{"id":"534f7d9b6531660007f50000","slug":"less-doing-more-living-en","title":"Less Doing, More Living","audio_url":"https://hls.blinkist.io/bibs/534f7d9b6531660007f50000/535785f23733330007490000-T1644924648.m4a?Expires=1656417947&Signature=AVjbxzCmF9cAygsQAksotC8gN0AbwJXILEJwa6s6rx-rGjkgANessLYDfAcLCU4GQ514y-zM8RnOSiAYyv0L6CIRdeqArifvdwFYbnMXRipvJ3h5xvn5HVVE8t-b47CvyiZRwQCxHFQRZFcygR8Lzjs9dehFF4CDPwLj7htefn8e0bEc4fDZ2WbOSporNmJAzzNjAgi2-du5meYtOf1~LhbU7HjlRw0g9dHzQ0FybdxmAoXvVWbo95NAjd8YTzVqyL7~AotC00r7ik82TfCt4fGQRkqp73a7LvOJ8gYLYxF2ODpQjlj37uxwIaDwt0oicqREHQQdRsSwiIg1IH~zjw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJXJM6BB7FFZXUB4A","chapters":[{"id":"535785f23733330007490000","title":"Track your life to learn where you can start saving time.","text":"

Do you know about the 80-20 rule? If you don’t, here’s a recap. The 80/20 rule states that 80 percent of what you accomplish results from just 20 percent of all your time and energy. And this rule is the case for pretty much everything you do – this includes your studies, your work, and your exercise routines.

As the rule suggests, you should spend most of your focus on this vital 20 percent. But how do you figure out what 20 percent of time and tasks you need to focus on?

You need to start tracking. By tracking your work and your time, you’ll get a good idea of where it’s being spent well and where it isn’t.

Now, this sounds great! But who’s got time to live their busy schedule and observe it at the same time? Luckily, there are a few resources which can make tracking your time much easier.

First, there’s RescueTime. It’s a program that monitors what you’re actually doing on your computer all day. If you use it, you’ll be able to spot which websites or applications are stealing your day away. RescueTime will then help you block access to them. Problem solved!

RescueTime is a great way to track your productivity. But, what if you want to track your health as well?

One great way to track your health is to go back to basics with an old-school paper journal. In your journal, record everything you eat during the day. As well as this, you could get your hands on a pedometer or smartwatch to count all the steps you take and you should also make an effort to weigh yourself each day. It might seem like a lot, but the more you know about your health each day, the sooner you’ll be able to improve it.

When you’ve tracked your life, and gained an idea of where you’re spending your time wisely and where you’re wasting it, it’s time to optimize it. But how do you do this? How do you craft a daily routine that works? Well, you should think of it as optimizing your processes. For a role model, look to IKEA. Each IKEA product comes with highly optimized instruction manuals for assembling each product, whether it’s a coffee table or geometric lamp. These instructions have been boiled down to their very essence – a few language-independent, easy-to-follow steps.

Approach your life like IKEA approaches its manuals. Whatever the task, whether it’s writing emails or organizing meetings, you should minimize the fuss and get it done in as few steps as possible.

"},{"id":"5357863337333300074b0000","title":"Create an external brain to save valuable space in your own.","text":"

We all like to think of ourselves as great multi-taskers with brilliant memories. But we’re not. Most of us don’t actually have enough room in our minds to juggle all the information we need to keep track of. What we all need is an extra brain. But this is impossible, right?

No! It’s not impossible at all. An extra brain is available to everyone.

Several new tools have emerged to help us remember all the dates and details we need to. Evernote, for example, is an app for taking notes of all kinds: textual or pictorial, hand-drawn, or web-based. It’s also free and has no storage limit. The author has about 4,000 notes in his Evernote at the moment!

You can consider Evernote simply as a backup of your brain. Neuroscientists have even shown that Evernote organizes information in a very similar way to the human brain, linking similar thoughts together into complex, interconnected networks.

Another tactic to keep on track of all your tasks is to find your very own virtual assistant. Today, you can hire a person or several people and delegate tasks to them online. Roughly speaking, there are two kinds of virtual assistants: on-demand and dedicated.

An on-demand assistant service consists of a pool of assistants. Say you’ve got a task that needs doing, like proofreading a document or improving a PowerPoint presentation. Whoever’s available in the pool will do it. For $25 a month, a company called Fancy Hands allows you to get assistance with as many as five tasks. For $95, you can request assistance with an unlimited amount of tasks per month.

Dedicated assistants, on the other hand, will do all your tasks personally. This means there’s a closer relationship; they’ll get to know you and eventually take on more difficult tasks. For just a couple hundred Dollars a month, Chatterboss gives you a dedicated assistant for several hours each month.

Why not check them out, and start saving yourself time and brainspace?

"},{"id":"5357865737333300074d0000","title":"Customize to save time – and money!","text":"

Let’s imagine you’ve got a great idea for the perfect bedroom shelving unit to suit your needs. You know you’ll have to build it yourself, which means buying the materials, borrowing tools, and spending hours preparing and cleaning up. It sounds like quite the project. If only there was an easier and less expensive way!

