My 4 Hour Workweek

Every once in awhile, I like to take a break from my usual ramblings and review things that I find useful or offer an opportunity to make money (like I did with my review of Lending Club).

I assume many people who read this site have sites of their own and probably also use Twitter.  For those of you who do, or plan to, I think this is something you’ll find interesting.  The site is called MyLikes.  Basically, you get paid for simply tweeting about websites you like (or writing blog posts about them).  The catch is, you can’t write about ANY website.  There is a list of pre-picked sites for you to choose from, based on information you input.  When you write about a site, you’re paid anytime someone clicks on the link to check out the website.

For example, my site is about business, income generation, etc.  I would probably get to choose from similar sites (and you will soon see which ones I look at if you follow me on Twitter – or I may post them here as well).

Here are the basics you need to know, and further down I will show you step by step (with screen shots) of how to set this up:

• You can create and publish relevant “likes” to your website or Twitter
• The money you earn via MyLinks is paid out in PayPal (it’s very easy and free to set up a PayPal account if you don’t already have one)
• You only need to accrue $2.00 to trigger a payment, and payments are made weekly on Friday.  This is an extremely low threshold and fast payout if you’re familiar with other affiliate-type deals.
• Alternatively, you may donate your earnings to your charity of choice – I think this is a really cool feature if you’re feeling charitable.

My Step-by-Step Guide to Starting

Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting started.  It seems like a lot because I break it down into so many steps, but this entire set-up process should take no more than 5-10 minutes:

1) Visit MyLinks here.

2) Either click “Sign Up” in the top right corner, or if you have a Twitter account, click “Sign in with Twitter” (an extremely fast and simple way to set up your account).

3) Input the required information.

4) Once you’ve created your account, click on Settings.  Be sure to fill in all information (especially your PayPal email address, so you can get paid!).

5) On the top navigation bar, select “Sponsors.”

6) Click “Become an Influencer.”

9)  Once you fill this out, they will tell you what your initial earnings will be per click (it usually starts low, but can be readjusted higher as you use MyLikes).

30-Day Challenge Update – Day 24 (2/18):

Day 24 Total                       $   0.00

30-Day Challenge Expense Total: $389.34

“Allowed” Expenses Remaining: $110.66

Average Daily Expense to Date:  $16.22 (Target Average: $16.67/day)

We covered batching yesterday, so it’s time introduce another key element of your redesigned lifestyle: automation.  It’s exactly what it sounds like, and can apply to everything.

Automation: The technique, method, or system of operating or controlling a process with minimal human intervention.

At first, we need to focus on automating pieces of our life.  This includes, but is certainly not limited to:

• Paying bills
• Responding to email
• Budgeting/money management
• Keeping up with social networking

All of the above contain at least one element that can be automated – it wouldn’t be possible to fully automate everything without a personal assistant (which we will get into later – virtual assistants are remarkably affordable and growing in usage).

Ideally, we also find a way to automate income.  This is one of the largest focuses of The 4-Hour Workweek. Tim Ferriss does a great job providing methods and examples of automating income.  It may not be as easy as he makes it out to be (my opinion), but it does seem to be extremely possible with enough up-front work.  It’s just not as easy as planting a money tree.

By no means would this immediately replace your current job, but I think it begins by giving you a little bit of extra cashflow each month.  The upside is unlimited – there are tons of people now making six or seven figures who spend very little time working on those processes that generate the income.

Workaholics will always be workaholics though.  Chances are, if you could automate your current $50,000-70,000 per year, you wouldn’t sit at home and watch TV.  You would still be out doing some form of work, trying to push that income higher and higher.  At the very least, automated income helps those people take a few more vacations.

Automating pieces of you life will give you more free time to work on ways to automate income.  Now that we’ve covered an introduction to batching and automation, I’m almost ready to reveal my new 30-day challenge (sometime in the next week or two).  Stay tuned. ____________________________________________________________
30-Day Challenge Update – Day 23 (2/17):

iPhone screen protectors    $    2.98
Day 23 Total                       $   2.98

30-Day Challenge Expense Total: $389.34

“Allowed” Expenses Remaining: $110.66

Average Daily Expense to Date:  $16.93 (Target Average: $16.67/day)

You may have heard me mention batching before, and if you’ve read The 4-Hour Workweek, you are certainly familiar with it.  Even if you haven’t heard of it, you know about it (almost instinctively).  Allow me to formally introduce it to you as a key 4HWW concept.

