Perfect Life Project

The Multi-Tasking Myth

Multi-tasking is good isn't it. Get twice as much done in half the time! Cram more activities into your day!

Wrong. Multi-tasking makes us less effective beings.While we are being encouraged to do more and more with advanced tools, the truth is it is preventing us from performing effectively.

Consider this:
Brain activation for listening is cut in half if the person is trying to process visual input at the same time. A recent study at The British Institute of Psychiatry showed that checking your email while performing another creative task decreases your IQ in the moment 10 points. That is the equivalent of not sleeping for 36 hours—more than twice the impact of smoking marijuana.

Turn off the twitter, eliminate the email, shun the sms, ban the Blackberry. Do one thing at a time and do it well.

This one piece of advice has made an enormous impact on my life. It can help reduce your daily work / desk time from 8 to 2 hours. It can improve the quality of your output and lead to a much happier, less stressed existence.

Try it.

Meeting Tim Ferriss part two

Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Work Week launch party was held in Sydney on Friday night. While I read the book upon its US release I was interested to meet the author and gauge the Aussie response to his 4-Hour Work Week message.

Around 150 guests filled the Hotel CBD's Jam room and the drinks flowed freely as we chatted to Tim and threw questions at him about his lifestyle design philosophy. Interestingly, many of the questions Tim fielded were technology and web related, rather than travel and freedom

Of course the contentious topic of Geo-arbitrage and outsourcing his work to "India" were discussed.

All in all it was an interesting night and Tim came across as a gracious host. He is friendly, enthusiastic and informative.

I have found a couple of links to other people who were there for the event with more details and photos.

The 4-Hour Work Week has been an inspiration to me and helped spark my improved lifestyle. Since reading the book 12 months ago I have travelled extensively within Australia, South-east Asia and the USA. I have managed 10 weeks of holidays in that time with another trip strating this week to take the 13 months total to 11. As Tim points out, all this can be done while successfully owning a business.

Less is More

Source: Robin Sharma

The person who does too much accomplishes very little. Less is more. The most effective people in business (and life) have the discipline (and brilliance) to focus on doing just a few things spectacularly well.

Less is more. You can actually be more productive doing fewer things. Please think about that. As Peter Drucker said: "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently, that which should not be done at all."

Are You Perpetually Exhausted?

Source: Donna Karlin, Fast Company

Are you ignoring that exhaustion, telling yourself you’ll take some time off in a month or so?  In the meantime how are you able to effectively lead if you’re too tired to process everything that’s going on around you?

If you don’t manage your energy, it doesn’t matter how you might manage your time as you are not processing what you need to nor are you mentally retaining what’s happening.  Leadership is more than an organizational position; it’s leading your people in a way that they and the organization can move forward.  If you’re exhausted, your mental capacity is diminished and you are not leading, you’re hanging on to the status quo hard enough so you don’t fall.

10 ways history's finest kept their focus at work

I just came across this post at a blog called LifeDev. It was actually written by Albert van Zyl from the blog HeadSpace. Anyway, its really great advice.

The lives of great people give us interesting clues about how to organise our days.

All of them attached great value to their daily routines. This is because they saw it as being part of ‘becoming who they are’, as Nietzsche puts it.

For the same reason they were also highly individual in their routines. They had the courage to go against popular opinion and work out often strange daily plans that suited them.

This is perhaps the first lesson that we can learn – that it takes courage and resolve to design and stick to a routine that suits you. But as Emerson reassures us: ‘The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going’.

There are at least 10 other lessons that the daily routines of the great can teach us:

Doing business in Borneo

Greetings from Sabah in Malaysian Borneo. My wife and I are currently staying in beautiful Kota Kinabalu, just above the equator in a gorgeous and lush tropical paradise. The hotel is 5-star luxury and no expense has been spared in entertaining us and the other guests on this trip. The meals are magnificent, the cocktail parties plentiful and the activities highly enjoyable. Best of all, its all basically free.

Hit the refresh button on your life

I am constantly amazed at the amount of information, technology and general "noise" we allow into our modern lives. Mobile phones, PDA's, internet, email, Twitter, SMS, IMS, general media and more. All this is competing for our attention with work collegues, clients, meetings and everything else we try to accomplish during the day.

How do we ever get anything actually done?

My response is to log off and tune out. My best work and best thinking is one far from the daily noise of working life. Fewer interruptions = more clarity in my thinking. And for most entrepreneurs, thinking is where it is at.  

Survive and Thrive in Tough Times

I have been fortunate to enjoy great success with my business since buying it back in 2005. A lot of that can be attributed to the team I have built, the planning I have done, the manner in which we conduct business in general. However, we have also been fortunate to have been trading in a very strong economy here in Australia. In short, times have been good.

The thing is that I am not foolish enough to believe these good times will last forever. The dark economic clouds forming over the American economy are a warning that tougher times may be on the way. It is also inevitable that my business will confront some challenges that will test our resolve. I heard someone say once that you are most vunerable when you are successful, and with that in mind I have begun to consider what to do in tough times, either economically, personally or when a business disaster strikes. Here is what I have come up with so far:

Australians working harder, sleeping, relaxing less

A new study of Australian lifestyle habits has revealed that we are working longer, sleeping less and getting less exercise. This is something I have been aware of for some time and used to be guilty of. In the last few years I have made a determined effort to combat this trend with a more balanced and rewarding approach that I have termed my Perfect Life Project. Below is a report from the Sydney Morning Herald detailing the latest lifestyle figures. In italics I have included my PLP figures to demonstrate how life can be successfully lived by the average person without following this alarming trend.

The Perfect Plan for 2008

I recently discussed my ambitions for the coming year in "Making the most of your freedom". Now that I have returned home and back to work I have set about implementing my plans for 2008.

My greatest challenge appears to be juggling a business and some lofty ambitions for the year with my lifestyle goals of working less, travelling and pursuing my sporting interests. Here is what I wish to do in 2008.....