I am currently re-reading both “The 4-hour work week” and “The 4-hour body” (both by Tim Ferriss), and am reminded that I (we) regularly over-complicate our lives and waste a lot of our time focussing on the 80%-97.5% of things that ultimately will make very-little-if-any difference to our lives and to having or doing the things we want.
Our old paradigm of “work hard”, “put in the hours”, “do more” and being busy, are not necessarily serving us – but most of us, including myself, don’t regularly pause and restructure for greatest benefit.
Tim reminds us that in most things in life, as per Pareto’s principle, the 2.5%-20% we put in, can-and-will produce 80%-97.5% of the results. So if we focus on that Minimum Effective Dose (Quantity), we have time to do more of the things we want to do or achieve. By way of example, knowing approximately 5% of the most frequently used words in a language can often allow us to understand as much of 95% of communication in that language, and can be achieved in a short amount of time. Acquiring the other 5% could take a lifetime for very little additinal benefit.
Yesterday, I took myself through his Dreamlining exercise to re-state / re-establish what some of my Having, Being and Doing goals are and just what it would take to actualize these – it was a great reminder that one doesn’t need millions in the bank to have, experience and be all that we want. By reducing everything to a monthly and daily income to achieve this, it becomes much more realistic. I worked out that for around £1,000 per day, I can have pretty-much everything in my dreamlining list, including what some might consider an extravagant 2 hours of time flying jet aircraft every month (one of my childhood dreams and something I did for my 40th birthday) – and the best part is that many, many consultants earn way more than this per day (so it is actually achievable as long as we suspend self doubt and focus on the principles in the books.)
I also started on Occam’s protocol for physical training (from “The 4-hour Body”) – with the most challenging part being disciplined enough to suspend disbelief, apply the lessons and actually DO LESS than I would ordinarily do at the gym. It felt strange walking in, completing my workout in less than 10 minutes, and walking out before all those that were in the gym before me with “That’s it?” expressions on their faces. Or maybe it was just my projection.
Often considered to be two of the best life-hacking books around, they are well worth a read if you want to transform your work-life, financial situation, health & fitness or just generally have more time to focus on all the things you want to have, be or do. However, as Tim requests in the books, be sceptical WITH action (ie test it out with questions) – DON’T be sceptical with in-action.
Try it out for a month and see how you go. As always, while I do love reading hard-copies, I recommend buying on Amazon Kindle and opt to Add Audible Narration (so you can interchange between reading and listening as desired or as necessary). Enjoy!!
Links:
The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich
The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming Superhuman
us an incredible insight into the most successful team in sporting history and shows how their rituals, symbols and stories contribute to their success. These are lessons not just for sport and business, but for life. Just as the All Blacks are expected to “leave the jersey in a better place”, imagine if we all lived our lives to “leave the world in a better place” – how would we live differently and how would we be differently (than perhaps we are today)?
describes the way that great breakthrough ideas come from asking better questions of ourselves and gives many real-life examples of these. He also challenges the current approach to education in many countries, systems and schools – highlighting the fact that most are filling children’s minds with information, rather than getting them to really enquire, think and create.