Batching: The act of grouping together the performance of identical or similar tasks in order to, as a whole, complete the tasks quicker and more efficiently than if each task was performed separately at different times.

The examples are endless.  Here’s a few in case you’re not sure you understand:

• Grocery shopping once per month to buy groceries for an entire month instead of four separate, weekly trips.
• Responding to email once per day instead of ten times per day.
• Waiting until your car’s tank of gas is nearly empty to refill it completely, instead of refilling it after only using a quarter or half the tank.

Why does batching work?  It’s simple.  In nearly every task, there is time spent getting ready to do the task and time spent unwinding from completing the task.  Take the grocery store example: Picking out food for a month may take you exactly four times as long as picking out food for a week (unless you are buying in bulk – another recommended form of batching).

The 15 minute drive to and from the grocery store amounts to only 30 minutes per month when you shop once per month.  However, it’s TWO HOURS if you shop once per week.  Right there, you’ve saved an hour and a half for the month.  Depending on how you value your time, this is no small savings.  And this is only one of many examples.

For an example as it relates to blogging, a guy at ProBlogger wrote this great article about how batching greatly improved his life.

There are always exceptions – if your primary job is to answer email all day, you most likely won’t be able to batch your responses and only respond once per day.  If you’re at half a tank of gas and you’re near a gas station with a good price, it makes sense to fill up before going on a four hour road trip.

There will be a lot more to come on batching (this was just the introduction).  Next up, I’ll introduce another key 4HWW concept: automation. 
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30-Day Challenge Update – Day 22 (2/16):

Day 22 Total                      $   0.00

30-Day Challenge Expense Total: $386.36

“Allowed” Expenses Remaining: $113.64

Average Daily Expense to Date:  $17.56 (Target Average: $16.67/day)

With only 9 days left, I’m nearly $2 over on my daily expense average.  This figures to be a rough stretch, but should be doable if I can go 9 days without filling up my car (SUV, sadly) with gas.

What’s in store for me when the 30 days are up?  Fear not, I have another, more exciting 30-day challenge lined up. _____________________________________________________________

30-Day Challenge Update – Day 21 (2/15):

Day 21 Total                      $   0.00

30-Day Challenge Expense Total: $386.36

“Allowed” Expenses Remaining: $113.64

Average Daily Expense to Date:  $18.40 (Target Average: $16.67/day) 

Good morning – hopefully you had an excellent weekend.  With nothing big to talk about today, let’s scrounge together some interesting tid bits:

• Looking for a simple online tool to help you keep track of your time and cash flow?  1 Day Later seems to be a useful tool.  I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks promising.

• I did some more niche thinking.  We know that, in general, it’s easier to appeal to a narrower niche, mainly because you’re competing against less people.  It’s easy to think of the broader niches, but I have a pretty difficult time coming up with anything narrow.  We know that a target niche is really nothing more than a target group with a specific interest, or a group of people for whom have a particular “problem” that we’re trying to solve.

• • For example, take a dog calendar – this would appeal to dog lovers.  This is a pretty broad market though, with tons of competition.

• • What if we cross it with another broad market, say, car lovers?  Now, we’re selling calendars of dogs with fancy cars that only car lovers would appreciate.  We’ve taken two very broad niches and combined them to appeal to a narrower market (car aficionados who are also dog lovers).  Maybe this particular idea isn’t a great one, but hopefully you follow my general point.  It’s something I’ll try to think more about and see if it leads anywhere.

• Finally, I will leave you with a Wall Street Journal article titled,“If You Need to Work Better, Maybe Try Working Less.” It’s an interesting article, well suited for me and probably many of you.  Here are a couple of highlights from the article:
  • “A survey of 605 U.S. workers last spring by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 70% of employees work beyond scheduled time and on weekends; more than half blame ‘self-imposed pressure.’”

