#795: The End of Time Management

This time around, we have a bit of a different format, featuring the book that started it all for me, The 4-Hour Workweek https://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Anywhere-Expanded-Updated/dp/B0031KN6T8/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20. Readers and listeners often ask me what I would change or update, but an equally interesting question is: what wouldn’t I change? What stands the test of time and hasn’t lost any potency? This episode features one of the most important chapters from the audiobook of The 4-Hour Workweek. It includes tools and frameworks that I use to this day, including Pareto’s Law and Parkinson’s Law. The chapter is narrated by the great voice actor Ray Porter. If you are interested in checking out the rest of the audiobook, which is produced and copyrighted by Blackstone Publishing, you can find it on Audible https://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Anywhere-Expanded-Updated/dp/B0031KN6T8/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, Apple https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/the-4-hour-workweek-expanded-and-updated-escape-9-5/id1646139635?ls=1, Google https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details?id=AQAAAABEIGggPM&pli=1, Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/7JnUhVyFL0VArWBOCOsZgR, Downpour.com https://www.downpour.com/the-4-hour-workweek-expanded-and-updated?sp=17422, or wherever you find your favorite audiobooks. 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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  Well, hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. If you want the long-form, deconstructing world-class performers interviews, then you can pick one of the other 800 episodes or so that I have done. But this time around, you know, I like to experiment. We have a different format, featuring the book that started it all for me, The Four Hour Work Week. And even though it was published in 2007, back when I had hair, it was one of Amazon's top 10 most highlighted books of all time. Last time I checked, in 2017, and there were actually two of my books on that list. The Four Hour Body was the second. But back to the topic at hand, readers and listeners often ask me, what would you change? What would you update?

• 0:44Tim Ferriss?

  But an equally interesting question is, what wouldn't I change? What has stood the test of time? What hasn't lost any potency? What do I still personally use? And this episode features one of the most important chapters from The Four Hour Work Week. It includes tools and frameworks that I use to this day, including Pareto's Law, Parkinson's Law, and many other fine details. It is called "The End of Time Management." It is narrated by the great voice actor Ray Porter. And if you are interested in checking out the rest of the audiobook, which is produced and copyrighted by Blackstone Publishing, you can find it on Audible, Apple, Google, Spotify, downpour.com, or wherever you find your favorite audiobooks.

• 1:25Tim Ferriss?

  But first, a few quick words from the fine sponsors who make this show possible. I use all of their products, so this is not me just shilling. I've tried it all. I've vetted it all. And there they are. One of the first times I really explored quantum computing on the podcast was with legendary investor Steve Gerbitson. This was way back in 2018. Quantum computers can process exponentially more data than classical computers and could one day crack encryption algorithms that are currently secure. So there is an arms race afoot, and it is good to get ahead of it if you can. That's why ExpressVPN, this episode's sponsor, Thinking Ahead, has upgraded their encryption to use MLChem,

• 2:10Tim Ferriss?

  which is the strongest available protection from post-quantum threats. A VPN, or virtual private network, is already the best way to secure your privacy while online. I use ExpressVPN anytime I'm on public Wi-Fi, whether that's at a coffee shop, airport, or anywhere at all. You can also do some very fun stuff with Choosing your server if for instance you can't access content that is blocked somewhere. It's very, very useful. And with ExpressVPN, all of your online activity is rerouted through encrypted servers. So no one can read your data or try to hijack your connection. Whether that's a data broker profiting off of your private online activity or hackers who are lurking on public wifi to steal your confidential information. It's actually a lot easier to sniff those packets and steal your data than you might think.

• 2:55Tim Ferriss?

  So it's good to have protection. And now with post-quantum protection, ExpressVPN is essentially future-proofing their customers' privacy. So to get the highest standard of protection from your VPN service, go to expressvpn.com/tim. You'll get four extra months for free when you use that link. So be sure to check it out. That's expressvpn, E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash tim for an extra four months for free. As many of you know, for the last few years, I've been sleeping on a Midnight Luxe mattress from today's sponsor, Helix Sleep. I also have one in the guest bedroom downstairs and feedback from friends has always been fantastic. Kind of over the top, to be honest.

