#809: The 4-Hour Workweek Tools That Still Work — The Art of Refusal and The Low-Information Diet

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/a2c6e8988719ef65

Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. Oh, I would go.
I am recording this from my hotel room in Tokyo, Japan.
Where I am in Jingumai.
And headed on the road yet again.
for some more adventures and then back to the US. And when I'm doing this, aside from keeping in mind things like the mini retirement and setting up systems
That persist beyond your return to your home. There are many tools that I still use to this day from the book that started it all.
Four hour work week.
Came out in two thousand seven, was revised in two thousand nine.
And yet, it was one of Amazon's top 10 most highlighted books of all time. Last time I checked in 2017. And what that means is.
Many of the principles.
Many of the philosophies that
Many of the templates still work. There are certain tech tools and so on, of course, that have changed over time. Those things change nonstop.
the rate of improvement.
Blah blah blah blah blah.
All those things have changed, but there are certain through lines.
And tactics and strategies.
That's still
work. So readers and listeners alike often ask me, What would you change? What would you update? But an equally interesting question is what wouldn't I change? What would I keep?
what stands the test of time, what has already stood the test of time for nearly twenty years and hasn't lost any potency whatsoever. So I'm gonna share two chapters from the audio book this week.
that highlight a lot that you can still.
Use. These chapters push you to defend your scarcest resource, attention.
as opposed to just time. One by saying no to people, the other by saying no to excess information, which has never had more relevance than today. So there's a lot in here that you can copy and paste.
They feature some of my favorite tools and frameworks, including polite but firm word for word scripts that I still use.
To this day.
As I already mentioned with the tech, some examples may feel dated, a handful might seem prehistoric, but just ignore those or treat them as historic artifacts, archaeological dig into
Two thousand seven, two thousand nine. There's plenty that you can still borrow that's effective and feel free to remix the rest with modern tools of your choosing, of course. The chapters narrated by the great voice actor Ray Porter.
If you are interested in checking out the rest of the audiobook, which is produced and copyrighted by Blackstone Publishing, you can find it on Audible, Apple, Google, Spotify, Downpour.com, or wherever you find your favorite audiobooks. We're gonna get right to it, but first just a few words from the people who make this podcast possible.
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Optimal minimal.
At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I answer you a personal question?
No seen that.
cybernetic organism living tissue over metal metal cellar
So
Six.
The low information diet.
Cultivating selective.
Ignorance.
What information consumes is rather obvious.
It consumes the attention.
of its recipients.
Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and
And a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources is
That might consume it.
Herbert Simon.
Recipient of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics,
And the A M Turing Award, the Nobel Prize of Computer Science.
Simon received the Nobel Prize in nineteen seventy eight.
For his contribution to organizational decision making.
It is impossible to have perfect and complete information at any given time to make a decision.
Reading.
After a certain age, the
Diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits.
Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little
falls into lazy habits of thinking.
Albert Einstein
I hope you're sitting down.
Take that sandwich out of your mouth so you don't choke.
Cover the baby's ears.
I'm going to tell you something.
That upsets a lot of people.
I never watch the news.
and have bought one single newspaper in the last five years.
in Stansted Airport in London, and only because it gave me a discount on a diet Pepsi.
I would claim to be Amish, but last time I checked, Pepsi wasn't on the menu.
How obscene.
I call myself an informed and responsible citizen? How do I stay up to date with current affairs?
I'll answer all of that, but wait, it gets better.
I usually check business email for about an hour each Monday.
And I never check voicemail when abroad.
Never.
Ever.
But what if someone has an emergency?
It doesn't happen.
My contacts now know that I don't respond to emergencies, so the emergencies somehow don't exist.
Or don't come to me.
Problems, as a rule,
solve themselves or disappeared.
If you remove yourself as an information bottleneck and empowers.
Cultivating selective
Ignorance.
There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
eighteen oh three.
To eighteen eighty two.
From this point forward, I'm going to propose that you develop an uncanny ability to be selectively ignorant.
Ignorance may be bliss.
But it is also practical.
It is imperative that you learn to ignore or redirect all information and interruptions and
That are irrelevant.
Unimportant
or unactionable.
Most?
Or all three.
The first step is to develop and maintain a low information diet.
Just as modern man consumes both too many calories and calories of no nutritional value,
Information workers eat data both in excess
And from the wrong sources.
Lifestyle design is based on massive action.
Output transcri
Increased output necessitates decreased input.
Most information is time consuming and
Negative, irrelevant to your goals.
And outside of your influence.
I challenge you to look at whatever you read or watched today and tell me that it wasn't at least.
Two of the four.
I read the front page headlines through the newspaper machines as I walk to lunch each day and nothing more.
In five years I haven't had a single problem due to this selective ignorance.
It gives you something new to ask the rest of the population in lieu of small talk.
Tell me what's new in the world.
And if it's that important
You'll hear people talking about it.
Using my Crib Notes approach to world affairs, I also retain more than someone who loses the forest for the trees in a sea of extraneous details.
From an actionable information standpoint, I consume a maximum of one third of one industry magazine.
Response magazine and one business magazine.
Ink.
Per month.

Of approximately four hours.
That's it for results oriented reading.
I read an hour of fiction prior to bed.
For relaxation.
How on earth do I act responsibly?
Let me give an example of how I and other NR both consider and obtain information.
I voted in the last presidential election.

Despite having been in Berlin.
I made my decision in a matter of hours.
First, I sent emails to educated friends in the US to

and asked them who they were voting for and why.
Second
I judge people based on actions and not words.
Thus.
I asked friends in Berlin.
Who had more perspective outside of US media propaganda, how they judged the candidates based on their historical behavior.
Last.
I watched the presidential debates.
That was it.
I let other dependable people synthesize hundreds of hours and thousands of pages of media for me.
It was like having dozens of personal information assistants, and I didn't have to pay them a single cent.
That's a simple example, you say, but what if you needed to learn to do something your friends haven't done, like, say, sell a book to the world's largest publisher as a first time author?
Funny you should ask.
There are two approaches I used.
One
I picked one book out of dozens based on reader reviews and the fact that the authors had actually done what I wanted to do.
