Here’s me, glass of merlot in hand, 1:30pm on a Sunday afternoon. Sufjan Stevens’ newest record, “Planetarium”, is serenading me from across the room. A cooling breeze and bright rays of sunlight blow past me from the open windows at my back.
I don’t look like a man who just set a bunch of big, ambitious goals. I look like a dude on vacation.
That’s the essence of the Tim Ferriss philosophy - if your work plan is to hustle for 80 hours a week, grinding yourself to the bone, you’re doing it wrong. The proven method for ambitious work is to force yourself to find an elegant solution.
My Quarterly Review
Yesterday I sat down for my “Quarterly Review”. In the past, I have struggled to do this kind of thing. I usually sit down, try to think about my plans for the next quarter of the year, get way overwhelmed, question life, lurk Facebook, get angry at myself, give up, and go eat a burrito. Not so good.
This time I was determined to do it right. I re-read large portions of Tim’s famous debut book, “The Four Hour Work Week”, looking for answers.
Actually, I wasn’t looking for answers - I was looking for questions. I’ve learned that finding the right question is the first step to finding the right answer. Most people look directly for the answer, but they don’t define the question first.
I can’t post too much of the book's text here - but Fair Use laws allow me to share a few tidbits. Here are two powerful questions that I took from Tim for my Quarterly Review:
(1) If you had a heart attack & had to work no more than two hours per day, what would you do?
(2) If you had to stop doing 80% of time-consuming activities, what would you remove?
One other tiny piece from the book, paraphrased, is this: You are only allowed to assign yourself two tasks per day. If you need more than two, you’re picking things that don’t create enough value.
These are challenging questions. Here are my answers:
These questions are amazing. Performing an 80/20 analysis on my work tasks forced me to really cut down to the most important stuff that I do. We all tend to try and “feel productive” at times, when in reality that feeling is not helpful.
Fake Productivity is the Enemy
In fact, feeling productive is often the enemy of actually being productive. Examples of this:
-The artist who practices 4 hours a day but doesn’t release any work, or refuses to promote themselves, and never gains an audience.
-The office worker who makes sure to do nothing wrong, therefore avoiding getting in trouble, but doesn’t actually contribute value to the business.
-The boss who walks around the office, “checking in” with people, feeling personally productive but making everybody else slower and less effective.
This was by far my best ever "Quarterly Review", after several really ineffective attempts in the past. I’m feeling refreshed and optimistic. It’ll be more of a 20-hour work week than a 4-hour work week, but hey - it’s a start :-)
How do you plan for the future? Any tactics or ideas that I haven’t mentioned here? Let’s talk about it in the comments.
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