November 14, 2007
The Information Diet
By Tom Ryan
Described as the “pet guru of Silicon Valley,” Timothy Ferriss has come out with a bestseller railing against cubicle workplace habits such as multitasking, constant checking of email and news services, and general internet addiction.
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (currently ranked 15 on Amazon’s best sellers list) is a semi-autobiographical self-help book recounting the 29-year old entrepreneur’s journey from his ten-hour days launching a successful vitamin supplements company to a workload-lite yet successful life.
His theories rely on an extreme take on the Pareto Principle, or 80/20 rule. Not only should clients not paying enough be eliminated, but all menial chores should be outsourced. In Mr. Ferriss’s case, according to The New York Times, he reduced and outsourced his staff from 250 down to fewer than 15. He’s instructed underlings to deal with all but the biggest emergencies themselves.
But the deeper chord striking Silicon Valley are his theories around maintaining a “low information diet.”
“BlackBerrys and e-mail aren’t inherently bad,” he writes. “It’s just like medicine: it’s the dose that makes the poison.”
His methods include practicing “selective ignorance” – tuning out pointless conversations, blog updates, and even world affairs (Mr. Ferriss claims to get most of his news by asking waiters). Just for e-mail, he hired personal assistants in India and the Philippines to sort through and respond to most of it.
Mr. Ferris claims his free time has enabled him to become a competitive kick boxer, a tango champion and a recurring actor in a Hong Kong TV series – all while running a multi-national firm from his laptop. While many of his fans question his conquests and doubt it’s possible to work a four-hour week, they are wildly embracing his ideas around information management.
“Tim basically takes all of the time management and personal productivity theories of the last 20 to 30 years and pushes them to 11, to paraphrase ‘Spinal Tap,’” Marc Andreessen, a founder of Netscape Communications and more recently Ning, told the Times.
“Our lives are just getting busier, the world is starting to throw more stuff at us,” Robert Scoble, a writer for the tech blog Scobleizer, told the Times. “Five years ago it was still pretty rare to have relatives sending you IMs. No one had Flickr feeds or Twitter. YouTube, Facebook and MySpace didn’t exist.”
After reading The 4-Hour Workweek, Jason Hoffman, a founder of software provider Joyent urged his employees to cut out instant-messaging and multitasking, severely restrict e-mail use and work via telephone.
“All of a sudden,” Mr. Hoffman said of the results, “their evenings are free. All of a sudden Monday doesn’t feel so overwhelming.”
Discussion Question: What do you think of Timothy Ferriss’s ideas on improving productivity and time management? Are there steps you are personally taking to reduce e-clutter and get yourself on a “low information diet?”
BrainTrust
Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
Poll
If I were on an information diet I would not have heard of Timothy Ferriss or his book. And I know, as a marketer, his publisher wants people to know about the book.
By commenting on this article at 9:44 AM I would be creating an existential inconsistency if I were to agree with any part of it, so why bother?
🙂
Multi-tasking is generally the enemy of productivity improvement. People want focus and resolution, not distraction. Email and instant messaging have become much less effective because everyone, not just venture capital execs, ignores 90% of it. Reading all your email and responding carefully to every message makes as much sense as trying to read every article and every ad in a daily newspaper. You look for what you’re interested in and ignore the rest.
If you’re going to choose a guru, consider the way he/she sets priorities. Kick boxing and tango: top of the list. Being well informed: low priority.
The internet is only in its infancy and already is creating tremendous social and business change. Yes, there’s a lot of clutter, but there are thousands of inspired companies tripping over each other to develop ways to present the information more efficiently. I’d suggest sticking with it and wishing Ferriss well with his self-indulgent pursuits.
Timothy Ferriss’ book is all the rage right now. But he is unrealistic in his recommendations. It is easy for him to have a 4-hour work week. He doesn’t have a job. He wrote one book, and he speaks about the topic on talk shows and as a public speaker. Trust me, he works more than 4 hours per week doing this.
But it is a catchy title!