If the task is how to in nature, I only read accounts that are
How I did it.
And autobiographical.
No speculators or wannabes are worth the time.
Two
Using the book to generate intelligent and specific questions is
I contacted ten of the top authors and agents in the world via email and phone.
With a response rate of eighty percent.
I only read the sections of the book that were relevant to immediate next steps, which took less than two hours.
To develop a template email and call script.
Took approximately four hours.
And the actual emails and phone calls took less than an hour.
This personal contact approach is not only more effective and more efficient than all you can eat info buffets, but
It also provided me with the major league alliances and mentors necessary to sell this book.
Rediscover the power of the forgotten skill called
Talking.
It works.
Once again.
Less.
is more.
How to read
Two hundred percent faster.
In ten minutes.
There will be times when it's true.
You will have to read.
Here are four simple tips that will lessen the damage and increase your speed at least two hundred percent in ten minutes.
With no comprehension loss.
One.
Two minutes.
Use a pen or finger to trace under each line as you read as fast as possible.
Reading is a series of jumping snapshots.
called saccades.
and using a visual guide prevents regression.
Two
Three minutes.
Begin each line focusing on the third word in from the first word and end each line.
Focusing on the third word in from the last word.
This makes use of peripheral vision that is otherwise wasted on margins.
For example
Even when the highlighted words in the next line are your beginning and ending focal points,
The entire sentence is read.
just with less eye movement.
Once upon a time an information addict decided to detox.
Move in from both sides further and further as it gets easier.
Three.
Two minutes.
Once comfortable indenting three or four words from both sides,
Attempt to take only two snapshots.
Also known as fixations per line on the first and last indented words.
Four.
Three minutes.
Practice reading too fast for comprehension, but with good technique.
The above three techniques.
for five pages prior to reading at a comfortable speed.
This will heighten perception and reset your speed limit.
Much like how fifty miles per hour normally feels fast,
But seems like slow motion if you drop down from seventy miles per hour on the freeway.
To calculate reading speed in words per minute,
W P M.
And thus progress in a given book.
Add up the number of words in ten lines and divide by ten and

Multiply this by the number of lines per page, and you have the average words per page.
Now it's simple.
If you initially read one point two five pages in one minute.
At three hundred thirty average words per page,
That's four hundred twelve five words per minute.
If you then read three point five pages after training, you can
It's one thousand one hundred and fifty five words per minute, and you're in the top one percent of the world's
fastest readers.
Q and A.
Questions?
and actions.
Learning to ignore things is one of the great path to inner peace.
Robert J. Sawyer.
Calculating God.
One.
Go on an immediate one week media fast.
The world doesn't even hiccup much less end when you cut the information umbilical cord.
To realize this, it's best to use the band-aid approach and do it quickly.
A one week media fast.
Information is too much like ice cream to do otherwise.
Oh I'll just have half a spoonful is about as realistic as
I just want to jump online for a minute.
Go Cold Turkey.
If you want to go back to the fifteen thousand calorie potato chip information diet afterwards.
Fine.
But beginning tomorrow.
And for at least five full days.
Here are the rules.
No newspapers.
Magazines
Audio books.
Except for this audiobook.
or non music radio.
Music is permitted at all times.
No news websites whatsoever.
CNN.com DrudgeReport.com
MSN.com L O L etc
No television.
At all.
Except for one hour of pleasure viewing each evening.
No reading books.
Except for this book, and one hour of fiction.
Pleasure reading prior to bed.
As someone who read exclusively non fiction for nearly fifteen years, I can tell you two things. It's not productive to read two fact based books at the same time.
This is one, and fiction is better than sleeping pills for putting the happenings of the day behind you.
No
Web surfing at the desk unless it is necessary to complete a work task.
For that day.
Necessary means necessary.
Not nice to have.
Unnecessary reading is public enemy number one during this one week fast.
What do you do with all the extra time?
Replace the newspaper at breakfast with speaking to your spouse.
Bonding with your children.
or learning the principles in this audiobook.
Between nine to five, complete your top priorities as per the last chapter.
If you complete them with time to spare?
Do the exercises in this audio book.
Recommending this audiobook might seem hypocritical, but it's not.
The information in this audiobook is both important and to be applied now, not tomorrow or the day after.
Each day at lunch break, and no earlier,
Get your five minute news fix.
Ask a well informed colleague or a restaurant waiter.
Anything important happening in the world today? I couldn't get the paper today.
Stop this as soon as you realize that the answer doesn't affect your actions at all.
Most people won't even remember what they spent one to two hours absorbing that morning.
Be strict with yourself.
I can prescribe the medicine, but you need to take it.
Download the Firefox web browser, firefox.com, and use LeechBlock.
To block certain sites entirely for set periods.
From their site.
www dot proganosco dot com forward slash leech block
Dot HTML.
You can specify up to six sets of sites to block, with different times and days for each set.
You can block sites within fixed time periods.
e g between nine A.M. and five PM.
After a time limit.
e g ten minutes in every hour.
or with a combination of time periods and time limit.
e g ten minutes in every hour between nine AM and five PM.
You can also set a password for access to the extension options.
just to slow you down in moments of weakness.
Two
Develop the habit of asking yourself.
Will I
Definitely use this information for something immediate?
And important.
It's not enough to use information for something.
It needs to be immediate.
And important.
If no, on either count, don't consume it.
Information is useless if it is not applied to something important.
Or if you will forget it before you have a chance to apply it.
I used to have the habit of reading a book or site.
to prepare for an event weeks or months in the future, and I would then need to reread the same material when the deadline for action was closer.
This is stupid.
And redundant.
Follow your to-do short list and fill in the information gap as you go.
Focus on what DigiRati Kathy Sierra calls just in time information instead of just in case information.
Three.
Practice the art.
of non finishing.
This is another one that took me a long time to learn.
Starting something doesn't automatically justify
Finishing it.
If you are reading an article that sucks, put it down and don't pick it back up.
If you go to a movie and it's worse than Matrix Three.
Get the hell out of there before more neurons die.
