Sundays are amazing. This Sunday, like the last one, and the one before that, the sun is peeking through the clouds, there’s a light, fresh wind blowing, and my comfortable couch makes an excellent place for languishing with a book. I think I enjoy Sundays as much as tea and a biscuit, which is a special love indeed. Wallowing in all of the above feels like some kind of gluttonous ecstasy that should carry some kind of x-rating. I feel like a particularly smiley hippo, albeit one that can make tea. And likes biscuits.

The book in question is Tim’s Four-Hour Work Week, the emphasis being on effectiveness and efficiency to free-up time so that you can . . . do whatever you consider will make you happy. I don’t think there is a person alive that could disagree with that, and billions of dead that wouldn’t either. Go read this book, it’s excellent! Hidden within the pages there is a little gift, an unexpected present, which reminds me of my friends going through a little hardship: friends being made redundant from their jobs; others wishing they were made redundant – sorry chaps, you’ll have to come in tomorrow!; and another making their long-term cheating husbands redundant (divorce, not death by the way, although it's America so who knows eh?!). The gift is nothing more than a simple poem dedicated to how we live our lives, and in essence how we make use of our time. Time is the key, and I feel more now than ever that I’m in a mental-space where I can appreciate it. It’s fucking wonderful place to be, like drinking tea with a biscuit on a couch reading a book in the sunshine on a Sunday.

​Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.
Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask: How are you?
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done,
do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.
Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see their sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say, “Hi”?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.
When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower.
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

Picture Reference:
​https://www.sadanduseless.com/little-hippos/

I’ve just spent the last two hours on the couch reading a book in the sunshine with two cups of tea for company. This is my study time. How wonderful is that?
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I’m over 200 pages in to Tim Ferriss’ excellent and yet simple Four-Hour Work Week. I wouldn’t say it’s unputdownable, but there are some real nuggets in there about effectiveness and efficiency, and Tim is, well, an absolute beast and a bit of a legend. There are tasks in there for the reader to do, some of which I do and some I don’t, but I am making notes and will revisit as I go. The main take-outs:

Review tasks with two focus points: Pareto’s 80/20 to prioritise work knowing that 80% of the outputs come from 20% of the inputs, and Parkison’s Law to crunch the task down to complete right before I post. As an example, I have 48 mins left for this blog. I need to keep my focus and not be distracted by my Argentinean housemates’ girly screams whilst chatting to her friends. Shit. Concentrate, man!

Here are some classics, some of which I perform already such as turning off work notification sounds or email ‘message’ pop-ups, but the ones I like include:

1. Never check email at start of day (I do that right now, but have so few in my job it takes me five minutes and then I have breakfast to plan my day). Also, change to just twice a day at 12pm & 4pm. I will constrain this time to 30 minutes maximum.
2. There are too many meetings without agendas, and I need to ensure I’m getting value for being there. Last week I sat in a five-hour workshop that, although interesting, I added no value – why did I go? My manager asked me to. Need to restrict those! For each meeting I’m invited to I should press for an agenda or an outcome, or what they need from me. Perhaps I can supply the information without needing to be there at all
3. If the phone rings asking to come to a meeting, again ask for an agenda on the premise that you need to prepare to best help them get the answer they need. See above – I probably don’t need to be there at all
4. Cut to the chase on phone calls – ask ‘what can I help you with?’ or timebox the conversation ‘sorry I only have a minute, what can I do for you?’
5. Review send email rules i.e. send at 8am or some such. Email is not for chatting, and getting a response straight away with people looking to chat may not help you

Outsource opportunities using Virtual Assistants e.g. what are the key messages within a book would be an interesting one! Tim references researching a specific price for flights or product abroad or whatever. I like it but unsure what I can use it for at present. I will need to spend more time cogitating on it when I go for my daily strolls. ​Will keep you posted as I progress through Tim’s book. 

Two weeks ago I made a plan around identifying the things I enjoyed and prioritising them. After a week spending more time reading than I have in months, taking photos without being on holiday (the two are associated hand in hand for me), I’m thoroughly enjoying myself and feel more relaxed. My plan is shown below and I’ve printed it out on a table so that I could physically mark something off which is quite satisfying and I can see the progress. It’s not fancy, but nor does it have to be.

