The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich - Expanded and Updated

The Art of Letting Bad Things Happen

[AFTER 3 WEEKS OFF OF THE BLOG]

Long time no see! I just landed back in California from a long overdue mini-retirement through London, Scotland, Sardinia, the Slovak Republic, Austria, Amsterdam, and Japan. Some unpleasant surprises awaited me when I checked in on the evil e-mail inbox. Why? I let them happen.

I always do.

Here are just a few of the goodies that awaited me this time:

One of our fulfillment companies had been shut down due to the CEO’s death, causing a 20%+ loss in monthly orders and requiring an emergency shift of all web design and order processing

Missed radio and magazine appearances and upset would-be interviewers

More than a dozen lost joint-venture partnership opportunities

It’s not that I go out of my way to irritate people—not at all—but I recognize one critical fact: Oftentimes, in order to do the big things, you have to let the small bad things happen. This is a skill we want to cultivate.

What did I get in exchange for temporarily putting on blinders and taking a few glancing blows?

I followed the Rugby World Cup in Europe and watched the New Zealand All Blacks live, a dream I’ve had for the last five years.

I shot every gun I’ve ever dreamed of firing since brainwashing myself with Commando. Bless the Slovak Republic and their paramilitaries.

I filmed a television series pilot in Japan, a lifelong dream and the most fun I’ve had in months, if not years.

I met with my Japanese publisher, Seishisha, and had media interviews in Tokyo, where the 4HWW is now #1 in several of the largest chains.

I took a complete 10-day media fast and felt like I’d had a two-year vacation from computers.

I attended the Tokyo International Film Festival and hung out with one of my heroes, the producer of the Planet Earth television series.

Once you realize that you can turn off the noise without the world ending, you’re liberated in a way that few people ever know.

Just remember: If you don’t have attention, you don’t have time. Did I have time to check e-mail and voicemail? Sure. It might take 10 minutes. Did I have the attention to risk fishing for crises in those 10 minutes? Not at all.

As tempting as it is to “just check e-mail for one minute,” I didn’t do it. I know from experience that any problem found in the inbox will linger in the brain for hours or days after you shut down the computer, rendering “free time” useless with preoccupation. It’s the worst of states, where you experience neither relaxation nor productivity. Be focused on work or focused on something else, never in-between.

Time without attention is worthless, so value attention over time.

Here are a few questions that can help you pop on the productivity blinders and put things in perspective. Even when you’re not traveling the world, develop the habit of letting small bad things happen. If you don’t, you’ll never find time for the life-changing big things, whether important tasks or true peak experiences. If you do force the time but puncture it with distractions, you won’t have the attention to appreciate it.

What is the one goal, if completed, that could change everything?

What is the most urgent thing right now that you feel you “must” or “should” do?

Can you let the urgent “fail”—even for a day—to get to the next milestone for your potential life-changing tasks?

What’s been on your to-do list the longest? Start it first thing in the morning and don’t allow interruptions or lunch until you finish.

Will “bad” things happen? Small problems will crop up, yes. A few people will complain and quickly get over it. BUT, the bigger picture items you complete will let you see these for what they are—minutiae and repairable hiccups.

Make this trade a habit. Let the small bad things happen and make the big good things happen. —OCTOBER 25, 2007

Things I’ve Loved and Learned in 2008

2008 was one of the most exciting years of my life. I did more dealmaking and met more people than in the last five years combined. This produced many surprise insights about business and human nature, especially as I uncovered dozens of my own false assumptions.

Here are some of the things I learned and loved in 2008.

Favorite reads of 2008: Zorba the Greek and Seneca: Letters from a Stoic. These are two of the most readable books of practical philosophies I’ve ever had the fortune to encounter. If you have to choose one, get Zorba, but Lucius Seneca will take you further. Both are fast reads of 2–3 evenings.

Don’t accept large or costly favors from strangers. This karmic debt will come back to haunt you. If you can’t pass it up, immediately return to karmic neutrality with a gift of your choosing. Repay it before they set the terms for you. Exceptions: über-successful mentors who are making introductions and not laboring on your behalf.

You don’t have to recoup losses the same way you lose them. I own a home in San Jose but moved almost 12 months ago. It’s been empty since, and I’m paying a large mortgage each month. The best part? I don’t care. But this wasn’t always the case. For many months, I felt demoralized as others pressured me to rent it, emphasizing how I was just flushing money away otherwise. Then I realized: You don’t have to make money back the same way you lose it. If you lose $1,000 at the blackjack table, should you try and recoup it there? Of course not. I don’t want to deal with renters, even with a property management company. The solution: Leave the house alone, use it on occasion, and just create incoming revenue elsewhere that would cover the cost of the mortgage through consulting, publishing, etc.

One of the most universal causes of self-doubt and depression: trying to impress people you don’t like. Stressing to impress is fine, but do it for the right people—those you want to emulate.

Slow meals = life. From Daniel Gilbert of Harvard to Martin Seligman of Princeton, the “happiness” (self-reported well-being) researchers seem to agree on one thing: Mealtime with friends and loved ones is a direct predictor of well-being. Have at least one 2-to-3-hour dinner and/or drinks per week—yes, 2–3 hours—with those who make you smile and feel good. I find the afterglow effect to be greatest and longest with groups of five or more. Two times that are conducive to this: Thursday dinners or after-dinner drinks and Sunday brunches.

Adversity doesn’t build character; it reveals it.

Related: Money doesn’t change you; it reveals who you are when you no longer have to be nice.

It doesn’t matter how many people don’t get it. What matters is how many people do. If you have a strong informed opinion, don’t keep it to yourself. Try to help people and make the world a better place. If you strive to do anything remotely interesting, just expect a small percentage of the population to always find a way to take it personally. F*ck ’em. There are no statues erected to critics.

Related: You’re never as bad as they say you are. My agent used to send me every blog or media hit for The 4-Hour Workweek. Eight weeks after publication, I asked him to only forward me positive mentions in major media or factual inaccuracies I needed to respond to. An important correlate: You’re never as good as they say you are, either. It’s not helpful to get a big head or get depressed. The former makes you careless and the latter makes you lethargic. I wanted to have untainted optimism but remain hungry. Speaking of hungry …

Eat a high-protein breakfast within 30 minutes of waking and go for a 10-to-20-minute walk outside afterward, ideally bouncing a handball or tennis ball. This one habit is better than a handful of Prozac in the morning. (Suggested reading: The 3-Minute Slow-Carb Breakfast, How to “Peel” Hardboiled Eggs Without Peeling on www.fourhourblog.com.) I dislike losing money about 50x more than I like making it. Why 50X? Logging time as an experiment, I concluded that I often spend at least 50 x more time to prevent a hypothetical unit of $100 from being lost vs. earned. The hysterical part is that, even after becoming aware of this bias, it’s hard to prevent the latter response. Therefore, I manipulate the environmental causes of poor responses instead of depending on error-prone self-discipline.

I should not invest in public stocks where I cannot influence outcomes. Once realizing that almost no one can predict risk tolerance and response to losses, I moved all of my investments into fixed-income and cashlike instruments in July 2008 for this reason, setting aside 10% of pretax income for angel investments where I can contribute significant UI/design, PR, and corporate partnership help. (Suggested reading: Rethinking Investing—Part 1, Rethinking Investing—Part 2 on www.fourhourblog.com.)

A good question to revisit whenever overwhelmed: Are you having a breakdown or a breakthrough?

Rehearse poverty regularly—restrict even moderate expenses for 1–2 weeks and give away 20%+ of minimally used clothing—so you can think big and take “risks” without fear (Seneca).

A mindset of scarcity (which breeds jealousy and unethical behavior) is due to a disdain for those things easily obtained (Seneca).

A small cup of black Kenyan AA coffee with cinnamon on top, no milk or sweeteners.

It’s usually better to keep old resolutions than to make new ones.

To bring in a wonderful 2009, I’d like to quote an e-mail I received from a mentor of more than a decade:

While many are wringing their hands, I recall the 1970s when we were suffering from an oil shock causing long lines at gas stations, rationing, and 55 MPH speed limits on federal highways, a recession, very little venture capital ($50 million per year into VC firms), and what President Jimmy Carter (wearing a sweater while addressing the nation on TV because he had turned down the heat in the White House) called a “malaise.” It was during those times that two kids without any real college education, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, started companies that did pretty well. Opportunities abound in bad times as well as good times. In fact, the opportunities are often greater when the conventional wisdom is that everything is going into the toilet.

Well… we’re nearing the end of another great year, and despite what we read about the outlook for 2009, we can look forward to a New Year filled with opportunities as well as stimulating challenges.

Happy New Year, everyone.

How to Travel the World with 10 Pounds or Less

Hauling a five-piece Samsonite set around the planet is hell on earth. I watched a friend do this up and down dozens of subway and hotel staircases in Europe for three weeks, and—while I laughed a lot, especially when he resorted to just dragging or throwing his bags down stairs—I’d like to save you the breakdown. Trip enjoyment is inversely proportionate to the amount of crap (read: distractions) you bring with you.

Practice in 30-plus countries has taught me that minimalist packing can be an art.

I returned from Costa Rica last Wednesday and have since landed in Maui, where I’ll stay for one week. What did I pack and why? (See the companion video at www.fourhourblog.com.⁸⁶)

I practice what I’ll label the BIT method of travel: Buy It There.

If you pack for every possible contingency—better bring the hiking books in case we go hiking, better bring an umbrella in case it rains, better bring dress shoes and slacks in case we go to a nice restaurant, etc.—carrying a mule-worthy load is inevitable. I’ve learned to instead allocate $50–200 per trip to a “settling fund,” which I use to buy needed items once they’re 100% needed. This includes cumbersome and hassle items like umbrellas and bottles of sunscreen that love to explode. Also, never buy if you can borrow. If you’re going on a bird-watching trip in Costa Rica, you don’t need to bring binoculars—someone else will have them.

Here’s the Maui list.

1 featherweight Marmot Ion jacket (3 oz.!)

1 breathable Coolibar long-sleeve shirt to prevent sunburn. This saved me in Panama.

1 pair of polyester pants. Polyester is light, wrinkle-resistant, and dries quickly. Disco dancers and flashpackers dig it.