And if you're full, after half a plate of ribs,
Put the damn fork down and don't order dessert.
More is not better.
And stopping something is often ten times better than finishing it.
Develop the habit of non finishing that which is boring or unproductive and
If a boss isn't demanding it.
Comfort challenge
Get
Phone numbers.
Two days.
Being sure to maintain eye contact.
Ask for the phone numbers of at least two.
The more you attempt,
the less stressful it will be.
Attractive members of the opposite sex on each day.
Girls.
This means you're in the game as well, and it doesn't matter if you're 50 plus.
Remember.
That the real goal is not to get numbers.
but to get over the fear of asking. So the outcome is unimportant.
If you're in a relationship, sign up to or pretend to gather information for Greenpeace.
Just
Toss the numbers if you get them.
Go to a mall if you want to get some rapid fire practice.
My preference for getting over the discomfort quickly.
And aim to ask three people in a row within five minutes.
Feel free to use some variation of the following script.
Excuse me.
I know this is gonna sound strange, but if I don't ask you now, I'll be kicking myself for the rest of the day.
I'm running to meet a friend.
i. e. I have friends and am not a stalker, but
But I think you're really
Extremely drop dead cute.
Gorgeous hot.
Could I have your phone number? I'm not a psycho, I promise. You can give me a fake one, if you're not interested.
I
Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show.
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Seven.
Interrupting interruption.
And the art of refusal.
Do your own thinking independently.
Be the chess player, not the chess piece.
Ralph Sherell.
Meetings are an addictive, highly self indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in
Only because they cannot actually masturbate.
Dave Barry.
Pulitzer Prize winning American humorist.
Spring two thousand.
Princeton, New Jersey.
one thirty five PM
I think I understand.
Moving on.
In the next paragraph.
It explains that
I had detailed notes and didn't want to miss a single point.
Three forty five PM.
Okay.
That makes sense.
But if we look at the following example
I paused for a moment, mid sentence.
The teaching assistant had both hands on his face.
Tim, let's end here for now. I'll be sure to keep these points in mind.
He had had enough.
Me too.
But I knew I'd only have to do it once.
For all four years of school I had a policy.
If I received anything less than an A on the first paper or non multiple choice test in a given class, I
I would bring two to three hours of questions to the grader's office hours and not leave until the other had answered them all and
Or stopped out of exhaustion.
They served.

One
I learned exactly how the grader evaluated work, including his or her prejudices and pet peeves.
Two.
The greater would think long and hard about ever giving me less than an A,
He or she would never consider giving me a bad grade without exception reasons for doing so, as he or she knew I'd come a knocking for another three hour visit.
Learn to be difficult when it counts.
In school.
As in life, having a reputation for being assertive,
Will help you receive preferential treatment without having to beg or fight for it every time.
Think back to your days on the playground.
There was always a big bully and countless victims, but there was also that one small kid who fought like hell.
Thrashing and swinging for the fences.
He or she might not have won.
But after one or two exhausting exchanges, the
The bully chose not to bother him or her.
It was easier to find someone else.
Be that kid.
Doing the important and ignoring the trivial is hard.
Because so much of the world seems to conspire to force crapon you, and
Fortunately.
A few simple routine changes make bothering you much more painful than leaving you in peace.
It's time to stop taking
information abuse.
Not all evil are created equal.
For our purposes, an interruption is anything that prevents the start to finish completion of a critical task, and there are three principal offenders.
One
Time wasters.
Those things that can be ignored with little or no consequence.
Common time wasters include meetings,
Discussions.
Phone calls, web surfing and email that are unimportant.
Two.
Time consumers
Repetitive tasks or requests that need to be completed.
but often interrupt high level work.
Here are a few you might know intimately.
Reading and responding to email.
Making and returning phone calls.
Customer service.
Order status, product assistance, etc.
Financial or sales reporting.
Personal errands.
All necessary repeated actions and tasks.
Three.
Empowerment failures.
Instances where someone needs approval to make something small happen.
Here are just a few.
Fixing customer problems, lost shipments, damaged shipments, malfunctions, etc.
Customer contact.
Cash expenditures of all types.
Let's look at the prescriptions for all three in turn.
Time wasters.
Become an ignoramus.
The best defense is a good offense.
Dan Gable, Olympic gold medalist in wrestling, and the most successful coach in history.
Personal record.
Two hundred ninety nine wins.
Six losses, three draws.
with one hundred eighty two pins.
Time wasters are the easiest to eliminate and deflect.
It is a matter of limiting access and funneling all communication toward immediate action.
First.
Limit email consumption and production.
This is the greatest single interruption in the modern world.
One.
Turn off the Audible Alert if you have one on Outlook or a similar program and turn off automatic send receive.
Which delivers email to your inbox as soon as someone sends them.
Two
Check email twice per day.
Once at twelve noon.
Or just prior to lunch and again at four o'clock PM.
twelve o'clock PM and four o'clock PM are times that ensure you will have the most responses from previously sent email.
Never check email first thing in the morning.
This habit alone can change your life. It seems small.
But has an enormous effect.
Instead, complete your most important task before 11 o'clock AM to avoid using lunch or reading email as a postponement excuse.
Before implementing the twice daily routine, you must create an email auto response that will train your boss to
Co workers, suppliers, and clients.

I would recommend that you do not ask to implement this. Remember one of our ten commandments.
Beg for forgiveness.
Don't ask for permission.
If this gives you heart palpitations, you
Speak with your immediate supervisor and propose to trial the approach for one to three days.
Sight pending projects and frustration with constant interruptions as the reason
Feel free to blame it on spam or someone outside of the office.
Here is a simple email template that can be used.
Greetings, friends, or esteemed colleagues,
Due to high workload, I am currently checking and responding to email twice daily at 12 o'clock p.m. Eastern Time.
or your time zone, and four o'clock PM.
Eastern time.
If you require urgent assistance.
Please ensure it's urgent.
That cannot wait until either twelve o'clock PM or four o'clock PM.
Please contact me via phone at 555-2500.
Five five.
Five five five five.
Thank you for understanding this move to more efficiency and effectiveness.
It helps me accomplish more to serve you better.
