The Four Hour Jolt! Part 5

The Four Hour Jolt! Part 5
Derived from Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Work Week - New and Expanded Edition Now Available!
Tim's Blog: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/

RAP4: Eliminate
PROFIT : Time management says we should be more efficient with the way we work. TIM’s DEAL demands you be more effective with your time by being more selective on what tasks you spend your time on. We’ve all been to too many meetings. It’s time to stop doing the things that get in the way of living our dream. Here’s some suggestions to get you started, I mean, stopping.

Single Focus
Stop multi-tasking - it only leaves you stressed and unfocused. You’re better off dealing with one thing at a time with your complete and full attention. Apply the Pareto Principle and focus on the 20% of effort that produces 80% of your results.

Information Underload
There’s a limit to how much information we can organise and digest. Information Overload is merely a futile attempt to keep up to date with too much stuff. Narrow your focus and go on an information diet. Eliminate unnecessary TV, news watching, magazine reading, web surfing, book reading, and email activity. Eliminate Inputs, Maximise Output.

Be Effective There is an efficiency epidemic among intelligent people to focus on how to do things better as opposed to what to do. Time management simply doesn’t work. The biggest gains in your productivity will come from choosing more wisely what activities you are going to take on. Eliminate the ones that make minimal impact.

Refuse Opportunities
Say ‘No’ to anything that doesn’t forward your dream. Remember your time is the currency of your life and you never get back what you waste. Stop trying to be popular with people you don’t care about and start living your dream.

Interuption Avoidance
Research shows that every time we get interupted it takes about 10 minutes to get back to where we were. Do what ever it takes to avoid being interupted. Know when to be a hermit and work from home and set up ways to signal that you don’t want to be interupted. Go to war on the Weapons of Mass Distraction like email, phone calls, meetings...

Schedule Time Wasters
Sounds like a contradiction and that’s exactly what you need. Schedule when you read your emails and when you answer/make phone calls. Grouping like activities saves the time we all need to get our heads around the task in front of us. It also avoids doing tasks more often than we really need to.

Quit Quick
Know when to quit. If a meeting is not turning out - leave. If a movie sucks - leave. If a task is failing - quit. Read Seth Godin’s The Dip for a fuller explanation.

Time Questions

1. Am I being productive or am I just being busy?
2. Am I working on something that builds my dream?
3. Am I working on the things that will produce the best results?