• 3:38Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, they frequently say it's the best night of sleep they've had in ages. What kind of mattress is it? What do you do? What's the magic juju? It's something they comment on without any prompting from me whatsoever. I also recently had a chance to test the Helix Sunset Elite in a new guest bedroom, which I sometimes sleep in, and I picked it for its very soft but supportive feel to help with some lower back pain that I've had. The Sunset Elite delivers exceptional comfort while putting the right support in the right spots. It is made with five tailored foam layers, including a base layer with full perimeter zoned lumbar support right where I need it, and middle layers with premium foam and micro coils that create a soft contouring feel, which also means if I feel like I want to sleep on my side, I can do that without worrying about other aches and pains I might create.

• 4:22Tim Ferriss?

  And with a luxurious pillow top for pressure relief, I look forward to nestling into that bed every night that I use it. The best part, of course, is that it helps me wake up feeling fully rested with a back that feels supple instead of stiff. And that is the name of the game for me these days. Helix offers a one 100 Night Sleep Trial. Fast, free shipping and a 15-year warranty. So, check it all out. And you, my dear listeners, can get between 20% and 27% off, plus two free pillows on all mattress orders. So, go to helixsleep.com/tim to check it out. That's helixsleep.com/tim. With Helix, better sleep starts now.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half-mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Now would be an inappropriate time.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  What if I give the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  The Tim Ferriss Show.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  Step 2. E is for elimination. One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity. Bruce Lee. 5. The End of Time Management. Illusions and Italians. Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 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.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  William of Ockham, 1300-1350, originator of Ockham's razor. Just a few words on time management. Forget all about it. In the strictest sense, you shouldn't be trying to do more in each day, trying to fill every second with a work fidget of some type. It took me a long time to figure this out. I used to be very fond of the results-by-volume approach. Being "busy" is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions. The options are almost limitless for creating "busyness."

• 6:54Speaker 03

  You could call a few hundred unqualified sales leads, reorganize your Outlook contacts, walk across the office to request documents you don't really need, or fuss with your BlackBerry for a few hours when you should be prioritizing. In fact, if you want to move up the ladder in most of corporate America, and assuming they don't really check what you are doing, let's be honest. Just run around the office building holding a cellphone to your head and carrying papers. Now that is one busy employee, give them a raise! Unfortunately for the NR, this behavior won't get you out of the office or put you on an airplane to Brazil. Bad dog. Hit yourself with a newspaper and cut it out.

• 7:38Speaker 03

  After all, there is a far better option, and it will do more than simply increase your results, it will multiply them. Believe it or not, it is not only possible to accomplish more by doing less, it is mandatory. Enter the world of elimination. How you will use productivity.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Now that you have defined what you want to do with your time, you have to free that time. The trick of course is to do so while maintaining or increasing your income. The intention of this chapter and what you will experience if you follow the instructions is an increase in personal productivity between 100 and 500%. The principles are the same for both employees and entrepreneurs, but the purpose of this increased productivity is completely different. First, the employee. The employee is increasing productivity to increase negotiating leverage for two simultaneous objectives: pay raises and a remote working arrangement.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Recall that, as indicated in the first chapter of this audiobook, the general process of joining the new rich is D E A L, in that order. But that employees intent on remaining employees for now need to implement the process as D E L A. The reason relates to environment. They need to liberate themselves from the office environment before they can work 10 hours a week, for example, because the expectation in that environment is that you will be in constant motion from 9 to 5. Even if you produce twice the results you had in the past, if you're working a quarter of the hours of your colleagues,

• 9:27Speaker 03

  there is a good chance of receiving a pink slip. Even if you work 10 hours a week and produce twice the results of people working 40, the collective request will be work 40 hours a week and produce eight times the results. This is an endless game and one you want to avoid. Hence the need for liberation first. If you're an employee, this chapter will increase your value and make it more painful for the company to fire you than to grant raises and a remote working agreement. That is your goal. Once the latter is accomplished, you can drop hours without bureaucratic interference and use the resultant free time to fulfill dream lines.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  The entrepreneur's goals are less complex as he or she is generally the direct beneficiary of increased profit. The goal is to decrease the amount of work you perform while increasing revenue. This will set the stage for replacing yourself with automation, which in turn permits liberation. For both tracks, some definitions are in order. Being effective versus being efficient.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goals. Efficiency is performing a given task, whether important or not, in the most economical manner possible. Being efficient without regard to effectiveness is the default mode of the universe. I would consider the best door-to-door salesperson efficient, that is refined and excellent at selling door-to-door without wasting time, but utterly ineffective. He or she would sell more using a better vehicle such as email or direct mail. This is also true for the person who checks email thirty times per day and develops an elaborate system of folder rules and sophisticated techniques for ensuring that each of those

