A 4-Hour Workweek for Students?
Trent over at The Simple Dollar wrote about the “4 Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferriss, and it got me thinking: A lot of this stuff is obviously applicable to professionals, but can it be applied to students?
Background: I am on summer vacation (”vacation”, now there is a funny idea) right now, so I would like to think about how I can reset my studying/working policies for next year.
Perhaps it is poor study skills or time management, but it seems that during the school year, I am up to my eyeballs in work from the beginning of the semester till finals (maybe it is just an engineer thing?) I don’t get to see/spend time with the people/animals in my life because as soon as I get home, I have to start cranking away at homework, till I collapse into bed.
Disclaimer: Trent’s description of The 4-Hour Workweek covers the ideas presented in the book in broad strokes, so I am going off of what he has here, as I have not read the book (but I might check it out from the library soon).
Techniques
Some cool techniques that I think I am going to have to try:
Make your to-do list for tomorrow before you finish today: One of my biggest problems is that all of my work snowballs into a never-ending stream. I think if I can force myself to buckle down and stick to a certain list of things to do, that would be a great way to eliminate stress, otherwise I’ll keep doing work “until it is all done”. My only nit about that is that, being a student, my workload is highly deadline-centric, as opposed to a simple “get it done ASAP” sort of workload.
Force yourself to end your day at 4 PM or end your week on Thursday: Well, class still happens whether I go there or not, so I guess I should still go on Fridays. :) I think that if I can force myself to shut down by a certain time every day, that can help too, it depends on well I can manage my time.
Check email only twice a day: Oh man, that one is tough, but I think I can manage it, I am working towards that at work this summer. (Goes and kills Thunderbird)
Don?t be afraid to hang up a ?do not disturb? sign: If you get interrupted, you are going to be multitasking, simple as that. I need to set up my work schedule to where I can be working at times when there are less distractions and people/animals around - I know that I have a hard time focusing when I am being interrupted and I need to work on avoiding them, so that I can maintain my “flow” state.
Ferriss pushes for working remotely where possible, trickier for a professional in the workplace, easier for a student - our workplaces are mobile by design - all we need most of the time is a notebook and a book or an internet connection, meaning we can work from almost anywhere that tickles our fancy.
Trent talks about someone that he worked with on this system:
I found the entire discussion to be inspirational, but also risky. I worked with an individual that did this over time, and after about two months of working at home, even though she was productive, she was basically deemed to no longer be part of the team and was removed from her job. I basically think this is a great way to make a healthy life transition, but unless you?re the head of the business, it won?t work over the long run unless you provide something remotely that no one else could possibly provide in-house.
As a student, I think this sort of thing doesn’t work against me, assuming I stay (or become more) productive. I can’t telecommute (sleeping in does not count, unfortunately) so as long as I can continue to produce good work, no one cares how I do it.
The Big Question: If you have freed up all of this time by compressing your regular productive time - what do you do with it?
In my present state of affairs, I could stand to use that time to make extra money for the new car, spend more time with my girlfriend and the pooch, or just simply put, take that time to be happy.
(Full Disclosure: This entry is being entered into The Simple Dollar’s Brazen Careerist Giveaway)
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