A while ago when I was working on a Freelance project for Fabrique I noticed that Martijn (former colleague, college companion and friend) was reading "The 4-hour Workweek" (by Timothy Ferris). As I was intrigued by the title I asked what it is about. As he explained I was immediately intrigued by it. In a few simple words I would explain it as: "Eliminate all (often boring) non-essential work things and instead do things you like".
There are probably a lot of people who have read books like "Getting Things Done", and alike, which aim to be more effective at work and become more productive. Although these books all have valid points and are all a way to be more effective, most of these books aim for the 'wrong' goal. These books aim to be more productive/effective so that you can do more work and make your boss happy. But this book turns it around and says: "Be more productive so you can do your work in less time and have more spare time!". Now that's a way to get someone motivated! Be more effective/efficient and in return you have more spare time to do whatever you like! The book just takes about every point made in all those other books, but converts them into a profit for You, the reader. Not your boss or your company! And this is why this book gives you the feeling you already know the points made and yet be totally different!
The fun part about the book is that you can implement the ideas as you are reading them. When you're not reading, you are contemplating on where you can apply the things you have just read... And it pays off instantly! Just a few of those simple things; Email is a distracting medium. Yet everybody believes it is crucial to your work, so you have it running in the background. But the fun part is. It almost never is actually crucial! Tim explains he only reads his email 1 time a week! Now that's ridiculous for us mere mortals. So he suggests an alternative (I don't know if he actually does, but I do this now on a daily basis and if it is not in the book I based it on his theory) you open your email client just twice a day. One time at 12:00 and one time at 17:00 and try and stick to it. And while you're at it, create a mind block for yourself that you don't open any 'fun' web pages as well and close your instant messaging apps.
With the mailbox closed, no fun pages open in the background, and no IM, there is nothing that can disturb you in your work. Your work gets a speed boost, and before you know it you have your daily tasks 75% complete by the time it is 12:00! Now you open your mailbox, check your mail, and respond to the mail. In the first day I applied this technique, I realized that the important mails could be counted on just one hand. And no one was mad about the fact that I replied passed 12:00. And of course, there are moments you need your mail client before 12:00, say when you work on something and you receive the data needed to continue working, these are exceptions. Not the rule! And in these cases it is fine to open your client.
After lunch I continued my work and was done at about 15:00. Then I picked up "The 4-hour Workweek" again and continued reading till 17:00 or so. Had diner, and I had a whole evening to do whatever I wanted.
So the result after this little experiment?
- A highly efficient morning where I had completed 75% of what I had planned to do for the day.
- A great feeling of accomplishment for the day (which in turn makes you motivated and more productive)
- Done working at 15:00 (instead of 17:00)
- Had time to read the book
- Still had time to do relaxing things in the evening
You can see I was actually able to step back from work and live like I want to instead of the continuous stream of tasks and chores which feels like it takes forever and gobbles up your entire day. And after you're done working, it still feels like you haven't done anything useful. I felt liberated and alive!
So to conclude, what's great about being this efficient is that you can get all the time you need for yourself. You can do whatever you want and keep your boss, or clients happy! Just make sure you do your work as efficient as possible and you'll find out you receive a lot of extra time in return to live again.
For the people reading this, I try you suggest this little experiment as well. If it works, I would suggest you buy the book and read it!
Leave me a comment if you tried and/or what you thought of it.
After a few weeks I decided to start reading "Getting Real" from 37signals. I bought the book when I read about it on a blog from Scott Berkun (Why Requirements Stink) .
I started in the morning and read it from cover to cover in a few hours.
The book does a fabulous job in creating a 'think small and easy' mind-set. And it does so without going in too much detail. Every chapter is relatively small and gets to the point quickly. After every chapter I got the feeling that I wanted to put the theory into practice and start right away. But moreover it made me wanna read the next chapter and find out more (which ultimately resulted into me reading it from cover to cover in one read).
As stated in the introduction, a lot of the principles and methods are not thought up by 37signals themselves. They borowed a few here and there and added their own sauce to create a 'methodology' which is very suitable for themselves. Although they state things as being a fact, they never force things on you. They just point out the way they do it and why it helped them to achiever their goals.
The book made me realise again how 'easy' it is to start a web application and do it right but without all the fuss of elaborate planning, specifications, etc, etc.
Another side-effect of reading the book is that I wanted to blog about it again, and it resulted in me writing 3 blog posts today. I just wanted to get it all out of my system, and get it out of there right away. True, there may be typo's and grammatical errors in some of the posts, but it is the web! When someone points them out they are realy easy to fix. Thats the way the Internet works! 
In a recent post by on the Joel on Software blog by Joel Spolsky (Joel on Software: How to be a program manager) I read about the famous book "How to Win Friends & Influence People". The book covers some great ways to communicate with people and in a decent and nice way. Although the book is written more than 70 years ago, the book still applies to everyday situations. I bought the book and expected a book which covers the different aspects of communicating with people in a sort of step-by-step way which explains human behaviour. However this was not the case. The book is 95% examples and 5% explanation and guidelines.
Is this bad? No! Definately not! It gave me great insight in the human behaviour and how to cope with certain situations.
Is the book hard to read? Yes, in my opionion it is. I was not very charmed by the fact that I had to read example after example after example about how a certain principle worked for famous person X or regular person Y or business associate Z. I expected more of an in-depth explanation on why a certain principle worked and how it could be applied in a more general way.
However, all the principles and theories provided in this book are spot-on and can be applied in everyday situations.
For example I tried applying the simple principle of "Talk about your own mistakes first". I had some problems with my phone bills as I have converted my private-phone-plan contract to a business-plan contract. Some bills where lost or unretrievable from the website, I got charged twice in a certain period and got credited multiple times in other months. All was a mess and I could not make heads or tails about it.
When I called them, I did not start by stating they where wrong or that they had a non-transparent way of migrating me from a private to a business-plan contract. And that charging me double is totally outrages. Instead I started by stating that I was totally lost in the bills I received and that what was charged on my private bank account and business bank account did not add up in my mind. The response was that in their computer system all seemed well and that everything adds up neatly. However they did confirm that all was a bit of a mystery and that they would gladly help me make sense of it. I asked if she could resend all of the bills they had sent to me again so I would have everything in one batch. She responded that normally they could not do this and that they have to charge for it, but as it was a complex situation she would sent me all and charge nothing for it.
It amazed me that when I applied this simple principle, I got satisfying help and they even gave me more than I asked. I am sure that when I started complaining and stating they were to blame, I would have received a less satisfying response and maybe receive no additional help at all.
The bottom line is; this book is a really great read for everyone who wants to get the most out of everything he does and make his 'world' a more happy place to live in.