• 11:25Speaker 03

  thirty brain farts moves as quickly as possible. I was a specialist at such professional wheel spinning. It is efficient, on some perverse level, but far from effective. Here are two truisms to keep in mind. One: Doing something unimportant well does not make it important. Two: Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important. From this moment forward, remember this: What you do is infinitely more important than how you do it. Efficiency is still important, but it's useless unless applied to the right things.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  To find the right things, we'll need to go to the garden. Pareto and his garden: eighty-twenty and freedom from futility. What gets measured gets managed. Peter Drucker, management theorist, author of thirty-one books, recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom. Four years ago, an economist changed my life forever. It's a shame I never had a chance to buy him a drink. My dear Vilfredo died almost one hundred years ago.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  Wilfredo Pareto was a wily and controversial economist, cum sociologist, who lived from 1848 to 1923. An engineer by training, he started his varied career managing coal mines and later succeeded Leon Valra as the Chair of Political Economy at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. His seminal work, Cour d'Économie Politique, included a then little-explored "Law of Income Distribution" that would later bear his name: Pareto's Law, or the Pareto Distribution, in the last decade also popularly called "The 80/20 Principle."

• 13:22Speaker 03

  The mathematical formula he used to demonstrate a grossly uneven but predictable distribution of wealth in society—80% of the wealth and income was produced and possessed by 20% of the population—also applied outside of economics. Indeed, it could be found almost everywhere. 80% of Pareto's garden peas were produced by 20% of the pea pods he had planted, for example. Pareto's Law can be summarized as follows: 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs. Alternative ways to phrase this, depending on the context, include: 80% of the consequences flow from 20% of the causes.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  80% of the results come from 20% of the effort and time. 80% of company profits come from 20% of the products and customers. 80% of all stock market gains are realized by 20% of the investors and 20% of an individual portfolio. The list is infinitely long and diverse, and the ratio is often skewed even more severely: 90/10, 95/5, and 99/1 are not uncommon, but the minimum ratio to seek is 80/20.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  When I came across Pareto's work one late evening, I had been slaving away with 15-hour days, seven days per week, feeling completely overwhelmed and generally helpless. I would wake up before dawn to make calls to the United Kingdom, handle the US during the normal nine-to-five day, and then work until near midnight making calls to Japan and New Zealand. I was stuck on a runaway freight train with no brakes, shoveling coal into the furnace for lack of a better option. Faced with certain burnout or giving Pareto's ideas a trial run, I opted for the latter. The next morning, I began a dissection of my business and personal life through the lenses of two questions.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  One: Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness? Two: Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness? For the entire day, I put aside everything seemingly urgent and did the most intense truth-bearing analysis possible, applying these questions to everything from my friends to customers and advertising to relaxation activities. Don't expect to find you're doing everything right. The truth often hurts. The goal is to find your inefficiencies in order to eliminate them and to find your strengths so you can multiply them.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  In the 24 hours that followed, I made several simple but emotionally difficult decisions that literally changed my life forever and enabled the lifestyle I now enjoy. The first decision I made is an excellent example of how dramatic and fast the ROI of this analytical fat-cutting can be. I stopped contacting 95% of my customers and fired 2%, leaving me with the top 3% of producers to profile and duplicate.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  Out of more than 120 wholesale customers, a mere five were bringing in 95% of the revenue. I was spending 98% of my time chasing the remainder, as the aforementioned five ordered regularly without any follow-up calls, persuasion, or cajoling. In other words, I was working because I felt as though I should be doing something from 9 to 5. I didn't realize that working every hour from 9 to 5 isn't the goal. It's simply the structure most people use, whether it's necessary or not. I had a severe case of work-for-work, W4W, the most hated acronym in the NR vocabulary.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  All, and I mean 100% of my problems and complaints, came from this unproductive majority. With the exception of two large customers who were simply world-class experts of the "Here is the fire I started, now you put it out" approach to business. I put all of these unproductive customers on passive mode. If they ordered, great, let them fax in the order. If not, I would do absolutely no chasing, no phone calls, no email, nothing. That left the two larger customers to deal with, who were professional ball-breakers but contributed about 10% to the bottom line at the time.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  You'll always have a few of these, and it is a quandary that causes all sorts of problems, not the least of which are self-hatred and depression. Up to that point, I had taken their brow-beating, insults, time-consuming arguments, and tirades as a cost of doing business. I realized during the 80/20 analysis that these two people were the source of nearly all my unhappiness and anger throughout the day, and it usually spilled over into my personal time, keeping me up at night with the usual "I should have said X, Y, and Z" to that penis self-flagellation. I finally concluded the obvious. The effect on my self-esteem and state of mind just wasn't worth the financial gain.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  I didn't need the money for any precise reason, and I had assumed I needed to take it. The customers are always right, aren't they? Part of doing business, right? Hell no. Not for the NR anyway. I fired their asses and enjoyed every second of it. The first conversation went like this. Customer. What the bleep? I ordered two cases and they arrived two days late. Note: He had sent the order to the wrong person via the wrong medium despite repeated reminders. You guys are the most disorganized bunch of idiots I've ever worked with. I have 20 years of experience in this industry and this is the worst. Any NR, in this case, me.

