Published at 14 June, 2007
in Life and Work.
A friend passed me this link from zenhabits - The First Rule of Simplifying. It includes these magical questions that all of us should have an answer for:
- The first question: What is most important to me? What do I love to do? The answer is different to every person. For me, it’s simple: I love my wife and kids, I love writing, I love reading, and I love helping others. For others, it may be hiking or mountain biking or creating music or anything, really. Answer this question first.
- The second question: what are the things going on in my life, the things I do every day and every week and month, and how are they related to what is important to me? If you are going out drinking with the guys, and it’s not really important to you, and it’s stopping you from doing what is important, that’s a candidate for simplifying. Examine all your commitments, and ask yourself if they are really important to you, if they give you great value for your time, and if they are related to what is truly important.
- Possessions: The same questions can be asked of all the stuff you own — do you really love them? Are they truly essential? Another question you can ask, to clarify your thinking: If my house burned down, which few things would I want to replace? Get rid of all the rest. They leave clutter and stress and keep you from enjoying the stuff you really love.
- Everything else: This same concept can be applied to anything else in your life — your work, the information you read every day, the television programs you watch, the people in your life. Know what’s essential, what you love, what’s important … and get rid of the rest.
- What you’re left with: If you get rid of the extraneous stuff, the stuff that’s not related to what’s important to you, what do you have left? Just the important stuff. Just the stuff you really love to do. When you get rid of the other stuff, when you cut, let’s say, television and hours of Internet surfing and beer drinking from your life, don’t just cut it out — remember what’s important and what you love to do, and do that instead. For me, that means spending time with my family instead of working, that means writing or reading instead of watching TV, that means helping others instead of going to the mall (something I want to do more of).
It ends with this simple premise: identify what is important to you, and ditch the rest. I like it.
Published at 3 June, 2007
in Life.
I was sitting in a meeting the other morning waiting for it to start, and rather than go over my notes one more time, I read some of Yaro Starak’s Blog Profits Blueprint ebook on my phone. Because I don’t get much time these days to read, I use every free minute. It is one of the key reasons I went for the bigger screen of the Nokia e61:
I’m a big fan of ebooks - I’ve designed them, worked with them, and it would be a rare day when I don’t read at least part of an ebook. While the e61 is cool, it is smaller than my laptop, and infinitely more portable:
I tend to use Mobipocket Creator or Plucker to create ebooks, as they allow a richer experience than either of Microsoft Reader or Palm Reader format. Mobipocket works best where there is a linear progression throughout the book - start at chapter 1 and go through to The End, one chapter at a time. Plucker is an offline website browser, which is why it copes better with the thousands of cross-references in Schedule for PDA (that I helped to prototype and design).
Something to think about for your next phone purchase - there are a range of options that usefully support ebooks.
Australians, on average, work too much. Gartner say that this is going to change, and that a 20 hour work week is probable by the year 2015.
Compare this to Tim Ferriss who is currently selling the concept of the four hour work week. He warns against going for your dream job as it can lead to a blurring of the work/life boundary. This is an interesting concept - don’t get too “into” your job or it may swallow you. Here is what Tim had to say about the concept of work/life balance:
I am a strong advocate of work-life separation as opposed to work-life balance. The concept of work-life “balance” is a dangerous one because “balance” is often mistaken to mean blending, where work and personal tasks are alternated in the same environments, or where one activity is expected to provide both work and life. The Blackberry is checked while you wait for dinner in a restaurant, the laptop is cracked while your spouse waits for you in bed, and the passion you loved so dearly for 10 years is now expected to pay the mortgage. This keeps your mind in the office 24/7 and destroys the few activities you cherished for the pure joy of experiencing them. This produces—at best—a state of constant low-grade overwhelm, even if actual workload is low.
I wish I didn’t have any personal experience of what he calls the state of constant low-grade overwhelm, but it describes my life to a T. I’m writing this on a Sunday afternoon from a client office where I’m preparing for an interstate flight and a full-day meeting tomorrow. I’ve got some afterwork finished, more to go, and I observed this morning that my “todo” lists for work and blogging are growing at a faster rate than I can successfully undertake the work. The Ferriss solution is to outsource, and this is certainly possible with blogging in the form of guest blogging, and asking for a hand with afterwork. I’m not sure that it is sustainable as a long-term solution though - unless I am in a position to better outsource what is in front of me, or change things such that I can take advantage of $5.00 an hour white paper writers and the like.
What will the currently overworked do if the 20 hour work week ever happens? More to the point, how many of the 60 hour a week crowd will live to see that day?
