Suman Saha's Key Ideas from The 4-hour Workweek
by Timothy Ferriss

Don't be like Deferrers who

• Sacrifice life for retirement.
• Endure 30-40 years of carrier.
• Retire at 65.

Be the NEW RICH (NR) who-

• Live their retired lifestyle throughout their lives.
• Mobile and flexible work.

Remember DEAL - 

1. D is for Definition: Define what are your worst fears and what you want to do in life.
2. E is for Elimination. Kills the obsolete notion of time management once and for all. 
3. A is for Automation. Puts cash flow on autopilot using geographic arbitrage, outsourcing, and rules of nondecision. Automate your income.
4. L is for Liberation. This section delivers the third and final ingredient for luxury lifestyle design: mobility.

1. Retirement Is Worst-Case-Scenario - It's like your life insurance, not your life goal.
2. Work only when you are most effective.
3. Less Is Not Laziness.
4. The Timing Is Never Right. Start it NOW!
5. Ask for Forgiveness, Not Permission.
6. Emphasize Strengths, Don’t Fix Weaknesses.
7. Things in Excess Become Their Opposite.
8. Money Alone Is Not the Solution.
9. Relative Income Is More Important Than Absolute Income.
10. Distress Is Bad, Eustress Is Good.

Write down the answers in a sheet of paper-

1. What is the worst thing that can happen to you?
2. How likely that would actually happen?
3. How could you get things back under control?
4. What will be the outcomes? temporary and permanent.
5. What you have done wrong?
6. What are you putting off out of fear? What we most fear doing is what we most need to do.
7. What is it costing you—financially, emotionally, and physically—to postpone action?

Understand Your Fear. What are you waiting for? If you can only answer “timing” then you’re afraid, just like the rest of the world. Measure the cost of inaction and realize the unlikelihood and repairability of most missteps. 

Advanced Goal Setting - Dreamlining-

• What would you do if there were no way you could fail?
• What does “being” entail doing?
• What are the four dreams that would change it all?
• Determine the cost of these dreams and calculate your Target Monthly Income (TMI)
• Determine three steps for each of the four dreams in just for the 6-month and take the first step now.

Pareto’s Law (80/20 Rule): 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs.

Use 80/20 in work -

1. If you had a heart attack and had to work two hours per day, what would you do?
2. If you had a second heart attack and had to work two hours per week, what would you do?
3. If you had a gun to your head and had to stop doing 4/5 of different time-consuming activities, what would you remove?
4. What are the top 3 activities that I use to fill time to feel as though I’ve been productive?
5. Who are the people who produce the most of your enjoyment and propel you forward, and which cause most of your depression, anger, and second-guessing?
6. If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?

Parkinson’s Law: tasks will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for their completion.

Set a deadline for each and every task or project.

To be selectively ignorant, learn to ignore or redirect all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable.

The Low-Information Diet:

1. Go on an immediate one-week media fast.
2. Only consume information for something immediate and important. 
3. Practice the art of non finishing. (Boring or unproductive things)

How to Fix Interruptions

• Check email twice per day. Create an email autoresponse so people respect your new rule.
• Screen incoming and limit outgoing phone calls.
• Use two numbers: one office line (non-urgent) and one cellular (urgent).
• Don’t let people chitchat. 
• Avoid all meetings that do not have clear objectives. Meetings should only be held to make decisions about a predefined situation.
• Have an end time for your meeting (aim for 30 minutes).
• Don’t permit casual visitors. Use headphones, even if you aren’t listening to anything.
• Work smarter by batching tasks like email.
• Empower others to act without interrupting you.
• Force people to define their requests before spending time with them.

Get a remote personal assistant to learn how to give orders. It is small-scale training wheels for the most critical of NR skills: remote management and communication.

Never automate something that can be eliminated, and never delegate something that can be automated or streamlined.

Only delegate time-consuming and well-defined tasks.

The 3 recommended options for automation:

1. Resell. The easiest route but also the least profitable. It is the fastest to set up but the fastest to die off due to price competition with other resellers.
2. License. Two options: invent and let someone else do the rest or manufacture and sell someone else’s idea
3. Create. Information products are low-cost, fast to manufacture, and time-consuming for competitors to duplicate.

The approach for working from home for your office work - 

1. Use a pre-planned project or emergency and take two weeks out of the office.
2. Propose how you can work remotely.
3. Make those two weeks the most productive at work.
4. Show your boss the quantifiable results upon returning. Suggest two or three days at home per week as a trial for two weeks. Make them ultra-productive.
5. Suggest only one day in the office per week. Make those days the least productive of the week
6. Suggest complete mobility.

The two fundamental components to enjoy life:

1. Continual Learning. Transport skills that you practice domestically to other countries, like sports. Instant social life and camaraderie. Or pick skills that you can practice there, like learning a language or reading books.
2. Service. Doing something that improves life besides your own.

1. Do not answer calls from unknown phone numbers
2. Do not email first thing in the morning or last thing at night
3. Do not agree to meetings or calls with no clear agenda or end time
4. Do not let people ramble
5. Do not check email constantly—“batch” and check at set times only
6. Do not over-communicate with low-profit, high-maintenance customers
7. Do not work more to fix overwhelmingness—prioritize
8. Do not carry a cell phone 24/7
9. Do not expect work to fill a void that non-work relationships and activities should

1. Set rules for yourself so you can automate as much decision-making as possible.
2. Don’t provoke deliberation before you can take action
3. Don’t postpone decisions just to avoid uncomfortable conversations.
4. Learn to make nonfatal or reversible decisions as quickly as possible.
5. Don’t strive for variation—and thus increase option consideration—when it’s not needed.
6. Regret is past-tense decision-making. Eliminate complaining to minimize regret.