<ol><li>Retirement is worst-case-scenario insurance</li><li>Interest and energy are cyclical (why frequent time-offs are important)</li><li>Less is not laziness</li><li>The timing is never right</li><li>Ask for forgiveness, not permission</li><li>Emphasize strengths, not weaknesses</li><li>Things in excess become their opposite (e.g. help can become a hindrance)</li><li>Money alone is not the solution</li><li>Relative income is more important than absolute income (focus on per-hour income instead of per month)</li><li>Distress is bad, eustress is good (eustress is healthy stress that makes you become better and succeed)</li></ol>

Fundamental Rules of Work Life

Dreamlining is the process of brainstorming, visualizing, and planning out your dreams. We all should do it sometimes to keep ourselves in check and make sure we are on the right path to leading a good and satisfying life.

What is "Dreamlining"?

<ul><li>Get a remote personal or virtual assistant who will do everything that consumes a lot of time and you hate doing - including reading and replying to emails</li><li>Never automate something that can be eliminated, and never delegate something that can be automated or streamlined</li><li>Always begin with the end in mind - carefully plan out processes and assess whether they will assure a stable income or will become a liability down the line</li></ul>

How to Automate Your Life

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose

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. You should focus on effectiveness, rather than efficiency.You need to constantly ask yourself: "Am I being productive or just active?"A good approach to elimination will kill the need for time management. You won't deal with tasks that waste time.

How to Eliminate Unnecessary Tasks

Pareto's Rule: 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs.<ul><li>Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness</li><li>Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?</li></ul>Parkinson’s Law: a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.You should use both Pareto's rule and Parkinson's law synergistically. Keep the tasks that achieve the most results and finish them in a shorter amount of time.

Pareto's Rule and Parkinson's Law

None of the previous concerns are valid if you think them through:<ul><li>You will find a new job as you found your last one if needed</li><li>Add up costs necessary to live a few months in a foreign place and you will probably see that it is not too far from your regular expenses</li><li>Depending on your country, you may find that paying for your own insurance is cheaper than expected</li><li>When recruiters ask you about that gap year and you tell them you visited the world, the first thought in their mind will be "How can I do that as well?"</li></ul>

Why Fear of Liberation Is Wrong

As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.

The way of improving your life is paved with 4 key steps:<ol><li>Definition - defining seemingly common-sense notions</li><li>Elimination - killing the need for time management</li><li>Automation - automating your income</li><li>Liberation - enabling mobility</li></ol>Let's take them in order!

DEAL Making

A business should be designed to generate steady passive income with as little headache as possible.<ol><li>Pick an affordably reachable niche market</li><li>Brainstorm products</li><ol><li>One-sentence slogan</li><li>Price between $50-$200 - creates a high-end image, customers will be less likely to return or complain, and fewer unit sales are needed for profit</li><li>Should take no more than 3-4 weeks to manufacture</li><li>Everything should be explainable in an online FAQ</li></ol><li>Resell, license, or create the product</li></ol>

Quick Guide to Creating a Business

<ol><li>What would you do if there was no way you could fail? Name 5 things you dream of having, being, and doing</li><li>Drawing a blank? What would you do if you had $100 million in the bank? What would make you most excited to wake up in the morning?</li><li>What does "being" entail doing? (e.g. to speak Chinese fluently, you need to learn Chinese)</li><li>What are the 4 dreams that would change it all?</li><li>Determine the costs and calculate your Target Monthly Income (TMI) for achieving them in 6 and 12 months.</li><li>Determine three steps for each of the four dreams in just the 6-month timeline and take the first step now.</li></ol>

Dreamlining Checklist

<ul><li>When compiling your to-do list for tomorrow, for each task ask yourself: "If this is the only thing I accomplish today, would I be satisfied with my work?". If the answer is "no", it probably is not an important task</li><li>Do not multitask!</li><li>Practice selective ignorance - trim the sources of information that are time-consuming and not useful</li><li>Ask the people who you know are experts to save time instead of researching yourself (Tim once asked a better-informed friend with similar political views who he should vote for)</li></ul>

Tips and Tricks for Productivity Pt. 1

The step of liberation refers to the freedom of traveling and working from any place in the world you want.By this point, the elimination step will make your travels to different places less noticeable and the automation step will leave most other things in the hands of your assistant.If you work a 9-to-5 job, you need to prove to your boss that you are more productive in a remote setting. Start with small compromises and escalate to full-time remote in the end.