Sincerely.
Tim Ferris
Move to once per day as quickly as possible.
Emergencies.
Or seldom that.
People are poor judges of importance and inflate minutiae to fill time and feel important.
This auto response is a tool that far from decreasing collective effectiveness.
forces people to reevaluate their reason for interrupting you and helps them decrease meaningless and time consuming contact.
I was initially terrified of missing important requests and inviting disaster, but
Just as you might be upon reading this recommendation.
Nothing happened.
Give it a shot.
And work out the small bumps as you progress.
The second step is to screen incoming and limit outgoing phone calls.
One.
Use two telephone numbers if possible.
One office line, non urgent, and one cellular.
Urgent.
This could also be two cell phones.
Or the non urgent line could be an internet phone number that routes calls to online voicemail, Skype.com, for example.
Use the cell number in the email autoresponse and answer it at all times unless it is an unknown caller.
Or it is a call you don't want to answer.
If in doubt.
Allow the call to go to voicemail and listen to the voicemail immediately afterward.
to gauge.
If it can wait,
Let it wait.
The offending parties have to learn to wait.
The office phone should be put on silent mode.
and allowed to go to voicemail at all times.
The voicemail recording should sound familiar.
You've reached the desk of Tim Ferris.
I am currently checking and responding to voicemail twice daily at twelve o'clock PM Eastern Standard Time, or your time zone.
And four o'clock PM Eastern Time.
If you require assistance with a truly urgent matter that cannot wait until either twelve o'clock PM or four o'clock PM, the
Please contact me on my cell at 555-25.
Five five five.
Five five five five.
Otherwise, please leave a message, and I will return it at the next of those two times.
Be sure to leave your email address, as I am often able to respond faster that way.
Thank you for understanding this move to more efficiency and effectiveness.
It helps me accomplish more to serve you better.
Have a wonderful day.
Two.
If someone does call your cell phone, it is presumably urgent and should be treated as such.
Do not allow them to consume time otherwise.
It's all in the greeting.
Compare the following.
Jane.
Receiver.
Hello?
John.
Caller.
Hi.
Is this Jane?
Jane.
This is Jane.
John.
Hi Jane.
It's John.
Jane.
Oh hi John, how are you?
Or, Oh, hi John, what's going on?
John will now digress and lead you into a conversation about nothing.
from which you will have to recover and then fish out the ultimate purpose of the call.
There is a better approach.
Jane.
This is Jane speaking.
John.
Hi, it's Sean.
Jane, hi John, I'm right in the middle of something. How can I help you out?
Potential continuation.
John.
Oh I can call back?
Jane, no, I have a minute. What can I do for you?
Don't encourage people to chit-chat and don't let them chit-chat.
Get them to the point immediately.
If they meander or try to postpone for a later undefined call,
Reel them in and get them to come to the point.
If they go into a long description of a problem cut in with name, sorry to interrupt, but I have a call in five minutes. What can I do to help you out?
You might instead say name.
Sorry, but I have a call in five minutes. Can you send me an email?
The third step is to master the art of refusal and
And avoiding meetings.
The first day our new sales VP arrived at True San in two thousand one
He came into the all company meeting and
And made an announcement in just about this many words.
I am not here to make friends, I have been hired to build a sales team and sell product, and that's what I intend to do.
Thanks.
So much for small talk.
He proceeded to deliver on his promise.
The office socializers disliked him for his no nonsense approach to communication and
But everyone respected his time.
He wasn't rude without reason, but he was direct and kept the people around him focused.
Some didn't consider him charismatic, but no one considered him anything less than spectacular.
Spectacularly effective.
I remember sitting down in his office for our first one on one meeting.
Fresh off four years of rigorous academic training, I immediately jumped into explaining the prospect profiles, elaborate planning I developed, responses to date, and so forth and so on.
I had spent at least two hours preparing to make this first impression a good one.
He listened with a smile on his face for no more than two minutes and then held up a hand.
I stopped.
He laughed in a kind hearted manner and said
Tim, I don't want the story. Just tell me what we need to do.
Over the following weeks,
He trained me to recognize when I was unfocused or focused on the wrong things, and
Whatever
Anything that didn't move the top two or three clients one step closer to signing a purchase order.
Our meetings were now no more than five minutes long.
From this moment forward.
Resolve to keep those around you focused and avoid all
Meetings, whether in person or remote that do not have clear objectives.
It is possible to do this tactfully, but
but expect that some time wasters will be offended the first few times their advances are rejected.
Once it is clear that remaining on task is your policy and not subject to change,
They will accept it and move on with life.
Hard feelings pass.
Don't suffer fools.
Or you'll become one.
It is your job to train those around you to
To be effective.
And efficient.
No one else will do it for you.
Here are a few recommendations.
One.
Decide that given the non urgent nature of most issues you will steer people toward the following means of communication.
In order of preference.
Email.
Phone and in person meetings.
If someone proposes a meeting, request an email instead, and then use the phone as your fallback offer if need be.
Cite other immediately pending work tasks as the reason.
Two.
Respond to voicemail via email whenever possible.
This trains people to be concise.
Help them develop the habit.
Similar to our opening greeting on the phone.
Email communication should be streamlined to prevent needless back and forth.
Thus an email with
Can you meet at four o'clock PM would become
Can you meet at four o'clock PM? If so
If not, please advise three other times that work for you.
This
If
Then structure becomes more important as you check email less often.
Since I only check email once a week, it is critical that no one needs a what if answered.
or other information within seven days of a given email I send.
If I suspect that a manufacturing order hasn't arrived at the shipping facility, for example,
I'll send an email to my shipping facility manager along these lines.
Dear Susan.
Has the new manufacturing shipment arrived?
If so, please advise me on
If not, please contact John Doe at five five five.
or via email at john at doe.com.
He is also seeseed.
And advise on delivery date and tracking.
John, if there are any issues with the shipment,
Please coordinate with Susan, reachable at five four four four four four four four four four four four four four.
Who has the authority to make decisions up to five hundred dollars on my behalf.
In case of emergency, call me on my cell phone.
But I trust you too.
Thanks.
