The Four Hour Work Week on My iPad as a Reminder to Stay Efficient and Enjoy the Ride

Before I read Tim Ferriss’s Four Hour Work Week, working from home and online seemed the ideal route for me. Four years ago when I began my transition to online, I was juggling two other teaching jobs. One part time at a local university. The other a full time assistant professor position at another university. The full time position required me to be at faculty meetings, prep, and teach several classes during the week. The part time position didn’t require as much commitment, but did require a drive somewhat longer than I was used to. My new online teaching position offered a new kind of freedom that intrigued me. The idea of doing my course responsibilities from anywhere seemed like heaven. Somewhere the seed grew in my mind that maybe, just maybe I could do the online gig alone and sever the tethers to traditional office hours and classroom antics forever. Once that was done, I relished being able to do my work in my pj’s, devoting about 30 hrs a week to students. I had no idea how something so good could possibly be better.

In 2008, I read Timothy Ferriss’s book, “The Four Hour Work Week.” A major component of the book is in how Ferriss challenges the reader to shift their concept of needs, wants, and dreams, to how work plays into all of this. It is possible he argues, to focus on the things that are most important to you, and shape your work choices around that to ultimately achieve them. While I enjoyed a 30 work week in pj’s, Ferriss and the 4HWW showed me that the focus of enjoyable work was still eating up time from an enjoyable life —and I could make that much better.

A principle of the book is to be able to cut the amount of time you spend working, so that you can spend more time living. I used the principles of the Four Hour Work week, not to create an online business that would fend for itself (even though I did; see model here), but to take what I do well (teaching) and turn it into an online occupation that frees up my life to explore and enjoy.

Even now years later I still have days of wonder, and think…”Is this really happening?”

Most days I get up and go to bed when I feel like it.

I work best in the early morning so I will probably get my online work done in the morning when I’m most focused and have fewer distractions. This allows me to have the entire day to read, write, and just be.

I have the freedom to let my day breathe. If I want to sit and read most of the day I can. If I want to go Trikke riding I can. If I get stuck in traffic I don’t worry, because I don’t have to rush to get anywhere.

I have a lot of time to think about what it is that I want from my life and importantly, work on how to get it.

I can travel mostly without consideration to my work. I can work from a laptop in a hotel, on an iPhone on the beach, and now also from my iPad in a coffee shop.

Work is satisfying, not because of the moment I sit down and work on that screen, but for the moment I get up and walk away…out into my life!

At best I do have a four hour work week. It is my belief that without the tactical changes I made in my work, it would take me 30+ hours a week to do these tasks. Now I’ve cut the time by more than 80% and I do what I feel is a better job. Better for my students because of the focus I give them. Better for me because I live a more engaged life.

Over the years I have learned how to do my online work with a focused precision. Ferriss speaks of this time management method as the 80/20 Pareto principle where if you figure that of 100%, 20% is vital and 80% is trivial. If you can give 100% to the vital components and not waste time on the trivial, productivity can be focused and skyrocket. I apply this to my online work. I give attention to students as needed. I do my work with care and give feedback to make the learning process optimal for them. Still, by intently focusing on what has to be done, I am able to treat this precision as a means to gain freedom of time and space that I so love as my main currency to spend.

My 4 hour work week and the application of the principles look like this:

I have two days a week where I am “off” and not responsible for being in the classroom or responding to students at all. I chose to make these Saturday and Monday. By sticking with this, my students learn when it’s best to communicate with me and structure is formed in habit.

During “discussion” weeks, I am responsible for being present 5 days. Being present means coming online at some point during a 24 hr period and responding in a dialogue fashion to students posts to discussion forum questions. I have a certain amount of posts I am required to make. If I’m quick and focused, meaning I don’t get backlogged with reading old comments because I haven’t checked them regularly, I can zone into my students most current and pressing ideas and spend no more than 30 minutes engaging them with new questions or answering responses to ones I posed the day before.

During “attendance”weeks, I do not have to post because during these weeks students are working independently on assignments. My job during such weeks is to check their individual forums 5 days a week to see if anyone has a question or problem to be addressed. If no questions are posed I can usually scan all of the students forums in a matter of minutes and move on. Ferriss discusses this concept in relation to email. We spend an inordinate and wasted amount of time checking emails throughout the day. For me, one focused and careful attending to them per day accomplishes the same thing. By coming online at the same time daily I ensure that students are looking for me, and that I can catch all posts that may come in during a 24 hr period.

