Honey, I'm cuttting back a bit...

Earlier this summer I posted my ambitious (at least for me) reading list for the summer. One of those books was "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Timothy Ferris. To be honest, I have only read about 1/2 way through this one but I think I have the gist of it. A great review of it in the Wall Street Journal book section helped to fill in the blanks (read it here). If I understand Mr. Ferris's message correctly, then I should put the book away now and ask others to fill me in on the important details which is what the WSJ summary does. Mr. Ferris says that you shouldn't read newspapers or watch TV to get the news but just ask other people what's hot. So can this work with a book by just reading someone else's review? Maybe. Mr. Ferris talks about the 4-hour work week using the acronym "DEAL." Would "DEAL" work for safety consultants? The "D" in deal stands for definition. Mr. Ferris is big on deciding what you really want to do. Do you really want to be a safety consultant working 60 hours a week or traveling 10 days of the month? Determine what you really want. The "E" stands for eliminate which most of us could probably do with at least a few of our daily activities. How much of your work day is spent doing stuff you shouldn't be wasting your time on? Sure - safety consultants can delegate a lot of activities but probably not all, unless you want to outsource everything to subcontractors. To get started, visit www.guru.com, www.elance.com or get a virtual assistant (VA) at someplace like www.getfriday.com or www.vaassist.com.  The "A" stands for automation. Again, Mr. Ferris relies on technology and the ability to outsource a lot of his tasks using virtual assistants like those named above. What else could you automate and how? I use an auto-responder through www.easywebautiomation.com for sales and responses that do not require a personal touch. The "L"stands for liberation, i.e., quit your day job and travel. This would be pretty hard for most safety consultants again, due to the nature of our business, unless you want to outsource absolutely everything. All in all, there are some good recommendations in the book even if you aren't ready to follow Mr. Ferris's dream life. Checking email less frequently and finding a good VA are two steps I plan on taking although I admit, I have been considering both even before reading this book. Note: If anyone wants to borrow my copy of this book, just drop me an email and I'll send it off.