This prevents most follow up questions.
Avoids two separate dialogues.
and takes me out of the problem solving equation.
Get into the habit of considering what
If
Then actions can be proposed in any email and
Where you ask a question.
Three.
Meetings should only be held to make decisions about a predefined situation and
Not to define the problem.
If someone proposes that you meet with them or
Set a time to talk on the phone.
Ask that person to send you an email with an agenda to define the purpose.
That sounds doable.
So I can best prepare
Can you please send me an email with an agenda?
That is the topics and questions we'll need to address.
That would be great.
Thanks in advance.
Don't give them a chance to bail out.
The thanks in advance before a retort increases your chances of getting the email.
The email medium forces people to define the desired outcome of a meeting or call.
Nine times out of ten.
A meeting is unnecessary and you can answer the questions, once defined,
via email.
impose this habit on others. I haven't had an in person meeting for my business in more than five years.
and have had fewer than a dozen conference calls, all lasting less than thirty minutes.
Four.
Speaking of thirty minutes,
If you absolutely cannot stop a meeting or call from happening,
Define the end.
Time.
Do not leave these discussions open ended and keep them short for
If things are well defined,
Decisions should not take more than thirty minutes.
Cite other commitments at odd times to make them more believable.
E. G three twenty versus three thirty.
and force people to focus
Instead of socializing, commiserating, and digressing.
If you must join a meeting that is scheduled to last a long time or that is open ended,
Inform the organizer that you would like permission to cover your portion first and
As you have a commitment in fifteen minutes, the
If you have to
Fain an urgent phone call.
Get the hell out of there and have someone else update you later.
The other option is to be completely transparent and voice your opinion of how unnecessary the meeting is.
If you choose this route, be prepared to face fire.
and offer alternatives.
Five.
The cubicle is your temple.
Don't permit casual visitors.
Some suggest using a clear do not disturb sign of some type, but I have found that this is ignored unless you have an office.
My approach was to put headphones on.
Even if I wasn't listening to anything.
If someone approached me despite this discouragement, I would pretend to be on the phone, but
I'd put a finger to my lips, say something like
I hear you.
And then say into the mic.
Can you hold on a second?
Next I turn to the invader and say, Hi, what can I do for you?
I wouldn't let them
Get back to me.
but rather force the person to give me a five second summary and then send me an email if necessary.
If
Headphone games aren't your thing, the reflexive response to an invader should be the same as when answering the cell phone.
Hi, Invader. I'm right in the middle of something. How can I be of help?
If it's not clear within 30 seconds, ask the person to send you an email about the chosen issue. Do not offer to send them an email first.
I'll be happy to help, but I have to finish this first. Can you send me a quick email to remind me?
If you still cannot deflect an invader, give the person a time limit on your availability.
Which can also be used for phone conversations.
Okay.
I only have two minutes before a call, but what's the situation and what can I do to help?
Six.
Use the puppy dog cloth to help your superiors and others develop the no meeting habit.
The puppy dog clothes in sales is so named because it is based on the pet store sales approach.
If someone likes a puppy
but is hesitant to make the life altering purchase.
Just offer to let them take the pup home and bring it back if they change their minds.
Of course the return seldom happens, but
The puppy dog clothes is invaluable.
Whenever you face resistance to permanent changes, and
Get your foot in the door with a let's just try it once reversible trial.
Compare the following.
I think you'd love this puppy. It will forever add to your responsibilities until he dies ten years from now. No more carefree vacations, and you'll finally get to pick up poop all over the city. What do you think?
Versus
I think you'd love this puppy.
Why don't you just take him home and see what you think?
You can just bring him back if you change your mind.
Now imagine walking up to your boss in the hallway and clapping a hand on her shoulder.
I'd like to go to the meeting, but I have a better idea. Let's never have another one since all we do is waste time and not decide anything useful.
Versus
I'd really like to go to the meeting, but I'm totally overwhelmed and really need to get a few important things done.
Can I sit out just for today?
I'd be distracted in the meeting otherwise, I promise I'll catch up afterwards by reviewing the meeting with colleague X.
Is that okay?
The second set of alternatives seem less permanent.
and they're intended to appear so.
Repeat this routine and ensure that you achieve more outside of the meeting and
than the attendees do within it.
Repeat the disappearing act as often as possible, and cite improved productivity to convert this slowly into a permanent routine change.
Learn imitate any good child.
Just this once
Please, I promise I'll do X.
Parents fall for it because kids help adults to fool themselves.
It works with bosses, suppliers, customers, and the rest of the world, too.
Use it.
But don't fall for it.
If a boss asks for overtime,
Just this once.
He or she will expect it in the future.
Time consumers.
Batch.
And do not falter.
A schedule defends from chaos and whim.
Annie Dillard, winner of Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction.
nineteen seventy five.
If you have never used a commercial printer before, the pricing and lead times could surprise you.
Let's assume it costs three hundred ten dollars and takes one week.
To print twenty customized t shirts with four color logos.
How much and how long does it take to print three?
Of the same T shirt.
Three hundred ten dollars in one week.
How is that possible?
Simple.
The setup charges don't change.
It costs the printer the same amount in materials for plate preparation, one hundred fifty dollars, and the same in labor to man the press itself,
One hundred dollars.
The setup.
is the real time consumer, and thus the job, despite its small size, needs to be scheduled just like the other.
Resulting in the same way.
One week delivery date.
The lower economy of scale picks up the rest.
The cost for three shirts is twenty dollars per shirt times three shirts instead of
Three dollars per shirt.
Times twenty shirts.
The cost and time effective solution, therefore, is to wait until you have a larger order.
An approach called
Batching
Batching is also the solution to our distracting but necessary time consumers.
Those repetitive tasks that interrupt the most important.
If you check mail.
and make bill payments five times a week, it might take thirty minutes per instance and you respond to a total of twenty letters
In two and a half hours.
If you do this once per week instead,
It might take sixty minutes total.
and you still respond to a total of twenty letters.
People do the former out of fear of emergencies.
First, there are seldom
Real emergencies.
Second
Of the urgent communication you will receive
Missing a deadline is usually reversible and otherwise costs a minimum.