1 Kensington laptop lock, also used to secure all bags to stationary objects

1 single Under Armour sock, used to store sunglasses

2 nylon tanktops

1 large MSR quick-dry microfiber towel, absorbs up to seven times its weight in water

1 Ziploc bag containing toothbrush, travel toothpaste, and disposable razor

1 Fly Clear biometric travel card (www.flyclear.com),⁸⁷ which cuts down my airport wait time about 95%

2 pairs of ExOfficio lightweight underwear. Their tagline is “17 countries. 6 weeks. And one pair of underwear.” I think I’ll opt for two, considering they weigh about as much as a handful of Kleenex. One other nice side effect of their weight: They’re much more comfortable than normal cotton underwear.

2 pairs of shorts/swimsuits

2 books: Lonely Planet Hawaii and The Entrepreneurial Imperative. (The latter comes highly recommended. Check it out.)

1 sleeping mask and earplugs

1 pair of Reef sandals. Best to get a pair with removable straps that go around the heel.

1 Canon PowerShot SD300 digital camera with extra 2GB SD memory card. God, I love this camera more than words can describe. It is the best designed piece of electronics I have ever owned. I now use it not only for all of my photos and videos, but also as a replacement for my scanner. I’m considering testing the newer and cheaper SD1000.

1 coffee-harvesting hat to prevent my pale skin from burning off

1 Kiva keychain expandable duffel bag

1 Chapstick, 1 Mag-Lite Solitaire flashlight, and 1 roll of athletic tape. The last is a lifesaver. It’s as useful as duct tape for repairing objects but gentle enough to use on injuries, which I am fond of inflicting on myself.

1 Lewis and Clark flex lock (for luggage, lockers, zippers, or whatever I need to lock down/shut together). Standard mini-padlocks are often too cumbersome to thread through holes on lockers, etc.

1 Radio Shack kitchen timer, which I’ve been using to wake up for about four years. The problem with using a cell phone alarm to wake up is simple: The phone often needs to be on, and even if you use vibrate, people can call and wake you up before you want to wake up. The second benefit to using a kitchen timer is that you know exactly how much sleep you are—or aren’t—getting, and you can experiment with things like caffeine power naps of different durations … but that’s another post;)

—JULY 11, 2007

The Choice-Minimal Lifestyle: 6 Formulas for More Output and Less Overwhelm

I was stressed out… over dog cartoons.

It was 9:47 P.M. at Barnes and Noble on a recent Saturday night, and I had 13 minutes to find a suitable exchange for The New Yorker Dog Cartoons, $22 of expensive paper. Bestsellers? Staff recommends? New arrivals or classics? I’d already been there 30 minutes.

Beginning to feel overwhelmed with a ridiculous errand I’d expected to take five minutes, I stumbled across the psychology section. One tome jumped out at me as all too appropriate—The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen or read Barry Schwartz’s 2004 classic, but it seemed like a good time to revisit the principles, among them, that:

The more options you consider, the more buyer’s regret you’ll have.

The more options you encounter, the less fulfilling your ultimate outcome will be.

This raises a difficult question: Is it better to have the best outcome but be less satisfied, or have an acceptable outcome and be satisfied?

For example, would you rather deliberate for months and get the 1 of 20 houses that’s the best investment but second-guess yourself until you sell it five years later, or would you rather get a house that is 80% of the investment potential of the former (still to be sold at a profit) but never second-guess it?

Tough call.

Schwartz also recommends making nonreturnable purchases. I decided to keep the stupid pooch cartoons. Why? Because it’s not just about being satisfied, it’s about being practical.

Income is renewable, but some other resources—like attention—are not. I’ve talked before about attention as a currency and how it determines the value of time.

For example: Is your weekend really free if you find a crisis in the inbox Saturday morning that you can’t address until Monday morning?

Even if the inbox scan lasts 30 seconds, the preoccupation and forward projection for the subsequent 48 hours effectively deletes that experience from your life. You had time but you didn’t have attention, so the time had no practical value.

The choice-minimal lifestyle becomes an attractive tool when we consider two truths.

Considering options costs attention that then can’t be spent on action or present-state awareness.

Attention is necessary for not only productivity but appreciation.

Therefore:

Too many choices = less or no productivity

Too many choices = less or no appreciation

Too many choices = sense of overwhelm

What to do? There are six basic rules or formulas that can be used:

1. Set rules for yourself so you can automate as much decision making as possible [see the rules I use to outsource my e-mail to Canada, included at the end of this section, as an example of this].

2. Don’t provoke deliberation before you can take action.

One simple example: Don’t scan the inbox on Friday evening or over the weekend if you might encounter work problems that can’t be addressed until Monday.

3. Don’t postpone decisions just to avoid uncomfortable conversations.

If an acquaintance asks you if you want to come to their house for dinner next week, and you know you won’t, don’t say, “I’m not sure. I’ll let you know next week.” Instead, use something soft but conclusive like, “Next week? I’m pretty sure I have another commitment on Thursday, but thank you for the invite. Just so I don’t leave you hanging, let’s assume I can’t make it, but can I let you know if that changes?” Decision made. Move on.

4. Learn to make nonfatal or reversible decisions as quickly as possible.

Set time limits (I won’t consider options for more than 20 minutes), option limits (I’ll consider no more than three options), or finance thresholds (Example: If it costs less than $100 [or the potential damage is less than $100], I’ll let a virtual assistant make the judgment call).

I wrote most of this post after landing at the monster that is ATL airport in Atlanta. I could have considered half a dozen types of ground transportation in 15 minutes and saved 30–40%, but I grabbed a taxi instead. To use illustrative numbers: I didn’t want to sacrifice 10 attention units of my remaining 50 of 100 total potential units, since those 10 units couldn’t then be spent on this article. I had about eight hours before bedtime due to time zone differences—plenty of time—but scarce usable attention after an all-nighter of fun and the cross-country flight. Fast decisions preserve usable attention for what matters.

5. Don’t strive for variation—and thus increase option consideration—when it’s not needed. Routine enables innovation where it’s most valuable.

In working with athletes, for example, it’s clear that those who maintain the lowest bodyfat percentage eat the same foods over and over with little variation. I’ve eaten the same “slow-carb” breakfast and lunch for nearly two years,⁸⁸ putting variation only into meals that I focus on for enjoyment: dinner and all meals on Saturdays. This same routine-variation distinction can be found in exercise vs. recreation. For fat loss and muscle gain (even as much as 34 pounds in four weeks), I’ve followed the same time—minimal exercise protocol with occasional experiments since 1996. For recreation, however, where the focus is enjoyment and not efficacy, I tend to try something new each weekend, whether climbing at Mission Cliffs in San Francisco or mountain biking from tasting to tasting in Napa.

Don’t confuse what should be results-driven with routine (e.g., exercise) with something enjoyment-driven that benefits from variation (e.g., recreation).

6. Regret is past-tense decision making. Eliminate complaining to minimize regret.

Condition yourself to notice complaints and stop making them with a simple program like the “21-day no-complaint experiment” made famous by Will Bowen, where you wear a single bracelet and move it from one wrist to the other each time you complain. The goal is 21 days without complaining and you reset to 0 each time you slip up. This increased awareness helps prevent useless past-tense deliberation and negative emotions that improve nothing but deplete your attention.

DECISION-MAKING ISN’T to be avoided—that’s not the problem. Look at a good CEO or top corporate performer and you’ll see a high volume of decisions.

It’s deliberation—the time we vacillate over and consider each decision—that’s the attention consumer. Total deliberation time, not the number of decisions, determines your attention bank account balance (or debt).

Let’s assume you pay 10% over time by following the above rules but cut your average “decision cycle” time by an average of 40% (10 minutes reduced to 6 minutes, for example). Not only will you have much more time and attention to spend on revenue-generating activities, but you’ll get greater enjoyment from what you have and experience. Consider that 10% additional cost as an investment and part of your “ideal lifestyle tax,” but not as a loss.

Embrace the choice-minimal lifestyle. It’s a subtle and under-exploited philosophical tool that produces dramatic increases in both output and satisfaction, all with less overwhelm.

Make testing a few of the principles the first of many fast and reversible decisions. —FEBRUARY 6, 2008

The Not-to-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now

“Not-to-do” lists are often more effective than to-do lists for upgrading performance.

The reason is simple: What you don’t do determines what you can do.

Here are nine stressful and common habits that entrepreneurs and office workers should strive to eliminate. The bullets are followed by more detailed descriptions. Focus on one or two at a time, just as you would with high-priority to-do items.

1. Do not answer calls from unrecognized phone numbers.

Feel free to surprise others, but don’t be surprised. It just results in unwanted interruption or poor negotiating positions. Let it go to voicemail, and consider using a service like GrandCentral (you can listen to people leaving voicemail or receive them as text messages) or Phonetag.com (receive voicemails as e-mail).

2. Do not e-mail first thing in the morning or last thing at night.

The former scrambles your priorities and plans for the day, and the latter just gives you insomnia. E-mail can wait until 10 A.M., after you’ve completed at least one of your critical to-do items.

3. Do not agree to meetings or calls with no clear agenda or end time.

If the desired outcome is defined clearly with a stated objective and agenda listing topics/questions to cover, no meeting or call should last more than 30 minutes. Request them in advance so you “can best prepare and make good use of the time together.”

4. Do not let people ramble.

Forget “How’s it going?” when someone calls you. Stick with “What’s up?” or “I’m in the middle of getting something out, but what’s going on?” A big part of GTD (Getting Things Done) is GTP—Getting To the Point.

5. Do not check e-mail constantly—“batch” and check at set times only.

I belabor this point enough. Get off the cocaine pellet dispenser and focus on execution of your top to-do’s instead of responding to manufactured emergencies. Set up a strategic autoresponder and check twice or thrice daily.

6. Do not over-communicate with low-profit, high-maintenance customers.

There is no sure path to success, but the surest path to failure is trying to please everyone. Do an 80/20 analysis of your customer base in two ways—which 20% are producing 80%+ of my profit, and which 20% are consuming 80%+ of my time? Then put the loudest and least productive on autopilot by citing a change in company policies. Send them an e-mail with new rules as bullet points: number of permissible phone calls, e-mail response time, minimum orders, etc. Offer to point them to another provider if they aren’t able to adopt the new policies.

7. Do not work more to fix overwhelmingness—prioritize.

If you don’t prioritize, everything seems urgent and important. If you define the single most important task for each day, almost nothing seems urgent or important. Oftentimes, it’s just a matter of letting little bad things happen (return a phone call late and apologize, pay a small late fee, lose an unreasonable customer, etc.) to get the big important things done. The answer to overwhelmingness is not spinning more plates—or doing more—it’s defining the few things that can really fundamentally change your business and life.