Anyone in application development understands the benefit of a good title. “Javascript” has nothing to do with the “Java” programming language, it was just a convenient way for a programmer at Netscape to popularize his scripting language. The title probably best explains the popularity of a “4-Hour Work Week.” The only way to truly achieve both success and the “perception of a 4 hour week” is to spend 60 hours doing something you love. That will give you the psychic reward you seek and that is the best definition of success, although it is nice to also realize some economic benefit.
I haven’t read the book, but I have to say I’m more a David Allen, “Getting Things Done” fan. The information age changes how we work. Sticking our head in the sand and avoiding it isn’t the answer–we need new work habits that adapt to the new environment.
I agree 100%. We live in an age where we (as managers) expect more and more from our employees. Piling on the work and expecting them to carry Blackberries is the cultural norm. I have a friend who works for a major telco in Canada and when he finally succumbed and got a Blackberry, he was surprised to find out that he was receiving emails from work or about work on the weekends and sometimes at midnight! This is a major drag on employee morale and does reduce productivity and work quality in the long run.
As with most good fables, there is a kernel of truth. Multitasking is inefficient. Informed is good, information overload not so good. Query–if he has outsourced his email review to India, is the person reviewing the email in India working only 4 hours per week? Attacked from a high level, the kernel here is that managing the information flow and managing time are necessary to surviving in the digital age. While outsourcing all our work does free up our time (at a cost), it doesn’t really eliminate work, it just changes who is doing it. I vote for eliminating unnecessary work so that we all can focus on those things that really need doing.
4 Hour Work Week? Said with tongue in cheek, I am sure. All we have to do is look across the Atlantic to France. The new French President, Nicolas Sarkozy (“Sarko the American”), is attempting to reverse the legislation on France’s 35-hour work week and have the French adopt more of an American work ethic. The French are fed up with years of high unemployment and the country’s declining stature on the international stage. So let’s not forgo one of our strengths.
On the other hand, I agree that we should avoid becoming slaves to emails, internet, and Blackberries; let’s make sure that we don’t confuse being busy with being productive. But–let’s not turn back the hands of time, either.
Looks like Mr. Ferriss isn’t going to get much support from our panel. And why should he? We’re a group of dedicated, hard working individuals who have built careers on dogged determination. I’m currently looking to hire someone, and if he/she said they plan on working a 4-hour week guess how fast they would be shown the door?
Same as it ever was. Work is like many other things, it’s not the quantity, it’s the quality. We can distract ourselves into inefficiency or we can focus on the true keys to success. Of course, if you’d rather surf the net or read all the junk email rather than cutting out early for nine holes, I suppose that’s ok too.
Sorry, but the dirty truth is that people LIKE to be inundated with information. It gives us something to a) make us feel important, b) divert our attention from really tough work–like thinking, and c) fill up our otherwise meaningless collective existence.
OK, so I’m feeling a bit caustic this morning (bad traffic day) but I’m also dead serious. Like cigarettes (long morning of listening to the radio announcers push the “Great American Smoke-Out) information and communication are addictive. They make us feel alive and connected and part of the world. We get no more than we accept–in most cases. And every one of us could cut the amount of information we process every day in half. But we don’t want to.
More Discussions
Has Same-Day Delivery Become an Expectation Across Retail?
Are expectations around retail delivery speed in flux?OpenAI Names the Infrastructure Standard for Agentic Commerce
Will OpenAI or Google (or another entity) set the gold standard for agentic commerce?Is Five Below Poised For Even Greater Growth?
Five Below is hitting serious growth numbers. Can this trend continue?
If I were on an information diet I would not have heard of Timothy Ferriss or his book. And I know, as a marketer, his publisher wants people to know about the book.
By commenting on this article at 9:44 AM I would be creating an existential inconsistency if I were to agree with any part of it, so why bother?
🙂
Multi-tasking is generally the enemy of productivity improvement. People want focus and resolution, not distraction. Email and instant messaging have become much less effective because everyone, not just venture capital execs, ignores 90% of it. Reading all your email and responding carefully to every message makes as much sense as trying to read every article and every ad in a daily newspaper. You look for what you’re interested in and ignore the rest.
