Beyond Booked Solid
by Michael Port

Beyond Booked Solid: Your Business, Your Life, Your Way Its All Inside

I didn't read the best-selling Book Yourself Solid. I'm busy enough, thank you very much.

But author Michael Port has followed up with Beyond Booked Solid and that grabbed my attention. Especially when I read the one review blurb from author Timothy Ferriss that said, "If you want a four-hour work week, this book is required reading. Michael has automating business down to a science." Four hours sounds pretty good.

By now, we all know we have to work on our business not just in our business. Michael Gerber's E-Myth covered that well.

Port says you should work on and in your business but also "To that, let's add while working on yourself. Your business is a reflection of who you are and what you can handle."

There are a lot of exercises throughout the book such as:

• List the things you have done in the past week, month, 3 months that made you feel creative or that you or others would call creative.
• How creative do you want to be? What are some activities you'd like to do or experiences you'd like to have that would make you feel creative in business and in your personal life?
• Identify in advance what external factors might cause a breakdown and stifle your creativity.
• Put your objectives on a timeline. In one year I want my business to __________
• In three years I'd like to achieve _____ in my personal life.
• Make a list of what you will need to reconfigure in your life or business to achieve your objectives.
• And so on.

There's a free download from his website that assists you with the exercises.

Does this sound familiar? "Not listening sometimes masquerades as multitasking… Doing e-mail while talking on phone might seem efficient but likely what it really means is that you're not paying attention to the person you're on the phone with."

In fact, Port says to check e-mail once or twice a day instead of checking it all day long at frequent intervals.

We all know that a well-stocked supply room leads to waste. But Port says that "Creating unnecessary information inventory is another common waste in offices."

He says we should divide our To Do list into categories and then "Anything you can do in 2 minutes or less, do right away."

Another not new but useful piece of advice is to act as if you are leaving for vacation tomorrow. We all know that feeling the day before a vacation when we accomplish the most urgent and time sensitive task and clear our desks.

There's talk about leveraging functions and scheduling personal time and balance. Sadly, the exercises and book won't lead you to a 4-hour work week but there are some good ideas.

What are you reading?  Let us know at dan@greatlakesgeek.com