links for 2008-03-13
By brick | March 13, 2008
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Free excerpt from the new, updated Lifehacker book: Chapter 1, Control Your Email.
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Interesting post on how the web is migrating towards services over sites. We are seeing this play out today as more and more web brands offer API’s.
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This is the table of contents for the second edition of the Lifehacker book. What’s nice is that they provide links to related posts on their website. A nice organized list of email, organization, getting things done and computer tips all in one place.
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The 4-Hour Workweek Hype Cycle
By Brick | March 10, 2008
Gartner uses the Hype Cycle to describe how the hype regarding a new technology is often followed by a period of disappointment and subsequently by a period of more modest practical benefits:
Source: Jeremy Kemp / Wikipedia.
If we also consider management fads and personal productivity movements as technologies, I think one would find that the hype cycle equally applies to these as well. For example, there has been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about GTD entering the “trough of disillusionment”. Where in the hype cycle is The 4-Hour Workweek?
Personally, I think it is still in the “peak of inflated expectations” phase. The book remains wildly popular. My prediction is that people, specifically salaried employees, are going to have problems liberating themselves from the office environment. If they can even achieve mobility in the first place, the next challenge will be automating sizeable amounts of work via personal outsourcing (the single biggest issue I hear from 4-hour workweek readers is “what can I outsource?” often accompanied by explanations built around client confidentiality, etc.). I have already commented in my post The 4-Hour Workweek: Easier Said Than Done on some of the reasons to be skeptical. So, like almost all personal effectiveness movements, I am certain The 4-Hour Workweek will go through the inevitable trough of disillusionment. I am also equally sure it will rebound, especially since some have already been successful in applying the principles - so there is something real here.
Where do you think The 4-Hour Workweek is in its hype cycle? Do you even think the hype cycle applies?
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Topics: Hype Cycle | 4 Comments »
Seven Habits - Habit 1: Be Proactive
By Brick | March 10, 2008
Due to the similarities between the Time Management Matrix of Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People and my own Life Management matrix, I decided to read the book again. I had first read the book in the early 90’s and while I am not the type of person who reads books a second time, I am already glad I went back to it. I am also the kind of person that likes to start from the very first page and read sequentially forward until the end (although I have picked up the useful habit of giving up on a book if I find at any point that I am truly not enjoying it - in and of itself a great time management tip).
After an inspiring introductory chapter, Covey starts on his 7 habits, the first being the habit of being proactive. It starts with a discussion on how we react to various stimuli in our environment. Here are two models to consider:
Model 1: Conditioned Response
In this model, we are conditioned to respond in a certain manner. Perhaps genetically we are predisposed to alcoholism. Perhaps as a child you learned from your parents to deal with upset by losing your temper. Perhaps your spouse is pushing all of the right buttons to trigger a conditioned response!
Model 2: Choice
In this model, we choose a response to any given stimulus. While we still may not control the actual stimulus, we consciously choose how to respond. Perhaps your spouse is pushing all of the right buttons that would ordinarily make you lose your temper, but you decide not to get angry. You decide that the underlying issue is not that big a deal and you go outside to take a walk instead, maybe to reflect on what might really be getting at your better half. You come back refreshed and ready to have a civil conversation. The basis of Habit 1: Be Proactive is built upon accepting that this model is valid and superior.
Which Model Is Best?
Here is what I think: both models are accurate descriptions of how we do, and can, deal with stimuli to produce a response. I think the difference lies in what level of thought these two models reside within. In my opinion, a conditioned response is an unconscious response, while a conscious decision on how to deal with a situation is exactly that - a mental action that takes place in the conscious domain of thought.
One thing you might ask is why do we most often operate according to the first model - conditioned responses - when the second model is so superior? The answer, I believe, is that having the freedom to choose one’s response to a given stimulus is not always the superior model! There exist situations where we do not have the time to make a conscious decision on how to react. Conditioned responses allow us to act according to a genetic or learned behaviour, virtually without having to take the time to think about it. There are situations where this time save is critical (e.g. running away from a lion). We can imagine that in times past, this mechanism of a conditioned response was probably critical for humanity’s very survival.
We can also imagine that given the importance of conditioned response to our very survival, we are biologically predisposed to acting according to conditioned responses. Acting according to conditioned responses is therefore easier, which is probably why we continue act out according to conditioned behaviour for much of our lives regardless of the specific stimulus.