• 19:33Speaker 03

  I will kill you. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

• 19:40Speaker 03

  I wish. I did rehearse that a million times in my mental theater, but it actually went something more like this. 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. Click.

• 20:19Speaker 03

  I did this once via phone and once through email. So what happened? I lost one customer, but the other corrected course and simply faxed orders again and again and again. Problem solved. Minimum revenue lost. I was immediately 10 times happier. I then identified the common characteristics of my top five customers and secured three or so similarly profiled buyers in the following week. Remember, more customers is not automatically more income. More customers is not the goal and often translates into 90% more housekeeping and a paltry 1% to 3% increase in income.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  Make no mistake, maximum income from minimal necessary effort, including minimum number of customers, is the primary goal. I duplicated my strengths, in this case, my top producers, and focused on increasing the size and frequency of their orders. The end result? I went from chasing and appeasing 120 customers to simply receiving large orders from eight, with absolutely no pleading, phone calls, or email haranguing. My monthly income increased from $30,000 to $60,000 in four weeks, and my weekly hours immediately dropped from over 80 to approximately 15.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  Most important, I was happy with myself and felt both optimistic and liberated for the first time in over two years. In the ensuing weeks, I applied the 80/20 principle to dozens of areas, including the following. 1. Advertising. I identified the advertising that was generating 80% or more of revenue, identified the commonalities among them, and multiplied them, eliminating all the rest at the same time. My advertising costs dropped over 70%, and my direct sales income nearly doubled from a monthly $15,000 to $25,000 in eight weeks. It would have doubled immediately had I been using radio, newspapers, or television instead

• 22:27Speaker 03

  of magazines with long lead times. 2. Online Affiliates and Partners. I fired more than 250 low-yield online affiliates, or put them in holding patterns to focus instead on the two affiliates who were generating 90% of the income. My management time decreased from 5 to 10 hours per week to 1 hour per month. Online partner income increased more than 50% in that same month. Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness, lazy thinking, and indiscriminate action.

• 23:09Speaker 03

  Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing and is far more unpleasant. Being selective, doing less, is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest. Of course, before you can separate the wheat from the chaff and eliminate activities in a new environment, whether a new job or an entrepreneurial venture, you will need to try a lot to identify what pulls the most weight. Throw it all up on the wall and see what sticks, that's part of the process, but it should not take more than a month or two. It's easy to get caught in a flood of minutia, and the key to not feeling rushed is remembering

• 23:50Speaker 03

  that lack of time is actually lack of priorities. Take time to stop and smell the roses, or in this case, to count the pea pods. The 9 to 5 illusion and Parkinson's Law. "I saw a bank that said 24-hour banking, but I don't have that much time." Steven Wright, comedian. If you're an employee, spending time on nonsense is, to some extent, not your fault. There is often no incentive to use time well unless you are paid on commission. The world has agreed to shuffle papers between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., and since you're trapped in the office for that period of servitude, you are compelled to create activities to

• 24:35Speaker 03

  fill that time. Time is wasted because there is so much time available. It's understandable. Now that you have the new goal of negotiating a remote work arrangement, instead of just collecting a paycheck, it's time to revisit the status quo and become effective. The best employees have the most leverage. For the entrepreneur, the wasteful use of time is a matter of bad habit and imitation. I am no exception. Most entrepreneurs were once employees and come from the 9 to 5 culture. Thus, they adopt the same schedule, whether or not they function at 9:00 a.m. or need eight hours to generate their target income.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  This schedule is a collective social agreement and a dinosaur legacy of the results-by-volume approach. How is it possible that all the people in the world need exactly eight hours to accomplish their work? It isn't. 9 to 5 is arbitrary.