8. Do not carry a cell phone or Crackberry 24/7.

Take at least one day off of digital leashes per week. Turn them off or, better still, leave them in the garage or in the car. I do this on at least Saturday, and I recommend you leave the phone at home if you go out for dinner. So what if you return a phone call an hour later or the next morning? As one reader put it to a miffed co-worker who worked 24/7 and expected the same: “I’m not the president of the U.S. No one should need me at 8 P.M. at night. OK, you didn’t get a hold of me. But what bad happened?” The answer? Nothing.

9. Do not expect work to fill a void that non-work relationships and activities should.

Work is not all of life. Your co-workers shouldn’t be your only friends. Schedule life and defend it just as you would an important business meeting. Never tell yourself “I’ll just get it done this weekend.” Review Parkinson’s Law and force yourself to cram within tight hours so your per-hour productivity doesn’t fall through the floor. Focus, get the critical few done, and get out. E-mailing all weekend is no way to spend the little time you have on this planet.

It’s hip to focus on getting things done, but it’s only possible once we remove the constant static and distraction. If you have trouble deciding what to do, just focus on not doing. Different means, same end. —AUGUST 16, 2007

The Margin Manifesto: 11 Tenets for Reaching (or Doubling) Profitability in 3 Months

Profitability often requires better rules and speed, not more time. The financial goal of a start-up should be simple: profit in the least time with the least effort. Not more customers, not more revenue, not more offices or more employees. More profit.

Based on my interviews with high-performing (using profit-per-employee metrics) CEOs in more than a dozen countries, here are the 11 basic tenets of the “Margin Manifesto” … a return-to-basics call that gives permission to do the uncommon to achieve the uncommon: consistent profitability, or doubling of it, in three months or less.

I review the following principles whenever facing operational overwhelmingness or declining/stagnating profits. Hope you find them useful.

1. Niche Is the New Big—The Lavish Dwarf Entertainment Rule

Several years ago, an investment banker was jailed for trade violations. He was caught partly due to his lavish parties on yachts, often featuring hired dwarves. The owner of the dwarf rental company, Danny Black, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying “Some people are just into lavish dwarf entertainment.” Niche is the new big. But here’s the secret: It’s possible to niche market and mass sell. iPod commercials don’t feature dancing 50-year-olds, they feature hip and fit 20- and 30-somethings, but everyone and his grandmother wants to feel youthful and hip, so they strap on Nanos and call themselves Apple converts. Who you portray in your marketing isn’t necessarily the only demographic who buys your product—it’s often the demographic that most people want to identify with or belong to. The target isn’t the market. No one aspires to be the bland average, so don’t water down messaging to appeal to everyone—it will end up appealing to no one.

2. Revisit Drucker—What Gets Measured Gets Managed

Measure compulsively, for as Peter Drucker stated, What gets measured gets managed. Useful metrics to track, besides the usual operational stats, include CPO (“Cost-Per-Order,” which includes advertising, fulfillment and expected returns, charge-backs, and bad debt), ad allowable (the maximum you can spend on an advertisement and expect to break even), MER (media efficiency ratio), and projected lifetime value (LV) given return rates and reorder percent. Consider applying direct response advertising metrics to your business.

3. Pricing Before Product—Plan Distribution First

Is your pricing scalable? Many companies will sell direct-to-consumer by necessity in early stages, only to realize that their margins can’t accommodate resellers and distributors when they come knocking. If you have a 40% profit margin and a distributor needs a 70% discount to sell into wholesale accounts, you’re forever limited to direct-to-consumer … unless you increase your pricing and margins. It’s best to do this beforehand if possible—otherwise, you’ll need to launch new or “premium” products—so plan distribution before setting pricing. Test assumptions and find hidden costs by interviewing those who have done it: Will you need to pay for co-op advertising, offer rebates for bulk purchases, or pay for shelf space or featured placement? I know one former CEO of a national brand who had to sell his company to one of the world’s largest soft drink manufacturers before he could access front-of-store shelving in top retailers. Test your assumptions and do your homework before setting pricing.

4. Less Is More—Limiting Distribution to Increase Profit

Is more distribution automatically better? No. Uncontrolled distribution leads to all manner of headache and profit-bleeding, most often related to rogue discounters. Reseller A lowers pricing to compete with online discounter B, and the price cutting continues until neither is making sufficient profit on the product and both stop reordering. This requires you to launch a new product, as price erosion is almost always irreversible. Avoid this scenario and consider partnering with one or two key distributors instead, using that exclusivity to negotiate better terms: less discounting, prepayment, preferred placement and marketing support, etc. From iPods to Rolex and Estée Lauder, sustainable high-profit brands usually begin with controlled distribution. Remember, more customers isn’t the goal; more profit is.

5. Net-Zero—Create Demand vs. Offering Terms

Focus on creating end-user demand so you can dictate terms. Often one trade publication advertisment, bought at discount remnant rates, will be enough to provide this leverage. Outside of science and law, most “rules” are just common practice. Just because everyone in your industry offers terms doesn’t mean you have to, and offering terms is the most consistent ingredient in start-up failure. Cite start-up economics and the ever-so-useful “company policy” as reasons for prepayment and apologize, but don’t make exceptions. Net-30 becomes net-60, which becomes net-120. Time is the most expensive asset a start-up has, and chasing delinquent accounts will prevent you from generating more sales. If customers are asking for your product, resellers and distributors will need to buy it. It’s that simple. Put funds and time into strategic marketing and PR to tip the scales in your favor.

6. Repetition Is Usually Redundant—Good Advertising Works the First Time

Use direct response advertising (call-to-action to a phone number or website) that is uniquely trackable—fully accountable advertising—instead of image advertising, unless others are pre-purchasing to offset the cost (e.g., “If you prepurchase 288 units, we’ll feature your store/URL/phone exclusively in a full-page ad in…”). Don’t listen to advertising salespeople who tell you that 3, 7, or 27 exposures are needed before someone will act on an advertisement. Well-designed and well-targeted advertising works the first time. If something works partially well (e.g., high response with low percentage conversion to sales, low response with high conversion, etc.), indicating that a strong ROI might be possible with small changes, tweak one controlled variable and microtest once more. Cancel anything that cannot be justified with a trackable ROI.

7. Limit Downside to Ensure Upside—Sacrifice Margin for Safety

Don’t manufacture product in large quantities to increase margin unless your product and marketing are tested and ready for rollout without changes. If a limited number of prototypes cost $10 per piece to manufacture and sell for $11 each, that’s fine for the initial testing period, and essential for limiting downside. Sacrifice margin temporarily for the testing phase, if need be, and avoid potentially fatal upfront overcommitments.

8. Negotiate Late—Make Others Negotiate Against Themselves

Never make a first offer when purchasing. Flinch after the first offer (“$3,000!” followed by pure silence, which uncomfortable salespeople fill by dropping the price once), let people negotiate against themselves (“Is that really the best you can offer?” elicits at least one additional drop in price), then “bracket.” If they end up at $2,000 and you want to pay $1,500, offer $1,250. They’ll counter with approximately $1,750, to which you respond: “I’ll tell you what—let’s just split the difference. I’ll overnight FedEx you a check, and we can call it a day.” The end result? Exactly what you wanted: $1,500.

9. Hyperactivity vs. Productivity—80/20 and Pareto’s Law

Being busy is not the same as being productive. Forget about the start-up overwork ethic that people wear as a badge of honor—get analytical. The 80/20 principle, also known as Pareto’s Law, dictates that 80% of your desired outcomes are the result of 20% of your activities or inputs. Once per week, stop putting out fires for an afternoon and run the numbers to ensure you’re placing effort in high-yield areas: What 20% of customers/products/ regions are producing 80% of the profit? What are the factors that could account for this? Invest in duplicating your few strong areas instead of fixing all of your weaknesses.

10. The Customer Is Not Always Right—“Fire” High-Maintenance Customers

Not all customers are created equal. Apply the 80/20 principle to time consumption: What 20% of people are consuming 80% of your time? Put high-maintenance, low-profit customers on autopilot—process orders but don’t pursue them or check up on them—and “fire” high-maintenance, high-profit customers by sending a memo detailing how a change in business model requires a few new policies: how often and how to communicate, standardized pricing and order process, etc. Indicate that, for those clients whose needs are incompatible with these new policies, you are happy to introduce other providers. “But what if my largest customer consumes all of my time?” Recognize that (1) without time, you cannot scale your company (and, oftentimes, life) beyond that customer, and (2) people, even good people, will unknowingly abuse your time to the extent that you let them. Set good rules for all involved to minimize back-and-forth and meaningless communication.

11. Deadlines Over Details—Test Reliability Before Capability

Skills are overrated. Perfect products delivered past deadline kill companies faster than decent products delivered on time. Test someone’s ability to deliver on a specific and tight deadline before hiring them based on a dazzling portfolio. Products can be fixed as long as you have cash flow, and bugs are forgiven, but missing deadlines is often fatal. Calvin Coolidge once said that nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent; I would add that the second most common is smart people who think their IQ or resume justifies delivering late. —JUNE 24, 2008

The Holy Grail: How to Outsource the Inbox and Never Check E-mail Again

What if you never had to check e-mail again? If you could hire someone else to spend countless hours in your inbox instead of you?

This isn’t pure fantasy. For the last 12 months, I’ve experimented with removing myself from the inbox entirely by training other people to behave like me. Not to imitate me, but to think like me.

Here’s the upshot: I get more than 1,000 e-mails a day from various accounts.⁸⁹ Rather than spending 6–8 hours per day checking e-mail, which I used to do, I can skip reading e-mail altogether for days or even weeks at a time … all within 4–10 minutes a night.

Let me explain the basics, followed by tips and exact templates for outsourcing your own inbox.

1. I have multiple e-mail addresses for specific types of e-mail (blog readers vs. media vs. friends/family, etc.). tim@ … is the default I give to new acquaintances, which goes to my assistant.

2. 99% of e-mail falls into predetermined categories of inquiries with set questions or responses (my “rules” document is at the bottom of this post—feel free to steal, adapt, and use). My assistant(s) checks and clears the inbox at 11 A.M. and 3 P.M. pst.

3. For the 1% of e-mail that might require my input for next actions, I have a once-daily phone call of 4–10 minutes at 4 P.M. pst with my assistant.

4. If I’m busy or traveling abroad, my assistant leaves the action items in numerical order on my voicemail, which I can respond to in a bullet-point e-mail. These days, I actually prefer the voice-mail option and find that it forces my assistant to be more prepared and more concise.