Like most things, it is probably not an all or nothing proposition. There is a time and a place for conditioned responses and conscious decisions. In the past, we can imagine that the a optimum distribution of unconscious to conscious reactions probably favoured conditioned responses:
As we leave the cave, this predisposition to conditioned responses may not be as ideal as it once was. Who knows, maybe as a species we will evolve to the point that making conscious decisions on how to act will become as easy as our conditioned responses. However, as basic survival becomes less of a concern, we are probably much more effective when we make conscious choices in most everyday situations. That doesn’t mean that all conditioned responses are bad, and in fact, without adequate time to think about a response, we still need to rely on conditioned responses. We can image that the optimum distribution of unconscious to conscious reactions probably now favours conscious responses:
The Importance Of Time Management
So, let’s assume that (1) acting according to conditioned responses is easier, (2) that in most everyday situations, conscious choice is usually superior to conditioned responses, yet (3) conscious choices require more time to generate a response. One can clearly see that without adequate time, we almost have no option but to act out according to conditioned behaviour. If conscious choices will provide the basis for proactivity and greater effectiveness as Covey suggests, we need the luxury of time to make these choices. If we have too much on our plate, I can see how we will inevitably slide into conditioned response mode - out of sheer necessity. Therefore, while I mostly accept Covey’s proposition, it rests, in my opinion, on the fundamental need to organize your time so as to have the time to make conscious decisions.
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4-Hour Workweek: Easier Said Than Done?
By Brick | March 7, 2008
Shortly after starting this blog, I decided I needed to extend the scope beyond the confines of The 4-Hour Workweek. I realized that the main epiphany for me when reading the book was Timothy Ferriss’ insistence that we should abandon the deferred life plan where we work like hell in the prime of our lives, save as much as we can and then retire - a plan that is ultimately just a “socially reinforced illusion”. Life does not have to be this hard, instead we could choose to master time and mobility and create fulfilling lifestyles today. I realized that it is this questioning of unquestioned assumptions that often leads to paradigm shifts in our lives. The 4-Hour Workweek is but one example of someone stepping outside the box of conventional wisdom.
That being said, The 4-Hour Workweek offers a lot of tactical and practical advice on how to work less and live more. I still want to work a 4-hour workweek, I still want to dreamline, and I still want to develop new and novel revenue sources to fund my new lifestyle, and so, this blog remains a 4-Hour Workweek Journal. However, in reading my own posts, I sometimes get the feeling I have given an all knowing, all perfect, almost omniscient quality to Mr. Ferriss. I suppose I have become a bit of a disciple, but my initial desire to journal my following his advice was bourne out of both a hope that his methods would prove helpful and a healthy dose of skepticism.
Since I have provided my fair share of glowing praise for The 4-Hour Workweek in my posts, in the spirit of balance I thought I would also share a little more explicitly what makes me a bit of a sceptic:
It’s Easier When You Start Rich
Let’s face it, Ferriss was already making a good chunk of change before preaching his work-less, live-more mantra. Its seems to me that he was somewhat rich the old fashioned way before he reduced his work week down to four hours and joined the newly rich. This suggests that one might be more successful in attaining a 4-hour workweek if one were starting from a position of relative wealth and means.
Easy Money
I think Ferris may recognize this and so to get us into the same position of wealth, he suggests how we might create self running businesses, or muses as he calls them, that will supply us with an endless cashflow to fund our new found desire to trot the globe. All you have to do is market a product on the Internet and outsource the fulfillment of orders and the handling of customer service. Its that easy! Besides giving a few examples of what others have done, he does not really discuss how we comes up with or find these magical products. I don’t mean to sound too harsh, but sometimes it comes off sounding a bit like Don Lapre (this is the guy from the early 90’s with the late night infomercials claiming that by placing “tiny classified ads” in newspapers he was able to make $50,000 per week from his one bedroom apartment). Tiny classified ads… Google Adsense…
What About the Kids?
While he goes to great pains to explain how his method applies equally to salaried employees and people with kids, in the end, he started as a business owner and he does not have kids. I’m just saying.
I Still Hope
I just wanted to share what makes me skeptical. It is nothing more than my opinion - the opinion of a man still living, one could argue, an at least somewhat “socially reinforced illusion”. In fairness, I do want to reiterate my first point: regardless of the meat of the book, Ferriss opens our eyes to our unconscious acceptance of the work-hard-now-enjoy-life-later plan. This, in and of itself, is of immense value. At minimum, this creates an opening, allowing us to have a conscious choice and to consider new options. Lastly, it was the reading of The 4-Hour Workweek that got me started on the idea that things could be different and more fulfilling in my own life. It is still early days for me, and my first steps have been rather timid and safe, but already I feel like things are better. My attitude has improved and things just seem brighter. Can we still be friends Tim?
