This is my brief review of The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss, posted to the PMBA Forums.

4-Hour Work Week Cover

I chose to read The 4-Hour Work Week at this point for some specific reasons, beyond the mere fact that it is a PMBA text. I’d just quit my job, moved to a new country and was looking to start a fresh, not with my own business at this stage but with a new ‘corporate’ job. I was not disappointed by the choice to read this book, now.

The greatest value from the book for me was further proof behind the idea that there is another way, beyond the regular approach to corporate life, and that it’s achievable. I found that in this respect the book was inspiring and instructional.

There are some real gems in the book regarding personal productivity, Timothy Ferris has taken this to quite some extremes but there is a lot of food for thought in the book regarding virtual personal assistance, outsourcing, managing inputs, prioritisation of your life goals and more.

The book is organised such that if you want to follow the Timothy’s path fairly closely then it’s a step-by-step how-to, this was done with out detracting from it’s readability by someone taking another route.

I found that the specific ideas around what your business might do or how to go about achieving it (roughly the middle part of the book) not always relevant to my situation or likely projects. It steered dangerously close to ‘get rich quick schemes’ at times which left me a little cold. For me the passing references to ‘information products’ were closer to my likely projects and would have made for more pertinent examples that were, shall we say, for business ventures with more noble aims.

Again, the greatest value of the book was that he promotes an approach to life, and your happiness in it, which resonated with me in quite a profound way. Beyond that there was a lot of practical advice for managing your life and your business in such a way as to maximise your time, hopefully for more fun and happiness.

An enjoyable and useful read. The book is backed up by a great web site with extra material, surely a must nowadays.

Wigi & Pigi - Pugs Extraordinaire

Wigi & Pigi now have their own blog!

Wigi & Pigi, pugs extraordinaire, now have their own blog here. By pugs, for pugs it features biting and inciteful* pugs-eye-view commentary.

Their book is now on general release and is available from their website in abridged ebook or full paperback versions.

I was lucky to get an early version of the book…

“Done by a chinaman what we sawed do it.”

… and it’s hilarious, a triumph of doggy literature.

The blog continues in a similar vein…

“Wigi and Pigi grief stricken over King of Pop’s death”

“Pigi shaken after encountering under-ripe Kiwi”

“There was wustling in the bushes. Maybe a nome. Fewy afwaid. VEWY afwaid.”

Check out the Wigi & Pigi site and the blog but most importantly get hold of the book.

(h/t JS)

*mis-spelling intended, please Mr. Sheep, don’t write-in.

Brain Rules

I’ve not long finished reading the book Brain Rules, by John Medina.

I came upon Brain Rules, not initially as it is a PMBA text but from a Slideshare ‘Brain Rules for Presenters’ by Garr Reynolds, author of Presentation Zen (also a PMBA book). Check out the Slideshare.

I found the book to be a joy to read and engaging throughout, enlivened by anecdotes and stories both personal to author and from the research on which the book is based. This technique is explained in the book but the book itself is a fantastic example of it in action.

The structure of the book as 12 ‘rules’ worked really well for me. Giving me a mental framework off which to hang the information. Each rule / chapter then containing an explanation of what is known scientifically, presented in such a way makes sense to a layman such as myself and made engaging through stories. Each section then having suggestions (or hopes, perhaps) for further research and then the real gems of what the rule means for you in your personal life, business life or education life.

The website that accompanies the book will serve to whet your appetite if you’ve not read the book or reinforce the learning if you have.

The most important sections for me, where I will be seeking to implement what I learned were the parts on how we learn and remember and the impact of stress, sleep and exercise on how I learn and work.

Read this book for fun, read it for an understanding of brain science, read it for some useful take-aways for your personal, business and educational life, or better yet read it for all these reasons.

This review has also been posted to the PMBA Forums.

I’ve recently had the pleasure of having meetings with some people who for various reasons exist outside of the corporate world and meeting culture. There were some real joys in this, the energy in a group when they meet because they’re all excited about a common goal is very different to what you usually see in a work environment. There were some frustrations too in working with some people not used to meetings.

At same time I’ve been experimenting with SlideShare and enjoyed hugely Brain Rules For Presenters which is introduces some of the concepts from Brain Rules, which I’m anxious to read.

This lead almost inveitably to the idea of trying to present some Meeting Basics information using SlideShare. The slideshow is the first in a series of three Meeting Basics.

You can also download a PDF onepager, that supplements the slideshow.

Ok, so this will probably only be news if you work at the muppet show (and have as much free time as I do) or have been on vacation in outer space but…

A book has been created for comic relief, edited by TroubledDiva called Shaggy Blog Stories. A compendium of humourus pieces from the UK blogosphere, no less. My copy has yet to find its way to China (having been ordered all of 10 minutes ago) so I can’t comment from personal experience but I’m sure with the likes of NewsElephant and ArgyBargey in there it must be a hoot.

Go and buy it, it’s for charidy!