Each night (or early the next morning), I’ll listen to my assistant’s voicemail via Skype and simultaneously write out the next actions (1. Bob: Tell him that … 2. Jose in Peru: Ask him for … 3. Speaking in NC: Confirm …, etc.) in a Skype chat or quick e-mail. How long does the new system take? 4–10 minutes instead of 6–8 hours of filtering and repetitive responses.

If you only have one e-mail account, I recommend using a desktop program like Outlook or Mail instead of a web-based program like Gmail for a simple reason: If you see new items in your inbox, you’ll check them. Like they say in AA: If you don’t want to slip, don’t go where it’s slippery. This is why I have a private personal account that I use for sending e-mail to my assistant and communicating with friends. It’s almost always empty.

E-mail is the last thing people let go of. Fortune 500 CEOs, best-selling authors, celebrities—I know dozens of top performers who delegate everything but e-mail, which they latch onto as something only they can do. “No one can check my e-mail for me” is the unquestioned assumption, or “I answer every e-mail I receive” is the unquestioned bragging right that keeps them in front of a computer for 8–12 hours at a stretch. It’s not fun, and it keeps them from higher-impact or more rewarding activities.

Get over yourself. I had to. Checking e-mail isn’t some amazing skill that you alone possess.

In fact, checking e-mail is like everything else: a process.

How you evaluate and handle (delete vs. archive vs. forward vs. respond) e-mail is just a series of questions you ask yourself, whether consciously or subconsciously. I have a document called “Tim Ferriss Processing Rules,” to which my assistants add rules when I send them a note via e-mail with “ADD TO RULES” in the subject. Over the course of a week or two with a virtual assistant (VA), you will end up with an externalized set of rules that reflect how your brain processes e-mail. It often shows you how haphazard your processing is. I’ve included my “rules” here to save you some time. A few tips:

1. Setting appointments and meetings takes a lot of time. Have your assistant set things up for you in Google Calendar. I input my own items via my Palm Z22 or iCal, then use Spanning Sync and Missing Sync for Palm OS to sync everything. On my überlight Sony VAIO, which I still use for travel, I use CompanionLink for Google Calendar. I suggest batching meetings or calls in one or two set days, with 15 minutes between appointments. Scattering them throughout the week at odd times just interrupts everything else. (Update 2009: The Palm Z22 has been discarded, and I now use a 13-inch MacBook and BusySync to synchronize iCal with Google Calendar.)

2. If you jump in your assistant’s inbox and answer anything, BCC them so they are aware that you handled it.

3. Expect small problems. Life is full of compromises, and it’s necessary to let small bad things happen if you want to get huge good things done. There is no escape. Prevent all problems and get nothing done, or accept an allowable level of small problems and focus on the big things.

Ready to jump in and test the holy grail? Here are the steps.

1. Determine exactly which accounts you will use and how you want them to respond to (or just categorize or purge) e-mail for you.

2. Find a virtual assistant.

3. Test for reliability before skill set. Have the top three candidates do something on tight deadline (24 hours) before hiring them and letting them in your inbox.

4. Use a probationary period of 2–4 weeks to test the waters and work out the problems. Again: There will be problems. It will take a good 3–8 weeks to get to real smooth sailing.

5. Design your ideal lifestyle and find something to do other than let your brain fester in the inbox. Fill the void.

TIM FERRISS PROCESSING RULES

[Note the Q&A format—some of the questions are my standard points for VAs, some have been added by my assistant, who put together this document.]

Passwords

Team Requirements

[I often have exec-level assistants manage 4–5 other “sub VAs” who handle certain repetitive tasks, often at half the exec VA’s hourly rate. The exec VA takes on an office manager or, in some cases, COO-level function.]

Download: www.alexa.com—Toolbar

Learn Statistics, Rank for Business Prospect and Joint-Venture Opportunities

Deadlines are extremely important. Be Aware of them, and Be Punctual!

If Tim says “Call me back,” CALL HIM BACK, do not send an e-mail. This is an important point, as Tim does not always have e-mail access because he is traveling a lot.

Even if it is late in the evening, he is up late, if he does not want to answer his phone, he will not. But PLEASE call him back when he asks you to. He much prefers a phone call to an e-mail.

Purchase and read The Elements of Style regarding proper grammar and punctuation. We are dealing with high-profile clients on Tim’s behalf and the proper writing techniques and message says a lot about his team.

Become as familiar as you can with his book and his website as to answer questions accordingly.

Contact Information

Tim Ferriss

[mailing address]

Tim Cell (your use only): [private cell]

Number to give others: [GrandCentral number]

Skype: XXXXX

Billing Address (Private):

[billing address]

Purchases

ASK [head VA], for his AMEX NUMBER. SHE WILL ADVISE WHETHER PURCHASES CAN BE APPROVED.

Question and Answer (Preferences)

How do you feel about joint ventures?

I’m open to them, but my brand and respectability is #1. I will not do anything with anyone who comes off as deceptive or amateur. “Make millions while you sleep in our super-insane foreclosure program!” on the website disqualifies someone. I cannot be associated with anyone who might be seen as a liar or snake-oil salesman. Just ask yourself: If the CEO of a well-known company saw this, would he lose interest in speaking with me? If so, it won’t work.

For those who pass that criteria, what have they done already? I’m not looking for first-timers, generally, unless they have an excellent track record and reputation elsewhere.

Do you focus solely on profit-generating tasks?

No. I also look for prestige (Harvard, government, etc.), wide exposure, as well as building networks with people who have world-class skills in some area.

How do you handle spam?

SpamArrest and Gmail. I have no problem with spam at this point.

What is your optimal response rate (i.e., respond to all e-mails no later than 48–72 hours after received)?

Same day. I’m bringing you on to respond quickly.

Do you respond to any e-mails?

Yes, but I’ll want you to filter them first, respond to all you can, then mark the ones I should look at with the label “TIM” in Gmail. [Note earlier in this article how I am now asking VAs to leave to-do’s via voicemail.]

Do you put in any events in your calendar?

Yes, but I expect I will move more and more to having you do it.

Do we “manage” your items, or do you delegate? We are cool with both, but prefer to manage.:-)

I’ll try to give the list to you to take care of. I NEED confirmations that you received the task (“on it—will be done at X P.M.” is enough) and like status updates on larger projects with milestones.

Who is on your team?

Me, the publishing team, and some PR folk at this point. I might have you get involved with my other businesses later, but that’s it for now.

Who do we have to collaborate with on a regular basis?

See above. 90% me, then possibly my publicist(s), tech support and web staff, and my book agent. More will come, I’m sure, but that’s it for now.

Who calls the shots for you?

You can decide anything under $100. Use your judgment and report the decisions.

Do you have “days” off (as in no business appts.)?

Let’s shoot for no appointments on Fridays, but let’s play it by ear. [Update: I now only have appointments on Mondays and Fridays.]

Who has been handling your appts. up until now?

Me. I haven’t had any in-person meetings for close to four years. Things have changed with the book:)

Explain to us your “optimal” work week (i.e., how long between phone calls, how many meetings per week, travel preferences, etc.)?

I go to bed late, so try and avoid calls before 10 A.M. pst when possible.

Try and “cluster” phone calls and meetings so that I can bang them out at the same time, as opposed to having one at 10 A.M., another at 1 P.M., and another at 4 P.M. Have them all in a row with 15–20 minutes in between whenever possible. I’d like to do phone calls before 1 P.M. pst when possible (so 10 A.M.-1 P.M.). Calls should be kept to 15–30 minutes, always with a defined end time. If someone asks to “jump on the phone” with me, send them something like: “To make the best use of everyone’s time, Tim likes to have a well-defined agenda with objectives for a call before jumping on the phone. Can you please send over some bullet points with what you’d like to cover and decide on the call?” Something like that.

Do you like us to schedule personal items in with your business calendar (i.e., order your mother flowers for Mother’s Day, etc.)? Absolutely.

What are “all” the e-mail addresses we respond to for you? See earlier text.

Do you like us to respond as “you” or something like “client support for Timothy Ferriss.”

The latter, probably something like “Executive Assistant to Tim Ferriss” below your name—I’m open to suggestions.

How many times a day do you want e-mail checked?

Twice should be fine to start. Let’s aim for a minimum of at 11 A.M. and 3 P.M. in your time zone.

What are your working hours?

10 A.M.-6 P.M. pst, then often 11 p.m.-2 A.M. pst. [Before you cry, “What happened to the four-hour workweek?!” realize that “work hours” here could be replaced with “active and available-by-phone hours.” I have lots of projects and do not preach idleness. I am VERY active. See the sixth comment on this post on www.fourhourblog.com for more elaboration or reread the “Filling the Void” chapter in this book.]

Do you like using IM?Not really, unless it’s a scheduled discussion. Just leave yourself logged in, and I’ll log in if I need something. [I tend to use Skype chat these days, as it’s encrypted and I can avoid a separate IM program.]

Do you prefer a phone call or an e-mail to answer a quick question?

PHONE CALL, absolutely. DO NOT e-mail me for anything urgent. I really follow my own advice and don’t check e-mail that often.

What is your favorite color?

Green like cedar leaves in July.

Call at the end of every day (if) there is something that Tim needs to respond to in his e-mail.

E-books: Tell them they can download the e-bookfromwww.powells.com.

Label all e-mails from “Expert Click” for Tim. No need to respond or forward.

All Linked-In e-mails can be archived or deleted as Tim receives notification of invites as soon as he logs into his Linked-In account.

For start-up inquiries in the health and wellness industry (or BrainQUICKEN start-up inquiries) please see the templates in

Gmail titled: Congratulations and General Business Questions—BrainQUICKEN Templates.

For language inquiries, please see the templates in Gmail titled: Reader Question on Language Resources—Language Templates.

When Tim types “dictate” in the e-mail response, this means that we can say to the recipient: As Tim is traveling at the moment and not able to personally respond to your e-mail, I mentioned your message while on the phone to him, and he asked me to dictate. This makes the process easier as we do not have to change the context of the person responding.

[This is to avoid having an assistant convert my first-person “Please tell him that I …” to third-person “Tim says that he …”—providing shorthand for “cut and paste” saves hours of assistant time.]

If someone e-mail blasts a bunch of people and I am one of them, usually safe to ignore or delete. Read them carefully, of course, but if it says for example “a few influential people I know” or something like that then if someone can’t take the time to personalize for me, forget them. If Tim is copied, of course, that’s a different story.

Tim’s address is XXXX. THIS E-MAIL IS NOT TO BE DISTRIBUTED OR GIVEN TO ANYONE. If you want to copy Tim on an e-mail, please use the BCC field, so that it remains private.