Well, there is: 3D printing.

3D printing means you can easily create your own customized products.

Take Shapeways. It’s a site where you simply upload a 3D model, and they print it for you.

For example, when the author wanted to create a custom bracket to mount his new MacMini to the wall, he made a simple sketch of the idea and used online outsourcing platform Fiverr to find someone who could make a complete 3D model of it. He then sent this model to Shapeways and, a week later, the completed bracket was waiting for him in his mailbox.

If that sounds like a success to you, then get this: he then used the Shapeways ecommerce platform to sell his MacMini bracket. He made $400 by selling six of them.

But that’s not all. Customization won’t just save and earn you money, it will also give you more free time.

Consider Vitamins on Demand. Vitamins on Demand is a service that collects all the medications and supplements you require and then organizes them into separate packs for each day. It means you can say goodbye to loading up your holiday suitcase with your pill bottles while worrying whether you’ve got them all. Instead, just grab the number of packs you need and head out the door!

Want another example? Think about the arduous task of finding a suit that fits. If you want to cut that time in half, sign up to Indochino. This company produces tailored suits and will guide you through your measuring process, ensuring you’ve got measurements you can use again and again for a suit that fits just right.

"},{"id":"535786943733330007500000","title":"Take control of your workweek.","text":"

When Tim Ferriss published his bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek, everyone knew there was some exaggeration involved – you obviously can’t get a book written if you only work four hours each week! Nevertheless, The 4-Hour Workweek makes an important point: you need to make your workweek yours, and decide what to do, and when.

The first step in owning your work-week is to determine which hours of the day are your best working hours. Knowing this will automatically make you more effective. Some people prefer working at night; others, in the morning. Some like working a bit every day, while others like to squeeze a lot into shorter periods of time.

Everybody works differently, so figure out what works best for you, and then focus on working in those periods.

Next, it’s vital to figure out what is slowing you down. Often it’ll be external factors – a supplier that’s always late, or those indecisive clients, for example.

In these cases, the solution is to make the window for interaction with your clients smaller. Giving external clients smaller windows of time won’t only make your own day more effective, it’ll also force your clients to be more efficient, too. They can thank you for it later!

And there’s also one more part of your workday that’s sapping your time: scheduling meetings. On average, the normal procedure for organizing a meeting requires an exchange of seven emails? Obviously, this is way, way too many. Luckily, applications such as Calendly will, as the name suggests, help you get that meeting scheduled the first time around.

The app allows you to make your calendar public so that you and your colleagues can find meeting times that work for all involved parties. Simple and effective.

"},{"id":"535787173733330007520000","title":"Errands add up, so eliminate them!","text":"

If you had a clear conception of how much time you spend running errands each month, you’d be shocked. But we rarely think of errands like this. A dash to the corner store for toilet paper or dish soap, that’s no big deal, right?

But errands like these add up; they can take a massive dent in your day. So, if you want more productivity, you’ve got to kill those errands!

How do you get started?

One great way is by signing up for an online delivery service. Amazon’s Subscribe & Save, for instance, delivers necessities like toilet paper, razors, shampoo, and laundry detergent to your door at certain intervals.

Perhaps you go through two tubes of toothpaste every month; so arrange to have those two tubes delivered to you at the end of each month and never waste time buying toothpaste again.

Though toilet paper and toothpaste are obvious necessities, there are plenty of other important items that you can have delivered. For instance, by arranging via Subscribe & Save for an order of nine-volt batteries to arrive every six months, I ensure that my smoke detectors always work.

There are some errands that you can’t automate, however. You know, those ones that catch you by surprise, the ones that force you to rush out and do them before it’s too late. Well, thanks to outsourcing, you don’t have to waste time on these, either.

TaskRabbit is a great example of an online outsourcing marketplace for those small, unforeseeable tasks – a quick run for groceries, for instance, or a sprint to get your computer or car fixed.

Here’s an example of how the author put this service to use:

His nephew, who lives in Los Angeles, wanted a slide for his second birthday. He lives in New York, so he used TaskRabbit to contract a person in Los Angeles to purchase the slide at an IKEA in Long Beach, take it to my nephew’s parents’ house and assemble it. A truly unforgettable gift.

"},{"id":"5552ff446131660007380000","title":"Stay on top of your finances with the latest tools.","text":"

In the first blink, we learned about the value of tracking things like your time and dietary habits. However, it’s not always beneficial to spend loads of time tracking everything. Trying to track your finances, for example, can often result in strain and stress.

Keeping tabs on what and where you spend is a challenge, especially when you have several bank accounts and credit cards, not to mention things like loans, mortgages, and stocks and bonds.

So take advantage of some new tools and cut the time spent agonizing over your budget.

TrueBill is one great tool for organizing your finances and keeping track of your financial health.

Just provide TrueBill with your details and logins for bank accounts, loans, and credit cards, and they’ll let you know when a balance is dipping toward the red, or if there’s been a big deposit or withdrawal from an account, as well as making sure that you’re getting paid.