• 25:39Tim Ferriss?

  Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. About three weeks ago, I found myself between 10,000 and 12,000 feet going over the continental divide, carrying tons of weight, and I needed all the help I could get. And in those circumstances, I relied on Momentous products every single day and every single night. Now, regular listeners probably know I've been taking Momentous products consistently and testing them, the entire spectrum of their products, for a long while now. But you may not know that I recently collaborated with them to put together my top picks. I always aim for a strong body and sharp mind. Of course, you need both, and neither is possible without quality sleep. So I designed my performance stack to check all three boxes: Creapure Creatine for muscular and cognitive support, Whey Protein

• 26:22Tim Ferriss?

  Isolate for muscle mass and recovery, and Magnesium 3-8 for sleep. All Momentous products are NSF and INFORMS Sports Certified, which is professional athlete and Olympic level testing. So, what's on the label is exactly what you're getting. Try it out for yourself and let me know what you think. Visit livemomentous.com/tim and use TIM at checkout for 20% off of my performance stack. I'll spell it out, it's a long one. livemomentous.com/tim. So, livemomentous.com/tim for 20% off.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  You don't need eight hours per day to become a legitimate millionaire, let alone have the means to live like one. Eight hours per week is often excessive, but I don't expect all of you to believe me just yet. I know you probably feel as I did for a long time, there just aren't enough hours in the day. But let's consider a few things we can probably agree on. Since we have eight hours to fill, we fill eight hours. If we had 15, we would fill 15. If we have an emergency and need to suddenly leave work in two hours but have pending deadlines, we miraculously complete those assignments in two hours. It is all related to a law that was introduced to me by Ed Zhao in the spring of 2000.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  I had arrived to class nervous and unable to concentrate. The final paper, worth a full 25% of the semester's grade, was due in 24 hours. One of the options, and that which I had chosen, was to interview the top executives of a startup and provide an in-depth analysis of their business model. The corporate powers that B had decided last minute that I couldn't interview two key figures or use their information due to confidentiality issues and pre-IPO precautions. Game over. I approached Ed after class to deliver the bad news. "Ed, I think I'm going to need an extension on the paper," I explained the situation,

• 28:27Speaker 03

  and Ed smiled before he replied without so much as a hint of concern. "I think you'll be okay. Entrepreneurs are those who make things happen, right?" 24 hours later and one minute before the deadline, as his assistant was locking the office, I handed in a 30-page final paper. It was based on a different company I had found, interviewed, and dissected with an intense all-nighter and enough caffeine to get an entire Olympic track team disqualified. It ended up being one of the best papers I'd written in four years, and I received an A.

• 29:01Speaker 03

  Before I left the classroom the previous day, Ed had given me some parting advice. "Parkinson's Law." Parkinson's Law dictates that a task will swell in perceived importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. It is the magic of the imminent deadline. If I give you 24 hours to complete a project, the time pressure forces you to focus on execution, and you have no choice but to do only the bare essentials. If I give you a week to complete the same task, it's six days of making a mountain out of a molehill. If I give you two months, God forbid, it becomes a mental monster.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  The end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitably of equal or higher quality due to greater focus.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  This presents a very curious phenomenon. There are two synergistic approaches for increasing productivity that are inversions of each other. One, limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20). Two, shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson's Law). The best solution is to use both together. Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines. If you haven't identified the mission-critical tasks and set aggressive start and end times for their completion, the unimportant becomes the important.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Even if you know what's critical, without deadlines that create focus, the minor tasks forced upon you, or invented in the case of the entrepreneur, will swell to consume time until another bit of minutia jumps in to replace it, leaving you at the end of the day with nothing accomplished. How else could dropping off a package at UPS, setting a few appointments, and checking email consume an entire 9 to 5 day? Don't feel bad. I spent months jumping from one interruption to the next, feeling run by my business instead of the other way around. The 80/20 principle and Parkinson's Law are the two cornerstone concepts that will be revisited in different forms throughout this entire section.