If you’re going to choose a guru, consider the way he/she sets priorities. Kick boxing and tango: top of the list. Being well informed: low priority.
The internet is only in its infancy and already is creating tremendous social and business change. Yes, there’s a lot of clutter, but there are thousands of inspired companies tripping over each other to develop ways to present the information more efficiently. I’d suggest sticking with it and wishing Ferriss well with his self-indulgent pursuits.
Timothy Ferriss’ book is all the rage right now. But he is unrealistic in his recommendations. It is easy for him to have a 4-hour work week. He doesn’t have a job. He wrote one book, and he speaks about the topic on talk shows and as a public speaker. Trust me, he works more than 4 hours per week doing this.
But it is a catchy title!
Anyone in application development understands the benefit of a good title. “Javascript” has nothing to do with the “Java” programming language, it was just a convenient way for a programmer at Netscape to popularize his scripting language. The title probably best explains the popularity of a “4-Hour Work Week.” The only way to truly achieve both success and the “perception of a 4 hour week” is to spend 60 hours doing something you love. That will give you the psychic reward you seek and that is the best definition of success, although it is nice to also realize some economic benefit.
I haven’t read the book, but I have to say I’m more a David Allen, “Getting Things Done” fan. The information age changes how we work. Sticking our head in the sand and avoiding it isn’t the answer–we need new work habits that adapt to the new environment.
I agree 100%. We live in an age where we (as managers) expect more and more from our employees. Piling on the work and expecting them to carry Blackberries is the cultural norm. I have a friend who works for a major telco in Canada and when he finally succumbed and got a Blackberry, he was surprised to find out that he was receiving emails from work or about work on the weekends and sometimes at midnight! This is a major drag on employee morale and does reduce productivity and work quality in the long run.
As with most good fables, there is a kernel of truth. Multitasking is inefficient. Informed is good, information overload not so good. Query–if he has outsourced his email review to India, is the person reviewing the email in India working only 4 hours per week? Attacked from a high level, the kernel here is that managing the information flow and managing time are necessary to surviving in the digital age. While outsourcing all our work does free up our time (at a cost), it doesn’t really eliminate work, it just changes who is doing it. I vote for eliminating unnecessary work so that we all can focus on those things that really need doing.
4 Hour Work Week? Said with tongue in cheek, I am sure. All we have to do is look across the Atlantic to France. The new French President, Nicolas Sarkozy (“Sarko the American”), is attempting to reverse the legislation on France’s 35-hour work week and have the French adopt more of an American work ethic. The French are fed up with years of high unemployment and the country’s declining stature on the international stage. So let’s not forgo one of our strengths.
On the other hand, I agree that we should avoid becoming slaves to emails, internet, and Blackberries; let’s make sure that we don’t confuse being busy with being productive. But–let’s not turn back the hands of time, either.
Looks like Mr. Ferriss isn’t going to get much support from our panel. And why should he? We’re a group of dedicated, hard working individuals who have built careers on dogged determination. I’m currently looking to hire someone, and if he/she said they plan on working a 4-hour week guess how fast they would be shown the door?
Same as it ever was. Work is like many other things, it’s not the quantity, it’s the quality. We can distract ourselves into inefficiency or we can focus on the true keys to success. Of course, if you’d rather surf the net or read all the junk email rather than cutting out early for nine holes, I suppose that’s ok too.
Sorry, but the dirty truth is that people LIKE to be inundated with information. It gives us something to a) make us feel important, b) divert our attention from really tough work–like thinking, and c) fill up our otherwise meaningless collective existence.
OK, so I’m feeling a bit caustic this morning (bad traffic day) but I’m also dead serious. Like cigarettes (long morning of listening to the radio announcers push the “Great American Smoke-Out) information and communication are addictive. They make us feel alive and connected and part of the world. We get no more than we accept–in most cases. And every one of us could cut the amount of information we process every day in half. But we don’t want to.