To correct.
There is an inescapable setup time for all tasks, large or minuscule in scale.
It is often the same for one who
As it is for a hundred.
There is a psychological switching of gears that can require up to forty five minutes to resume a major task.
That has been interrupted.
More than a quarter of each nine to five period.
Twenty eight percent.
is consumed.
by such interruptions.
Jonathan B. Spira and Joshua B. Finetuch.
The cost of not paying attention.
How interruptions impact knowledge worker productivity.
This is true of all recurring tasks and is precisely
Why we have already decided to check email and phone calls.
twice per day at specific predetermined times.
Between which
We let them accumulate.
From mid two thousand four to two thousand seven, I checked mail no more than once a week.
Often not for up to four weeks at a time.
Nothing was irreparable, and nothing cost more than$300 to fix.
This batching has saved me hundreds of hours of redundant work.
How much is your time worth?
Let's use a hypothetical example.
One.
twenty dollars per hour.
is how much you are paid or value your time.
This would be the case, for example, if you are paid forty thousand dollars per year and get two weeks of vacation per year.
Forty thousand dollars divided by forty hours per week times fifty equals.
Two thousand
equals
$20 per hour.
Estimate your hourly income by cutting the last three zeros off of your annual income and having the remaining number.
E.
fifty thousand dollars a year becomes twenty five dollars an hour.
Two
Estimate the amount of time you will save.
By grouping similar tasks together and batching them, and calculate how much you have earned by multiplying this hour number.
By your per hour rate.
twenty dollars here.
One time per week?
Ten hours equals two hundred dollars.
One time per two weeks.
Twenty hours equals.
Four hundred dollars.
One time per month.
Forty hours equals eight hundred dollars.
Three.
Test each of the above batching frequencies and determine how much problems cost to fix in each period.
If the cost is less than the above dollar amounts,
Batch even further apart.
For example.
Using our above math.
If I check email once per week and that results in an average loss of two sales per week,
Totaling.
Eighty dollars in lost profit.
I will continue checking once per week because two hundred dollars.

Minus eighty dollars.
is still a$120 net gain.
Not to mention the enormous benefits of completing other main tasks in those ten hours.
If you calculate the financial and emotional benefit of completing just one main task,
such as landing a major client or completing a life changing trip.
the value of batching is much more than the per hour savings.
If the problems cost more than hours saved,
Scale back to the next less frequent batch schedule.
In this case.
I would drop from once per week to twice per week.
Not daily.
and attempt to fix the system so that I can return

Do not work harder.
When the solution is working smarter.
I have batched both personal and business tasks further and further.
Further apart as I've realized just how few real problems come up.
Some of my scheduled batches in 2007 were email.
Mondays, ten o'clock AM
Phone.
completely eliminated.
Laundry every other Sunday at ten o'clock PM.
Credit cards and bills.
Most are on automatic payment, but I check balances every second Monday after email.
Strength training every fourth day for thirty minutes.
Et cetera.
Empowerment failure.
Rules and readjustment.
The vision is really about empowering workers.

So they can do a lot more than they've done in the past.
Bill Gates.
Co founder of Microsoft.
Richest man in the world.
Empowerment failure refers to being unable to accomplish a task.
Without first obtaining permission.
or information.
It is often a case of being micromanaged or micromanaging someone else.
both of which consume your time.
For the employee.
The goal is to have full access to necessary information and as much independent decision making ability as
as possible.
For the entrepreneur.
The goal is to grant as much information and independent decision making ability to employees or contractors as possible.
Customer service is often the epitome.
Of empowerment failure.
And a personal example from Brain Quicken illustrates just how serious
But easily solved the problem can be.
In two thousand two
I had outsourced customer service for order tracking and returns, but still handled product related questions myself.
The result?
I received more than 200 ema per day.
Spending all hours between nine to five responding to them,
And the volume was growing at a rate of more than 10% per week.
I had to cancel advertising and limit shipments.
as additional customer service would have been the final nail in the coffin.
It wasn't a scalable model.
Remember this word.
As it will be important later.
It wasn't scalable, but
Because there was an information and decision bottleneck.
Me.
The clincher?
The bulk of the email that landed in my inbox was not product related at all.
but requests from the outsourced customer service reps seeking permission for different actions.
The customer claims he didn't receive the shipment.
What should we do?
The customer had a bott held at Customs. Can we reship to a US address?
The customer needs the product for a competition in two days.
Can we ship overnight? And if so,
How much should we charge?
It was
Endless.
Hundreds upon hundreds of different situations
made it impractical to write a manual, and I didn't have the time or experience to do so regardless.
Fortunately, someone did have the experience.
The outsourced reps themselves.
I sent one single email to all the supervisors that immediately turned.
two hundred emails per day.
into fewer than twenty emails per week.
Hi all.
I would like to establish a new policy for my account that overrides all others.
Keep the customer happy.
If it is a problem that takes less than one hundred dollars to fix,
Use your judgment and fix it yourself.
This is official written permission and a request.
To fix all problems that cost under one hundred dollars and
Without contacting me.
I am no longer your customer.
My customers.
Are your customer.
Don't ask me for permission.
Do what you think is right.
And we'll make adjustments as we go along.
Thank you.
Tim.
Upon close analysis it became clear that
that more than ninety percent of the issues that prompted email could be resolved for less than twenty dollars.
I reviewed the financial results of their independent decision making on a weekly basis for four weeks, and
Then a monthly basis.
And then on a quarterly basis.
It's amazing how someone's IQ seems to double the
As soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them.
The first month cost perhaps two hundred dollars more than
than if I had been micromanaging.
In the meantime, I saved more than one hundred hours of my own time per month and
Customers received faster service, and
Returns drop to less than three percent and
The industry averages ten to fifteen percent.
And outsourcers spent less time on my account.
All of which resulted in rapid growth.
Higher profit margins.
And happier people on all sides.
People are smarter than you think.
Give them a chance to prove themselves.
If you are a micromanaged employee.
Have a heart to heart with your boss and explain that you want to be more productive and interrupt him or her less.