TrueBill can also provide a categorized and comprehensive overview of your financing that allows you to see how you spend your money and time. The company can even use your previous spending patterns to suggest budgets for you!

Another innovative new tool to help you stop stressing and start saving is BillShark. BillShark simply asks for a few personal details, such as your checking account information, your driving habits, how often you use your cellphone and how much you spend on other services, such as movie streaming and magazine subscriptions.

Based on this information, Billshark outlines cost-effective alternatives and outlines how much these alternatives would help you save over a two-year period.

Don’t be shocked if you find you could be saving more than you realized: when the author used BillShark for the first time, he realized he could save around $14,000 in two years!

"},{"id":"5552ff9861316600073b0000","title":"Give yourself limits and boost your quality of life.","text":"

We’ve all been there: a desk seething with piles of paper; a floor only traversable via a narrow path through a chaos of stuff. And surrounded by all that stuff, you can never find exactly what you need when you need it.

But there’s no need for this headache! You can overcome it by setting limits for yourself.

Start off by setting an upper limit. This will help you locate and keep track of your possessions.

Take the author’s electronic gear stash, which once occupied an entire closet. Over time, his closet became overcrowded, and finding a specific cable or gadget meant dragging the whole mess out of the closet and onto the floor. He realized things had gotten out of hand, and he decided to take action.

He bid his electronics goodbye and sold off most of this gear on Ebay. What was left fit into one box – this became his upper limit. If he buys a new piece of electronic gear, some other piece has got to go. This way, his stash is manageable, tidy and he can always find what he needs.

Just as you can use upper limits to control things that you might be overindulging in, you can also use a lower limit to make sure you’re doing more of the things that lift your quality of life, such as exercising, meditating, and traveling.

For example, the author sets a lower limit of at least one trip every month, at least 30 miles of running per week, and to cook meals at home at least three days a week. By setting lower limits for your leisure time in this way, you’ll make sure your time doesn’t always get gobbled up by work or other – less important – tasks.

"},{"id":"5553000561316600073e0000","title":"Batch your tasks to stay focused.","text":"

Have you ever had the frustrating experience of just getting into something – and then being interrupted by a distracting text or email? It ruins your focus and now you’re irritated to boot.

Well, there’s a way to keep your focus from being destroyed like this. It’s called batching.

Batching is the simple process of grouping similar tasks together and completing them in batches, instead of one at a time. This way, it’s easier to focus on what you’re doing right now.

Some people use batching by deciding that they’ll only answer emails during the first 10 minutes of every hour, instead of replying as they arrive. Another example would be paying all the bills for the week on Fridays, instead of paying them as they come in.

Of course, when you start batching, you learn exactly how much time certain things take up. Take note, when things seem to be taking longer than they should, as this tells you that you might need to optimize.

If you find out you do need to cut down on admin work, a great place to start is by getting rid of unnecessary paperwork. Sure, there’s a lot of talk about living in a paper-free society, but every day we still find ourselves dealing with pesky papers. Luckily, there are a few great online tools that can help us eliminate paperwork even further.

If you ever have to send a document via snail mail, Postal Methods can help you out. All you have to do is upload your document. The company prints it for you, puts it in a stamped envelope, and then sends it on its way via the mail. This saves you a lot of time, and who likes licking stamps, anyway?

"},{"id":"555300956131660007410000","title":"Health is the ultimate productivity secret.","text":"

It’s as simple as this: getting enough shut-eye and eating healthy determines how much energy you will have to do the things you want to do. No amount of productivity apps in the world can change this!

When you deprive yourself of sleep, your body starts producing a rather unpleasantly named hormone called ghrelin. Ghrelin increases hunger and lowers levels of another hormone, leptin, which regulates metabolism. When our metabolism doesn’t function properly, we will inevitably get tired.

If you want to improve your sleep, there are two simple steps that will help. Firstly, take D-vitamins with your breakfast each day. Secondly, avoid devices emitting blue light, such as TVs, iPads, and computers in the hour before you go to bed.

Starting to live more healthily is also simple. You even probably know what to do. Just eliminate fats, right?

Wrong!

A lot of people still see fat as the enemy, but sugar is the real villain here. Our brains can’t function without fat, whereas too much sugar prevents us from absorbing vitamins A, D, E, and K. So, no more wasting your time on processed foods and sweets! Start seeking out natural options and increasing your intake of the “good” fats found in olive oil and avocados.

Once you’ve made sure you’re sleeping enough and eating well, it’s time to start thinking about getting your body moving. Claiming that you’re too stressed to exercise is simply no excuse! The truth is that exercise reduces stress, and you’ll find that a good fitness program will allow you to cope better and better each day.

Design your own exercise regimen to include three types of movement.

First, there should be a strength and skill component – something like rock climbing or parkour will do the trick.

Second, include high-intensity interval training – a short interval of exerting yourself to the maximum, followed by an interval of active rest.

And, finally, you should engage in some kind of mobility training – something like yoga or just a good old-fashioned stretching session.

"}]}

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