Change the Way You Work Forever
Rating
5/5
Date Started
7/3/2023
Date Completed
7/7/2023
Five Powerful Quotes from the Book
Quote 1
“Our culture celebrates the idea of the workaholic. We hear about people burning the midnight oil. They pull all-nighters and sleep at the office. It’s considered a badge of honor to kill yourself over a project. No amount of work is too much work.
“Not only is this workaholism unnecessary, it’s stupid. Working more doesn’t mean you care more or get more done. It just means you work more…
“Workaholics miss the point, too. They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force. This results in inelegant solutions.
“They even create crises. They don’t look for ways to be more efficient because they actually like working overtime. They enjoy feeling like heroes. They create problems (often unwittingly) just so they can get off on working more.
“Workaholics make the people who don’t stay late feel inadequate for “merely” working reasonable hours. That leads to guilt and poor morale all around…
“If all you do is work, you’re unlikely to have sound judgments. Your values and decision making wind up skewed. You stop being able to decide what’s worth extra effort and what’s not. And you wind up just plain tired. No one makes sharp decisions when tired.
“In the end, workaholics don’t actually accomplish more than nonworkaholics. They may claim to be perfectionists, but that just means they’re wasting time fixating on inconsequential details instead of moving on to the next task.
“Workaholics aren’t heroes. They don’t save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done.”
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Quote 2
“The most common excuse people give: ‘There’s not enough time.’ They claim they’d love to start a company, learn an instrument, market an invention, write a book, or whatever, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day.
“Come on. There’s always enough time if you spend it right. And don’t think you have to quit your day job, either. Hang onto it and start work on your project at night…
“‘I don’t have enough time/money/people/experience.’ Stop whining. Less is a good thing. Constraints are advantages in disguise. Limited resources force you to make do with what you’ve got. There’s no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative…
“When is your product or service finished? When should you put it out on the market? When is it safe to let people have it? Probably a lot sooner than you’re comfortable with. Once your product does what it needs to do, get it out there…
“Think about it this way: If you had to launch your business in two weeks, what would you cut out? Funny how a question like that forces you to focus. You suddenly realize there’s a lot of stuff you don’t need. And what you do need seems obvious. When you impose a deadline, you gain clarity. It’s the best way to get to that gut instinct that tells you, ‘We don’t need this.'”
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Quote 3
“Interruption is not collaboration, it’s just interruption. And when you’re interrupted, you’re not getting work done.
“Interruptions break your workday into a series of work moments. Forty-five minutes and then you have a call. Fifteen minutes and then you have lunch. An hour later, you have an afternoon meeting. Before you know it, it’s five o’clock, and you’ve only had a couple uninterrupted hours to get your work done. You can’t get meaningful things done when you’re constantly going start, stop, start, stop.
“Instead, you should get in the alone zone. Long stretches of alone time are when you’re most productive. When you don’t have to mind-shift between various tasks, you get a boatload done…
“Your alone zone doesn’t have to be in the wee hours, though. You can set up a rule at work that half the day is set aside for alone time. Decree that from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., people can’t talk to each other (except during lunch). Or make the first or last half of the day your alone-time period. Or instead of casual Fridays, try no-talk Thursdays. Just make sure this period is unbroken in order to avoid productivity-zapping interruptions.
“And go all the way with it. A successful alone-time period means letting go of communication addiction. During alone time, give up instant messages, phone calls, e-mail, and meetings. Just shut up and get to work. You’ll be surprised how much more you get done…
“The worst interruptions of all are meetings…
“If you decide you absolutely must get together, try to make your meeting a productive one by sticking to these simple rules:
- “Set a timer. When it rings, meeting’s over. Period.
- “Invite as few people as possible.
- “Always have a clear agenda.
- “Begin with a specific problem.
- “Meet at the site of the problem instead of a conference room. Point to real things and suggest real changes.
- “End with a solution and make someone responsible for implementing it.”
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Quote 4
“Creativity is one of the first things to go when you lose sleep. What distinguishes people who are ten times more effective than the norm is not that they work ten times as hard; it’s that they use their creativity to come up with solutions that require one-tenth of the effort. Without sleep, you stop coming up with those one-tenth solutions…
“The dream employee for a lot of companies is a twenty-something with as little of a life as possible outside of work—someone who’ll be fine working fourteen-hour days and sleeping under his desk.
“But packing a room full of these burn-the-midnight-oil types isn’t as great as it seems. It lets you get away with lousy execution. It perpetuates myths like ‘This is the only way we can compete against the big guys.’ You don’t need more hours; you need better hours.
“When people have something to do at home, they get down to business. They get their work done at the office because they have somewhere else to be. They find ways to be more efficient because they have to. They need to pick up the kids or get to choir practice. So they use their time wisely.
“As the saying goes, ‘If you want something done, ask the busiest person you know.’ You want busy people. People who have a life outside of work. People who care about more than one thing. You shouldn’t expect the job to be someone’s entire life—at least not if you want to keep them around for a long time.”
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Quote 5
“All companies have customers. Lucky companies have fans. But the most fortunate companies have audiences. An audience can be your secret weapon.
“A lot of businesses still spend big bucks to reach people. Every time they want to say something, they dip into their budgets, pull out a huge wad of cash, and place some ads. But this approach is both expensive and unreliable. As they say, you waste half of your ad budget—you just don’t know which half.
“Today’s smartest companies know better. Instead of going out to reach people, you want people to come to you. An audience returns often—on its own—to see what you have to say. This is the most receptive group of customers and potential customers you’ll ever have…
“You can advertise. You can hire salespeople. You can sponsor events. But your competitors are doing the same things. How does that help you stand out?
“Instead of trying to outspend, outsell, or outsponsor competitors, try to out-teach them. Teaching probably isn’t something your competitors are even thinking about. Most businesses focus on selling or servicing, but teaching never even occurs to them…
“Teach and you’ll form a bond you just don’t get from traditional marketing tactics. Buying people’s attention with a magazine or online banner ad is one thing. Earning their loyalty by teaching them forms a whole different connection. They’ll trust you more. They’ll respect you more. Even if they don’t use your product, they can still be your fans.
“Teaching is something individuals and small companies can do that bigger competitors can’t. Big companies can afford a Super Bowl ad; you can’t. But you can afford to teach, and that’s something they’ll never do, because big companies are obsessed with secrecy. Everything at those places has to get filtered through a lawyer and go through layers of red tape. Teaching is your chance to outmaneuver them.”
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About the Book
Original Date Published
3/9/2010
Rework: Change the Way You Work Forever – Audiobook | Ebook | Hardcover – “Most business books give you the same old advice: Write a business plan, study the competition, seek investors, yadda yadda. If you’re looking for a book like that, put this one back on the shelf. Read it and you’ll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don’t need outside investors, and why you’re better off ignoring the competition. The truth is, you need less than you think. You don’t need to be a workaholic. You don’t need to staff up. You don’t need to waste time on paperwork or meetings. You don’t even need an office. Those are all just excuses. What you really need to do is stop talking and start working. This book shows you the way. You’ll learn how to be more productive, how to get exposure without breaking the bank, and tons more counterintuitive ideas that will inspire and provoke you.”
About the Author
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Business | Economics | Nonfiction