Useful Commute: The Four-Hour Work Week

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  thinksave@...06/05/07 Report as spam
  1

  Useful Commute: The Four-Hour Work Week

  Nice intuitive focus-levitate to results now above impulse noise. (get the dumpling without eating the pot) VS. Goal plan + Distraction Overload (Get perfect jelly bean from main conveyor)

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  janice.jacksonhaley@...06/05/07 Report as spam
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  Great idea.....but

  I just finished reading The Four-Hour Work Week, and found the book refreshing and enlightening. As an administrator looking to gradually trade in my 9 to 5 life working for others, this book offered practical ways to make the transition into being an entrepreneur.
  BUT....the suggestions in this book are targeted to a certain type of worker in organizations that are structured or at least open to the idea of teleworking. Frontline supervisors, assistants, and most positions in the service industry would find these suggestions hard to implement.
  I would also encourage all workers to be truthful when dealing with their supervisor. If employees desire to telecommute it is a good idea to be truthful, collaborative and transparent.

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  TROC206/06/07 Report as spam
  3

  These are great ideas that have worked for me

  Based on the 10-minute interview (haven't read the book) this is very useful to me. I am a financial adviser with 50-60 wealthy families popping up questions on an amazing variety of topics. Some of these ideas are new to me; others I've already used and they have worked well.
  
  In the last year I've started checking email only once every 2-3 hours (without broadcasting this to the world), expecting it to be mainly junk, of which only a select few items make it onto my task list...and this has been liberating. (Ideally you can delegate, delete, or do a bunch of them quickly instead of adding to your list, but even if not, this puts the focus prioritizing from YOUR overall list instead of whatever OTHER people put into your inbox.) Scan the inbox from most recent back...that way you pick up email chains perhaps after someone else has already handled a request originally made of you.
  
  I've also begun reading professional journals VERY quickly, standing between my inbox and my wastebasket, reading just the cover, the table of contents, and perhaps ONE article per journal. Maybe I'll rip one out for a client or coworker, then the rest is trashed. I don't make stacks for later reading.
  
  I've trained clients to call other people in the organization for other things..."A" for cash moving in or out, "C" for questions about the investemnts, and only calling me for strategic questions. I tell them this way I won't be handling simple tasks for some other client when they're trying to reach me with an urgent strategic issue. This is an example of the 80/20 rule Ferris mentions...focusing on those top clients, and for all clients focusing on those top tasks where you add the most value.
  
  Finally getting a support system so you don't have to rely on self-discipline. This works for me as I'm easily distracted and procrastinate. My solution was to meet with my small team every other day or so to identify five things we each want to accomplish that day, and to check in again at 1 pm and 3 pm on where we all stand. Sure it doesn't all get done every day, but we definitely focus on the promises we've made to people we know will hold us accountable.
  
  Looking forward to reading the book. Also highly recommended: "Getting Things Done" by Robert Allen