Just got this quote in my AWAD email (a word a day), and, though it can be interpreted many ways, it made me think of Tim’s focus on stripping out the junk in your life (and the desire to just accumulate more)… The focus on the WHY in Tim’s book is even more valuable than the HOW (and that’s sayin’ something!!)

Thanks Tim.

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I am amazed at not just the quality but the character of the books that you recommend. You don’t list a bunch of get-rich-quick books, or other contemporary mass-market books, you list *the classic* texts in how to communicate by some of the most important intellectuals in modern times (Jaques Barzun).

I have to say, I am floored — and extremely impressed

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Thank you for the kind words, John! Being selective with books is just as important as being selective with nutrition. One is food for the brain, and the other is food for the body. I’m also a big fan of Wittgenstein and Ben Franklin.

All the best,

Tim

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Hi Karmen!

Thanks for the comment. If you’re referring to the Tips & Tricks newsletter that I used to do from my old blog, that content is now just being posted on this blog. If you mean the e-mail sign-up field on http://www.fourhourworkweek.com, I haven’t yet mailed anything! The direct marketers in my midst think I’m an idiot, but I don’t want to e-mail anyone unless I have something interesting and valuable to send.

Hope that helps!

Tim

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I just got the book and love it. I am dead set on improving my current situation. I am 26 and work in a family business. There’s a lot of pride in being part of a family business, but i’m not going to wake up everyday just to bust my butt, so that someday i can get what i want. I want it now! I recently got married to a great girl, and we live in a small apartment. We both are trying to finish school, and we have nothing but debt. Things need to change. I know i’m capable of creating the life that my wife and i deserve. But i need some direction. I don’t know anyboby that i can talk to that could help me get on the right track. I was hoping someone would. I need help getting started. Thanks

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Hi Jonathan!

I highly recommend you use the book to get into the reader-only forums on the site. People are great at helping if you ask specific questions. Welcome!

All the best,

Tim

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Hey Tim, here’s a useful link for any friends of yours (or even yourself), who want to learn Brazilian Porto. It has a large list of the most frequently spoken and written words in Brazil. I think it may actually be the only (properly-researched) one of its kind:

http://www2.lael.pucsp.br/corpora/bp/index.htm

[Please write me if you find a better one!]

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I hope I’m not the only one thrilled to notice it.

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I’ve got a story about a person who should be asking themselves: am I being productive, or just active?

First, a bit of background: I took a summer job working in the basement for an Energy company, essentially going through a bunch of well files and finding out information, copying what we capture, and filling out a form for each well. The company I’m working for has actually been contracted out through the company whose building we are in, and the sheet we’re filling out is for the contracted company. The only thing we’re doing for the company that has contracted us is figuring out where all of these wells are.

There was a little confusion at the beginning, resulting in us cutting out about half of what we filled out on the capture sheets, only to later have us filling those in. Our team lead (a geologist) arrived about three weeks into the project, and had the exact same assignment as we did. But, he doesn’t get to work on any wells, he reviews this sheet. He sees a bunch of blank spots on the sheets we fill out and he highlights EVERY SINGLE ONE. This is 800 wells by this time. He creates a new sheet to fill out information that existed on the old sheet, but in “convenient” diagram form. He creates a new sheet for sidetracked wells containing, again, all the information we normally put on sidetrack well capture sheets. He creates a new sheet for almost any new type of well, none of which contain information that would not exist on the original well capture sheet, or could be cleared up by writing a maximum of three words in the “additional comments” area.

I thought it would stop, and that he would get to, you now, processing wells. But it doesn’t. He complains about how he’s been asked to do at least 10 well files a day (I’ve gotten it up to 20/day myself) what with that the diagrams he has to create. Then, when we find out that new people are arriving, he decides he has to create a powerpoint presentation explaining how to fill out the sheets. Then, to that presentation, he adds explanations of how wells work, the blueprints for a well, a glossary of terms we don’t use, and a five minute explanation of the three types of north. He takes up half a day showing and explaining it to the people who were already working then, spends the rest of the day fixing everything, and spends the next morning showing us his revised edition. All this time he complains about our production being somewhat low (meaning 85% of what we should be doing- can you guess how much he should be contributing?) and that we are falling behind.

He’s done with the powerpoint, and has shown it to the new hires. He then does 3 well files, and in his third, runs across what he believes could be a major sand that should have been produced, but never was. He spends the rest of the day looking at that, and telling us all how “Oh, the geologist musta woken up on the wrong side of the bed to have missed that” and “now here’s what they hired us for, to find these.” I casually pointed out that, no, they hired us to find out where these wells exactly were, he stared at me blankly, said “well, yes, but they’ll be happy with this” and continued lauding his find. He finally makes a call to a manager upstairs who he tells to bring a geologist down into the basement so they can discuss this potential find, which he claims would produce 100 barrels a day. I had kept track of how long he was taking on bragging about this find, and he was up to five hours, including the bragging he did at lunch to the waitresses. The manager brought a geologist down, they looked over the file for an hour, and discovered- shockingly- that no, in fact this probably wasn’t a producing sand. The manager then reminded him that our job wasn’t to find prospective sands to produce from, but to find the surface and bottom hole locations of these wells.

Is this all? No. There’s the database of questionable well files he’s created, the chart of wells/ day that our team has done, the easel he built for the whiteboard we don’t use, the stamps he made for files we don’t have, the transferral process for documents we don’t ship anywhere, and so much more. He justifies it all when I call him out saying, “I’m an old man, I have my things that I need to do,” or “Well, these will be easier to understand for this company,” about things we don’t do for this company and my favorite, “I’m a visual learner,” well you’re not learning anything, you’re creating busywork!

This was more to vent than anything else, but I really am glad I found your book. I’m so afraid I’ll end up like him, and that’s a fate I won’t accept.

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