The keen eyed will notice something that I’ve realised too . . . what happened to my goal? I’ve actually got no closer to combining my photos, travels and mental health passions. So, although I’m enjoying myself and feel like I’m progressing, and I’m certainly learning, are my tactical tasks helping to achieve my strategic goal? Nope! Time to tweak the plan!
​
P.S. In the interest of transparency, I spent thirty-five minutes on a draft of the above, and another ten minutes reviewing. Twice. Then another twenty minutes posting and editing. Not exactly Parkinson’s Law in full effect - don’t hate me, Tim!


Image References:
http://www.mpowermed.com/insurance-credentialing-why-outsourcing-makes-sense/

I wanted to be on-board, that’s the thing. I wanted to nod earnestly like a sagistic Rabbi, agreeing that the crop-rotations in Southern Armenia would indeed cast a macro-economic shadow over the entire region. Or something. Working in corporate offices usually opens you up to these lines every day, most of which wash over you but seem reasonable enough at the time.  
- ‘Life is like a box of chocolates’ someone will spout, to which my brain has scampered into action, like a dozing mouse pumped full of enough adrenaline to start a fight with a buffalo.  
- ‘You mean the box looks nice and glossy and the chocolates appear different, but are generally bland and the best ones are stolen first leaving only bloody coffee, and everyone knows I hate coffee, so I then mistakenly go for caramel which is actually coffee and half spit the thing out because it’s bitter and stinks, and then I have to wash my mouth out and get a toothbrush or trowel to scrape the taste off . . . is that what you mean?’ 

Indubitably, it is not quite what they mean. So, eyes agog and ears agog as well because they didn’t want to feel left out, I let my friend continue.  
​

‘Well you can’t hold back the river. No matter how you try, that river will just keep flowing. Sometimes you float along with it, sometimes you can rally against it, but the river will keep flowing on regardless. The best you can do is go along with it, floating with it, and occasionally try to guide it or divert it assist what you think is important, but ultimately the river will keep on flowing’. 

So there you go. Although . . . you can, with some artistic license, say that about pretty much anything. Life is like toilet paper: at the start it seems so long like you’ll never reach the end, full of strength and optimism, and as the day rolls on by the paper lessens and lessens, and with barely a whimper, you’re left with nothing but your pants down your ankles, with fond memories of when you had lots and lots of paper, and now you’re begging for just one more. And no one gives a sheet. 
Still, organisations - just like a river.  

Image references:
http://concert-japan.eu/spip.php?article29
​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_roll_holder

Cutting Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life down to an even smaller version of an already short read, you’re wasting your life on meaningless pursuits and will die unhappy having not lived a moment . . . “unless you click here right now, click here, come on click-click-click!!” he didn’t say. Well, ok, there’s a bit more to it than that, but not a lot. Time, as I’ve said previously is possibly the most important thing we possess, and we squander it often. But how is it best spent? Well, lucky for you, Seneca has the answer! 

Spending your life in drunkenness and debauchery, being waited on hand-and-foot . . . isn’t the answer. I know, gutting, right? Seneca believes this would simply reduce your will and wit to actually live. This would be cataclysmic to some of my friends: as it’s their dream to have their every whim satisfied by some subservient. But getting back on course, Seneca persists that man must balance seeking constant achievement vs leisure activities, otherwise a life spent saving for retirement (or that special day) is a life wasted. Seneca’s isn’t exactly embracing carpe diem, but he’s rallying against the day that never comes*. I had read somewhere along the line, and this may be from another etch of memory, that Seneca would yearly take a sabbatical and live and as a pauper for a few days, to reassess his life, undoubtedly guarding against indulgences whilst also re-validating his perspective.

The life of a sage, leaning on the shoulders of Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus, Aristotle and Theophrastus, Socrates, Epicurus, Carneades, Stoics and Cynics, is a worthwhile life indeed . . . according to Seneca anyway, which seems a little self-serving. Admittedly I barely know much more than a few names in the above, but the tenet of Seneca’s argument is that you should learn from others that have spent their lives pondering some of the infinite questions on life that flit through your mind. I have to admit a certain priggishness when it comes to reading novels, which leans on the basic foundations of the above: if an author is still revered decades and even centuries after their death, that has got to be worth some of my time! Cervantes and Dostoyevsky, I doff my cap. 

​So in my mind a balance must be reached, for what good is all the learning if you don’t put it into practice? Whilst reading of and in itself is leisurely, especially a non-fiction book like Don Quixote, to learn and lean on the shoulders of giants likes Plato pays no dividends if you’re not living what you’ve learnt. That way, to leave with a quote from the great man, "life is long enough...if the whole of it is well invested"
 
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*Metallica - in my head, you’re killing it right now



Image reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_the_Younger