#795: The 4-Hour Workweek Revisited — The End of Time Management

If you’re resigned to working long hours for mediocre income, you need to read The 80/20 Principle. Entrepreneur Richard Koch reveals how you can work less, earn more, and multiply your happiness. How? Focus on the few things in your life that truly matter.

As Koch explains, 80% of results flow from 20% of inputs. According to this 80/20 Principle, only a fraction of the actions you take and the people you interact with contribute to your joy and success. Therefore, Koch says you must spend more time on what matters, and less time on what doesn't—for example, by finding work you enjoy, spending less time on things you're not good at, and avoiding people who drain your energy.

In this guide, we’ll examine the mindset changes Koch says you must make to take advantage of the 80/20 Principle and achieve success. We’ll also explore the scientific research behind key principles, such as how to revolutionize your view of time and the link between happiness and productivity.

There isn’t enough time in the day to meet all of the work and personal responsibilities you’re swamped with, let alone keep up with email, social media, and all the things you’ve been meaning to read. In Eat That Frog, business consultant Brian Tracy says the answer is to identify your most important task—the one with the greatest consequences—and do that first each day. It’s like eating a frog: when you have a big challenge, or frog to eat, it’s best to get it out of the way first; everything after that will be easier by comparison. Based on this insight, Tracy offers a list of practical tips for improved productivity and success.

Do you want to make a difference in the lives of others? Do you want to change the world? To do anything meaningful, you’re going to have to work with people. And if you’re working with people, you need to know how to lead them.

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is a guide to the major principles of leadership. Learn how to connect with and influence people. Learn how to empower others and build an all-star leadership team. And learn how to create a succession plan and leave a legacy.

Many people believe that if they work hard, practice consistently, and focus on the things they’re good at, they’ll succeed. However, these aren’t the keys to long-term success. What gives successful people their competitive edge? The answer is high-performance habits.

High performers are people who maintain success and well-being over a long period of time. They excel more than their colleagues and can adapt to almost any situation. In High-Performance Habits, personal development trainer Brendon Burchard defines the six habits you need to become a high performer. These habits range from maintaining your health to generating influence. By developing them, you can take your first steps toward increasing your performance.

Many people want to retire as millionaires so that they have the time and money to travel, buy luxury cars and homes, or visit with their friends and families. However, you don’t need to be a millionaire to do all these things. You don’t even need to retire.

In The 4-Hour Workweek, entrepreneur, consultant, and life coach Tim Ferriss explains how anyone can live the retired millionaire lifestyle by building their own business, automating it, and then collecting the income while they go off to live their dreams. In this guide, we’ll describe each of Ferriss’s steps to creating this life. We’ll also examine why some of his recommendations are particularly effective and explore alternatives and counterarguments to other suggestions.

We all have things we want to accomplish in life, and we all want to be a success in our professional endeavors. We set annual goals, but after a year, we’re no closer to our goals than before. There’s too much time in a year to focus properly on the necessary tasks, and there are other responsibilities and distractions that hinder our productivity. The 12 Week Year will teach you how to remove those barriers to success. When you work toward goals 12 weeks at a time, you’re better able to see the steps required to achieve them and feel a greater sense of urgency to accomplish them. The 12-week year will help you succeed at achieving your dreams and grow your business to great heights.

Many people believe that if they work hard, practice consistently, and focus on the things they’re good at, they’ll succeed. However, these aren’t the keys to long-term success. What gives successful people their competitive edge? The answer is high-performance habits.

High performers are people who maintain success and well-being over a long period of time. They excel more than their colleagues and can adapt to almost any situation. In High-Performance Habits, personal development trainer Brendon Burchard defines the six habits you need to become a high performer. These habits range from maintaining your health to generating influence. By developing them, you can take your first steps toward increasing your performance.

Do you want to become more productive but don’t have the time to figure out how to do it? Productivity consultant Chris Bailey has you covered. Bailey spent an entire year learning everything he could about productivity and then implementing the strategies in his own life. The Productivity Project is a compilation of his conclusions from that year-long experiment and a how-to book for anyone who wants to become more productive.

Bailey asserts that by becoming more productive, you’ll have more time for what you love most. In this guide, we’ll discuss Bailey’s definition of productivity and how it’s not about doing a lot, but about doing what matters. We’ll also provide an overview of the strategies Bailey found most helpful and supplement his recommendations with advice from other productivity experts.

While many business books tell you how to manage other people, this 1966 classic by management expert Peter F. Drucker explains how to manage yourself to be effective. Effectiveness is key to individual and organizational success. Without it, other attributes, such as talent, intelligence, knowledge, and hard work, are useless.

Drucker says anyone can learn five practices for effectiveness: managing your time, focusing on just a few key tasks, making a unique contribution, maximizing your strengths, and making sound decisions. He explains how to implement these practices, which have remained relevant for over 50 years, even as technology and organizations have evolved. This guide examines how Drucker’s ideas on effectiveness hold up today and how others have built on them.