John Mavrick's Garden

Search IconIcon to open search

Last updated April 10, 2022

Tags: #literature/books/finished Status: Author: Medium: #literature/books Links: Finished-Reading List - The 4 Hour Work Week Application

The 4 Hour Work Week

DEAL acryonym:

much of what I recommend will seem impossible and even offensive to basic common sense—I expect that. Resolve now to test the concepts as an exercise in lateral thinking. If you try it, you’ll see just how deep the rabbit hole goes, and you won’t ever go back.

1 - Deal

1 - Idk

2 - Rules that Change the Rules

Questions

  1. Being responsible for my academics has prevented me from putting as much time into entrepreneurship as I would like to
  2. I don’t regret my choices, but I crave more
  3. If I were to do the opposite, I would achieve burnout

3 - Dodging Bullets

There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens. —YVON CHOUINARD,7 founder of Patagonia

Questions to Accept Fear

Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering. What doubt, fears, and “what-ifs” pop up as you consider the big changes you can—or need—to make? Envision them in painstaking detail. Would it be the end of your life? What would be the permanent impact, if any, on a scale of 1–10? Are these things really permanent? How likely do you think it is that they would actually happen?

What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily? Chances are, it’s easier than you imagine. How could you get things back under control?

What are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and permanent, of more probable scenarios? Now that you’ve defined the nightmare, what are the more probable or definite positive outcomes, whether internal (confidence, self-esteem, etc.) or external? What would the impact of these more-likely outcomes be on a scale of 1–10? How likely is it that you could produce at least a moderately good outcome? Have less intelligent people done this before and pulled it off?

If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control? Imagine this scenario and run through questions 1–3 above. If you quit your job to test other options, how could you later get back on the same career track if you absolutely had to?

What are you putting off out of fear? Usually, what we most fear doing is what we most need to do. That phone call, that conversation, whatever the action might be—it is fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing what we need to do. Define the worst case, accept it, and do it. I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. I got into this habit by attempting to contact celebrities and famous businesspeople for advice.

What is it costing you—financially, emotionally, and physically—to postpone action? Don’t only evaluate the potential downside of action. It is equally important to measure the atrocious cost of inaction. If you don’t pursue those things that excite you, where will you be in one year, five years, and ten years? How will you feel having allowed circumstance to impose itself upon you and having allowed ten more years of your finite life to pass doing what you know will not fulfill you? If you telescope out 10 years and know with 100% certainty that it is a path of disappointment and regret, and if we define risk as “the likelihood of an irreversible negative outcome,” inaction is the greatest risk of all.

What are you waiting for? If you cannot answer this without resorting to the previously rejected concept of good timing, the answer is simple: You’re afraid, just like the rest of the world. Measure the cost of inaction, realize the unlikelihood and re-pairability of most missteps, and develop the most important habit of those who excel and enjoy doing so: action.

4 - System Reset

Reformed Planning

  1. Choose 5 things in the 6 and 12 month ranges for things you dream of having, being, and doing
  2. Prompts
    • What would you do, day to day, if you had $100 million in the bank?
    • What would make you most excited to wake up in the morning to another day?
    • If you can’t choose, think of a place to visit, lifetime experiencve, daily habitg, weekly habit, learning something new
  3. Turn “beings” into “doings” by making them actionable
    • Fluent in chinese → converse with a co-worker
    • Great cook → Christmas dinner without help
  4. What would be four most-exicting and life-changing dreams?
    • Bold/highlight them
  5. Calculate the monthly (Target Monthly Income) or daily costs of affording all of it
    • Monthly Goals + (One-Time Goals / Total Months) x 1.3 monthly expenses = TMI.
  6. Plan 3 steps for the four biggest dreams and take the first step now
    • Tim sets 3-6 month dreamlines
    • Helps build momentum
    • Should be things that take less than 5 minutes
    • Find someone who’s done it and ask for help
      • Trainers, mentors, salespersons, private classes

Comfort Challenge

Propose solutions instead of ask for them, to elicit desired responses instead of react, and to be assertive without burning bridges

Spend two days each doing the following:

  1. Eye Gazing
    • Only look at the eyes of a person for 3 minutes at a time
    • If not arranged, just don’t break contact first
    • Tips
      1. Focus on one eye
      2. Blink so you don’t look creepy
      3. Also maintain eye contact while speaking
      4. Practice on random, more intimidating people
        • If they ask, just say you thought you knew them
  2. Learn to propose (2 Days)
    • Propose solutions instead of asking opinions
      • Start with small things like where to eat
  3. Get Phone Numbers (2 Days)
  1. Say no to all requests
    • Do you have a minute?
    • Want to see a movie tonight/tomorrow?
    • Can you help me with X?

