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When I first heard Ferriss speak at sxsw2008 i have to admit to take an unusual dislike to his self confidence and self-promotion – may be it’s just because I’m British and we’re just not good at things like that. Anyway, I felt a little foolish/suckered buying his book when I got home (I couldn’t possibly have bought a signed edition from him right after his pitch for God’s sake). Anyway – i bought it and found it quite a good read -even though by buying it I’m feeding his entire philosphy. But as they say never judge a book  by it’s cover, or indeed it’s author. So shown below are the useful things I took from it.

• It’s Better to be Effective than Efficient
• doing something unimportant well doesn’t make it important
• a task that requires a lot of time doesn’t make the task important
• Short deadlines make you focus on execution – long deadliens allow you to think too much and procarastanate about which is the best way to do things
• 80:20 rule applies in everything. Concentrate on the critical 20
• Ask yourself 3 times per day “Am I being productive or just active” – or are you inventing things to do to put off the really important things you should be doing
• ONLY ever have 2 essential To DOs  to achieve in a day – and keep your To Do lists short on a small piece of paper
• You should think at the start of each day – right, if I omly acheive 2 things by 5pm today what would the 2 things that would make me feel happy, make me feel like I’ve earned a beer (I added the last bit)
• Liked this statement relating to the stress that you have to read so much to keep up with everything that is going on
• “the abundance of information creates a poverty of attention” (but I don’t think this is an original quote)
• If you don’t understand something or seek to understand a particular subject intimately with the goal of trying to come across as an expert in a particular new field (note : to be an expert you need credibility)
• Ask people who are experts. Talk to people, phone up the world’s best, biggest etc…
• Read 2/3 best selling books on the subject and summarise on single page
• Join a couple of trade organisations