The 4-Hour Work Week

Doing big things begins with asking for them properly.

The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?”

This is how most people work until death: “I’ll just work until I have X dollars and then do what I want.” If you don’t define the “what I want” alternate activities, the X figure will increase indefinitely to avoid the fear-inducing uncertainty of this void.

What would you do, day to day, if you had $100 million in the bank? b. What would make you most excited to wake up in the morning to another day?

one place to visit one thing to do before you die (a memory of a lifetime) one thing to do daily one thing to do weekly

Focus on one eye and be sure to blink occasionally so you don’t look like a psychopath or get your ass kicked. 2. In conversation, maintain eye contact when you are speaking. It’s easy to do while listening. 3. Practice with people bigger or more confident than yourself.

Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.

1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important. 2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.

What you do is infinitely more important than how you do it. Efficiency is still important, but it is useless unless applied to the right things.

Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.

Being selective—doing less—is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.

lack of time is actually lack of priorities.

Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.

At least three times per day at scheduled times, he had to ask himself the following question: Am I being productive or just active?

He eliminated all of the activities he used as crutches and began to focus on demonstrating results instead of showing dedication.

We create stress for ourselves because you feel like you have to do it.

If you had a heart attack and had to work two hours per day, what would you do?

What are the top-three activities that I use to fill time to feel as though I’ve been productive?

It is often the case that you have to fire certain friends or retire from particular social circles to have the life you want.

Poisonous people do not deserve your time.