Mark anyone from Princeton for me to look at (TIM label). [Note: I’ve since had to modify this due to volume.]

If I decline someone and they persist, give them one more reply—“Tim appreciates the persistence, but he really can’t…” etc.—and then archive future requests. Use your judgment, of course, but that’s the general rule. Some people don’t know when persistent turns into plain irritating.

Please also create a rule to respond with “scheduled” for all items I send to be put in the calendar (when they’re put in the calendar). Missing calendar items can cause big problems, so this is a check and balance to confirm.

No need to follow up with someone after a call has taken place unless Tim instructs otherwise, or they request something from us.

Send all speaking requests to XXXX and ensure that he confirms receipt. (However, also see items 38 and 39).

Foreign language requests (i.e., purchasing rights, if the book is available in a particular language, etc.) send to [the appropriate person at my publisher].

XXXX’s replacement at Random House is XXXX.

Inquire with Tim first before booking any speaking gigs on a specific date, as he may be traveling.

When booking appointments in the calendar, be sure to also ask which topics they would like to discuss, and put them in the calendar description for Tim so he can prepare. Also be sure to ask for a backup phone number in case they are not able to reach Tim. [I almost always have people call me unless I am abroad, as this is another safeguard against missing appointments.]

Put initials in the subject line of calendar events so we know who (which virtual assistant) put the item in the calendar.

Prepare inquiries for Tim before sending to him for his review, i.e., get their Alexa ranking, possible dates of the event, a link to past events they have held, their budget, other confirmed speakers, etc. Then send this info to Tim for his review.

Respond to PX Method inquiries with the following response:

Hi [name],

Thanks for your inquiry about the PX Method, however the PX Method page is designed as just a template others can look at as a reference for testing their own product ideas.

We are not sure if or when Tim will offer the PX Method for sale, but there are no plans at this time. We appreciate your inquiry nonetheless. Thanks!

[I get quite a few e-mails from readers who do not see the disclaimer on the PX Method mock-up page and thus attempt to order a product that isn’t ready to ship.]

Download eFAX viewer to view Tim’s faxes. His fax number is: XXXX.

Event or speaking inquiries can be responded to as such:

Thanks for your e-mail and for your invitation to Tim. In looking at the event online, I see that the event is April X and X, 20XX in Portland, Oregon [for example]. Before I present this to Tim, could you answer a few questions for me, so we can make a more informed decision?

Would you like Tim to be at the entire event?

How long would the keynote presentation be? Or would it be a Q&A panel?

Do you cover travel and accommodation along with a speaker’s fee?

What is your budget for keynote presentations?

Have any other speakers confirmed to present?

As soon as I hear back, I can speak with Tim about the possibilities of making this happen. Thanks again!

Warmly,

[Name]

this e-mail is: [] blogable [x] ask first [] private

[name]

Executive Assistant to Timothy Ferriss

Author: The 4-Hour Workweek

(http://www.fourhourworkweek.com)

(Random House/Crown Publishing)

Bio and Fun: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog

—JANUARY 21, 2008

Proposal to Work Remotely on a Contract Basis

This is the actual remote-work proposal reader Autumn Brookmire used successfully to move to Argentina while retaining her job and cutting back to 5–10 hours per week of work.

AUTUMN BROOKMIRE July 2008

Background

After working for the [company name] for more than two years, I have a great loyalty to the people and mission of this organization. I believe I have added a great deal of value to the organization in my position as marketing coordinator. With my creative problem solving and my cost effective solutions I have changed the way we produce and distribute our holiday cards and I’ve developed a contest to bring in more usable photos for our marketing and publications. I would like to propose continuing to perform the following tasks for [company name], but on a contract basis, remotely. I plan to live in Argentina for 6–12 months starting in September of 2008. My goals are to develop my fluency in the Spanish language and immerse myself in another culture and completely foreign environment so that I develop my skills in adaptation to new ways of thinking.

I am more than happy to discuss different ways to make this possible and I have some suggestions if [company name] would be willing to consider them. We can test this arrangement for a few months to see if it works for both of us, since that would make the most sense.

Role #1: Graphic Design and Print Advertising Coordinator

Responsibility:

Create timelines for print materials and coordinate with respective program teams.

Expectations:

Print materials will be completed on time.

Responsibility:

Coordinate design projects with program directors and outside graphic artists/designers.

Expectations:

Print materials designs are suitable for the audience, accurate, and appealing.

Print materials are professional quality and produced within set timelines.

Responsibility:

Maintain relationships with print vendors to minimize cost relative to time and quality in producing program print materials.

Expectations:

Print materials are printed within the established budget, unless budget overages are specifically approved by the Director of Marketing.

Contract Solution:

By using e-mail and web-based programs such as

*ConceptShare, I can continue to coordinate these design projects from a distance. I currently maintain relationships with print vendors and designers at a distance so physical presence is not necessary for this to continue. For meetings with program directors and the marketing team, I would use a free video and phone conferencing service called *Skype. We usually meet once or twice to discuss changes to their marketing materials and the rest of the process is continued through e-mail and ConceptShare.

Role #2: Special Marketing Project Manager

Responsibility:

Maintain a collection of updated, appropriate marketing images.

Expectations:

Images needed for marketing materials and websites are anticipated and acquired.

Contract Solution:

I am still able to complete this task remotely by doing images searches on web databases such as *iStockphoto.com. If the experiment with the *Seminar Photo Contest fares well, I could also manage that process via the web using Aptify, e-mail, and Skype.

Responsibility:

Identify and implement new opportunities to leverage marketing materials.

Expectations:

Ideas are researched for feasibility and effectiveness.

Chosen projects are designed and sent out within the budget and timeline.

Contract Solution:

I would utilize e-mail and Skype to communicate any new ideas and opportunities to leverage marketing materials. I have recently proposed creating a one-page calendar of our program deadlines to distribute to our recent seminar alumni in a fall mailing. This way students will have an easy way to remember all of our deadlines for our programs and may potentially boost our number of applicants.

Role #3: Web-based Marketing Coordinator

Responsibility:

Contribute to online advertising efforts and track results.

Expectations:

Online efforts are increasingly cost effective.

Marketing Director is informed of web-based marketing results as requested.

Contract Solution:

I am familiar with our online advertising efforts and can continue to help with this process from a distance. I will be able to access Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Blog Ads and aid Keri in gathering and entering data. I have experience working with our Facebook and Google Ads and have created images for Blog Ads in the past. Launching new Ads will be easily managed abroad.

Responsibility:

Compile collection of updated, appropriate web photos.

Expectations:

Attractive, updated photos will be available for program and marketing uses.

Contract Solution:

As stated above with the stock photo inventory, I am still able to complete this task remotely by conducting image searches on web databases such as iStockphoto.com. The Seminar Photo Contest will also be used as a tool to aid in this compilation of images while I am abroad.

In order to more effectively track the cost of production of our print materials, I think [company name] would find value in transitioning to a contract basis for this position. I have really enjoyed working at [company name] thus far and would like to continue working for this organization from a remote location. Thank you for your consideration of this proposal.

Explanation of Software and Programs Mentioned:

*ConceptShare—www.conceptshare.com, ConceptShare allows you to set up secure online workspaces for sharing designs, documents, and video and invite others to review, comment, and give contextual feedback anytime and anywhere without a meeting. [Company name] has used this site for a few months to test its usability and has also been tested on multiple computers in Argentina (thanks to my sister testing it out for me while she was in Argentina).

*Skype—www.skype.com, Skype is a free software that allows you to talk for free via the Internet. You can also use Skype with regular phones to make calls internationally for a low rate of about .04 cents a minute. Skype also has video chatting capabilities and conference call capabilities for meetings. The setup requires downloading the Skype software free) and buying a headset with microphone ($10) and webcam ($ ranges) for each computer. I have tested this software with my sister and it works well for her in Argentina and for me here.

*iStockphoto—www.istockphoto.com, iStockphoto is an Internet royalty-free image and design stock photography website. This is one of the many sites I use to find photos for [company name]. We have already used a few photos from this site for our marketing materials.

*Seminar Photo Contest—This contest was created by me and developed with Keri as an experiment to collect more relevant and usable photos for our marketing and publication efforts. Since we have found it to be a bit invasive to try and take the photos ourselves, we wanted to try a new approach to capture photos for our needs. All participants of our Summer Seminars 2008 are able to submit photos they have taken at their seminar with a chance to be rewarded with a $5 Amazon Gift Certificate for each image we choose.

ZEN AND THE ART OF ROCK STAR LIVING

Hi Tim,

Here’s the story. I’m a musician based in Munich, Germany. I’m running my own label and it has been difficult to get it off the ground. While working on that, my creativity slowly decreased until I hit rock bottom (a couple of times).

While it is still difficult to survive in the music industry I find it not hard at all now to do what I want to do. And that’s all I do. I do what I want to do. It includes being a father, making music, composing, taking care of business, traveling, learning languages (mostly Italian), riding my bike, etc…. It’s all in the following paragraphs.

I read the book step by step for about two months from September/October 2008 (plus surfing your blog) and just made tabula rosa with my life. (Lots of brainvomiting on paper.)

I started outsourcing things that bothered me most (and therefore kept hanging out in my to-do list the longest). I outsourced:

research, most of which is music-industry related (research outsourced saves about 2–3 hours/day)

website maintenance (social websites like Facebook, Myspace, etc). I’m planning on doing most of my marketing through these sites in 2009 and I’m on about 25+ sites as an artist.

My VA (getfriday.com, as recommended in your book) does all the updates and checks the sites once a week to gather e-mail messages, comments, etc., filters them and sends me a report once a week including all the details for me to respond to. (Saves about one to two hours/day.)

photo retouching for my press pics is done by elance (saved five hours of work time and about $500).

management of my mailing list for gig dates, album updates, etc. (Saves about one hour for each mailing.)

I started testing muses (learning languages with music to sell online). I’m still testing!

I decided to open a publishing operation online for film companies to license music for film with just a mouse click, without having to negotiate deals for months. It will happen in 2009 (I start testing soon). People are generally surprised and amazed that a person who doesn’t seem to be very corporate (I look like a retired punk rocker, haha) outsources parts of his life and lives like a millionaire (I guess we do although we’re far from it!).

I realized that I could do it after I got the first positive feedback from my outsource VA. I got the results of my project posted on elance and a day later I got the results. I went, yeah baby, this is MINE! The biggest change is, that I now have my life under control. I take care of my little daughter (20 months) half the day (second half, my wife takes care of her), I take care of business, and I take time to do things I always wanted to do. Revenue-wise I’m pretty much the same I was before but I have a lot more spare time and a clear head (so I guess I’ve gotten a lot richer!).