Discussion and attendance weeks alternate, so potentially, if no questions are posed during attendance weeks I have a week with an even smaller work load. This is when the appreciation of the time I have rises to the top. If I have a lighter work week, I don’t feel guilty and try to find a way to stay “work-busy.” I step back, exhale, and go find something that fulfills this extra present of freedom.

I have to grade submitted work within 48 hrs of the due date. In most cases this can all be done on Sundays.

Each Sunday I spend the bulk of my online work week grading and posting assignments for the following week. This is my most time consuming day. Depending on the number of students I have, I can still get it done in 2-3 hours. If I have plans to be out of town or my Sunday is inflexible, I can split this time up during the week, and save all my grading and posts as drafts to be released on Sunday. Focused efficiency is the key!

Working online and from home is something I hope more and more people will come to realize as a viable option for them. Teachers. IT experts. Life coaches. Grant Writers. SEO experts. Web and graphic designers. Artists. Writers. Even Apple customer service reps are working out of their homes now. It’s all possible. If you have an idea about your own dream of doing it, drop me an email. I would be glad to help you with the considerations.

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Pump up the visibility of your business by choosing relevant and interesting events to blog on real time. Taking a laptop to a centralized location that has wifi is great, but working with a smartphone device such as the iphone can make it a breeze. Click photos and post shots as they are happening. Upload video clips and supportive links. Create a blogging voice that your audience will look for!

4 Steps to Get Started:

1. Get Your Phone Ready Find a smartphone application for your blog or sign up for text ability. My iphone is set up with the free blog application WordPress and the fee based BlogPress ($2.99). If you don’t have a blog set up, go to Blogger.com (run by Google) or WordPress, and set yours up for free. If you don’t have an iphone or phone with these applications, you can still submit blogs by text through a Blogger account, or by email sent from your phone to your WordPress blog. Check your blogs help forum for setting this up. Regardless, become familiar with the different setups, tabs and screen options for blogging on your phone by shooting a few quick test posts through the system.

2. Dry Live Blogs First just sit at your computer and type a “live blog.” Remember, you will be communicating with your readers in real time. The idea is to figure out if you can create interesting content, finding something both subtly descriptive (not super detailed) and interesting on a regular schedule (say every 10-12 min). See what you can do as a writer first before dealing with the tech part of the live blog. This is about getting practice in so choose something that you will enjoy and will be comfortable talking about. Blog through a sporting event, popular show (like American Idol), or even a cooking show. Try to make each entry 50-100 words unless something really hot is going on. The first paragraph of this blog post is 70 words! If you believe your blog is relevant to an outside event that you’re involved in, like a 10k run or a boxing class, you should probably do a test run in that environment as well. Remember, this is just about the writing part. When you’re done, review your work.

3. Live “Test Blog” The title of your post should include “Test Blog.” You should begin the test by letting readers know that this blog is real, but it is a test of live blogging that will be coming to your site. Now that you’re dealing with both the writing and the technical part of posting on the fly, pay close attention to any issues that might cause problems in the future. Wifi access? Crowds and distractions? Humidity on your equipment? From a tech point, remember that you are not creating a new post. You are adding new comments to an established post by using the edit function! Remember the 100 words or less mantra. Keep a notebook handy to jot down quick thoughts that will help you form your posts. Stay focused but relaxed and let your voice shine through!

4. Review Make sure that you go to your physical blog as soon as possible to get a visual of whether this worked for you. This does not mean that you change the content, because that would change the integrity of the live blog. What you’re looking for are issues such as formatting errors and typos. If it looks good and is relevant to your audience change the title from Test Blog and leave it posted. If not, remove this test. Make sure you create a blog folder for live blogs so your readers can find all of them in one place in your archives. As always, try to get feedback from friends on the content and relevance of your live blogs. Pay close attention to your readers posted comments.

In general, live blogs are about the event. Unlike your regular blogs, they don’t hold the same shelf life. However, your ability to pull them off regularly will draw an audience to your site and expose new readers to other components of your business model. Don’t over do it though. Pick events wisely!

Extra Tip: Consider micro-blogging live events to your Twitter account. These events don’t have to be as relevant to your main business. These tweets are designed to attract an audience to draw hits to your primary site.

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