• • “After five months of predictable time off, internal surveys showed consultants were more satisfied with their jobs and work-life balance, and more likely to stay with the firm, compared with consultants who weren’t part of the experiment.”

Let’s hope this week goes by quickly.  Tax season is here, and my free time is in the rear-view mirror.
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30-Day Challenge Update – Day 20 (2/14):

Groceries                           $   7.86
Day 20 Total                      $   7.86

30-Day Challenge Expense Total: $386.36

“Allowed” Expenses Remaining $113.64

Average Daily Expense to Date:  $19.32 (Target Average: $16.67/day) 

Ideally, we would all be able to come up with great ideas, turn those great ideas into great products, and be able to market those products successfully.  Many of us may be able to do one or two of those things well, but few of us are perfect at every angle.

Today’s review is for a site DealDotCom.  It’s almost like Groupon, a site that has a new deal each day offering deeply discounted gift certificates to restaurants and other places.  However, DealDotCom primary offers “high-quality internet marketing/online business related products.”

Most of this stuff gives me the “get rich quick scheme” kind of feel.  However, some products seem decent, and the point of DealDotCom is to offer these products at a deep discount.  For example, today’s “deal” (at the time this post was written – it may be different when you see it) is an internet marketing product priced at $19.  For me, I like to check this site for inspiration.  Seeing how other people make money online is a great way to spark your own ideas.

As an incentive to sign up (it’s free), every registered member is automatically entered to win the DealDotCom giveaway every time a new product is featured.  Furthermore, if you sign up and refer friends or others on your blog/website, you’ll get a % of anything they purchase on the site (so you see, there is potentially something in it for me if you sign up).  Think of it as another way to add some possible automated income to your blog/website.

Oh, and happy Valentine’s Day.
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30-Day Challenge Update – Day 19 (2/13):

V-Day Gift                         $ 43.50
Computer Parts                   (16.53) <– I returned something that I purchased earlier this week
Gas                                      19.54
Groceries                              12.26
Day 19 Total                      $ 58.77

30-Day Challenge Expense Total: $378.50

“Allowed” Expenses Remaining $121.50

Average Daily Expense to Date:  $19.92 (Target Average: $16.67/day) 

This isn’t really a ranting blog or anything, but sometimes I get so enraged at people or situations at work, that I feel it necessary to vent.  Also, I think it’s relevant to anyone trying to redesign their work life. 

Why do people CONSTANTLY feel the need to reinvent the wheel?  You have a way of doing things, and the more you do this process, the more efficient you become and less mistakes you make.  This is true of nearly any human process.  We are creatures that perform better with practice.

Yet, for some reason, people feel the need to redesign a process that doesn’t require redesign.  You hear the same excuses again and again – “This might take a little extra time at first to implement or get used to, but once it’s up and running smoothly for awhile, we’ll be working more efficiently.”  Guess what?  By the time you’ve reached a state of optimal efficiency again, someone else comes along and decides to CHANGE THINGS AGAIN.

In a perfect scenario, a system is designed, and continual use of that system overcomes learning curves and peak efficiency is established.  You can make tweaks along the way without forcing people to regress on the learning curve.  When you keep reinventing a process or function, you get caught up in this continuous wave of learning curves.  See below:


Ideal Learning Curve Trend

 

 

In response to my post Micro Muse Creation, a reader, Rick, shared his thoughts.  As a person with a lot more experience than I have, I feel the need to share his comments with everyone else (since I’m guessing many people don’t go back to check the comments).  Here were his comments, unedited:

Thanks Rick, I appreciate your comments.  You make a lot of good points, which I will definitely keep in mind as I develop my muse/online business(es).
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30-Day Challenge Update – Day 17 (2/11):

Day 17 Total                         $ 0.00

30-Day Challenge Expense Total: $277.86

“Allowed” Expenses Remaining $222.14

Average Daily Expense to Date:  $16.34 (Target Average: $16.67/day)