Work-Life Innovation |

“Hey Steve, want to go for a drink?” “Uh, no thanks. I’m tired and I have some work to do anyway. Sorry!”

“Hey, we are having a get together next week, you should come!” “Oh, sorry, I can’t, I’m er, …busy that day.” “But I haven’t told you which day its happening!”  “Well, I mean I’m busy all week, I don’t think I could make it, I’m really sorry”

“Steve, we are going to London on Saturday for a day out. You should come”
“Ahh, I think there’s something I have to do Saturday, I just can’t remember what it is right now. Can I let you know later in the week? Cheers”

Ever found yourself saying any of the above? Of course you have, everyone gets invited to things they don’t want to or can’t attend for one reason or another. What’s more troubling however are those times when you find yourself taking a rain check when you have no real good reason to.

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This is the latest update of my Adventures in Personal Outsourcing series. The conclusion of my interactions with my Virtual Assistant that I found at Guru.com actually took place not long after my last post on this subject, but I have only gotten round to posting the update now. My Bad! Anyway, I can say that my experiment with Personal Outsourcing has been very good indeed. Apart from my initial difficulties in finding a VA that would do the work at other, more well know VA companies (notably YourManInIndia.com, and GetFriday.com), once I found Guru.com the offers from VA’s to do the work were plentiful. I chose a lady from India who agreed to post all of my books onto Amazon.co.uk for $25 or about £12.

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Though it’s been a little quieter around here on WLI lately, it’s not that I’ve been neglecting my posting duties. A few weeks ago, I was honoured to be offered a writing gig over at TastefullyDriven.com (TD). TD is a brand spanking new lifestyle site that offers quality products, unique blog articles and a community forum to provide a 360 degree lifestyle design experience. Set up by four 20 somethings from Albany, NY, the site also has a conscience - giving 5% pre-tax profits to charitable orangizations in Upstate New York.

My first post for TD talks about problem solving and how we can all improve it. Here’s a quick appetizer:

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This is the book that’s changing the way people view productivity. It has been a big hit, making the New York Times’ best seller list and launching its author, Tim Ferriss, into the media spotlight. The Four Hour Work Week’s (T4HWW) success is attributable to two main things: 1) It offers a refreshingly new approach to productivity, and explores some key new developments that can help a person spend less time at work, and 2) Tim Ferriss’ tireless (shameless?) self publicity that has gotten him on the front pages of many newspapers, magazines and on the couches of many chat shows. What follows is a brief surgical strike summary of the book so you can get a feel of what it’s all about and make your decision about purchasing it (or not!). If you do want to buy the book, there is a link to it on my recommended reading section in the sidebar to the right of this post.

The book is split into (appropriately enough) four main chapters, Definition, Elimination, Automation and Liberation, giving the nice acronym DEAL. I’ll go through each of the sections in turn. Read the rest of this entry »

I sense a shifting in the force! Something is rotten is the state of productivity, and efficiency don’t live here…anymore.

Yep, the game is up. We no longer want (or need) to work 70 hour weeks, spend 15 years negotiating a complex corporate hierarchy and wait 40 years to experience the joys(?) of retirement. We want our lives back, and we want them back now.

There’s an old story about a corporate executive on holiday on a stunning island off Mexico who meets a fisherman. The exec says to the fisherman, “You have a good little business here, you should expand”. “Why should I do that?” says the fisherman. “So, you can earn more money and buy more boats. That, way you would be able to catch more fish.”. “Why would I want to do that?” replies the fisherman. “Well, so you could sell them and earn more money, expand your business even further, maybe even buy up some of the other fishing businesses here and earn even more money. Then, eventually you could sell it all, retire and go live on some beautiful island somewhere!”. “Hmm” says the fisherman, scratching his chin. “you mean like this one?”. “Oh…” says the exec.

Is the fisherman a slacker? Or has he got it right. What are we really working for anyway? Is it really worth the candle to defer your life to some uncertain future in which your too old to do the things you’d love to do now? Read the rest of this entry »

Update: See the mother of all productivity faceoffs with Bit Literacy vs GTD vs 4HWW here.

This post begins a series of mini book reviews that give you what you need to know about a book in an easily digestible nibble. It can also help you make the decision to go out and buy the full meal at full restaurant prices (ok, enough with the food metaphor!).

For this first post I am going to provide a condensed overview of Bit Literacy by Mark Hurst.

According to the Book, bit literacy is defined as:

..a set of skills for living and working with bits in a healthy and productive way. Much like literacy itself, bit literacy can grant a lifetime of benefits, and it doesn’t require any special software or expensive tools.

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My PhD was one of the hardest but most rewarding things I have ever undertaken. There were many moments where I thought I’d never finish. It took a tremendous amount of support from those around me and some long hard looks at how I approached the way I worked. Looking back, there were definitely things I could have done to make my life easier. The following list is inspired by the things I did wrong, as well as a few I did right. For all those of you still going through the process, hang in there! You can finish and you can definitely do it in much better style than I did. If you manage to do just half of what’s on the list below you’re already well ahead of the game.

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