I recently finished creating book notes for Tim Ferris’s “4 Hour Work Week”. I have mixed opinions about Tim Ferris’s work suggestions, but overall I would recommend the book. Even though the book was originally written in 2009, its concepts still hold up for any digital nomad trying to work in 2023.
In this blog post we’ll talk about what it means to be effective at your work vs. efficient at your work. Being efficient means that you check a lot of boxes off your to do list, while be being effective means that you complete the most relevant tasks that will have the overall greatest impact on yourself or your business. My goal for this article is to persuade you to seek to be effective, not necessarily efficient.
This blog post is a follow up post to “Fake Work”.
Table of Contents
Introduction
- 4 hour work week. Doing 20% of the tasks that give 80% of the output
- Do the things that are hard.
But doing the real work is hard. The stakes are higher, because there’s a risk of failure.
- Don’t occupy your time with busy work… things that are easy to do and you can do a lot of.
- Make the choice to do the things that will have the most impact on your work. Often times (but not always) these are harder than simple busy work tasks.
- [my healthy productivity take] once you’re done with the work. Don’t punish yourself with more work. Enjoy guilt-free unstructured time.
Shallow/Busy/Fake work
Fake work as self-assigned busy work. It allows you to avoid more challenging or important tasks. Fake work is yet anther form of procrastination, but more deceptive. It may give you the feeling of being productive because you get to check a lot of boxes off of a list, but fake work is low, value, and low impact tasks that ultimately won’t bring you much closer to your goals.
Examples of "fake work" for digital artists include:
- Spending more time organizing or preparing to do work than actually doing the work
- Focusing on low-priority tasks instead of high-priority ones that will have a greater impact on achieving goals. Including:
- Collecting reference images or inspiration (Pinterest, TikTok, etc)
- Buying and organizing new art supplies
- Drawing art requests (unpaid)
- Checking email or social media. Refreshing your feed for more likes
- Watching YouTube videos or art tutorials without applying or trying the concepts
Impactful/Deep work
(Sometimes called “real work”)
So, what are some examples of impactful tasks? How can I tell if a task is impactful or not?
One common technique is called the Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule. This technique can help you determine and prioritize your highest-impact tasks, increasing your productivity throughout the day.
To do this, list out all of the things that you need to get done that day. Then identify which of those tasks have the highest impact. Do any of your tasks involve collaborating with other teammates? Are there any tasks on your plate that are blocking projects from moving forward? These tasks may be simple in execution, but they can make a large impact to the rest of the team by allowing the process to keep flowing.
When used correctly, the Pareto Principle can help prioritize tasks, optimize resources, and improve overall efficiency. It provides a useful framework for understanding complex systems and identifying key areas for improvement.
make this into my own words
If Tim’s life was designed around one rule, it would be the 80/20 rule or Pareto principle. Most people measure productivity by the time spent working, but that’s a bad indicator, because we waste so much time at work.
Tim suggests to spend your time effectively: on the 20% of things that get you 80% of the results, and not vice versa.
A famous quote of his is this: “Doing something unimportant well does not make it important”. So instead of focusing on doing as much as you can as best as you can, just focus on doing the few things that will lead to the biggest progress.
- Pareto principle
- The 80/20 rule
This principle states that roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. In other words, a small percentage of causes have an outsized effect. This concept is important to understand because it can help you identify which initiatives to prioritize so you can make the most impact.
You can use the 80/20 rule to prioritize the tasks that you need to get done during the day.
The idea is that out of your entire task list, completing 20% of those tasks will result in 80% of the impact you can create for that day. So in order to get the most impact done, identify which tasks have the most impact for your team and focus on those for the day.
Disclaimer
Pareto principle can emphasize short term gains over long term ones.