2 - Elimination

5 - Time Management

Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away. —ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY, pioneer of international postal flight and author of Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)

It is vain to do with more what can be done with less. —AWILLIAM OF OCCAM (1300–1350), originator of “Occam’s Razor”

80/20 principle

I’m sorry to hear that. You know, I’ve been taking your insults for a while now, and it’s unfortunate that it seems we won’t be able to do business anymore. I’d recommend you take a good look at where this unhappiness and anger is actually coming from. In any case, I wish you well. If you would like to order product, we’ll be happy to supply it, but only if you can conduct yourself without profanity and unnecessary insults. You have our fax number. All the best and have a nice day.

Places of application:

  1. Advertising
    • Focusing on the most profitable audiences
  2. Online Affiliates and Partners
    • Focusing on the most profitable affiliates
      • Helps reduce time

9-5 Illusions

Effectiveness

  1. What would you do if you had a heart attack and could only work 2 hours per day?
  2. What would you do if you had a heart attack and could only work 2 hours per week?
  3. If you had a gun to your head and had to stop doing 4/5 of different time-consuming activities, what would you remove?
  4. What are the top-three activities that I use to fill time to feel as though I’ve been productive?
  5. Who are the 20% of people who produce 80% of your enjoyment and propel you forward, and which 20% cause 80% of your depression, anger, and second-guessing?
    • Who is truly helping us vs harming us?
    • What happens if I stop talking to them?
    • Confide in them honestly but tactfully and explain your concerns. If they bite back, your conclusions have been confirmed
      • Be sure to establish independency prior
      • you are the average of the five people you associate with most
  6. What commitments, thoughts, and people starve my time, and what can I do to eliminate them?

Practices of Elimination:

  1. Learn to ask, “If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?”
    • Start planning todos the day prior again
    • Limit the space, and don’t have more than 2 important items
      • Do ONE important task per day
  2. Three reminders to alert you at least three times daily with the question: Are you inventing things to do to avoid the important?
    • Rescuetime can help automate things
  3. Prioritization
    • Focusing reduces our need to multitask as we know what we need to work on
  4. Parkinsons Law
    • Shorten schedules and deadlines for tasks
    • Take off certain days and have a deadline to force yourself to actually get things done

6 - Low Information Diet

Selective Ignorance

Reading Faster in 10 minutes

  1. 2 Minutes: Use a finger or pen to pace your reading
    • Keeps us up to speed
    • Prevents regression
  2. 3 Minutes: Focus on the third word in from the first word, and end each line focusing on the third word in from the last word
    • We can use peripheral vision to read the other words
  3. 2 Minutes: Only take two “snapshots”, at the indented words
  4. 3 Minutes: Read too fast for comprehension but with good technique

Actionable Ideas

  1. One week Media Fast
    • Helps prevent unecessary reading
      • No newspapers, magazines, audiobooks, radio
      • No news websites
      • No TV except for 1 hour of pleasure
      • No reading books except for one hour of ficton
      • No web surfing unless necessary
  2. Active questions
    • “Will I definitely use this information for something immediate and important?”
      • Information is useless if it is not applied to something important or if you will forget it before you have a chance to apply it
  3. Starting does not justify finishing
    • Sometimes it’s better to end it than to finish

7 - Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

Interruptions

Types of interruptions include:

  1. Time wasters
    • Stimuli that has little consequences for ignoring
      • Unimportant discussion
  2. Time consumers
    • Stimuli that interrupts work
      • Responding to emails, customer service
  3. Empowerment failures
    • When someone needs support/permission for something minor
      • Fixing customer problems
Handling Interruptions

Time Wasters

  1. Limit our access and funnel everything towards immediate action?
    1. Turn off notifications
    2. Only check x times per day, eventually to once per day
    • Have a phone number for urgent and a voicemail for non-urgent things
  2. Train people to be more effective and efficient
    • Demonstrate your preferred method of communication
    • Get people to send emails rather than converse
      • Respond to voicemails via email using “if then”
    • Meetings should only be held to make decisions, not identify problems
      • Define problems through email
      • Well-defined decisions should have resolutions within 30 minutes
        • Define an end time to prevent perfectionism
  3. Be unapproachable
  4. Encourage people to try things once
    • Like a little kid or like trying to sell a puppy

Time Consumers

  1. Batching
    • Consider grouping repeated activities together
      • As long as they don’t have deadlines
      • Try different time gaps like 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month to see what time is most effective