I work whenever I want (no boss) about 24–30 hours/week (including office hours and music-studio hours) and what I do now is only what I really love to do. I’m still step-by-step optimizing efficiency to reduce office hours (currently about 10 hours/week). My dream is to dissolve my office altogether, go paperless, and basically only have my laptop as an office.

I eliminated all work that has gotten me down or was wearing me out (eliminated an extra workload of about 10 hours/week). I do not take on jobs (writing/producing music) unless I really love the project. I eliminated all complainers and haters (saves my stomach).

I just started my blog juergenreiter.com, “zen and the art of rockstarliving,” where I want to share the changes I made to my life (mostly for musicians to see the light at the end of the tunnel).

And I recorded an album of my music and for the first time in my life did all the lyrics myself! It’s going to be out in spring on my label ORkAaN Music+Art Productions.

I’ll be on mini-retirement in New York this year for six weeks. I’ll be in Sicily to learn Italian for about two weeks in May. I’ll be back in Sicily to travel the island by bike for another 2–3 weeks in September. And am planning on going to either Mexico, Central America, or Australia in the winter.

I learned to shave with a straight razor within about 30 minutes, which I wanted to do for years. Shaving is a real exciting ritual now and a lot of fun! I will do a master course for coffee experts in April (I’m a coffee junky!) and become a “maestro del café.” I helped my wife quit her teaching job and fulfill her dream to run a cafe in Munich, Germany. It’s called Frau Viola and opened its doors in October 2008. It is running great! (www.frauviola.wordpress.com)

Can you measure all of that? I think it speaks for itself!

The general mindset of 4HWW has given me the calmness of being able to take time to play with my daughter and enjoying my “free time” without getting the fear of missing out on something or wasting my life. I’d say overall (with all the above-mentioned changes) my productivity increased at least 70% and doubt decreased by 80%.

For those just getting started:

start small think big.

identify what excites you vs. what bores you

eliminate and focus on what excites you

stick to what excites you no matter what people say. It’s your life, live it the way you know is right for you.

read 4-Hour Workweek, obviously! —J. REITER

ART LOVERS WANTED

I saw my father work himself to the bone for 20 years as a garbage-man when we immigrated from Mexico. As I looked at my life in April 2007 in a lonely hotel room after another endless week of travel for my employer far from my family and those I love, I realized that at 33 I was on the same path to work myself into the ground and give up on my lifelong dream of pursuing my love of music and theater.

In life there are no accidents and that night as I was checking an e-mail from an old friend he suggested the 4HWW. I devoured the book in a few hours and began immediately to apply the key principles. When I told people about the book and about what I intended to do everyone said I was crazy. I focused most of my efforts on Dream-lining, Elimination, and Liberation. As an employee I wanted to first achieve liberation with a remote work arrangement. Despite several failed attempts I persevered (great lesson in negotiating) and was granted the opportunity to work remotely. This changed everything. I went from 9+ hours of work a day with weekly work-related travel to four hours a week, one week of travel per month, and I managed to get a $10,000 raise and deliver 2x the productivity in my job from the previous unproductive year.

As a result I now live with my once long-distance girlfriend in Seattle (my hometown). I spend my newly found time pursuing my passion for music (I sing in a choir and write my own folk-rock music), theater (I am performing in my first fully improvised 60-minute play this weekend), and fitness. I am training for my second marathon now.

Most of my friends cannot believe that I can actually spend most of my time pursuing my love for the arts and still make a full-time income on only four hours a week. The best part of this is that I have found mentally the meaning of freedom. Reality is truly negotiable and now my reality is that I can spend endless hours enjoying the company of my father, who waited twenty years till he retired to enjoy the freedom that I have found less than 24 months after reading The 4-Hour Workweek.

As an immigrant I want to spread the message that to succeed in America in the 21st century we must NOT work hard, instead we must follow the principles of the 4HWW and work smarter so that we can truly achieve the New American Dream: Freedom to enjoy the most precious resource we have in life … our time on this earth.

—I. BARRON

PHOTO FINISH

Hey Tim,

I wanted to tell you that your book, The 4-Hour Workweek, has been a true inspiration and life-changing resource for me this year!

I bought your book in November. Before then, I didn’t know what “workflow automation” was. I had a part-time employee, but her work was actually creating more work for me. I would work until sometimes 3 A.M., and get up at 7. I’d tell you I wanted to travel, but the truth is that it seemed impossible to me. I didn’t have time or money.

I was listening to your audio book one day. I had been listening to each of the chapters, sometimes over and over again. I was jogging. I stopped in my tracks. I believe I was listening about a case study about someone who sold music files over the Internet.

I’m a photographer. Weddings mostly. I wondered how I could sell digital images over the Internet. Then I came up with a fantastic idea for a family photography company. I stopped right there, and reserved a website on my iPhone.

Two months later, I had a website, access to thousands of photographers across the country, and our first sale. Even better, I am now in the family photography business, and I never have to shoot myself. Even better +1, we are the first family photography business that doesn’t sell prints. Only digital files. It worked! I have now adopted this for my wedding photography as well. Other photographers are so offended, but I am making WAY more $, my costs are almost eliminated, and my time is free!

I know the above is vague, but it’s not the point. The point is that now I work better, faster, I have two more employees, I turned off my e-mail notifications on my computer and my iPhone, despite all of what it’s capable of, it doesn’t even ring. E-mail has been disabled. I just check it every so often to see what calls I missed.

Today, my fiance loves me because I come home in time for dinner and I leave my laptop at work. It’s a life I never thought I’d be able to live. In the meantime, systems are working in my place and this year looks to be a lot better, financially, than last.

Then I decided it was time to try my first mini-retirement. The goal: ski the Swiss Alps and spend five days in Switzerland and spend less than $1,000 total. I got a roundtrip ticket for about 500 bucks. My ski pass for one day at Engelberg was $80. Lodging was free, thanks to your suggestion www.couchsurfing.com, and I ate roasted chestnuts, brats, fish and chips and drank great beer all week long. I did it!

I am forever grateful, and am excited for more mini-retirements. Here’s to living during the best years of my life.

P.S. I leave May 11 for a month-long work vacation to Italy (I have been hired to photograph two weddings in Siena). I plan on vacationing a LOT more than I will be working.

—MARK CAFIERO, Photographer

VIRTUAL LAW

I used to work at a large Silicon Valley law firm, but one day I woke up and decided that I wanted to travel for a year and learn a foreign language. Six weeks later I was living in Cali, Colombia—I’d never visited Cali before and hardly spoke a word of Spanish, but that’s what made it exciting to me. Well, almost two years later, I still spend 95%+ of my time living and working from Cali, Colombia (I recently bought a gorgeous apartment here that I could never afford if I lived in California). I also have a full-time maid/cook (well, five hours per day, five days per week), which costs me less than US $40 per week!

I started my own virtual law practice and then joined forces with my old boss. My U.S. number rings through to me wherever I am in the world (originally I’m from New Zealand so I travel back there a lot, too), and all my U.S. mail is delivered to Market Street, San Francisco, and scanned so I can view it online. If I need to mail letters, I have another service which prints the letter and sends it within the U.S. so there are no international shipping delays.

Definitely use www.earthclassmail.com for mail receipt/scanning. They have different packages but it’s around $20-$30/month. You can also choose one or more P.O. boxes or physical addresses. My Market Street address is actually an earthclassmail address.

For printing small letters and mailing within the U.S. I use www.postalmethods.com. It’s a little clunky at first but it’s fine when you get used to it. It’s very cheap since you only pay when you send (a four-page letter works out to just over $1 including the postage).

Come visit me sometime. Colombia is nothing like what you hear about—I feel a lot safer walking around late at night here than a lot of places in San Francisco. But don’t tell anyone, those of us living here want to keep it a secret!

—GERRY M.

TAKING FLIGHT WITH ORNITHREADS

Tim—

My mentor gave me your book this past July and it had a tremendous impact on my life, its arrival could not have had better timing. About the time I read it, I was a few weeks away from competing in my first Olympic distance triathlon. I had trained for five months, felt and looked strong, but even more important the discipline and working toward a physical goal resulted in a creativity I hadn’t felt in years. I posted a competitive time in the event and felt so optimistic about my abilities that I signed up for a half ironman competition.

Riding that high and following the principles of your book, I thought of dozens of ideas for products/businesses and am on the verge of launching the first of those ideas. It is a line of apparel called OrniThreads which will provide modern, scientific designs of birds to Gen-X and Gen-Y birders.

The reasons for focusing on this demographic are twofold:

For my “day job,” I work at [company name]. I have learned a lot about their audience/membership, e.g., like the fact that there are 70 million Americans who actively bird (a staggering statistic from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife svc). Birders are a passionate lot and their interest only seems to grow over time—it never dies! They also tend to skew from the middle to upper class and are educated.

I took an ornithology class this summer at Columbia University (where I am enrolled in a conservation biology program) and fell in love with the illustrations in my textbooks and wanted to surround myself with these images.

I am launching www.ornithreads.com in the next week or so and the first of my three designs are being printed as we speak.

I have big aspirations for the company, but am just trying to get the first collection to customers and learn as much as I can. Your book has been incredibly helpful in outlining the necessary steps I need to take to succeed and hope that my idea has some legs (or wings) which translates into an automated income.

If you are in NYC anytime soon—promoting your book or otherwise—I would love to meet you. Sincerely, —BRENDA TIMM

OFF-THE-JOB TRAINING

I used concepts from the 4HWW to work remotely from August of ’08 until January of ’09. I went to Portugal, Europe, Spain, Sweden, and Norway surfing and snowboarding my brains out. Best part about it? I came home with three times as much money in the bank than I would have had if I continued the normal 9 to 5. I work for [world-famous design company] as a software developer, and was able to put the concepts to use and really change my life. I paired my iPhone + Fring (Fring is voice over IP on the iPhone, it allows you to use one device for everything, and have a local number abroad).

I spent four months prior to departure being sure to never be at my cube, but always be just around the corner. I made a point to ALWAYS be available on Instant Messenger, so when people would walk over to my cube and look for me in person they would see I was somewhere else, then hop online and ask, “Where are you?” My response was always similar, just down the hall in the cafeteria … just down the block at the coffee shop, or at co-worker X’s desk. After two months of this a magical thing happened: People always looked to get me via Instant Messenger and stopped dropping by my desk altogether. That allowed me to be 6,000 miles away without anyone noticing.

