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Wow - this was a highly entertaining read. Makes me want to go upstairs into my library to read my copy of Tim's 4HWW which, btw, I've been meaning to do but I have to get so many other things done.
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Enlightening AND entertaining? Very JEMi of you Clay :-P
you got yourself and digg, a stumble and an email fwd.
oh and - Tim won.
Tina Russell
Ha ha ha. ROTFL!!
That's the title I would need to use!
Aside from the useful content, the presentation of the material is inspired. I can see you are mastering the art of grabbing a reader's attention, and also mastering the means of soaring high in social media sites. Congratulations!
Although, I cast a healthy dose of skepticism toward Ferriss, too.
Great read!
I think that I'm in agreement with your bias here. I prefer to eliminate tasks whenever possible. That's partly because I'm not that efficient at running through a whole bunch of tasks yet. So maybe I'll change my mind after figuring out a modified GTD system that works for me.
I have to agree with both @Stephen and ReddyK -- what an incredibly original presentation, man!
http://jonathanmead.com - Authenticity, Clarity, Balance
Your article is pretty cool and creative, it inspires me to read the 4HWW now that I finished GTD once again. But I disagree with you, Clay, in one point:
"GTD is for keeping afloat when you
I much prefer Tim's book about re-thinking the way you live your life. Most of what people spend their time doing is non-essential in the long run. Add to that the time you spend worrying, thinking the same repetitive self-defeating thoughts and one could argue too many people are wasting their life anyway.
I know I wasn't put on this earth to be a super efficient productivity machine. I'll leave that to David Allen.
Scored a digg and a stumble from me too.
Kelly
Both GTD and 4HWW have their place, and that's place is in a blended approach. Thanks for highlighting some of the points GTD culties sometimes gloss over ...
(PS - I love GTD. Parts of it. The parts that work for me [as with anything else]).
Very nicely written and a very entertaining read. I have read DA's GTD, but could not implement it fully. I felt it was just too much for me. I have heard about 4HWW, but haven't read it yet. I will get copy of it as soon as I can.
-Desika
I wonder if the two have ever met in person?
Great to see your blog grow, Clay!
@Torley: Good point. My hunch is that if they ever did meet in real life the outcome would be *slightly* less dramatic than this article.
@Desika: Thanks for the complements on the format. 4HWW of course isn't perfect either, but there's lots of good ideas in there. It's not really a productivity system (for a simple productivity system I'd reccomend Zen to Done, which has been reviewed on this site).
@Kelly: Yeah, to me 4HWW was more about validating the notion of lifestyle design than anything else. It's good to know that there are options, and that people have taken workable steps to create better (although sometimes unconventional) systems. Thanks for calling me out with this: "GTD is for keeping afloat when you
@Jonathan: Nice. And thanks for linking to my blog. Seriously.
@Josh: Yeah, I'd rather just focus on one or two big tasks each day than a whole lot of little ones. I know that some people don't have the luxury, but I just don't have the wherewithal to stick to it. Perhaps that's a problem with me.
@Rob in Denver: I like your numbers and wish I had come across them prior to writing the article. Thanks for giving the link.
@Warrne: Yeah, the whole argument about making thing complex in order to simplify. I but some of the arguments but not all of them. Perhaps when many people talk about simplicity they're referring to is the feeling of simplicity?
@ Stephen: Yeah, that title was actually the first one to come to mind. Too many years in academia will do it to you.
@ Tina: Thanks so much for subscribing. I hope I'll make it up to you with worthwhile content.
I have been to Zen to Done as well. I am still reading absorbing the material there. Thanks for the suggestions.
Desika
Instead of picking out the PROs and CONs of each system, can't I make both work for me?
Essentially, Tim is saying 'outsource, outsource, outsource.'
While Dave says, 'Organize your life.'
Why not organize your TO-DO's, like Dave suggests, and further filter these into the 'Outsource' box, like what Tim preaches?
Heck, if you tweak the system enough, you could possibly work 2 hour weeks, and teach both Tim and Dave a few things ;)
Anyway, I do think that a fusion is possible in some areas. GTD, afterall, is a system while 4HWW is more of an approach to life. But I also think that there are some real differences. But my guess is that if someone implemented 4HWW to the extent that Tim has and truly has a four hour work week (but who really does, right?!), then their workflow would be so simplified and distilled to its necessary elements that GTD wouldn't be necessary (it would probably just be extra work). That's just my take.
Please let me know if you write a book called "Getting Things Done in Four Hour Work Week." I'll be the first to buy it :-).
I've also traversed the Internet from Naomi's blog and have been positively surprised by your creativity and humor.
Great post triple thumbs up!