By the way, this is for those of you who remember the infamous Don Lapre:
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Topics: 4-Hour Work Week | 2 Comments »
Time Management Guest Post
By Brick | March 7, 2008
Yesterday I wrote a guest post titled Time Management: Sometimes Things Change over at the Diary of a Four-Hour-a-Weeker. In this post I expand on my rethinking of time management. I discuss how Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix can be recast into a Life Management Matrix to reflect the principles of The 4-Hour Workweek. Lastly I touch on the fact that task importance is a dynamic quality and therefore the need to revisit how we grade our tasks over time. I encourage you to check it out. Rex, the man behind the Diary of a Four-Hour-a-Weeker is also on a quest to work less and live more. He’s written on some of the challenges in applying the principles of The 4-Hour Workweek on his site - great material for us 4-Hour workweek fans!
Odds & Ends
I am pleased to be a part of the new 4-Hour Workweek Feedburner Network: A network of blogs devoted to the idea of living more while working less (but more effectively!). The discussions on this network are all about defining your dreams, liberating yourself from the 9-5 grind, eliminating low value work and automating the rest. If your blog is following these kinds of ideas and you would like to join the network, please leave a comment below.
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My Daily Schedule
By Brick | March 3, 2008
About two weeks ago, I became inspired by two 4-Hour Workweek blogs which posted on the topic of creative daily schedules: The Great Schedule Experiment and A lifestyle design experiment… working 7 days a week. While these schedules don’t address the issue of reducing one’s working hours, they do discuss rearranging one’s typical 40 hour workweek in ways that compliment one’s own daily rhythm and therefore enhance productivity. Given that I have been largely successful in developing the habit of waking up early, I figured it was time to thoughtfully rearrange my own working schedule based on my new waking hour:
Early Start
When I wake up, I go straight into work. The first benefit is that there is virtually no traffic so the commute is completely minimized. My job requires a fair amount of heads down work, and this work is performed faster and better early in the morning when there are no distractions. I take a break at about 7:30 to eat and/or grab a coffee (or two!). By 8:30 I am back at my desk and process my email. I am nicely prepared for the day before most people have even arrived. Also, no matter what happens in terms of “emergency” meetings and other distractions, I get two and a half hours of absolutely solid, productive work accomplished every single day.
Gym
When I started waking up at 5:00 am, I figured I would work out first thing in the morning and get it out of the way early. This would ensure that I exercised every day, and perhaps more importantly, put my own needs first. The reality for me has always been that too many things pop up in the evening and after work workouts often get ignored or forgotten. I still think that this was not a bad plan, but I made a couple observations during the first month of early rising:
- My gym does not open until 6:00 am so I had to do something from 5:00 am until 6:00 am. It started to feel like wasted time.
- The period after lunch was definitely my least productive. I attribute that to my becoming a little physically lethargic by that point in the day.
By working during the lunch hour or shortly afterward I found that I got a boost of energy that made the rest of my day more productive and enjoyable. I end up being more awake and energized for activities after work. Crucially, by simply ensuring the workout occurred before the end of the traditional work day, it was pretty safe it would always happen.
Wrap Up
I go back to the office after the gym and work for about one more hour. This is an excellent time for me to process my email, my inbox and set priorities for the next day. It also gives me a window to support afternoon meetings or phone calls if required. Leaving at 3:00 pm ensures that traffic is still reasonable and I now pick my kids up from school every day - a huge bonus.
Bedtime
As I mentioned before on how to wake up early guaranteed, I go to bed when I am tired. It could be 8 pm or 12 am, it does not matter. I sleep when I am tired - so simple!
Wednesday is the New Saturday
Jed at The Newly Rich turned me on to this practice. In his own words:
Although Tim (in The 4-Hour Workweek) applies the “break up your work and play” principle to long-term career planning and mini-retirements, the same principle can bring benefits on a micro level. Why save your weekend for the weekend?
Source: The Newly Rich.
If we are not out of town on the weekend, I will work on Saturday and Sunday mornings from 5:00 am to 7:30 am. My kids and wife do not wake until after 7:30 am so this is easily accomplished and basically goes unnoticed by my family. By putting in 5 hours on the weekend, I can leave the office at 8:00 am on Wednesdays! Besides breaking up the week, it makes Wednesdays a great day to run errands and do the grocery shopping (which I only do once a week because of our menu planning).
I have been at this new schedule for almost two weeks and it is great! I would love to read some comments about how you might have reengineered your work week.