I hate that I have to interrupt you so much and pull you away from more important things I know you have on your plate, but
I was doing some reading and had some thoughts on how I might be more productive.
Do you have a second?
Before this conversation.
Develop a number of rules.
Like the previous example that would allow you to work more autonomously with less approval seeking.
The boss can review the outcome of your decisions on a daily or weekly basis in the initial stages.
Suggest a one week trial and end with
I'd like to try it.
Does that sound like something we could try for a week?
Or my personal favorite.
Is that reasonable?
It's hard for people to label things unreasonable.
Realize.
That bosses are supervisors, not slave masters.
Establish yourself as a consistent challenger of the status quo, and most people will learn to avoid challenging you if
particularly if it is in the interest of higher hour productivity.
If you are a micromanaging entrepreneur
Realize that even if you can do something better than the rest of the world, it doesn't mean
That's what you should be doing.
If it's part of the minutiae.
Empower others to act without interrupting you.
Set the rules.
In your favor.
Limit access to your time.
Force people to define their requests before spending time with them, and batch routine menial tasks to prevent postponement of more important projects.
Do not let people interrupt you.
Find your focus.
And you'll find your lifestyle.
The bottom line is
That you have only the rights.
You fight for.
In the next section.
Automation.
We'll see how the new rich create management free money
and eliminate the largest remaining obstacle of all.
themselves.
Q and A.
Questions.
and actions.
People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
Calvin
from Calvin and Hobbs.
Blaming idiots for interruptions.
is like blaming clowns for scaring children. They can't help it.
It's their nature.
Then again, I had, who am I kidding, and have, on occasion, been known to create interruptions out of thin air.
If you're anything like me, that makes us both occasional idiots.
Learn to recognize and fight the interruption impulse.
This is infinitely easier when you have a set of rules, responses, and routines to follow.
It is your job to prevent yourself and others from letting the unnecessary and unimportant
Prevent the start to finish completion.
of the important
This chapter differs from the previous in that the necessary actions are
Due to the inclusion of examples and templates.
have been presented throughout.
From start to finish.
This Q and A will thus be a summary.
Rather than a repetition.
The devil is in the details.
So be sure to re-listen to this chapter.

The fifty thousand foot review is as follows.
One.
Create systems to limit your availability via email and phone and deflect inappropriate contact.
Get the autoresponse and voicemail script in place now.
and master the various methods of evasion.
Replace the habit of how are you with
How can I help you?
Get specific and remember no stories.
Focus on immediate actions.
Set and practice interruption killing policies.
Avoid meetings.
Whenever possible.
Use email instead of face to face meetings to solve problems.
Bag off going.
This can be accomplished through the puppy dog clothes.
If meetings are unavoidable, keep the following in mind.
Go in with a clear set of objectives and
Set an end time or leave early.
Two
Batch activities to limit setup cost and provide more time for dreamline milestones.
What can I routinize by batching?
That is what tasks.
Whether laundry, groceries, mail
Payments or sales reporting, for example.
Can I a lot?
to a specific time each day, week, month,

So that I don't squander time repeating them more often.
than is absolutely necessary.
Three.
Set.
or request autonomous rules and guidelines
with occasional review of results.
Eliminate the decision bottleneck for all things that are non fatal if misperformed.
If an employee
Believe in yourself enough to ask for more independence on a trial basis.
Have practical rules prepared and
and ask the boss for the sale after surprising him or her with an impromptu.
Remember the puppy dog clothes, and
Make it a one time trial and reversible.
For the entrepreneur or manager.
Give others the chance to prove themselves.
The likelihood of irreversible or expensive problems is minimal, and the time savings are guaranteed.
Remember.
Profit.
is only profitable to the extent that you can use it.
For that?
You need time.
Tools.
And tricks.
Eliminating paper distractions.
Capturing.
Everything.
Evernote.
Evernote.com
This is perhaps the most impressive tool I've found in the last year.
Introduced to me by some of the most productive technologists in the world.
Evernote has eliminated more than 90% of the paper in my life and eliminated nearly all of the multiple tabs I use to leave open in web browsers.
Both of which distracted me to no end.
It can clear out your entire office clutter in one to three hours.
Evernote allows you to easily capture information from anywhere using whatever device is at hand.
And everything is then searchable.
Read findable.
From anywhere.
I use it to take photographs of everything I might want to remember or find later.
Business cards, handwritten notes, wine labels, receipts,
Whiteboard sessions and more.
Evernote identifies the text in all of these pictures automatically.
So it's all searchable.
Whether from an iPhone, your laptop, or the web.
Just as one example.
I can store and find the contact information from any business card in seconds.
Often using the built in eyesight camera on Mac to capture it.
Rather than spending hours inputting it all into contacts or searching through email for that lost phone number.
It's mind numbing how much time this saves.
Scan all agreements, paper articles, etc that would otherwise sit in file folders or on my desk.
I use the Mak Fujitsu scan snap mini scanner.
HTTP colon forward slash forward slash bit dot L Y
Forward slash.
Scan SnapMac.
The best I've found.
Which scans all of it directly to Evernote in seconds.
With one button.
Take snapshots of websites.
Capturing all text.
And links.
so that I can read them offline when traveling or doing later research.
Get rid of all those scattered bookmarks, favorites, and open tabs.
Screening and avoiding unwanted calls.
Grand Central
Grandcentral.com and
You mail.
Umail.com
In a world where your physical address will change more often than your cell phone number.
And email.
It can be disastrous if your number becomes public or
Or gets in the wrong hands.
Enter Grand Central.
Which will give you a number with the area code of your choosing
That then forwards to your own phone.
I now give a grand central number to anyone besides family and close friends.
Some of the benefits.
Identify any incoming number as unwanted and that caller will then hear a number not in service message when attempting to call you.
Customize your voicemail message to individual callers.
Spouse, boss, colleague, client, etc.
and listen in on messages as they're being left.
So you can pick up if the message is worth the interruption.
Call recording is also an option.
Use an area code outside of your hometown to prevent people and companies from finding and misusing addresses you'd prefer to keep private.
Establot disturb hours when calls are rooted directly to voicemail with no ring.
