Tim Ferriss is not a fan of efficiency. He says “doing something unimportant well does not make it important.” Takeaway: make sure what you spend your time on is aligned with your goals.

I’m sure you’ve heard of Mr. Pareto. He’s the “80/20 guy”. I’m sure you’ve even considered applying 80/20 to some of your work. I have. Even so, I was still struck by the Tim Ferriss version of 80/20, which opens up its application to many areas of your life.Tim says ask yourself these two questions:

• “Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?”
• “Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?”

He then goes on to apply this to his customer base and fire the customers that are causing him problems and unhappiness.

Parkinson’s Law may be less familiar to you. Parkinson’s Law suggests that tasks swell to fill the time available and shrink if the time is limited. So Tim suggests the following approach to tackling projects:

• Only do the really important projects. This will cut down on the time you spend working.
• Set tight deadlines on the important projects you choose to do so you don’t waste any time

Now you may be getting a sense of why the book is called the “4-hour workweek”!

This is one I need to do right away. I’ve studied great systems like Getting Things Done that lay out efficient ways to get work done. They show you how to put your “to-do list” on steroids. I’ve used GTD and I think it’s great. But I’ve never had a “not to-do list”.Someone like me needs a “not to-do list” to stop them from doing things they shouldn’t. Tim spends a long time in the book talking about elimination, automation and delegation of work. I need a “not to-do list” to constantly remind me to eliminate, automate or delegate whenever I can.

“Cultivate selective ignorance”. Tim suggests reading less (ironic I know.) He says he spends no more than one hour per week reading news or business-related information. If he wants to know something he asks his friends what’s going on. (He does read fiction but that’s for fun not to be effective.) This may not surprise you. Tim calls email “the greatest single interruption in the modern world”. He suggests turning off any audible alerts on your email (agreed!) but he gets more radical and recommends reading your email only twice per day! He says in his experience the calamities that you think will happen when you only check email twice per day don’t actually happen. If something is so important people will call you.

“Get a man in India”. Have you ever dreamed of having your own personal assistant like Richard Branson does? Tim Ferriss says you should and now—even if you are an employee of big company! Tim’s talking about a virtual assistant that you can hire offshore for $5-$15/hour. You can you use systems like eLance to easily find these assistants right from your computer. These people are available to do all sorts of work. When you decide that a piece of work is on your “not to-do list”, and you don’t have any colleagues that will do it, consider hiring your own “man in India”. The world is flat!

Try to replace yourself. I had to reread this paragraph a few times. Replace myself? I’d rather have a job thanks Tim!

Tim says, “Preparing someone to replace you (even if it never happens) will produce an ultra refined set of rules that will cut remaining fat and redundancy from your schedule”.

After a few reads I think I got it. If you develop systems and processes in your work as if someone was going to replace you, you will set up your work to be effective. You will be able to see where you should eliminate what does not need to be done; figure out ways to automate what can be automated; and delegate everything you should not do.