A Four Hour Work Week, and Managing Your Time

Back in 2008, I read a book called "The Four Hour Workweek" (TFHWW) by Timothy Ferris. If you have not read this book, I highly recommend you take a look at it.

Although my online business was already successful, I was in a growth phase with the business that I found difficult to manage. I was still working a very demanding full time job, while trying to grow my business - and I was not sure if I could continue to do both.

While TFHWW contains some great advice for those who are just getting started, it also provides some great time management tips. One of the most important of Mr Ferris' tips, is considering an "information diet".

You see the modern world is full of interruptions. Cell phones, TVs, the internet and especially email are constantly disrupting our workflow, making it nearly impossible to do meaningful work. Even at my full time job, I rarely had 15-20 minutes of uninterrupted time to focus on any issue.

What Timothy Ferris advocates is taking an "information diet'. Turn off the TV, radio, email programs, mute the phone and focus on getting one task done at a time. Don't try to multitask, but focus on a single task instead. He even recommends you consider tuning out news altogether.

The other key piece of time management advice he provides is to ruthlessly simplify and eliminate the unnecessary. For email, use different colors and filters in your email program to automatically catalog emails that are routine. In your personal life, eliminate as many activities as possible that don't contribute to your happiness or productivity.

These simple tips helped me to free up a large amount of my personal time both with regards to work and my online business, making it possible for me to properly manage growth. Over time, I extended these principles to outsource and automate many tasks. This allowed me to allocate my time responsibly, and focus on higher priorities.

Are you finding it hard to create time for your business? Try an information diet, and spend your time automating and outsourcing tasks rather than just trying to viciously plow through them.

Do you have thoughts on better ways to manage your time? Leave Brad a comment at OnlineBusinessZen.com






Brad Smith hosts the Online Business Zen podcast on iTunes, and blog at OnlineBusinessZen.com. He is a full time entrepreneur and published author with a successful internet business. Brad is focused on helping others earn money online without the usual "get rich quick" hype. If you want to start your own internet business today, you can subscribe to Brad's free newsletter - and he'll send you an email once a week showing you how to get started.