Something else to consider… how time zone affects remote work environments. I noticed, while in Norway (nine hours away), that it was the perfect amount of time. I was, in a sense, living in the future. My day was almost over by the time my boss woke up … this allowed me to explore Norway’s fjords, mountains, and undiscovered frigid surf spots in complete peace and without ever having to worry about getting a call from overseas. It was perfect … If I wanted, I could explore all day, come home and have some dinner, then ichat with my boss for 20–30 minutes and check in. The few times he needed something urgently, he was able to give me work when he went to bed, and have it completed in the morning when he woke up. —B. WILLIAMSON

DOCTOR’S ORDERS

Hi Tim:

Here’s my story …

My dream started about four years ago. I was in the process of taking my psychology licensing exam, and after speaking to a friend, decided that I would reward myself with a trip to South America. We were both exhausted from our 9-to-5 (and sometimes 6, 7, or 8 p.m.) hospital and clinic jobs.

I had traveled extensively throughout the United States and some parts of Europe, but I had never experienced South American culture.

My trip there was absolutely fantastic and really opened my eyes to other ways of living and culture. During my trip, I spent a lot of time speaking to expatriates about how they used their retirement funds and pensions to live the lives of kings there. One thing was evident: Most of the expatriates who attempted to “set up a business” to help fund their lifestyle had failed miserably. I hypothesized that there just wasn’t enough currency (pesos) in the marketplace to really sustain a “gringo”-oriented business.

After my trip, I told my friend that I needed to dedicate all my energies to developing a method of receiving income from U.S. citizens while living elsewhere. VOIP had recently been introduced to the marketplace and Internet service was improving in South America and other parts of the third world.

The business had to be based upon absolute mobility. I boiled the whole business down to two basic functions: reliable telephone via VOIP and high-speed Internet.

At the time I had a small research consultation practice where I was helping doctoral students on the phone and via e-mail to complete their dissertations, theses, and statistical analyses. I had a small website that was getting traffic but I was relying on others for web and marketing services. I subsequently learned more about search engine optimization and web marketing and eventually took control of all web marketing and promotion of my website, http://www.ResearchConsultation.com, allowing me to expand my business substantially.

During the next three years I conducted numerous “mobile tests” … traveling to Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Colombia in order to fine-tune my system of conducting business from abroad.

I finally left my job last November, the day before Thanksgiving, vowing to never return to the mundane 9-to-5 structure. My job had even recently instituted a “bio-metric fingerprint” identification system where you had to “punch in and out” at the beginning and end of your hospital shift with your fingerprint to ensure that you were working your eight hours. This was just another sign that I had to leave.

I now live in NYC and Colombia and travel to other parts of the world throughout the year: speaking to customers, managing my contractors (U.S. and Colombian) in order to acquire U.S. dollars while living for a fraction of the cost abroad. I’m also developing other websites and businesses (community forums) that will hopefully be more automated, requiring less day-to-day interaction and monitoring.

Well, that’s my story for now … today South America, tomorrow anywhere I can get a high-speed connection (banda ancha)! My stress level has dropped significantly since leaving my old job and my quality of life has improved enormously.

My family and friends in NYC still think I’m out of my mind, and I continue to fully agree with them…. —JEFF B.

THE 4-HOUR FAMILY AND GLOBAL EDUCATION

Tim,

We moved to a totally digital nomadic life traveling the world as a family in 2006, so we discovered your book and ideas after we had begun and loved it! Our life has changed totally and is more fulfilling and much more simple. We are greener, leaner, healthier, happier, more connected.

Other people thought we were absolutely nuts when we decided to do this in 2004/5, but now many of those same people think we are smart and psychic.

Problems finding a good school fit (despite having many award-winning excellent ones at our disposal) was probably the most specific moment (John Taylor Gatto says it best on why schools do not educate) that helped us to change as well as wanting more time together and forecasting the house/economy crash coming.

I think more families will be taking mini-retirements and living slower, traveling digital nomadic lives. If you are away for months as a family, you need to be informed about all the wonderful educational opportunities which are actually richer than staying home (which few realize)!

There are a TON of fantastic resources like Classroom 2.0 and many innovative educators online. My daughter just turned eight and is having a blast with her online course with John Hopkins University/CTY and it is also a nice resource for friends. Today one can immerse deeply in one culture and still maintain one’s home culture. This is important information for families who still fear the outdated negatives on Third Culture Kids (TCK) based on studies from the fifties.

Maya Frost⁹¹ has excellent information about older kids and even a new paradigm when it comes to going to university. I think education is one of the things going through a total transition due to the Internet, and parents need this info to make important decisions.

We have had a fantastic experience in going to a local school in Spain that has allowed my child to immerse very deeply in her second language, culture, and literature. More info (in the book) on local schools is needed and how to experience it as a family for months at a time.

We have used local people like a wonderful flamenco teacher for our child and we have also used online sources like our piano teacher in Chicago who teaches our child in Spain via Skype.

E-libraries are very important (especially with a child who is a voracious reader). Http://learninfreedom.org/languagebooks.html is an excellent resource on language education with great books on raising a bilingual child, even if you are a monolingual!

—SOULTRAVELERS3, a family living abroad and loving it

FINANCIAL MUSING

I graduated from Stanford University and started working in investment banking in July 2006, and, in a sick way, almost enjoyed it at first. Yes, it was a terrible lifestyle and all, but I was learning a lot and moving up very quickly. I have (had) a type-A personality, so it appealed to me on some level.

As the year progressed, though, I realized it wasn’t sustainable and that I wanted out… but like so many other people, I failed to take action immediately.

In May 2007, I was driving home at 3 A.M. one night after having pulled 4–5 all-nighters previously, and crashed into a tree on the side of the road. If you’ve never crashed into an inanimate object while asleep at the wheel, just imagine waking up five feet from the ground while bungee jumping as the cord is about to snap to get an idea of what it feels like.

“At the ER”

That was the subject line of the e-mail I sent out the next day to my entire office. Luckily, everyone understood and told me to take a rare three-day weekend. Luckily I survived with no major injuries, but at that point I decided it was time for a change.

I met up with some friends for dinner a week or two later and relayed my story. One friend there (who recently quit her job to pursue professional acting—her dream—while selling information products online) told me about this book she recently read called The 4-Hour Workweek.

I thought it was a scam, of course, but I really hated my life and decided I needed to check it out at the very least. I read it in one sitting. And then I read it again, just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Before ever getting into finance, I had done some work online with graphics and web design and I had a technical background, so nothing in the book seemed outrageous to me—I just didn’t realize how easy and accessible it all was. Also, I had lived in Japan for half a year in college and loved it—and long-term world travel had always been one of my goals.

I sat on the ideas in your book for a while, took a quick vacation to return to Japan in October 2007, and when I came back decided that I had to get started. My muse: sell an investment banking interview guide. It’s a niche, high-demand subject and I knew I could make a better guide than anything else out there. One problem: I had to stay anonymous since I was still working, and advertising with Pay-Per-Click would be way too expensive given the high CPCs for related keywords.

In November 2007 I decided to start a blog, Mergers & Inquisitions (http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com), about the investment banking industry and how to break in, aimed at a mix of college students, MBAs, and working professionals. While I built my audience, I never had the time to finish my muse—the interview guide. But I was getting tons of requests to do consulting from my readers, so I started with resume editing and expanded into mock interviews—yes, not very “muse-like” but I charged high rates and could make my old salary in a fraction of the time. I did this ALL while staying completely anonymous out of necessity—because I didn’t want to get fired without an alternative income stream. Amazingly, my services took off even though I couldn’t tell anyone who I was.

At the same time, I decided I would not get another job in finance, and would instead leave in June 2008. So I had a very short amount of time to make everything work. Almost every single one of my friends, roommates, and family doubted me and said it would never work. I decided they were all wrong and I would just do it anyway—worst-case scenario, I could always reduce my expenses and move to Thailand to teach English.

To boost my income, I completely revamped my site to sell more of my offerings, which took me from pocket change to full-time income from part-time consulting over July-August 2008. This allowed me to travel to Hawaii and Aruba to go snorkeling, surfing, and shark-cage-diving and visit friends in other parts of the U.S. all while making an investment banker’s income from part-time work.

As the recession and economy worsened, my business picked up because it was counter-cyclical—anything that helps people find jobs is in huge demand in a poor economy. I’ve since helped scores of laid-off bankers and other financiers find work elsewhere. However, I was also starting to work a lot more because I was effectively trading time for money … so over the fall I started to work on my original product idea—my interview guide—and released it to great success later in 2008.

It has gone on to free up a ton of time, double my revenues, and put the majority of my income on autopilot. If I didn’t do any further work from this point onward, I could make 2–3x my previous monthly income simply by writing once or twice a week for my site (4–5 hours) and doing limited consulting on the side (10 hours). So you could say I’ve increased my income almost 3x while reducing my hours 6x-9x and making myself completely mobile.

I admit that often I do “work” more than this, but it’s all on related educational projects that I want to work on, not anything that I have to work on. And if I don’t feel like working one week, I can reduce my hours to the 5–15 hour range and spend my time on learning languages, sports, or traveling to exotic destinations.

This setup allowed me to take an amazing trip to China, Singapore, Thailand, and Korea in December-January and get in some ridiculous adventures. I’ll be moving to Asia in a few months and after that, traveling the world indefinitely while running my business from coffee shops.

Incidentally, I met up with a lot of customers in Asia who thought this was the coolest thing ever!

Your book has changed my life and infinitely improved my lifestyle, and I just wanted to thank you for everything.

—B. DECHESARE

WHO SAYS KIDS HOLD YOU BACK?

My first action was to think “what is the worst that can happen on a scale of 1–10” if I quit my well-paid, very secure government job? The power of this thought process is incredible.

I quit my job, sold my house, and went camping for three months with two kids under two and a half and a pregnant wife (mini-retirement). We (very slowly) drove the SE coast of Australia from Sydney to Adelaide.

With the complete clarity of mind that comes from being in a field with your family with no immediate worries, I put into action a plan that I had been tinkering with for 12 months. I bought a wireless Internet dongle and created an info product for electrical engineers, and wrote some software to go with it.

Managed this by (a) going on info diet, (b) working 9 p.m.-midnight in a campsite with no other distractions, (c) outsourcing everything that I would find difficult or time consuming (like the tricky programming stuff and the illustrations for my book).

After about four weeks I had an automated informational website that had replaced ½ of my full-time income—requiring > four hours per week to maintain.

