The 80/20 rule
Less is More With the Four Hour Work Week
What is it that successful, effective people do that most ordinary people do not do?
Mark Joyner and Timothy Ferris are the kings of eliminating non-essentials in your life. They both preach the art of doing less and making more money. The concepts these guys teach has changed my life. You can learn to be an effective person as opposed to a busy person.
Ferris outsourced his life and began taking mini retirements at the age of 29. He has been a Chinese kick boxing champ, an Argentine Tango champ and a featured star in an Asian soap opera.
There are 6 keys to making your life less hectic and more effective
I will list them and then elaborate…
1. Say no to doing it all: Using the 80/20 rule you can eliminate most of what you are now doing and actually make a difference.
2. Never multi task: Focus your energy on one task at a time without interruptions. Which leads to the next rule…
3. Limit your hours of availability by phone, email, instant message or text message Limit your use of email to once or twice a day!
4. Outsource as much as you can: Start a little at a time while you find the right people do not make yourself indispensable create a replicatable model for every task.
5. Limit information intake: Throw out the TV, limit news on the radio, rss feeds etc and finish and implement the courses you have bought before you buy another one.
6. Stop living in “The Sea of Should”: Get over the work ethic, stop being frantically busy to prove your worthy, Stop caring what others think of you .
One: The 80/20 rule
20 percent of what you do makes a difference, 20 percent of all your employees or customers supply you with most of your results. The other 80 percent just take waste your time and eat away at your day leaving you tired, frustrated and confused.
By simply assessing which 20 percent of your life is bringing you results and eliminating the rest you can have a higher quality existence. Timothy Ferriss recommends doing this with all aspects of your life from business to dating.
It sounds a little harsh at first but if you keep trying to do it all you are heading for a collapse. We all are. It isn’t a question of if you are going to simplify but when. Will you do it voluntarily or will you wait till it all just builds up to the point of craziness and you become ill from the stress?
Tim Ferriss has a great exercise in his book the 4 Hour Workweek where you simply practice saying No to everything everyone asks you to do for a day.
Two: Never multi-task
You actually get more confused and get less done by trying to do it all at once. If you keep stopping to answer the phone or check emails you have to refocus too many times. Four simple words that can change your life TURN THE PHONE OFF.
You can do many things in life but you can’t do them all at the same time. By blocking out uninterrupted time and finishing each module of a project in one sitting you will have less reorientation time less restarting time and get things done faster.
Mark Joyner has several great prioritizing exercises in his Simpleology 101 course. The backward planner allows you to look at the whole picture and then break it down into bite sized tasks you can do one at a time. So its great to dream big but then you need a laser focused strategy to make it happen.
Three: Limit your hours of availability
Once again. Four simple words that can change your life TURN THE PHONE OFF. Control when people meet with you by phone the same way you would control meeting face to face. Create a schedule. People will get used to it.
If you need to have the phone answered 24/7 hire a customer service call center to do this or put a FAQ system on your website to cover the hours you are focused on your tasks at hand. Use auto responders to let people know when you will be available to answer emails and calls.
By limiting the use of cell phones, land lines email, IM and text messaging and other distractions you can stop the busy work and get something done in an hour or two a day and spend the rest of your time doing what you really want to do.
Four: Outsource
You may not be able to afford to outsource every task all at once but you can begin by using rentacoder, or elance to hire a virtual assistant a few hours a week and customer service call centers to start taking over tasks one by one. Figure out what you are good at and do that instead of learning to do each task that is a part of your business.
It really is OK to turn the phone off and hire a virtual assistant to screen most of your calls.
It is not a sin to answer emails once a day or once every two days or hire someone to look through them for you if you have a high volume of emails coming in each day.
Five: Limit information intake
There is so much information that we are drowning in it. Technology has made us chronically busy instead of freeing us up but there is an answer to this dilemma. Take control of your life and your time and how you spend your day.
Listen to constructive courses or relaxing music when you drive or wake up instead of news media. You may want to be involved but by allowing the media to bombard you with their idea of what is important you simply depress yourself by focusing on the catastrophes and sensationalized garbage that an unhealthy media decides are important. From now on YOU chose what goes into your mind.
Six: Stop living in “The Sea of Should”
Get over the work ethic, stop being frantically busy to prove your worthy. Stop caring what others think of you or your lifestyle.
We are taught that one must work hard and be very busy in order to be successful, be a good person and be respected. It is the work ethic. The idea of outsourcing and living your bliss does not appeal to most people. We are taught that we should want to do it all ourselves. What If you where to get to the point of not being busy and enjoying life? What would people think? They would probably feel resentful.
It’s time to get over that one. Often people stay busy so they don’t have to create meaning in their lives. We all know the stories about people who won the lottery and were worse off a year later. So decide what you really want and then eliminate distractions and get to it!
In summary:
1. Say no to doing it all: Use the 80/20
2. Never multi task: Focus your energy on one task at a time without interruptions
3. Limit your hours of availability: TURN OFF THE PHONE!
4. Outsource: Create a replicatable model for every task.
5. Limit information intake: Throw out the TV.
6. Get over the work ethic: Stop caring what others think of you.
You can find mark Joyner’s course and books at www.simpleology.com. Joyner made his fortune with online marketing books and sites, and retired to New Zealand in his 30’s.
Timothy Ferriss wrote The 4 Hour Workweek, Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich.