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Topics: Time Management Tips | 3 Comments »
Crowdsourcing With Kluster
By Brick | February 28, 2008
I came across a site this morning called Kluster:
kluster is a place to harness the power of community collaboration to get stuff done. everyone has ideas, we provide a platform to get them out of heads and into the world…where they belong.
Source: Kluster
Crowdsourcing refers to outsourcing a task to a large group of undefined people often in the form of an open call to participate. For example, author Timothy Ferriss has put out an open invitation to edit his best selling The 4-Hour Workweek in preparation for the next edition of the book.
Kluster seems like an innovative way to enable and formalize the crowdsourcing process. It would appear to work like this:
- You post an idea (for example a product idea, an event, a design task) and a reward.
- The idea, called a project, gets broken down into phases which represent smaller manageable deliverables.
- The community proposes solutions for each phase. These proposed solutions can be critiqued, improved and refined by others in the crowd.
- The community can invest in the various solutions (like a stock market of solution candidates).
Kluster then uses an advanced decision making algorithm to determine the best solution in each phase:
Rather then just choosing the most popular item, kluster uses advanced algorithms to make decisions. All the activity and participation on kluster is stored and analyzed. The data is used in the decision-making process. Each user’s successes, failures, reputation, areas of expertise, and overall history are considered. This encourages users to earn respect, to act positively, and most importantly, enables extremely educated decisions to be made using real world logic.
Source: Kluster
The reward gets paid out according to who invested in the winning solutions. By formalizing and facilitating the crowdsourcing process, Kluster could allow you to have one more rather interesting outsourcing option. Check out the Kluster tour:
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Tools For The Mobile Office
By Brick | February 25, 2008
The author of the Outlaw Design Blog is planning on spending the next few months “living and working from the sandy beaches of Costa Rica”. Sounds a lot like the concept of Liberation that Timothy Ferriss advocates (and seems to live) in The 4-Hour Workweek. To support this experiment in telecommuting, Danny Outlaw (which I am certain is his real name) figures he has to address the following challenges:
- Lack of access to traditional paper based “snail” mail.
- The ability to access “the office” while jet setting about the region on any number of short trips.
- Mitigate the risk to business continuation in a worse case scenario such as his laptop being stolen.
The resulting post: Online Tools for Working Abroad, is a description of his planned mobile office setup which consists of several online tools. Mike Elgin of The World Is My Office blog over at Computerworld has already weighed in, and since I have been on a quest to get as much as possible online lately (particularly my email, calendar and contacts), I thought I would add my own two cents.
Photo Storage
Mike Elgin correctly points out that for most, photo organizing and storage is probably not a key component to a mobile office, but since Danny Outlaw mentions it…
- Danny: Flickr.
- Mike: Flickr.
- Me: I have just starting using Flickr and it is a great tool. What I have been using for a long while is Picasa Web Albums. The main reason I have used Picasa is that I get all the benefits of online storage, organization and access while at the same time tight integration with an incredible desktop photo organizer. Just because you want everything online doesn’t mean you can’t have a great desktop application at the same time!
Data Storage
- Danny: Media Max - 25 GB of free online storage.
- Mike: Jungle Disk - not free, but uses Amazon’s S3 service and therefore ultra safe and secure.
- Me: For my office documents I actually use Google Docs and for other files I just back them up by sending them as an attachment in an email to myself (my email is hosted by Google). I know this is not necessarily an ideal backup strategy so I will probably investigate Jungle Disk and the like. I have heard good things about Mozy and how it can perform a seamless backup in the background.
Snail Mail
- Danny: Earth Class Mail - They give you and address to which you redirect all your mail. The service scans the front and back of each envelop which you review online and instruct them the open and scan the contents or trash it. Sounds very very cool and Ferriss-esque!
- Mike: Earth Class Mail.
- Me: I have been trying to get as many of my bills and statements sent to me as “e-Bills”, but Earth Class Mail is a rather complete solution.
Office Software
- Danny: Zoho.
- Mike: Google Docs - although he points out that Zoho also offers a Wiki, a project management application and CRM.
- Me: Google Docs. I don’t use wikis or project management software. I use SugarCRM which is hosted online.
Meetings
- Danny: MyQuire
- Mike: AIM for chat.
- Me: I think of MyQuire as being more of a groupware application than an online meeting application. For purely online meetings, real time collaboration and application sharing I use LiveMeeting which is not cheap, but a good product. For groupware type features, I use shared Google Calendars (which I synch to my nice desktop client), email and instant messaging as the case may be.
