The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Update - Timothy Ferriss [38]
Go to a mall if you want to get some rapid-fire practice—my preference for getting over the discomfort quickly—and aim to ask three people in a row within five minutes. Feel free to use some variation of the following script:
“Excuse me. I know this is going to sound strange, but if I don’t ask you now, I’ll be kicking myself for the rest of the day. I’m running to meet a friend [i.e., I have friends and am not a stalker], but I think you’re really [extremely, drop-dead] cute [gorgeous, hot]. Could I have your phone number? I’m not a psycho—I promise. You can give me a fake one if you’re not interested.”
8. Simon received the Nobel Prize in 1978 for his contribution to organizational decision making: It is impossible to have perfect and complete information at any given time to make a decision.
9. 2004 at the time this was written.
10. LOL.
11. As someone who read exclusively nonfiction for nearly 15 years, I can tell you two things: It’s not productive to read two fact-based books at the same time (this is one), and fiction is better than sleeping pills for putting the happenings of the day behind you.
Interrupting Interruption and the
Art of Refusal
Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece.
—RALPH CHARELL
Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate.
—DAVE BARRY, Pulitzer Prize–winning American humorist
SPRING 2000, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
1:35 P.M.
“I think I understand. Moving on. In the next paragraph, it explains that …” I had detailed notes and didn’t want to miss a single point.
3:45 P.M.
“OK. That makes sense, but if we look at the following example …” I paused for a moment mid-sentence. The teaching assistant had both hands on his face.
“Tim, let’s end here for now. I’ll be sure to keep these points in mind.” He had had enough. Me too, but I knew I’d only have to do it once.
For all four years of school, I had a policy. If I received anything less than an A on the first paper or non-multiple-choice test in a given class, I would bring 2–3 hours of questions to the grader’s office hours and not leave until the other had answered them all or stopped out of exhaustion.
This served two important purposes:
I learned exactly how the grader evaluated work, including his or her prejudices and pet peeves.
The grader would think long and hard about ever giving me less than an A. He or she would never consider giving me a bad grade without exceptional reasons for doing so, as he or she knew I’d come a’knocking for another three-hour visit.
Learn to be difficult when it counts. In school as in life, having a reputation for being assertive will help you receive preferential treatment without having to beg or fight for it every time.
Think back to your days on the playground. There was always a big bully and countless victims, but there was also that one small kid who fought like hell, thrashing and swinging for the fences. He or she might not have won, but after one or two exhausting exchanges, the bully chose not to bother him or her. It was easier to find someone else.
Be that kid.
Doing the important and ignoring the trivial is hard because so much of the world seems to conspire to force crap upon you. Fortunately, a few simple routine changes make bothering you much more painful than leaving you in peace.
It’s time to stop taking information abuse.
Not All Evils Are Created Equal
For our purposes, an interruption is anything that prevents the start-to-finish completion of a critical task, and there are three principal offenders:
Time wasters: those things that can be ignored with little or no consequence. Common time wasters