Applying the concepts of the 4-Hour Workweek

My Experimental Journey to Lifestyle Design — Week 1

I’m going to take you along my journey to Lifestyle Design. Recently, I began reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, and I’m going to take you through my reading, thoughts, exercises, and takeaways. If you have read the book and done similar exercises, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences as well.

I’m jumping in here at Chapter 5 — “The End of Time Management.” Time management is something I always felt I excelled at. But do I?

Chapter Takeaways/Highlights:

1.) There is a big difference between being effective and being efficient. Efficient = being good at getting tasks done in an economical manner. Effective = getting tasks done to move closer to your goals.

2.) The 80/20 principle. Pareto’s principle, that 20% of X will lead to 80% of Y (This is flexible, and can go as high as 99/1). This is something I’ve had go in one ear and out the other before. However, I only considered it in terms of a business. This really applies to all facets of life: customers, friends, time, problems, happiness…

3.) Parkinson’s Law: a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. (Think semester group projects). While this seems like a huge task, simply because you are given weeks to accomplish it, that is not necessarily the case. The same task, given a shorter period of time, can be accomplished in the same level of effectiveness.

4.) Work for Work’s sake (w4w) and multitasking. Doing a lot of work does not mean you are doing important work. Multitasking is a myth, and just perpetuates task creep — making you think you are doing more but really you are accomplishing less.

Personal Takeaways/Reflection:

1.) I have always valued efficiency. It’s my German heritage. But I am efficient to a fault. I am an absolute slave to my email inbox — constantly checking and responding to things. It’s done a lot for me, but it’s a huge drag on my actual life.

It’s time to be effective. Tim recommends asking yourself constantly, “If this is all I accomplish today, would I be happy?” And what activities do I use as a crutch to prevent being actually productive? Using this framework, I am going to spend this upcoming week avoiding task creep and working on goals that actually move me closer to my goals:

** Locating and communicating over the phone with a potential Startup Weekend Sponsor.

** Nailing down sales with landlords for space on the MarketOSU housing platform

** I also deleted the majority of my iPhone apps and sorted things into groups, giving my phone only the home screen. In this way, I will waste less time simply scrolling left to right (do you do this as much as I did?) and using my social media apps. By putting them in a group, I remember my purpose in doing so before actually making the second click. In addition, I deleted SnapChat weeks ago and haven’t missed it at all.

2.) This weekend, I am going to partake in some deep self-reflection on the following two specific questions:

** What 20% of people/businesses/time spent causes 80% of my stress and unhappiness, and how can I begin alleviating them/firing those people? [Early thoughts: Email, roommates, social media].

** What 20% of people/work/time spent contributes to 80% of my happiness and satisfaction, and how can I focus on those activities? [Early thoughts: my BBC team/friends, MarketOSU sales, Startup Weekend Organizing, working out, and of course my girlfriend].

3.) How can I start scheduling things into smaller time frames to achieve them more quickly? This is a real struggled when organizing Startup Weekend. With several months in advance, how can I every day move the ball forward?

** Next week, I will set daily goals for talking to people about startup weekend, as well as corporate/sponsorship outreach goals.

** I gave myself one hour to complete this email. I failed. But, to be fair, I was setting up an Amazon Affiliates account.

4.) I multitask to a fault as well. It was part of my perceived efficiency. Next week, I will work to set specific time blocks to answer and respond to emails, and work on things in “bins.”

Summary

Thanks for reading. These won’t be this long going forward, with no more need for explanation of why I’m doing this necessary. Have a great weekend!

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