Stop Deferring Your Life Plan
I’ve been sleeping with Tim Ferriss for several years.
His book, ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ has laid on my husband’s bedside table and as I wake, it’s what I see first. During the occasional dust and polish, I’ve held him, intrigued with what my husband has done with his new found knowledge … and yes, I’m still waiting!
Sadly, Tim left my bedroom and on Sunday evening as I searched my bookshelf for my ninth book, we were reunited and he’s been back in the bedroom all week!
It now makes sense, that those in my network circles have also slept with Tim: the mention of Virtual Assistants, Automation, and precision time-management are immediate clues of those who’ve had an affair to remember.
Allowing Tim into your life will crank open your mind to the ‘new rich’ paradigm which I know many of you will scoff at, but pushing beyond that, you’ll discover BIG opportunities lying between the sheets.
I see three reasons to grab hold of, The 4-Hour Workweek:
· If you want to reduce your busyness in your workplace and in life
· If you live to work, and
· If you’re wanting to connect with the entrepreneurial spirit lurking in our DNA.
In my world, it’s easy to be negligent of my faults, ineffective habits, and practices which don’t add value to my clients let alone to my financial statement. So, by reading this book, I connected with the critical message – be accountable for your performance so that you can live a happy life.
How do you influence happiness in your business?
I would be disappointed in myself if I didn’t nudge you enough to ponder the possibilities which Tim’s book offers; it oozes innovation and creative thinking and most importantly if encourages people to spend time working at what they love doing and be at their best, feeling that they’re achieving their self-worth.
How’s your self-worth? Feeling happy with life?
So, here’s a few insights from ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’:
Be reflective – determine your life purpose; the current journey towards your purpose and answer this question – If today was the last day of your life, would you be doing what you have planned for the day?
Tackle boredom – being the opposite of happiness – map out the parts of your life which aren’t creating happiness and determine what you need to change; in other words, break the status quo.
Plan for the now – write down what you want to do, when you want to complete it by and in particular, the cost (Tim measures everything) – then determine how you can achieve that plan now – Yep, put your 20-year-old mindset on and consider what you don’t need, be minimalistic and work out a way to do it.
Experiment with mini-retirements - rather than plan the big trip in fifteen years when you retire from this life, calculate how you can do part of it within the next six months. Consider working while you travel, influence the decision makers in your life to work enable you work remotely and live your life now.
Note: This book was written approximately ten years ago – and in that time people have taken this traveling idea on board and many people are working remotely and numerous organizations are great enablers.
Say “No” - and get good at it. This is your training to eliminate the need to meet people face to face or even reduce the evil email flow. Be polite and eloquent with your refusals, however, determine the value or need of having to use your time in the presence of others. I’m sure the meeting minimisation is a no brainer for some, and a challenge for others. It’s a habit to break.
Explore being smart – given the technology and services at our disposal, we should all be smart. Cost your time and determine who else could do it for you at a cheaper rate. Explore automation – as a friend recently said: “if I do the same thing twice, it’s my trigger to automate the process.” Very wise words. The simplest example is automating email replies to educate your clients, colleagues, and community.
Finally, the phrase which grabbed my absolute attention: people defer their life plan. People wait their life out. I often hear "when" proceeding their goal statements. Here’s hoping that this read will push people to do things now.
We can all take Tim to bed and learn a few ideas, practices or just be amused at his many life adventures. Or, jump onto his web site – www.fourhourworkweek.com