Every author is selling something. If it does not offer unique perspective, it will not sell as many copies. This is the part that is all about marketing. There is a finite number of ways to repackage the same concept, before people catch on and stop spending money on relabeled Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
I appreciate the comparison, but my gut says that both of these authors would celebrate and not debate their differences, since; their differences are what allow both of them to remain in the marketplace.
Thank you for the platform,
Erik
--Clay
What stands out is the "certainty" of all of these techniques. As soon as someone declares certainty, the atheist in me gets its hackles up.
What I am looking for is a process that admits that a majority of things in life have an inherent uncertainty. That sometimes considerable thought is the solution and sometimes a gut reaction is what is called for. That sometimes simplicity is the answer and sometimes complexity is the only way to the mountain top.
If people would stop for a moment and accept the tug of war of certainty and uncertainty in their lives there would be considerably less snake oil sold in this world.
I think there is a place for both systems, but it does require a lot of trimming...of both. The main lesson from GTD for me was to get the stuff out of my head and into a system I trust
I think that that part was even a big part of Tim's workflow. For instance, he spent a few days trying to come up with his 80/20 or 95/5 in terms of what he wanted in his life. To do that he had to do some sort of mind-dump, figure out how he was spending his time, determine his responsibilities, etc. Then he could act upon it. The steps he took next were very different than David's (Tim was ELIMINATE AUTOMATE OUTSOURCE as opposed to PROCESS ACT REVIEW), but they required getting things out into the open. And, of course, in the process of eliminating, automating, and outsourcing, you still have to process stuff, act on it, and check up on it. GTD helps to get organized--to help you focus on the task at hand ("mind like water"). Tim is a natural, probably a genius, when it comes to discipline. Most people need a system to have that focus and clarity of what to do next. That's where GTD plays a role.
Then of course there's the 4HWW. And I readily agree with you that finding ways to do what's the best and most exciting use of your time is what it's all about. Tim offers such great, tangible advice for that, and plenty of reasoning for why.
So, I'll try not to go on and on here, I'm just suggesting that there's a need for some sort of organization and GTD can help with that. The 4HWW was so impactful for me because I had a system in place. Putting the two together has made my days so much more productive with a lot more time.
Cheers.
To "reject the methods" outright seems rather harsh and extreme. There is nothing stopping you from testing the methods set out in both books yourself. I am sure you might find some things work for you and others do not. I don't think it is necessary for us to develop every single method, process and idea ourselves - in fact I find that rather inefficient. Surely we can make larger gains by building on the learning of others. For example, I accept the concept and application of addition and multiplication. I would hate to have to forgo their use until I developed number theory from scratch for myself!
In my own blog I look at many disciplines for understanding systems. I read the works of many so called gurus and find more and more that they are all describing the same thing. I could take GTD and fit it in. I could take 4DWW and fit it in. What I describe is my best effort to articulate my understanding as I develop my personal discipline.
What I get tired of is guru's who are "certain" or "guarantee" that their system will work for you. Every single person in this world is as unique as everyone else. That means that every single person encounters a personal exception in life that no other person will experience. You have to find your own solution to that exception as no one else will understand your exception or be able to design a solution for you. But when you discipline yourself to handle what is already understood and then take the next step to handle your own exception by yourself you will achieve personal enlightenment. No one can give that to you and no one can take it away from you. You can share it with others, but ultimately you are a fraud if you claim certainty that your enlightenment will handle the unique exception in anyone else's life.
I like dreaming that my life might be a certain way, but until that happens I have to make sure I pay the bills and provide for my family. Tim's book is inspiring to some degree, but really... If everyone in the world did what he is doing then we'd be a planet full of people wanting all the other people to do actual work. Craziness.
The 4DWW is only a book. GTD is only a book. 7HoHEP is only a book.
Heck. The Bible, the Koran, the Talmud, the Eightfold Path, the Tao Te Ching, the Vedas, Das Kapital ARE ONLY BOOKS!
Wow. Talk about a major epiphany.
And the older these books get the less relevant they are because they are static as are their advocates, while our understanding of the universe is dynamic and growing.
Become a Skeptic, it is a healthy state of mind and you'll find yourself able to live with the uncertainty of human knowledge.
This was a fun article, and the bias is obvious, but does none-the-less end up being somewhat balanced.
The only thing is that reading 4HWW is like reading an infomercial. Ferriss makes a lot of incredible claims and spends many paragraphs telling you how awesome he is. Egotism is infectious and he mixes it so well with energetic optimism that it's not surprising to find many people hooked on his ideas. But I can't help but keep my guard up as I read through the book. It sounds so much like a con-man's pitch.