How to Liberate Yourself

Most people are reluctant to the nomad lifestyle and these are the top reasons they cite:<ul><li>Quitting is permanent</li><li>I won't be able to pay the bills</li><li>Health insurance and retirement accounts disappear if I quit</li><li>It will ruin my resume</li></ul>

Primal Fears of Liberation

<ul><li>You will have doubts about leaving the 9-to-5 life or working too little: "What am I doing with my time now? Am I wasting it?"</li><li>Realize that the amount of money you make does not make you more successful and some of your peers will earn more with a 9-to-5</li><li>You need to find your purpose. Generally, 2 components are fundamental for a good life: continual learning and service (choosing the cause you want to fight for, no matter what it is, there are rarely "right" or "wrong" causes you can serve)</li></ul>

And What Now?

<ol><li>Losing sight of dreams and falling into work for work’s sake (W4W)</li><li>Micromanaging and e-mailing to fill time</li><li>Handling problems your outsourcers or co-workers can handle</li><li>Helping outsourcers or co-workers with the same problem more than once, or with noncrisis problems</li><li>Chasing customers, particularly unqualified or international prospects, when you have sufficient cash flow to finance your nonfinancial pursuits</li><li>Answering e-mails that will not result in a sale or that can be answered by a FAQ or auto-responder</li></ol>

Final Mistakes You Should Avoid Pt. 1

<ol><li>Working where you live, sleep, or should relax</li><li>Not performing a thorough 80/20 analysis every two to four weeks for your business and personal life</li><li>Striving for endless perfection rather than great or simply good enough, whether in your personal or professional life</li><li>Blowing minutiae and small problems out of proportion as an excuse to work</li><li>Making non-time-sensitive issues urgent in order to justify work</li><li>Viewing one product, job, or project as the end-all and be-all of your existence</li><li>Ignoring the social rewards of life</li></ol>

Final Mistakes You Should Avoid Pt. 2

<ul><li>Don't delay your happiness for early retirement, rather have many and frequent time-offs, it's the right way to live</li><li>Strive not for happiness, but for excitement!</li><li>When taking a risk, think about the worst-case scenario and how to still make the best of it. You will be less scared of taking that risk</li><li>Accurately define activities you want to do instead of general ones, or else you will postpone indefinitely</li><li>There is a direct correlation between an increased sphere of comfort and getting what you want - challenge your comfort zone constantly!</li></ul>

Defining Good Living Concepts

Sometimes it's good to take a step back and think about whether you are truly productive or not. Many people get trapped in the cycle of "work for work's sake" - or W4W, when they work automatically on tasks that are not important, but they are not fully aware of that.The book describes the journey and advice of Tim Ferriss, on wasting only 4 hours of your week on things that you are not passionate about.

Managing Your Time And Life

These tips relate to your behavior when dealing with people in a professional setting. There is a life outside work!<ul><li>Be difficult and assertive when it matters</li><li>Let unimportant things accumulate and complete them in batches</li><li>When faced with a meeting that you fear will be unproductive, claim that you need to go first and leave in 5 minutes</li><li>Appear busy to people to force them to be efficient in explaining their problems</li></ul>

Tips and Tricks for Productivity Pt. 2

An edition expanded with more than 100 pages of new content offers a blueprint for a better life, whether one's dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management or just living more and working less.

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Personal Development

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Books

What do you do? Tim Ferriss has trouble answering the question. Depending on when you ask this controversial Princeton University guest lecturer, he might answer: “I race motorcycles in Europe.” “I ski in the Andes.” “I scuba dive in Panama.” “I dance tango in Buenos Aires.” He has spent more than five years learning the secrets of the New Rich, a fast-growing subculture who has abandoned the “deferred-life plan” and instead mastered the new currencies—time and mobility—to create luxury lifestyles in the here and now. Whether you are an overworked employee or an entrepreneur trapped in your own business, this book is the compass for a new and revolutionary world. Join Tim Ferriss as he teaches you: • How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want • How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs • How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist • How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and freuent "mini-retirements" • What the crucial difference is between absolute and relative income • How to train your boss to value performance over presence, or kill your job (or company) if it’s beyond repair • What automated cash-flow “muses” are and how to create one in 2 to 4 weeks • How to cultivate selective ignorance—and create time—with a low-information diet • What the management secrets of Remote Control CEOs are • How to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50–80% off • How to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office You can have it all—really. From the Hardcover edition.

Tim Ferriss is author of three #1 NYT/WSJ bestsellers: The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, and The 4-Hour Chef. He is also a start-up advisor specializing in positioning, PR, and marketing (Uber, Evernote, etc.). When not damaging his body with abusive sports, he enjoys chocolate, bear claws, and Japanese animation.

How to Automate Your Life

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