I just read this new business / self-help brainstormer. As far as that particular genre goes (not one of my favorites) this one is pretty good. It definitely goes well beyond what one might expect from the title, providing not just time management insights, but instead some very specific methods for getting BEYOND the need to implement complicated time-management insights.
The premise is, learn to automate and outsource your life. Get off the internet, never look at your email (people will phone; set up an auto-responder that says so, and then connect to your email only once every week), master the art of saying "no" to extra projects, learn the 80/20 rule in all things and then apply it to a heck-of-a-lot of cutting and hacking out the clutter from your life. Part of this will involve "sneaking" out of the office and working by tele-commuting, or just by not going in as often as they think you're going in, but being just as productive, until you can talk them into letting you loaf around the house and still get paid. From there, use the time to set up an internet-based business which will get you some passive income, get IT all set up to be as automated as possible (thanks to the internet, and to Virtual Assistants -- online personal assistants who do the scut-work, and although they may cost a fee, you can choose to hire those who are in locations where a beneficial exchange rate reduces that fee and anyway, the loss of a little of your new income is worth the gain in more income and time). Then, learn to "always" work and "always" vacation and "always" retire, all at the same time. Little mini trips all the time, or run that internet business from Costa Rica while on a skin diving vacation ("skin" diving heh heh heh, or just, ya know, skin diving), live a life rather than working in order to wait to live.
That's the executive summary. Now you don't have to buy the book. :)
Well, it all sounds great. I am going to go about trying to establish a "muse" (this is one of those automated internet stores) over the next year or so, while I also get started in a new job. Ideal time, I think, to do something "out of the office," since I won't have established any patterns or expectations (in my own head, or in the heads of others) about my productivity levels and therefore my imminent removability. Any weakness on the job can be toted up to "he's new here, he'll be learning soon."
But I wonder. For example, I have worked as a shipping clerk and as a publicist. Neither of those positions could be done by "tele commuting" and "minimizing information." The shipping clerk had to be in the office where the boxes were, for other people to dump on him at the last minute. The publicist had to answer all emails immediately -- if the New York Times reporter called at 4 and was on a deadline that day, and the publicist didn't get back to the NYT reporter by 4:05, then the NYT didn't put the thing the publicist was publicizing out in the published stuff for publicity. FAILURE.
On the other hand, I could easily see how someone whose job it is, to create major documents, or plans, or to tweak spreadsheets, could easily do his work outside the confines of the normal 8 to 5 schedule. (And by the way, the Princeton MBA prick who wrote this thing -- though he does hate the rat race, so I sympathize with him -- keeps referring to it as 9 to 5; what's WITH that? I've NEVER been at an office that opened at 9!). I didn't ever "pick" having to be the guy who was tied to a low job and a regular, excessively long work schedule. It just "ended up" that way.
So, for me, a lot of the advice in the book is quite encouraging. Especially the business about using the internet to "create" a magic wealth-building machine for yourself. I've always thought in terms of work being something you "avoid" as much as possible, and try to get the most bang for buck. In fact, that attitude gets me at odds with many of the more stodgy employers, since I'm always productive BUT NOT A DRONE. I get the work done and then think it's silly to come in early just to "prove" I'm dedicated, and although I know that an older generation often doesn't respect that attitude (morons!) and so I try to pretend to have whatever emotion they need me to have, I'm evidently bad at pretending. I just get fired, even though I'm wildly effective. They want "busy bee" there all the time, not "did the job and we made a profit." At least, in the idiot-burgs where I've been working. So, I am already a member of the choir, and the author of this 4-Hour thing needn't preach to me about that sort of thing.
In fact, the hard part won't be doing the tasks to get set up with this "disconnected" thing. The hard part will be convincing my co-workers and bosses that it's a better way for them to use me.
I wonder if other people have read this book. Thoughts, ideas? I'd love to be able to live in Costa Rica and twiddle at my little internet thing while there, not even need to live it up in style. Just enough money for a "puta" every week, maybe a girlfriend, and use the exchange rate to my benefit otherwise. No rent in the USA (everything got thrown away when I flew to San Juan, get it?) and then on my way to Germany. The "bootstrap" budget traveler, but with a business to support him on his way. In fact, this is so right up my alley, that I remember at one point a while back, someone suggested that for my next job I should try to leverage Google Ad-Words on a blog. That's an explicit part of this guy's plan.
Your ideas? Thoughts? Just another too-good-to-be-true self-help flash-in-the-pan load of bullshit, right along with the Scarsdale Diet?
This plan might work for an executive who I wouldn't be surprised does have extra time already to think up such a plan. However for the rank and file office workers, many already have more than they can do in the day already and are often faced with working overtime for no extra pay since they are salary or working as fast as possible and trying to delay other projects until they can get to them. Any time I hear of some brand new scheme, it usually means more work and more trouble for the average user. Sure it may save some money looking at some big major purchases but cost the whole company money because the executive doesn't realize how much extra time it takes to click on a million menus and type and search through a bunch more and enter all that information for a 2 dollar screwdriver the rank and file worker may never need to order again. However repeat this several times a day and sure the executive points out how much money the project saved. Meanwhile the rank and file worker is pulling their hair out trying to find the time to get the rest of the work done. Cutting corners if it doesn't need to be done right away is the routine I believe. There are always higher priority things that need to be worked on. Maybe I'm just a lot busier than many others. A 4 hour work day sounds great but I don't know anyone who would go for it unless I could do the same work from home. The company might counter with yes, sounds great, we'll just lower your pay by 50%.