The original plan was to arrive in Adelaide and get a J.O.B. But with my passive income, I decided to simply grow my new business and am currently very close to replacing 100% of my previous income. It feels f&*#ing brilliant.

Now we plan to travel the world slowly until the kids are ready for primary school…

Who says kids hold you back?! —FINN

WORKING REMOTELY

One month and one year ago, I read 4HWW on the recommendation of my sister’s boyfriend after I had been talking for months about changing my life drastically and moving to Argentina to learn Castellano. After reading the book I stopped talking about my dreams and immediately started setting short-term and long-term goals. I bought a notebook to track my monthly goals and tasks. I did lots of research on potential remote working situations and I started telling my close friends and family about my new plans. Everyone that I told thought it was just an idea and I wasn’t actually going to go through with it. They thought it was a “some day I’d like to do this” idea and that I wasn’t actually setting daily goals to get me there. They knew that I loved my job so why would I leave it for a life of uncertainty? I didn’t think of it that way. I wasn’t scared, I was excited at the prospect of a new way of life, a fresh start, and even though I loved my job I also had other things I wanted to accomplish in my life. At first I thought about teaching English to make a living down there, but deep down inside all I really wanted to do was continue working for my current company, just doing it remotely. The book gave me the confidence to think this was actually possible, when everyone around me thought it was impossible.

I decided to write up a proposal⁹² and present it to my boss even at the advice not to do it from everyone I knew. If my boss rejected my proposal, I had enough money saved up to live in Argentina for at least six months to get me by until I could figure out how I wanted to make money there. I was not giving up on my dream of living a freer, happier life with less work and more time for myself. All odds were against me but I took a calculated risk and had faith in myself. After I handed in my proposal, I was ready to expect the worst. Everyone around me was waiting with baited breath and words of encouragement after I got rejected. When I left the meeting with my boss I couldn’t believe it. She accepted and was eager to talk to me about the details. She even had a smile on her face and told me how awesome my proposal was. No one else could believe it when I told them. After the shock wore off, I realized that I could actually do this, and a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. The hardest part was over and now I could start thinking of more possibilities for my new life.

I set my goal to move to Argentina for September 2008. I arrived here on September 3 and have been here for about six months now. I live in the capital city of Jujuy, Argentina, a small province in the northwest of Argentina. I work about 5–10 hours a week and I find that I am much more focused now that I am out of the office and working alone. I have a private Spanish tutor that I meet with for two hours, five days a week. I have a handful of friends that I spend time with, practicing my Spanish. I go to the gym three times a week and go to yoga two times a week—something I didn’t do in the States because I didn’t have enough time. I eat healthier because I have more time to focus on what to eat. I have more time to dream up bigger things that I want to do with my new free time. I have dreams of owning a bar or cafe, so maybe a few years from now that will be my next endeavor.

My advice to 4HWW readers is to take from my experience. I rely heavily on the advice of my friends and family, but sometimes you have to ignore the advice of your loved ones to really make some thing happen. If you believe the impossible can be made possible, it will happen. —A.K. BROOKMIRE

KILLING YOUR BLACKBERRY

I’m a 37-year-old Subway franchisee owning and operating 13 stores. Been doing this for seven years. Prior to reading 4HWW I was KING at W4W (translate: work for work’s sake)! I’d never given myself “permission” to behave differently than I did as an employee in the past. 4HWW was absolutely liberating for me. I literally “caught myself” and began the process of curing my addiction to W4W. I used to always be “on” and I was never really “present” anywhere—too busy doing the “blackberry prayer” at the dinner table instead of spending quality time with those who were present. Holidays were just a remote office for battling the e-mail tsunami. 4HWW gave me a new paradigm and I began to look at my business as a “product,” the (original) purpose of which was to provide me with a disproportionate amount of income vs. time invested personally by me—to what end? To ENJOY MYSELF and to have complete autonomy over my schedule and activities. So I got off my own back, told myself it was OK to pursue the original purpose and here’s what I did:

Crunched my “always open” workweek into four days and 20 hours. I immediately began taking Mondays OFF, giving me a nice three-day weekend. (Fridays are in the “CROSSHAIRS” next!) Tuesday to Friday I work 11 A.M.-4 p.m. (20 hours per week). With the “unluxury” of time in this crunched workweek I was forced to appraise everything through the 80/20 filter and found that 50% of the 80% was pure crap and the other 50% of the 80% could be done by someone on my payroll. Great!

Everything I do now has to somehow either increase sales or decrease costs otherwise “it’s someone else’s job.” You can’t be “half-pregnant,” so when I’m “on” I’m really on and when I’m “off” I’m off—good luck trying to contact me. I still carry portable e-mail but I’ve killed “auto-sync” (the bane of modern mankind in terms of interruption) now it’s on a Tues-Fri, 11 A.M.-4 p.m. schedule. Outside of that window it waits.

My e-mail autoresponder eliminated 50% of my e-mail within two weeks as people sending me meaningless crap got fed up looking at my autoresponder and stopped including me—love it! I keep a short, compact “to-do” list and anything time-bound is in my calendar. These get my attention before any other “inbox” does because I’ve previously decided what’s important for me to get done—the rest can wait.

I could go on, but all in all I think this is a message that the self-employed need to hear so badly. With no “boss” and no “clean edges” to work-life/home-life it’s so easy to fall into a W4W grind and your business becomes a tractor beam that trails you inexorably down that path. 4HWW is the antidote!” —ANDREW, self-employed in the UK

STAR WARS, ANYONE?

I knew my quest for the 4-Hour Workweek was working when my daughter’s kindergarten teacher asked her the question: “What kind of work does your father do?” As the teacher re-told the story back to me, it was my daughter’s answer that really struck a chord. “Your daughter turned and looked up at me with the most serious look on her face and said, ‘My dad just sits around and watches Star Wars all day.’”

It’s funny how this one simple question, and not to mention my daughter’s answer, would be the moment of true 4HWW self-awareness for me. You see the answer my daughter gave her teacher has a deeper meaning. I believe what she meant to say, if she could articulate it, was “My dad sort of does whatever he wants to do.”

I read the 4HWW almost two years ago when I was on vacation at the beach with my family. I remember it well, because I kept reading parts of the book to my wife, bothering her to no end. I am a developer and enterprise administrator for a large financial institution in Atlanta, Georgia. Part of my job is supporting the large complex document captures systems that I help build. Due to the importance of these systems I am expected to be reachable 24/7/365. That is good for job security, but can be bad for my family life. I have four beautiful children and I strive to be a true “hands-on” dad who is present in my family’s daily lives. So armed with your book and a fresh (ocean air) perspective, I set out to put many of the 4HWW principles into practice.

First, I worked on changing my e-mail habits. I took a hard look at my inbox and used several of the techniques outlined in the 4HWW to eliminate all the waste and noise. I formed new habits around batching my e-mail sessions and it didn’t take long to achieve a zero inbox using the “trusted trio” folder method. I also applied the less is more philosophy to composing my e-mails. I went to great lengths to ensure I am as clear and concise as possible. Only communicating exactly what is needed to the right audience and not to the world. By eliminating all the noise and fat from my e-mail diet it became much more clear what “actions” or “to-do’s” were important.

Meetings and conference calls were the next area of attack. I scrutinized each meeting invite and began declining requests left and right. Most of the time I would claim I had too much going on to attend. I started asking for the minutes of the meeting or for someone to IM me if they had a specific question I needed to answer. When I do attend a meeting it is almost always via a conference call. Due to conference room restrictions and geographic challenges in our company most of our meetings are done virtually anyway.

Less wasted time meant more time to focus on work and tasks that really mattered. I felt like I was doing less but getting more things done and with better results. The right people were starting to notice and the perception of my ability to get the job done had never been better. I was making my management look good, and when that happens they stop asking questions or micromanaging daily activities. I kept proving to them I can do it without interference. Now was the time to make the push for what I really wanted and that was to go virtual!

Going virtual was actually very easy. I had a solid foundation with my manager and others in the chain of command. Almost all of my daily work was already remote-ready. At home, I have a great dedicated office in our finished basement. It is situated well away from the rest of the house and is mostly free of distractions. I have my own bathroom with shower and I even have a mini-fridge and microwave. I dare say that my home office rivals the amenities of the top executives at my company. Most of all, I have a wife and family that totally understand and respect the rules I set for myself to continue this success.

At first, I worked one or two days a week from home, but it didn’t take long before I found myself working four out of five days a week from home. When the Southeast was hit by the gas shortage and the price of gas nationwide was cresting $4 a gallon, the company made working from home even more accepted and official. I became an overnight model for others to follow. As people around me were in a panic as to how to get to work when no gas could be found, I was happily working away at home just business as usual.

At this point, things were working better than I ever expected. Using my 4HWW skills I now had more time to be that hands-on dad I wanted to be. I became a regular up at the elementary school. I eat lunch in the cafeteria with my girls, especially on fried chicken day! I participate in a program called D.E.A.R. which stands for Drop Everything and Read, where a few times a month I come in and read to each class. I drive my kids to school and I get to see them when they come home. For my entire family, I am present in their everyday lives, and can’t put a price on that. I felt like I had achieved my goal. That was that. So I thought…

Other things started to happen. Without conscientiously knowing it, people around me at the school or church had a weird respect for me. I say weird because people literally mistook me as a doctor or just some sort of self-made millionaire. I am not kidding. There is this one guy who still calls me “Doc.” I guess the reason for this is because most people still cling to the old stereotypes of what they think it is to be “rich.” I always seem to show up for the school functions or just special days at the school, usually in casual attire and never obsessing over time or my Blackberry. Now I have people nominating me for things like committee chair on the PTA, and just recently I was elected to the board of directors at our local swim/ tennis club. The cool thing is, I actually have the time to do those things and still be effective at work and at home. It goes without saying that new doors are open to me now. More than ever before.

With all of this going on around me I still come back to what my daughter said to her teacher. In truth, I am at a point where if I wanted to “sit around and watch Star Wars all day,” I certainly could. But, I find myself filling the extra time now doing things that really mean something. Being present in the everyday lives of my family, helping my community, or volunteering at my church. Now I have a plan to take it to the next level and write my own book. The project I am working on is called The Virtual Employee Handbook. It is a collection of tips and how-to’s on all the tools that are essential to the modern virtual employee, like me. We will see how that goes. One thing I do know is that I wouldn’t even dream of what I am doing now if it wasn’t for The 4-Hour Workweek! —W. HIGGINS

91. Maya Frost, The New Global Student (Crown, 2009).

92. A simple, actual proposal is provided.