One of the most popular books related to the topic of Life Balance to appear in the last few years is Timothy Ferriss's The Four Hour Workweek. If you haven't picked up a copy, it's worth the read. Ferriss made both the New York Times AND the WSJ best-seller list before turning 30 with a book that contains some unique approaches to Life's 80/20 Rule: finding a way to focus 20% of your time on making a living and 80% of your time on enjoying and experiencing life. His blog is worth checking out as well.
FOCUSED LIFESTYLE
The 4-Hour Workweek is about lifestyle - how to create work for yourself that takes minimal time and frees you up to fill your week up with the things you love to do and are truly passionate about. The book goes into details on ways to leverage virtual work-forces, choose a product to sell over the web, reduce your time on emails, and put your income on "auto-pilot".
EARNING A LIVING OR FOLLOWING A CALLING?
This book really is about *life balance* and those little tricks for gaining more time in life for the things you really value. We only have a set number of hours in our lives. Most of us spend 40-60 of these hours working to make a living. doing things we enjoy or find valuable for ourselves and others and sleeping. The "4-Hour Work Week" lifestyle is one that looks for ways to earn a living using less time in the week by being focused on ways to minimize money-making time by leveraging outside resources. Most of us don't want to spend our lives "earning a living". We'd rather spend time with family, friends or following a calling.
THE VIRTUAL ASSISTANT
An interesting example Mr. Ferriss uses in the book is the idea of leveraging a Virtual Assistant (a low-cost assistant living in India, Philippines or elsewhere in the world who is available via website and phone) to leverage time spent on the job. A Virtual Assistant can allow you to focus your hours on work that may help drive more revenue or pay, while allowing you to offload "tasks" to someone who can handle them for a fraction of your personal cost. Years ago something like this would not be possible, but today, if utilized *Smartly* , it is conceivable one can free up 80-90% of the menial tasks related to scheduling, research or purchasing. (Unless, of course, you happen to enjoy scheduling, research or purchasing).
I myself have a "virtual assistant" named Jennifer who is based several towns away from me. She's my eyes & ears - an extension of myself and I've worked hard to make us a "team". She is part-time and handles my scheduling, fact-finding, telephone calls, travel arrangements, some research. She's a terrific person and very helpful to me both professionally and personally.
GAINING BALANCE
When we feel out of balance, it could help to check the way we are spending time on the job and look for ways to leverage resources to reduce the time we spend on tasks that others can do. The *4-Hour Workweek* contains some useful clues as to where we can search for this leverage. How do you maintain balance in your 4 hour work week? Are you on your way? Send us a comment and let us know!
