance costs, the answer was obvious: bigger isn’t always better.

Filed Under: Home office design, Home office setup Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

April 24, 2009 By

I read a lot of business books—or start to read them—then put the book down, disappointed. There’s no new information, unique strategies, or tips for running a business first-hand. So when I ran across Mike Michalowicz’s book, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur (TPE), I was skeptical. Mike’s direct, to-the-point, and in-your-face writing style won me over. TPE is filled with insight Mike’s gained through buying and selling businesses and working with other entrepreneurs to help them grow their businesses. These are some of my favorite nuggets of information from his book: 28546546

  • Capture your action items. As the ideas or thoughts of what you need to do cross your mind, write them down on a list. There is comfort in knowing you have a record of what needs to be done.
  • Prioritize. A lot of things you need to do are small, quick items, but they can swallow up time by wasting an eternity winding up and down from them. Prioritize a list of the important stuff first and group together the smaller stuff to be done in one shot later. Or better yet, have someone else do the smaller stuff.
  • If it only takes two, do. Sometimes tasks are so simple and quick that the time you would take to get them recorded and prioritized would take longer than just doing them in the first place.
  • Concentrate your thoughts. Instead of clouding your mind with rambling thoughts, stop for a moment and focus on one thing. Think about it repeatedly and then tear into it. This isn’t as hard as it sounds.
  • Go in spurts. Many people perform better by working in shorter segments taking a break from the action, and then starting up again.Try it. Go into a task with the promise that you will both take breaks as needed and get right back to it when break time is over.
Filed Under: Making money from home Tagged With: , , , ,
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