We all just need to be critical when reviewing this kind of material. There's some good in GTD and 4HWW; we just need to cherry pick which ideas suit us best. In the end, neither is very valuable on it's own... it's doing that matters.
I'm not sure if I believe that if we extend the metaphor exponentially, that there would be no one to actually do the work. We were once an industrial nation, and a service economy evolved into existence. Before that we were an agricultural society. Automation as a step was designed for this, but people were not liberated by this step, because they carried the sense of the protestant work ethic that reinforces diligence over balance and enjoyment for enjoyment's sake.
The point is, that doers are allowed to be thinkers and thinkers are allowed to choose what they do or who does it in a way that creates synergies and reduces inefficiencies without guilt. There is no need to fill the time saved by efficiency with more work. Play is OK and why we make money!
Challenging them leads to the Ad Hoc Hypothesis. That is, when you tell them their snake oil is snake oil they provide a rationalization that in some way either you or the conditions were not right for their snake oil to work.
There really is nothing to gain from these people. I recently read the work of the first century stoic Epictetus and its all there. In fact, he offers more nuggets of truth to pick from than the collection of these contemporary bullshitters offer all together.
As well, read the work of Marcus Aurelius. It turns out that the character maligned in "Gladiator" was not him, but his son, Lucius Verus. Marcus also makes a valuable contribution to stoic thought in his collected writings "Meditations".
Read the writings of truly great men who influenced the world. Know their thoughts and their aspirations and make them your own. Forget these irrelevant snake oil salesmen. They are just chaff.
If you want to be really great explore a discipline to its horizon where the next step is into uncharted territory. Challenge the boundaries that have been erected out of ignorance as opposed to knowledge. Then you will do something humanity will benefit from.
Therefore I think there is no single system that will fix everyone's situation and the information by itself is not enough.
As with everything the secret ingredient to either getting a grip of your life or living the life of your dreams is the one that nobody can teach or tell you. It's your own application of information you aquire. Some of it will work, some won't and you will only discover what works through action.
I believe then it is possible for any person who sets out on a path of creating their own lifestyle can provide, through sharing their experience something really valuable for others to follow, so that they find their own magic formula.
I really liked 4HWW. It has given me some good ideas.
With any "self-help" book, take what works for you and use it. Otherwise toss it to the side. There are no winners and no losers.
I have studied and worked to implement both systems and while I agree with those who recommend a blended approach, I am skeptical about how that would work in the long run.
While I have made incremental improvements to gain greater control at work using GTD, Ferriss's approach has inspired me to make BIG, qualitative changes.
The two big FHWW questions for me are: What would I do if I had to cut my work day by 90% or more? and If I had significantly more free time, what would I do with it? The second question has proven far more challenging than the first.
As a result, I realize that I don't want to get "things" done, I want to focus on what's most important, productive and fun. I don't want to be ready for "anything." I want to be ready for unexpected opportunities that I would have brushed off were I dutifully working through my to-do list.
You did a great job highlighting both approaches. I am a fan of both David & Tim's work, bottom line is do what you love, express your core genius and outsource or delete the rest. I've done a considerable amount of eliminating unnecessary meetings, memberships, etc etc lately and I feel so FREE :)
Great article,thanks!
Why ??? Well.... why would I want to do everything on the list ???? It just takes too much time to do everything. I jut prefer to be selective and ignore some other stuff. Works fine and I get more and more free time to hang out with my family.
A nice change of lifestyle where I used to be doing everything and working loads and loads. Sometimes even with the idea that I loved to work crazy hours. Which I know realise was stupid. But hitting the wall one day made me think about priorities in life and some of the "guidelines" Tim Ferris writes about, I figured out already before I read the book....
4HWW concept on outsourcing is valid in our society. In many ways, people use this and don't realize it. Just ask yourself when was the last time you harvested your own crops, cut wood down to build your own house, or built your own computer from raw materials? We don't do this anymore because we find the time required is not worth the effort, I think Tim takes this to a whole new level that is relevant in today's society.
Very nice article.
GTD tells you how to manage your desired responsibilities, and 4HWW tells you how to minimize and/or get rid of your undesired responsibilities. this is VERY useful.
for example, if you want to be one of the world's best at something. you will have to spend thousands of hours perfecting your craft and you have to make sure that each hour is well spent.
Each system (you) has a point where the productivity factor (dave) and the effectivity factor (tim) achieve optimal output.
Anyways, Great article again Clay and excellent comments. I liked the book 'Four Hour Work Week' but haven't read GTD.
What I took out of FHWW is:
What exactly am I making money for?
And I came up with this quote:-
"Grateful are those who see life in its simplicity, whose thoughts are not diluted through pop assumptions & social norms propagated through t.v, movies and media". - Risky 2008