Kategorier: Alle - mobility - service - liberation - learning

af Anthony Johnson 13 år siden

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The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris

The text delves into the concept of achieving a more liberated and mobile lifestyle by optimizing work habits and embracing remote work. It challenges conventional career paths and encourages questioning traditional constraints, highlighting the idea of the "

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris

Liberation

Filling the Void
Service

Service is an attitude, not limited to saving lives and the environment

Improve the quality of life in the world

Doing something that improves life besides your own

Continual learning

Sports, hiking, chess, or any activity that is domestic to the country

Languages

It is possible to become conversationally fluent in any language in six months or less

Adults can learn languages much faster than children

To live is to learn

Life exists to be enjoyed and the most important thing is to feel good about yourself
Most big questions are a complete waste of time

If you can't define it or act on it, forget it

Social isolation

If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow, these doubts disappear.

Postpartum depression

Go nuts and live your dreams

Mini-Retirements
Cut the clutter

What 20% of belongings are used 80% of time?

Sell, donate, store

Clutter creates indecision and distraction

Overcoming excuses not to travel

Arrange a week of language classes upon arrival

Take a trial run for a few weeks

Don't assume that places abroad are more dangerous than your hometown

Financial realities

Long term stay often costs the same as hotels

Take advantage of currency differences

3 month mini-retirement is the alternative to binge traveling

Observe how you judge both youself and those around you

Get lost intentionally

Learn to slow down

Not a one time event--take several per year

Aim to experience the world at a speed that lets it change us

Not an escape from life but a reexamination of it

Extended world travel is not just for the ultrarich
Mexican fisherman story: living a full and busy life
Killing Your Job
Principal phobias

It will ruin my resume

Health insurance and retirement accounts disappear

I won't be able to pay the bills

Quitting is permanent

Disappearing Act
Step 5: Expand remote time
Step 4: Propose a revocable trial period
Step 3: Prepare the quantifiable business benefit
Step 2: Prove increase output offsite
Step 1:Increase investment
The New Rick are defined by unrestricted mobility

Work wherever and whenever you want, but get your work done

Being bound to one place will be the new defining feature of the middle class
Ask yourself "why not?"

Definition

Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous
What do you want?

Dreamlining

Activities that will fill the vacuum when work is removed

Goals must be unrealisitic to be effective

Defined steps instead of ambiguous wants

ADD: Adventure Deficit Disorder

Excitement is a better synonymn for happiness

The opposite of happiness is boredom

Doing the unrealistic is easier than doing the realistic

There is less competition for bigger goals

People overestimate the competition and underestimate themselves

Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis
Optimistic denial
Conquering fear = defining fear
Everything Popular is Wrong
Distress is bad, eustress is good
Relative income is more important than absolute income
Money alone is not the solution
Things in excess become their opposite
Emphasize strengths, don't fix weaknesses
Ask for forgiveness, not permission
The timing is never right
Less is not laziness
Interest and energy are cyclical
Retirement is worst-case-scenario insurance
Don't play the game, beat the game

Find loopholes in the rules

Cautions and Comparisons
The Freedom Multiplier

Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W's you control in your life.

whom you do it with

where you do it

when you do it

what you do

The New Rich (NR)

Freedom to pursue your dreams

Payday every day

Cashflow first

More quality and less clutter

Have reasons for making money

Neither boss nor employee, but owner

Do all you want to do, be all you want to be

Prevent work for work's sake (W4W)

Have others work for you

The Deferrers (D)

Freedom to avoid what you dislike

Reach a big payoff

Have more

Make a ton of money

Be the boss

Buy everything you want

Retire young

Work when you want

Work for yourself

Automation

MBA - Management By Absense
Look like a bigger company

Do not provide home addresses

Set up interactive voice response (IVR) remote receptionist

Put multiple email and phone contacts on website for different departments

Give yourself mid-level title instead of Founder/CEO

Not all customers are created equal

Do not accept orders from common fraud countries

Offer a lose-win guarantee instead of free trials

Offer low-priced products instead of free products

Refer all potential resellers to an online order form that must be printed and faxed in

Raise wholesale minimums and require tax ID number to qualify resellers

Do not accept money orders or checks

Fewer options=more revenue

Do not offer international shipments

Eliminate phone orders completely and direct all prospects to online ordering

Do not offer overnight or expedited shipping

Do not offer multiple shipping options

Offer one or two purchase options

Replace yourself with scalable infrastructure

Phase III: Use bigger, more sophisicated outsourcers such as end-to-end fulfillment houses