Empowerment Failures

  1. Outsource order tracking and returns, but handle product-related questions
    • Get workers to solve things on their own, and don’t ask for assistance unless it reaches a certain monetary threshold
      • People are smarter than they and you think
      • Clarification does not outweigh the constant interruptions and time loss

Tools and Tips

Emails
Web Browsing

Dear Sowmya, Thank you. I would like to start with the following task. TASK: I need to find the names and e-mails of editors of men’s magazines in the US (for example: maxim, stuff, GQ, esquire, blender, etc.) who also have written books. An example of such a person would be AJ Jacobs who is Editor-at-Large of Esquire ( www.ajjacobs.com). I already have his information and need more like him. Can you do this? If not, please advise. Please reply and confirm what you will plan to do to complete this task. DEADLINE: Since I’m in a rush, get started after your next e-mail and stop at 3 hours and tell me what results you have. Please begin this task now if possible. The deadline for these 3 hours and reported results is end-of-day ET Monday.

Activity Action Flowchart !Pasted image 20210612125736.png

Reflections
Common Time-Consumers
Outsourcing Practices

9 - Income Autopilot

Experiment:

cash flow and time

Steps

  1. Pick a reachable yet niche market

    • Filling demand is much easier than creating demand
    • Starting small helps lower advertising costs and competition
    • Prompts include:
      1. Consider groups you associate with and see if there’s any overlap
        • Have a lot of money
      2. Look at media sources of these specific niches
        • Ask magazines to place advertisements

  2. Brainstorm (Don’t invest) products

    • See interest before actually manufacturing
    • Pick two markets, <15000 readers, <$5000 investment
    • Benefit should be explained in one sentence
    • Cost should be $50-200
      • Higher pricing helps:
      • Fewer units, manage less customers (faster)
      • Attract lower-maintenance customers (happier)
      • Creates higher profit margins (richer)
      • 8-10x markup
    • Take less than 3 weeks to manufacture
    • Fully explainable in a FAQ
    • Types of products:
      1. Resold products
        • Dropshipping
      2. License product
        • Granting others the rights to use your product and brand in exchange for % of sales
        • Being the one actually selling products
      3. Creating a product
        • Sometimes all you have to do is relabel
        • Information products are ideal
          • Low-cost
          • Fast to manufacture
          • Time-consuming for competitors to duplicate
    • You don’t need to be an expert
      • You just need to be better than a small group of your prospective customers
        • Have enough support to meet your costs
    • Methods of obtaining content:
      1. Paraphrasing/combining points
      2. Repurposing free content
      3. Ask for an expert for help

    If you read and understand the three top-selling books on home-page design, you will know more about that topic than 80% of the readership of a magazine for real estate brokers. If you can summarize the content and make recommendations specific to the needs of the real estate market, a 0.5–1.5% response from an ad you place in the magazine is not unreasonable to expect.

    • Forms of content:
      1. Tailoring/adding to successfully sold skill
      2. Skills you and others would be willing to pay to learn about
      3. Experts to interview and create sellable content
      4. Failure to success stories
    • Networking steps to become Credible/an Expert
      1. Join 2-3 related trade organizations with official-sounding names
      2. Read the three top-selling books on your topic and summarize each on one page.
      3. Give one free one-to-three-hour seminar at the closest well-known university, using posters to advertise
        • Then do the same at branches of two well-known big companies (AT&T, IBM, etc.) located in the same area
          • Tell the company that you have given seminars at University X or X College and are a member of those groups from step 1
          • Emphasize that you are offering it to them for free to get additional speaking experience outside of academics and will not be selling products or services
            • Record the seminars from two angles for later potential use as a CD/DVD product
      4. Offer to write one or two articles for trade magazines related to your topics, citing what you have accomplished in steps 1 and 3 for credibility. If they decline, offer to interview a known expert and write the article—it still gets your name listed as a contributor
      5. Join ProfNet, which is a service that journalists use to find experts to quote for articles
        • Getting PR is simple if you stop shouting and start listening
        • Use steps 1, 3, and 4 to demonstrate credibility and online research to respond to journalist queries
          • Will get you featured in media ranging from small local publications to the New York Times and ABC News Comfort Challenge:

LibriVox ( www.librivox.org)

ExpertClick ( www.expertclick.com)

10 - Income Autopilot II

Microtesting (Step 3)

Process:

  1. Best: Look at the competition and create a more-compelling offer on a basic one-to-three-page website (one to three hours).
  2. Test: Test the offer using short Google Adwords advertising campaigns (three hours to set up and five days of passive observation).
  3. Divest or Invest: Cut losses with losers and manufacture the winner(s) for sales rollout.

