Tim Ferriss on Productivity

Question 1

What does one need to have a uncommon lifestyle?

Answer 1

To have an uncommon lifestyle, you need to develop the uncommon habit of making decisions, both for yourself and for others.

Question 2

Whats a vain according to William of Occam?

Answer 2

It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.—WILLIAM OF OCCAM

Question 3

For what is being busy a sign?

Answer 3

Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.

Question 4

What is more important? What you do or how you do it?

Answer 4

What you do is infinitely more important than how you do it.

Question 5

What does it mean if you are busy?

Answer 5

Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.

Question 6

What is the path of the productive?

Answer 6

Being selective—doing less—is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.

Question 7

According to Bruce Lee, where does the height of cultivation run?

Answer 7

One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity. —BRUCE LEE

Question 8

According to Tim, what should one think about time-management?

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

What is the difference between being effective and being efficient?

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

How should one think about tasks?

Answer 10

1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important. 2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.

Question 11

Is measuring stuff important?

Answer 11

What gets measured gets managed. —PETER DRUCKER,

Question 12

What is the relationship between outputs and results?

Answer 12

80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs.

Question 13

80/20 Rule: What should one ask oneself?

Answer 13

1. Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness? 2. Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?

Question 14

What is the path of the productive?

Answer 14

Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. 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.

Question 15

What is Parkinsons Law and how do deadlines work?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

How does one combine Parkinsons law and the 80/20 Rule?

Answer 16

1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20). 2. 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.

Question 17

What happens if one does not identify the few mission critical tasks?

Answer 17

If you haven’t identified the mission-critical tasks and set aggressive start and end times for their completion, the unimportant becomes the important. 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 minutiae jumps in to replace it, leaving you at the end of the day with nothing accomplished.

Question 18

What question should one ask a few times a day to be focused?

Answer 18

At least three times per day at scheduled times, he had to ask himself the following question: 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?

Question 19

What is the key to having more time and what paths should one take?

Answer 19

THE KEY TO having more time is doing less, and there are two paths to getting there, both of which should be used together: (1) Define a to-do list and (2) 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?

Question 20

What are good hypothetical cases to consider?

Answer 20

Hypothetical cases help to get us started:
1. If you had a heart attack and had to work two hours per day, what would you do?

2. If you had a second heart attack and had to work two hours per week, what would you do?
3. If you had a gun to your head and had to stop doing ⅘ 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?

Question 21

What should one ask to be satisfied with the days work?

Answer 21

Learn to ask, “If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?”

Question 22

How many tasks should one choose per day?

Answer 22

Don’t ever arrive at the office or in front of your computer without a clear list of priorities.You’ll just read unassociated e-mail 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. 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 accomplish today, will I be satisfiedwith my day?

Question 23

What are the two most important principles to be more effective?

Answer 23

limit the number of items on your to-do list and use impossibly short deadlines to force immediate action while ignoring minutiae.