Phase II: Add extensive FAQ and use local fulfillment company

Phase I: Do it all yourself

Remove the human element

Place yourself out of the information flow

Ensure that all outsourcers are willing to communicate among themselves to solve problems

Contract outsourcing companies that specialize in one function instead of freelancers

Testing the Muse
Step 3: Microtest your products

Invest or divest

Rollout and automation

Test the advertisement

Drive traffic with Google PPC and track results

Use real websie to offer free downloadable material

Dry test with one-page site advertisement

Test eBay auction

Best the competition

Create a one-page advertisement emphasizing differentiators and product benefits

Use search term suggestion tools to find related/derivative terms for respective products

Figure out how to differentiate

Free or faster shipping?

Offer better selection?

Create a better guarantee?

Use more credibility indicators?

Finding the Muse
Step 2: Branstorm (do not invest in) products

Option three: create a product

Information products

You don't have to be an expert

Join ProfNet to be a quotable expert for articles

Offer to write 1-2 articles for trade magazines

Give one free 1-3 hour seminar at a nearby university, then at 2 large companies

Join two or three related trade organizations

Read 3 top selling books on your topic and summarize on one page

Do you have a failure-to-success story that could be turned into a how-to product for others?

What experts could you interview and record to create a sellable audio CD?

What skills are you interested in that you--and others in your markets--would pay to learn?

How can you tailor a general skill for your market ("niching down")

License content or compensate an expert to help create content

Repurpose content that is in the public domain

Paraphrase and combine points from several books

Time consuming to replicate

20-50x markup

Sell only through one outlet (to avoid price wars)

Find a generic product that can be repurposed for a special market

Create new product prototype

Option two: license a product

Dealmaking intensive but higher profit margin

Option one: resell a product

Easiest but least profitable

Pick two markets you are most familiar with that have their own magazines

It should be fully explainable in a good online FAQ

It should take no more than 3-4 weeks to manufacture

It should cost customer $50-200

The main benefit should be encapsulated in one sentence

Step 1: Pick an affordably reachable niche market

Be a member of your target market

Which of the groups have their own magazines?

Which social, industry or professional groups do you belong to?

Find a market, then develop a product for them

Goal: to create an automated vehicle for generating cash without consuming time
Outsourcing Life
Avoid common complaints

Send one task at a time, no more than two, and always prioritize

Tasks should be completed in no more than 72 hours (Parkinson's Law)

Request regualr status updates on tasks

Give precise directions

Make special request for type of VA you want at the outset

Aviod misuse of your information

Create unique login for VA for your websites

Never give them debit cards

Which VA to hire

Use a VA firm instead of solo operator

Get a trial first

Determined by cost per completed task, not cost per hour

Eliminate before you delegate

Refine the rules and processes before adding people

Unless something is well-defined and important, no on should do it.

Build a system to replace yourself

Get a remote personal assistant

Don't limit yourself, just ask if something is possible

Goal is to free your time to focus on bigger and better things

Elimination

The Art of Refusal
Not all evils are created equal

Empowerment failures

being unable to accomplish task without obtaining permission or information.

Set or request autonomous rules and guidelines with occasional review of results.

Time consumers

Batch activities to limit setup costs and provide more time for dreamline milestones.

Time wasters

Easiest to eliminate

Use the "Puppy Dog Close" (ie - "just this once"

Do not permit casual visitors to your cubicle

Define the end time of meetings

Meetings should only be held to make decisions

Respond to voicemail via email

Treat phone calls as urgent

Use two telephone numbers

Limit email consumption and production

Create systems to limit your availability via email and phone and deflect inappropriate contact.

Low-Information Diet
Selective ignorance

The art of nonfinishing

Starting something does not automatically justify finishing it.

"Will I definitely need this information for something immediate and important?"

Replace information gathering (reading, news, etc) with talking to the people in your life

To learn something new:

Use what you read to draft intelligent questions for experts in that field

Read only the parts relevant to immediate next steps

Select one book about the topic by someone who already did what you want to do.

Read one hour of fiction before bed

Ask people "what's new in the world?"

Increased output requires decreased input

The End of Time Management
Do not multitask

"task creep": doing more to feel productive while actually accomplishing less.

If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?
Am I being productive or just active?

Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?

Dedication is often just meaningless work in disguise.
Parkinson's Law: a task will swell in (percieved) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion

Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.

Lack of time is actually lack of priorities
Being busy is a form of laziness
Pareto principle

80% of outputs come from 20% of inputs

Being effective vs. being efficient

Efficiency is still important, but it is useless unless applied to the right things.