• 31:21Speaker 03

  Most inputs are useless and time is wasted in proportion to the amount that is available. Fat-free performance and time freedom begins with limiting intake overload. In the next chapter, we'll put you on the real breakfast of champions: the low-information diet. A dozen cupcakes and one question. Love of bustle is not industry. Seneca.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  Mountain View, California. Saturdays are my days off, I offered to the crowd of strangers staring at me, friends of a friend. It was true. Can you eat all bran and chicken seven days a week? Me neither, don't be so judgmental. Between my 10th and 12th cupcakes, I plopped down on the couch to revel in the sugar high, until the clock struck midnight and sent me back to my Adultsville Sunday through Friday diet. There was another party guest seated next to me on a chair nursing a glass of wine, not his 12, but certainly not his first, and we struck up a conversation. As usual, I had to struggle to answer, "What do you do?"

• 32:31Speaker 03

  And as usual, my answer left someone to wonder whether I was a pathological liar or a criminal.

• 32:38Speaker 03

  How is it possible to spend so little time on income generation? It's a good question. It's the question.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  In almost all respects, Charney had it all. He was happily married with a two-year-old son and another due to arrive in three months. He was a successful technology salesman, and though he wanted to earn $500,000 more per year, as all do, his finances were solid. He also asked good questions. I had just returned from another trip overseas and was planning a new adventure to Japan. He drilled me for two hours with a refrain, "How is it possible to spend so little time on income generation?" "If you're interested, we can make you a case study and I'll show you how," I offered. Charney was in. The one thing he didn't have was time.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  One email, and five weeks of practice later, Charney had good news. He had accomplished more in the last week than he had in the previous four combined. He did so while taking Monday and Friday off and spending at least two more hours per day with his family. From 40 hours per week, he was down to 18 and producing four times the results. Was it from mountaintop retreats and secret Kung-Fu training? Nope. Was it a new Japanese management secret? Or better software? Nine? I just asked him to do one simple thing consistently, without fail. At least three times per day at scheduled times, he had to ask himself the following question.

• 34:14Speaker 03

  Am I being productive, or just active? Charney captured the essence of this with less abstract wording. "Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?" He eliminated all of the activities he used as crutches and began to focus on demonstrating "results" instead of showing dedication. Dedication is often just meaningless work in disguise. Be ruthless and cut the fat. It is possible to have your cupcake and eat it too. Q. And A. Questions and Actions.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  "We create stress for ourselves because you feel like you have to do it. You have to." "I don't feel that anymore." Oprah Winfrey, actress and talk show host, The Oprah Winfrey Show.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  "The key to having more time is doing less, and there are two paths to getting there, both of which should be used together. One, define a to-do list, and two, define a not-to-do list. In general terms, there are but two questions. What 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness? What 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcome and happiness? Hypothetical cases help to get us started. One, if you had a heart attack and had to work two hours per day, what would you do?

• 35:47Speaker 03

  Not five hours, not four hours, not three, two hours. It's not where I want you to ultimately be, but it's a start. Besides, I can hear your brain bubbling already. That's ridiculous, impossible, I know, I know. If I told you that you could survive for months, functioning quite well, on four hours of sleep per night, would you believe me? Probably not. Notwithstanding, millions of new mothers do it all the time. This exercise is not optional. The doctor has warned you, after triple bypass surgery, that if you don't cut down your work to two hours per day for the first three months post-op, you will die. How would you do it?"

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Two. If you had a second heart attack and had to work two hours per week, what would you do?

• 36:41Speaker 03

  Three. If you had a gun to your head and had to stop doing four fifths of different time-consuming activities, what would you remove? Simplicity requires ruthlessness. If you had to stop four fifths of time-consuming activities, email, phone calls, conversations, paperwork, meetings, advertising, customers, suppliers, products, services, etc., what would you eliminate to keep the negative effect on income to a minimum? Used even once per month, this question alone can keep you sane and on track.

• 37:20Speaker 03

  Four. What are the top three activities that I use to fill time to feel as though I've been productive? These are usually used to postpone more important actions, often uncomfortable because there is a chance of failure or rejection. Be honest with yourself, as we all do this on occasion. What are your crutch activities? Five. 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? Identify. Positive friends versus time-consuming friends. Who is helping versus hurting you?

• 38:03Speaker 03

  And how do you increase your time with the former while decreasing or eliminating your time with the latter? Who is causing me stress disproportionate to the time I spend with them? What will happen if I simply stop interacting with these people? Fear setting helps here. When do I feel starved for time? What commitments, thoughts, and people can I eliminate to fix this problem? Exact numbers aren't needed to realize that we spend too much time with those who poison us with pessimism, sloth, and low expectations of themselves and the world. It is often the case that you have to fire certain friends or retire from particular social circles to have the life you want.

