Archive for the ‘4-Hour Workweek’ Category

How to get started with working remotely


April 30, 2008 by Jared Goralnick

Telecommuting by the fire

Three quarters of the meetings that “merit a face-to-face” really don’t. It’s not “telecommuting” (that’s so 1997) and it shouldn’t even be called “working remotely”–it’s just WORKING. I’m putting my foot down and removing any distinction. Working from home has greatly improved my business, my sanity, and my life. So I’m opening up the kimono here on my tools. No, you don’t need to come in, you can read this from anywhere in the world.

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Curiosity killed the social media star


April 17, 2008 by Jared Goralnick

imageActually it’s curiosity that prevented him from ever becoming one. There are formulas, many formulas for spreading your message or building a personal brand online. These formulas actually work, but not if you let curiosity be the death of you first. Here you’ll find advice on spending your time a little more wisely on the internet so that you find your formula and stick with it.

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Walk away if it’s not worth it: the real first step to getting it done


April 6, 2008 by Jared Goralnick

Give Up image

The concept of “sunk cost” is often lost outside of economics–but if we dropped more things from our lives we’d be happier and more productive with our time.

Sunk cost: When one makes a hopeless investment, one sometimes reasons: I can’t stop now, otherwise what I’ve invested so far will be lost. This is true, of course, but irrelevant to whether one should continue to invest in the project. Everything one has invested is lost regardless. If there is no hope for success in the future from the investment, then the fact that one has already lost a bundle should lead one to the conclusion that the rational thing to do is to withdraw from the project.

Skeptic’s Dictionary

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If you trust people more, you’ll have a lot less to do. And my lessons learned


April 3, 2008 by Jared Goralnick

dagny_book_shred

We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy

-Walter Anderson

However much you trust the people that work for you–trust them more.  If no one reports to you, trust that someone could…and find them.  The greatest barrier to getting other people to do your work is you.

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Improve the quality of your inbox now–a simple approach to filtering (with video tutorials)


March 31, 2008 by Jared Goralnick

Gmail & Outlook Logos I recently switched applications for my personal email, and have since been on a filtering rampage to improve the quality of the stuff that makes it to my inbox.

My motivation was a change in email tools, but after just a couple weeks of creating filters (taking a grand total of 15 minutes over that time), my inbox is much better than before.

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Got too much email? Discussions and a short video of solutions


March 27, 2008 by Jared Goralnick

A big thank you to Frank Gruber of SomewhatFrank.com for posting a video interview of me, which you can find below, discussing the difficulties of staying focused at work with so much email, and how AwayFind can help. This video came at a time when the blogs are aflame with discussions of email management –I address some of the challenges of processing email below.

In his post, which you should check out, Frank describes the AwayFind product, and references an article that’s been getting a lot of attention–Michael Arrington (of TechCrunch) discusses getting too much email.

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Ten reasons to turn off automatic email checking on your phone


March 26, 2008 by Jared Goralnick

image Six months ago I turned off automatic email downloading on my phone; it was one of the best decisions I’ve made.

Having access to email on the go is helpful (as is web access), but downloading email automatically does more harm than good.

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The difference between being responsive and being too available


March 10, 2008 by Jared Goralnick

Waiting In my last article, I talked about how we shouldn’t make others feel that their time is less important than ours.

Being perceived as being in high demand may help to command respect, but you can accomplish that without feigning busyness or sacrificing those you care about.

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Being perceived as busy makes you a jerk, and misses the whole point of productivity


March 5, 2008 by Jared Goralnick

We have a problem when we equate busyness with productivity (or, worse yet, success). We have a problem when we let people know we’re fitting them in to our schedules. We’re all busy people, and some of us might be considered productive, but none of us have the right to make others feel less important. A productive person is one who gets a lot done but doesn’t feel busy (or make others feel that they are).

I was talking with one of my employees about how much I had to do and when I would be able to get him some feedback. A few minutes after our conversation I cringed–I may have leeway with when I get him the feedback, but he didn’t deserve my listing out my to do list. He has just as much to do, if not at work then in other places, and I should never let my “busy life” be more important.

I got a phone call last week and the client exclaimed, “I’m so lucky I got you on the phone…I know how busy you are.” Maybe he meant it as a compliment, but it sort of irked me. Here I am trying to feel on top of my life/schedule…and I’m making an important client feel like I don’t have time for him. No, that’s not quite what he said, but it bugged me. It’s not that I’m not busy, but I want it to be clear to people (especially friends and, well, prospects/clients) that I have time for them.

It’s all about the approach: Continue reading…

Dreamline Worksheet 2.0– Updates to the popular 4-Hour Workweek spreadsheet


March 3, 2008 by Jared Goralnick

Discover how to escape your inbox without missing urgent messages

Update: this has been downloaded over 10,000 times!
In the mean time, I put together a web tool that helps people to spend less time with email. It helps me tune out email distractions so I can check my inbox twice a day, but still get notified of urgent stuff via text message. It’s my other project (called AwayFind), you can check it out here (it’s also free).

The original 4-Hour Workweek Dreamline spreadsheet is available at that link. Below you’ll find a newly designed version that incorporates a lot of the feedback I received.

Screenshot of the Dreamline Spreadsheet - click here to download it

Download the Dreamline Worksheet and Expense Calculator 2.0 (Excel/XLS)

(Find the original instructions here)

The most noteworthy new feature is allowing both one-time and monthly expenses. In the previous version, one had to determine the monthly cost of each of their goals. Now one can enter the full cost and the spreadsheet will divide that total by the number of months for the Dreamline:

Demonstration of one time and monthly expense calculations

One thing to consider Continue reading…