Personal Finance
- Danny: Mint.
- Mike: Desktop application (e.g. Quicken) plus an online backup.
- Me: Is a personal finance application really a must for running a mobile office? I would think that access to Internet banking is probably the more fundamental requirement. Internet banking comes with most decent banks these days. The only online personal finance manager I have tried is Wesabe which is like an online, social networked version of Quicken. It is very cool, but not essential in my own humble opinion.
To Do List
- Danny: I Want Sandy.
- Mike: Gubb.
- Me: I Want Sandy integrated with Jott. I am a huge I Want Sandy fan. I hear great things about Remember The Milk (RTM). RTM has a great looking iPhone/iTouch application, the iPhone with its built in wi-fi being an great mobile office gadget in its own right.
- Somehow email was not on the list while photo editing was! I am not going to bother covering photo editing, but I will put a plug in for Gmail, particularly if you have it integrated with the Thunderbird desktop client.
- What are your favourite and/or indispensable tools for when you are working remotely or travelling yet need to be connected? I would love to hear about them in the comments.
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Topics: Mobile Office | 3 Comments »
Multitasking & Stress Reduction Part 1
By Brick | February 24, 2008
Editor’s Note: This is the first post in a multi-part series on multitasking and stress reduction.
About a month ago I wrote on multitasking, or rather on how people do not actually multitask in the truest sense of the word. When it comes to people, the term multitasking is most accurately used to describe switching continuously between multiple single tasks over a period of time. In contrast to the common practice of multitasking, I noted that success in an endeavour has been characterized by some as the ability to single task: focus on the truly important, without interruption, to completion.
The reality is that we all have to switch between tasks sooner or later. Even if we have the ability to single task for long periods of time, we inevitably still have other tasks and activities that need to get done. By way of a practical example, consider that you are working on a company project that will take approximately three months to complete. While I am sure the ability to focus on that single project for extended periods of time will be helpful, if not critical, to success; at some point during these three months we can easily imagine that one will have to read and respond to email, make and return phone calls, follow up on issues with other projects, meet with your peers (or manager, shareholders, employees, employers, etc.) and at the same time take care of the multitude of demands of life outside work. Not to mention that within the project itself, we can easily imagine a multitude of different tasks and activities that will require completion. So in some sense, multitasking is a reality that we have to live with and probably need to actively manage.
I wanted to drill down from my earlier post on multitasking into a more detailed look at the subject. This series of posts will consider the following questions:
- Is multitasking a good or a bad thing?
- How might multitasking be related to stress?
- How is single tasking beneficial?
- What is the best way to practice multitasking if and when it is necessary to switch between tasks?
Subsequent posts in this series will look at a model for how our minds work when it comes to performing and switching between different tasks, some empirical data from task switching experiments and how this model helps explain these results, and lastly, strategies for multitasking and stress reduction in the form of time management tips.
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I’ve Been Asked To Edit The 4-Hour Workweek!
By Brick | February 20, 2008
Yes, it’s true. Author Tim Ferriss has invited me to edit his best selling book The 4-Hour Workweek. Here’s the thing: he has basically extended this invitation to everyone! For those who wish to contribute, Ferriss is collecting ideas via an open wiki for the next edition of the book:
I want an improved and expanded 4HWW to help propel the critical mass needed for large-scale institutional, and even policy-level, change. The book alone won’t do it, obviously, but I believe it can play a small part as instigator.
Source: The Blog of Tim Ferriss.
I think this is an interesting strategy. A lot of people (including myself obviously) have been inspired by the ideas behind the book and have made new innovations in lifestyle design using the book as a starting point. As Ferriss says: “we” is smarter than “me”.
Ferriss goes on to say:
To my knowledge, this is the first time a NY Times bestseller has ever been made open to public editing. In fact, I haven’t seen any traditionally-published book ever crowdsourced on a global scale.
Source: The Blog of Time Ferriss.
Well, I am not so sure about that. Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, the authors of the best selling Naked Conversations, put chapters of their book on their blog for review. In essence, that book (or at least a good portion of it) was edited by the blogosphere. I believe there are other examples (as far as I know Producing Open Source Software was - fittingly - reviewed by many online before being published). By the way, I highly recommend both of these books, although the later will probably most interest those who work in the software industry.
Anyway, here is your chance to leave your mark on the book that started it all while Ferriss gets his book updated and fact checked virtually for free - which is cool - after all crowdsouring is just another version of outsourcing!
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Topics: 4-Hour Work Week | 1 Comment »