Beating competition:

  1. Google the top terms each would use to try and find their respective products. To come up with related terms and derivative terms, both use search term suggestion tools.
    • ex) Google Adwords Keyword Tool ( http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) Enter the potential search terms to find search volume and alternative terms with more search traffic. Click on the “Approx Avg Search Volume” column to sort results from most to least searched.
    • Use more credibility indicators? (media, academia, associations, and testimonials)
    • Create a better guarantee?
    • Offer better selection?
    • Free or faster shipping?
  2. Create a one-page (300–600 words) testimonial-rich advertisement that emphasizes their differentiators and product benefits using text and either personal photos or stock photos from stock photo websites
    • Collecting advertisements that have prompted them to make purchases or that have caught their attention in print or online—these will serve as models
    • asks the manufacturer for photos and advertising samples

Testing:

  1. 72-hour eBay auction that includes his advertising text
    • cancels the auction last minute to avoid legal issues since he doesn’t have product to ship
  2. Register domain names
  3. Real testing
    • Sherwood uses www.weebly.com to create his one-page site advertisement and then creates two additional pages using the form builder www.wufoo.com
      • Someone clicks on the “purchase” button at the bottom of the first page, it takes them to a second page with pricing, shipping and handling,43 and basic contact fields to fill out (including e-mail and phone)
        • “Unfortunately, we are currently on back order but will contact you as soon as we have product in stock. Thank you for your patience.”
        • This structure allows him to test the first-page ad and his pricing separately. If someone gets to the last page, it is considered an order.
    • Create a single webpage with the content of her one-page ad and an e-mail sign-up for a free “top 10 tips” list for using yoga for rock climbing. She will consider 60% of the sign-ups as hypothetical orders
  4. Advertising
    • set up simple Google Adwords campaigns with 50–100 search terms to simultaneously test headlines while driving traffic to their pages. Their daily budget limits are set at $50 per day
      • best search terms by using the search term suggestion tools
        • Lower CPC costs and tighten audience
  5. Statistics
    • use www.wufoo.com to track e-mail sign-ups on this small testing scale
    • use Google’s free analytical tools to track “orders” and page abandonment rate
  6. Adwords
    • Google Adwords ad consists of a headline and then two lines of description, neither of which can exceed 35 characters
    • creates five groups of 10 search terms each
    • !Pasted image 20210612135156.png
    • tests headlines, product names, and domain names
    • Allow all ads to run to see success
    • Ensure that the ads don’t trick prospects into visiting the site. The product offer should be clear
    • Cost to both: $50 or less per day x 5 days = $250

Comfort Challenge:

Resources

Income Autopilot III

Phases

Phase 1: 0-50 Units Shipped

Phase 2: >10 Units / Week

Phase 3: > 20 Units / Week

Fewer Options = More Revenue

Reducing decisions:

  1. Offer 1-2 purchase options (basic, premium)
  2. Offer one fast shipping method and charge a premium
  3. Do not offer overnight or expedited shipping
  4. Make all orders online
  5. Don’t do international shipments

Lose-Win Guarantee

Make it profitable for the customer, even if the product fails

Appearing Fortune 500

  1. Don’t be the CEO or founder
    • Be the director of sales, business development, etc
  2. Multiple e-mail and phone contacts for different divisions
    • All should forward to your email adress
  3. www.angel.com to have a greeting voice prompt
    • On-hold music, seems professional
  4. Don’t provide home adresses
    • Replace with PO boxes minus the PO box

Comfort Challenge:

4 - Liberation

12 - Disappearing Act

Steps for an employee:

  1. Increase Investment
    • Get the company to invest more in you to make firing less appealing?
  2. Prove Increased Output Offsite
    • Call in sick but show you can still get work done
  3. Prepare Quantifiable Business Benefit
    • Demonstrate why he was able to work more outside
      • ex) More deep work due to fewer distractions and office noise
    • Encourage it as a business decision rather than personal perk
  4. Propose a Revocable Trial Period
    • Ask for a trial and bring up and mention your success from previously
    • Ask for two a week, and fall back to 1
  5. Expand remote time
    • Make it seem like outside hours are most productive
    • Make it seem like the remote work was the reason why you didn’t quit your job

13 - Beyond Repair

Debunking Quitting Myths

  1. Quitting is permanent
    • It is possible to go back in the similar field, as long as you have relevant skills
  2. Can’t pay the bills
    • Aim for a sustainable cash flow prior to quitting
    • Consider lowering living expenses temporarily to match your current income
    • Check your current savings (assets, bank account) and see how long you can last
  3. No more health insurance and retirement account
    • Might have to pay for them out of pocket now, but they are still available
  4. Ruin resume
    • Having independent adventures makes you stand out

Types of Mistakes

Mistakes of Ambition

Mistake of Sloth

Performance outweighs consistency

14 - Mini Retirements

15 - Filling the Void

Before spending time on a stress-inducing question, big or otherwise, ensure that the answer is “yes” to the following two questions:

  1. Have I decided on a single meaning for each term in this question?
  2. Can an answer to this question be acted upon to improve things?

