Ari Meisel

Some good, easily transferrable ideas. Some less so. I'm not sure this was enough content for a book, though.

Reading his ideas makes me wonder why anyone would ever pay for his coaching/consultant services, since it's pretty clear that you'd rarely if ever be getting his services. Instead, you'd just be paying for impersonal auto-generated email messages or stuff so formulaic that he can farm it out to virtual assistants with IFTTT codes. However, it does give me some ideas for tasks I could show more automate in my own life to save myself time (tasks that don't involve other people). show less

A fairly short book containing 9 fundamental areas of life where streamlining can provide more time to live.

I feel that the book could have gone way further than it did. The suggestions were quite basic, and it seemed to me that the book was a short project for the author. With a bit more research the book could have been so much more.

Many of the suggestions relied on online services or websites that have gone the way of the dodo (albeit 10 years after the book was released).

Being struck with Crohn's disease in 2006 several insights hit Ari Meisel. Treatment of symptoms instead of the cause is prevalent in Western medicine. And the fact that the illness limited his workday forced him to find new and innovative ways to accomplish more in less time. The sense of accomplishments from better decision-making was immediate. Blogs, reading books like David Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, Timothy Ferris's The 4 Hours Work Week, and Marie Kondo's book, The show more Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing resulted in the system of Less Doing, More Living, and the book The Art of Less Doing. What would you do if you only worked for one hour per day? Three concepts in Meisel's framework help: optimize, automate, and outsource.

Optimize means breaking down challenges to the bare minimum, streamlining it, and eliminating anything that's not completely necessary. Think of time management, inbox management, work-life balance, Getting Things Done, and taking care of your body, mind, and soul. The author emphasizes the analysis of your hour of peak productivity, Setting limits, getting into a flow, and have time and space available for inspiration. Respect and optimize your hour of power, and utilize 'downtime' by churning through low-focus tasks.

Automate is about not wasting your precious time and energy in repetitive tasks that can be automated. The author is enthusiastic about cloud solutions like Dropbox, IFTTT, Zapier, and Evernote. Lifehacking to meet the Pareto principle or at least offload 70% of the tasks you perform daily.

Outsource is the next step. Use virtual assistants. Generalists or specialists can provide all kinds of services to make you more productive. Meisel runs his own VA business and explains how this is accomplished. The good news is it is possible to make a significant change in your life without a huge amount of effort. Meisel is a living example. Let's practice the lessons learned. show less

This book is a short and concise presentation of the author's framework to help individuals and companies make the most of out of their time. The book presents many tools to use in the process. Whether you agree with the author's paradigm or not, the list of tools gives the book its value. Incorporate into your life what works for you and leave the rest.

Read my complete review at: http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2014/02/less-doing-more-living.html

*** Reviewed based on a copy received show more through a publisher’s giveaway *** show less