Wasting Time and Energy?
I left the life of drudgery to work freelance and to be an entrepreneur. What I quickly learned is that I didn't know how to work in an unstructured, unscheduled environment. I knew I needed to make an income and wasn't too inclined to piddle away my days but I found myself doing unnecessary and repetitious work.
Then I re-read a book.
Actually, I bought another copy of a revised and updated book.
The book was "The 4 Hour Workweek", a book I had originally bought for my daughter since at the time 4 hours was about what she thought she wanted to work since she was inclined to vagabond about Europe and Australia. The book is either praised or reviled on the blogosphere, mainly due to the author, Tim Ferris, being a bit of a self promoter. Whether he's a douchebag or not, I can't say since I've never met him but I can say that the book is life changing if you take it in the spirit in which it is meant. I doubt that he is as bad as some bloggers make out and suspect that they are allowing a little professional jealousy to creep into their writing. I don't believe I have heard anyone actually slam the contents of the book, just the author, so….
The 4 Hour Workweek isn't really about just working 4 hours a week. It boils down to stripping away the non-essential tasks of your work and either doing away with them or farming them out to someone else.
Let me give you an example of what I mean.
If I am going to do an article on Home Remedies for Gout, I can do the research myself, plodding my way through website after website, looking for the morsels. After three hours of research I may have found 6 websites that actually provide info, the other 100 were useless or repetitious. During that three hours I have either lost whatever income I could have made or lost time doing something I would rather do (side note: I am finding as I age, time doing what I like to do is worth a lot to me.)
Using the 4 hour work week principles, I would instead assign that task to one of my Virtual Assistants who work in the Philippines, South American or India, and pay the $2 an hour. If I am working and making $20 an hour, those three hours are a gain for me of $54. If I instead spend that time on the beach, I spend $6, but had a lot more than $6 worth of relaxation. At the end of the three hours I have a memo waiting in my email with the essential facts as well as a link to where they were found and a list of other sites that were most relevant.
There is a little learning curve while your VAs learn what you want, but it is minimal.
That is just one of many examples of how the book has revolutionized how I work.
One of my frequent partners on business ventures is an attorney who has an office practice. I gave him a copy of the book and last week he thanked me and told me that the book had changed his life. His practice is streamlined, he is venturing into other areas but has more time to do what he likes.
I'm putting an Amazon link below and on the sidebar and hope you consider using it if the book interests you, but even if you choose not to link there through my ad, get the book! Drop me an email and let me know how it affects you or if it doesn't.