• 38:48Speaker 03

  This isn't being mean, it is being practical. Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic. The best way to approach a potential break is simple: confide in them honestly but tactfully and explain your concerns. If they bite back, your conclusions have been confirmed. Drop them like any other bad habit. If they promise to change, first spend at least two weeks apart to develop other positive influences in your life and diminish psychological dependency. The next trial period should have a set duration and consist of pass-or-fail criteria.

• 39:27Speaker 03

  If this approach is too confrontational for you, just politely refuse to interact with them. Be in the middle of something when the call comes, and have a prior commitment when the invitation to hang out comes. Once you see the benefits of decreased time with these people, it will be easier to stop communication altogether. I'm not going to lie, it sucks. It hurts like pulling out a splinter. But you are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn't making you stronger, they're making you weaker.

• 40:10Speaker 03

  Remove the splinters, and you'll thank yourself for it. Six. Learn to ask. If this is the only thing I accomplished today, will I be satisfied with my day? Don't ever arrive at the office or in front of your computer without a clear list of priorities. You'll just read unassociated email and scramble your brain for the day. Compile your to-do list for tomorrow no later than this evening. I don't recommend using Outlook or computerized to-do lists, because it is possible to add an infinite number of items. I use a standard piece of paper folded in half three times, which fits perfectly in the pocket and limits you to noting only a few items.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  There should never be more than two mission-critical items to complete each day. Never. It just isn't necessary if they're actually high-impact. If you are stuck trying to decide between multiple items that all seem crucial, as happens to all of us, look at each in turn and ask yourself: "If this is the only thing I accomplished today, will I be satisfied with my day?" To counter the seemingly urgent "Ask yourself: What will happen if I don't do this?" And is it worth putting off the important "to do it"? If you haven't already accomplished at least one important task in the day,

• 41:34Speaker 03

  don't spend the last business hour returning a DVD to avoid a $5 late charge. Get the important task done and pay the $5 fine. Seven. Put a Post-it on your computer screen or set an Outlook reminder to alert you at least three times daily with the question: "Are you inventing things to do to avoid the important?" I also use free time-tracking software called Rescue Time, RescueTime.com, to alert me when I spend more than an allotted time on certain websites or programs often used to avoid the important: Gmail, Facebook, Outlook, etc.

• 42:18Speaker 03

  It also summarizes your time use each week and compares your performance to peers. Eight. Do not multitask. I'm going to tell you what you already know. Trying to brush your teeth, talk on the phone, and answer email at the same time just doesn't work. Eating while doing online research and instant messaging? Ditto. If you prioritize properly, there is no need to multitask. It is a symptom of "task creep", doing more to feel productive while actually accomplishing less. As stated, you should have at most two primary goals or tasks per day.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  Do them separately from start to finish without distraction. Divided attention will result in more frequent interruptions, lapses in concentration, poorer net results, and less gratification.

• 43:16Speaker 03

  Nine. Use Parkinson's Law on a macro and micro level. Use Parkinson's Law to accomplish more in less time. Shorten schedules and deadlines to necessitate focused action instead of deliberation and procrastination. On a weekly and daily macro level, attempt to take Monday and/or Friday off, as well as leave work at 4:00 PM. This will focus you to prioritize more effectively and quite possibly develop a social life. If you're under the hawk-like watch of a boss, we'll discuss the nuts and bolts of how to escape in later chapters.

• 43:56Speaker 03

  On a micro task level, limit the number of items on your to-do list and use impossibly short deadlines to force immediate action while ignoring minutia. If doing work online or near an online computer, e.ggtimer.com is a convenient countdown timer. Just type the desired time limit directly into the URL field and hit Enter. For example, e.ggtimer.com/5minutes. E.ggtimer.com/1hour30minutes30seconds. E.ggtimer.com/30.

• 44:41Speaker 03

  If you just put in a number, it assumes seconds. Comfort Challenge. Learn to Propose. Two Days. Stop asking for opinions and start proposing solutions. Begin with the small things. If someone is going to ask or asks, "Where should we eat? What movies should we watch? What should we do tonight?" or anything similar, do not reflect it back with, "Well, what do you want to..." Offer a solution. Stop the back and forth and make a decision. Practice this in both personal and professional environments. Here are a few lines that help. My favorites are the first and last. "Can I make a suggestion?"