16 - Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

  1. Losing sight of dreams and falling into work for work’s sake (W4W)
    • reread the introduction and next chapter of this book whenever you feel yourself falling into this trap
  2. Micromanaging and e-mailing to fill time
    • Set responsibilities, problems, rules, and limits of decision-making
  3. Handling problems your outsourcers or co-workers can handle
  4. Helping outsourcers or co-workers with the same problem more than once, or with noncrisis problems
    • Have a requirement for asking for help, get them to make their own decisions
    • Review performance from each to see if anyone’s messing up
  5. Chasing customers, particularly unqualified or international prospects, when you have sufficient cash flow to finance your nonfinancial pursuits
  6. Answering e-mail that will not result in a sale or that can be answered by a FAQ or auto-responder
  7. Working where you live, sleep, or should relax
    • Separate environments
  8. Not performing a thorough 80/20 analysis every two to four weeks for your business and personal life
  9. Striving for endless perfection rather than great or simply good enough, whether in your personal or professional life
  10. Blowing minutiae and small problems out of proportion as an excuse to work

  11. Making non-time-sensitive issues urgent in order to justify work

  12. Viewing one product, job, or project as the end-all and be-all of your existence
  13. Ignoring the social rewards of life

The Last Chapter

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something … almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

—STEVE JOBS, college dropout and CEO of Apple Computer, Stanford University Commencement, 2005

Questions for Thought

Extra Advice

The Choice-Minimal Lifestyle

Steps to be a minimalist:

  1. Set rules for yourself so you can automate as much decision making as possible
  2. Don’t provoke deliberation before you can take action
    • Don’t check your inbox before you have time to respond
  3. Don’t postpone decisions just to avoid uncomfortable conversations
  4. Learn to make reversible decisions
    • Set time/option/finance limits
  5. Don’t strive for variation when not needed; routine enables innovation
    • Result-drivens routine should be approached with consistency, while enjoyment-driven routines benefit from variation
  6. Regret is past-tense decision making. Eliminate complaining to minimize regret
    • Move your bracelet every time you complain for 21 days
      • helps prevent useless past-tense deliberation and negative emotions that improve nothing but deplete your attention
Not-To-Do List

What you don’t do determines what you can do

  1. Do not answer calls from unrecognized phone numbers
  2. Do not e-mail first thing in the morning or last thing at night
    • Former causes chaos, latter causes insomnia
    • Email after reading??
  3. Do not agree to meetings or calls with no clear agenda or end time
  4. Do not let people ramble
    • Ask what’s happening
  5. Batch check emails at set times
  6. Do not over-communicate with low-profit, high-maintenance customers
  7. Do not work more to fix overwhelmingness—prioritize
  8. Do not carry a cell phone or Crackberry 24/7
  9. Do not expect work to fill a void that non-work relationships and activities should
    • Work is not all of life
Profitability Tips

Profit comes from making the most money in the smallest amount of time and effort. Consider reviewing when feeling overwhelmed

  1. Niche Is the New Big
    • Your target audience can also be the identity people outside want to become
  2. What Gets Measured Gets Managed
  3. Pricing Before Product—Plan Distribution First
    • Ensure price scaling is possible
  4. Less Is More—Limiting Distribution to Increase Profit
  5. Net-Zero—Create Demand vs. Offering Terms
  6. Repetition Is Usually Redundant—Good Advertising Works the First Time
    • Direct-response advertising (phone number)
    • If something works the first time, continue and make small adjustments
  7. Limit Downside to Ensure Upside—Sacrifice Margin for Safety
    • In early stages, focus is on testing rather than making profit
  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)
    • If they end up at $2,000 and you want to pay $1,500, offer $1,250
  9. Hyperactivity vs. Productivity—80/20 and Pareto’s Law
    • 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
  11. Deadlines Over Details—Test Reliability Before Capability
    • Test someone’s ability to deliver on a specific and tight deadline before hiring them based on a dazzling portfolio

References:

Created:: {{3pmt3:2021-06-09}} 15:04

Backlinks

  • No backlinks found

Interactive Graph