Have voicemail sent to your cell phone as SMS.
Text messages.
You mail.
Another option.
can also transcribe voicemails and send them to your phone as text messages.
Getting calls while stuck in a time wasting meeting?
No problem.
Respond to voicemails via SMS during the meeting.
So you're not stuck returning calls afterward.
One shot, one kill scheduling without email back and forth.
Few things are as time consuming as scheduling via email.
Person A
How about Tuesday at three PM?
Person B I can make it.
Person C, I have a meeting, how about Thursday?
Person D I'm on a con call, how about ten AM on Friday?
Use these tools to make scheduling simple and fast instead of another part time job.
Doodle.
Doodle.com
The best free tool I've found for hurting cats.
Multiple people.
For scheduling without excessive email.
Create and poll in thirty seconds with the proposed options and forward a link to everyone invited.
Check back a few hours later, and you'll have the best time for the most people.
Time driver.
Time driver dot com.
Let colleagues and clients self schedule with you based on your availability, which is determined by integration with Outlook or Google Calendar.
Embed a schedule now button in email messages, and you'll never have to tell people when you can make a call or meeting.
Let them see what's open and choose.
Choosing the best email batching times.
Zobni.
Zobny.com forward slash special
Zobni
Inbox spelled backwards,
Is a free program for putting out looking for the first time.
On steroids.
It offers many features.
But the most relevant to this chapter is its ability to identify
Hot spots.
Or periods of time when you receive the bulk of email
from your most important contacts.
These hot spots are batch that will enable you to keep critical contacts.
Clients, bosses, etcetera smiling, and
even while you reduce checking email to one to three times per day.
It will also populate your contacts automatically by pulling phone numbers, addresses, etc.
from separate email buried in the inbox.
Emailing.
Without entering the black hole of the inbox.
Don't enter the black hole of the inbox off hours, but
Because you're afraid you'll forget something.
Use these services instead to keep focused, whether on completing a critical project or
Or simply enjoying the weekend.
Jot
J O T T dot com
Capture thoughts.
Create to-do's, and set reminders with a simple toll free phone call.
The service transcribes your message.
Fifteen to thirty seconds.
and emails it to whomever you want, including yourself.
or to your Google Calendar for automatic scheduling.
Jot also enables you to post voice message links to Twitter.
Twitter.com.
Facebook.
Facebook dot com
And other services that tend to consume hours if you visit the sites themselves.
Copy talk
Copy Talk.com
Dictate any message up to four minutes and have the transcription emailed to you within hours.
Excellent for brainstorming.
And the accuracy is astounding.
Preventing web browsing
Completely.
Freedom.
Ibiblio dot org
Forward slash Fred.
Forward slash freedom.
forward slash
Freedom.
is a free application that disables networking on an Apple computer
For one to four hundred eighty minutes, up to eight hours at a time.
Freedom will free you from the distractions of the internet, but
Allowing you the focus to get real work done.
Freedom enforces freedom.
A reboot is the only method for turning freedom off before the time limit you've set for yourself.
The hassle of rebooting
means you're less likely to cheat and you'll be more productive.
Experiment with the software for short periods of time at first.
Thirty to sixty minutes.
Comfort challenge
Revisit the terrible twos.
Two days.
For the next two days.
Do as all good two year olds do and say no to all requests.
Don't be selective.
Refuse to do all things that won't get you immediately fired.
Be selfish.
As with the last exercise, the objective isn't an outcome, but
In this case eliminating just those things that waste time.
But the process.
Getting comfortable with saying no.
Potential questions to decline include the following.
Do you have a minute?
Do you want to see a movie tonight or tomorrow?
Can you help me with
X.
No should be your default answer to all requests.
Don't make up elaborate lies or you'll get called on them.
A simple I really can't, sorry, I've got too much on my plate right now will do as a catch all response.
Lifestyle design in action.
Batching tool
P.O. Box.
This might be stating the obvious, but one easy way to encourage batching of your mail is
Is to use a PO box versus getting mail delivered to your house.
We got our PO box to limit access to our physical address online.
but it also encourages you to get the mail less and deal with it in batch.
Our post office has recycling bins, so at least sixty percent of the mail.
Doesn't even come home with us.
For a while I was only getting and managing the mail once a week.
And I found not only did it take less time overall,
I did a better job managing it and getting it out of the way.
versus looking at it and setting it aside for future follow up.
Laura Turner.
For families, the four hour work week doesn't have to mean four months on a sailboat in the Caribbean unless that's their dream.
But even the simple ideal of having time to take a walk in the park every evening.
Or spending weekends together.
makes taking actions to implement this program worthwhile.
There are many different approaches for making this work.
Kids have to promise they won't bother mommy in the evening while she works on the computer, and
The husband watches the kids in the evening.
Both parents make plans once a week.
To have someone take care of the kids, etc.
Then close with the huge payoff for the family.
Of having more time to spend with each other.
Adrian Jenkins
Why not combine a mini retirement with dentistry?
Or medical geo arbitrage and finance your trip with the savings.
I lived in Thail for four months and got root canal treatment and a crown for one third of the price that it costs in Australia.
There are many upmarket clinics set up for expats and health travelers in Thailand, and
Philippines, Vietnam, Goa, etc.
With English speaking dentists.
And in Europe, many people go to Poland or Hungary.

Just Google dentist and the country.
And you will come across practices advertising to foreigners.
Talk to expats when you're in the country or on online chat forums for recommendations, but
Now I'm in Australia, I still combine my travels with annual dentist checkups.
And the savings often finance my airfare.
Even between developed countries there are significant cost differences and
For example
France is far cheaper than the UK, and
And Australia is cheaper than the US.
Note from Tim
Learn about the incredible world of medical tourism and geo arbitrage at
En.wikipedia.org
Forward slash wiki.
forward slash medical underscore tourism.
Even large insurers like Aetna often cover overseas treatments and surgeries.
Anonymous.
Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel.
It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading.
albums perhaps gadgets gizmas all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends including a lot of podcast guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun again it's very short
a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash.
Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one.
Thanks for listening.
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