• 45:25Speaker 03

  "I propose..." "I'd like to propose..." "I suggest that..." "What do you think?" "Let's try..." and then try something else if that doesn't work.

• 45:40Speaker 03

  Lifestyle Design in Action. I'm a musician who got your book because Derek Sivers at CD Baby recommended it. Checking Pareto's Law, I realized that 78% of my downloads came from just one of my CDs, and that 55% of my total download income came from only five songs. It showed me what my fans are looking for and allowed me to showcase those on my website. Downloads are the way to go. iTunes sells the song, and CD Baby direct deposits it to my account. Fully automated, once the recording is done. There are some months I can live off download income. Once I finish paying off debt, it should be no problem to travel as an artist,

• 46:24Speaker 03

  and create new fans all over the world, and have a cyber income stream. Victor Johnson. As for outsourcing your banking, any company that needs to take checks should consider a lockbox solution. Just about any bank that does business banking offers it. All checks go to a P O. Box at the bank. The bank processes the checks and deposits them, and according to your instructions can send you a file of all the checks that are deposited. Normally, this can be done in either a flat, Excel, or other file type that can interface with any accounting systems from Excel to Quicken to SAP. Quite cost-effective. Anonymous.

• 47:11Tim Ferriss?

  Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between 1.5 and 2 million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half-page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered, or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks.

• 47:49Tim Ferriss?

  bricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog/friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog/friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. As many of you know, for the last few years, I've been sleeping on a Midnight Luxe mattress from today's sponsor, Helix Sleep. I also have one in the guest bedroom downstairs and feedback from friends has always been fantastic. Kind of over the top, to be honest. I mean,

• 48:34Tim Ferriss?

  they frequently say it's the best night of sleep they've had in ages. What kind of mattresses? What do you do? What's the magic juju? It's something they comment on without any prompting from me whatsoever. I also recently had a chance to test the Helix Sunset Elite in a new guest bedroom, which I sometimes sleep in, and I picked it for its very soft but supportive feel to help with some lower back pain that I've had. The Sunset Elite delivers exceptional comfort while putting the right support in the right spots. It is made with five tailored foam layers, including a base layer with full perimeter zoned lumbar support right where I need it, and middle layers with premium foam and micro coils that create a soft contouring feel, which also means if I feel like I want to sleep on my side, I can do that without worrying about other aches and pains that might create. And with

• 49:18Tim Ferriss?

  a luxurious pillow top for pressure relief, I look forward to nesting into that bed every night that I use it. The best part, of course, is that it helps me wake up feeling fully rested with a back that feels supple instead of stiff. That is the name of the game for me these days. Helix offers a 100-night sleep trial, fast free shipping and a 15-year warranty, so check it all out. And you, my dear listeners, can get between 20% and 27% off plus two free pillows on all mattress orders. So go to helixsleep.com/tim to check it out. That's helixsleep.com/tim. With Helix, better sleep starts now.

• 50:00Tim Ferriss?

  One of the first times I really explored quantum computing on the podcast was with legendary investor Steve Jervitson. This was way back in 2018. Quantum computers can process exponentially more data than classical computers and could one day crack encryption algorithms that are currently secure. So there is an arms race afoot and it is good to get ahead of it if you can. That's why ExpressVPN, this episode's sponsor, Thinking Ahead, has upgraded their encryption to use MLChem, which is the strongest available protection from post-quantum threats. A VPN, or virtual private network, is already the best way to secure your privacy while online. I use ExpressVPN anytime I'm on public wifi, whether that's at a coffee shop, airport,

• 50:44Tim Ferriss?

  or anywhere at all. You can also do some very fun stuff with choosing your server if, for instance, you can't access content that is blocked somewhere. It's very, very useful. And with ExpressVPN, all of your online activity is rerouted through encrypted servers. So no one can read your data or try to hijack your connection, whether that's a data broker profiting off of your private online activity, or hackers who are lurking on public wifi to steal your confidential information. It's actually a lot easier to sniff those packets and steal your data than you might think. So it's good to have protection. And now, with post-quantum protection, ExpressVPN is essentially future-proofing their customers' privacy. So to get the highest standard of protection from your VPN service, go to

• 51:26Tim Ferriss?

  expressvpn.com/tim. You'll get four extra months for free when you use that link. So be sure to check it out. That's expressvpn, E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash tim for an extra four months for free.