Tim Ferris has a free ebook 17 Questions That Changed My Life. I think it's some of his densest, most valuable material.
Here are my thoughts on these questions. You shouldn't read them. Instead, you should answer these questions for yourself.
1. What if I did the opposite for 48 hours?
I've had two very successful applications of this idea.
2. What do I spend a silly amount of money on? How might I scratch my own itch?
I don't spend a silly amount of money on anything, but I do spend a silly amount of time consuming information. And that's why I write a blog.
3. What would I do/have/be if I had $10 million? What’s my real TMI?
Whenever I ask myself this question, I end up listing a bunch of things I can already afford, and then I go out and buy them. But that's just common sense. The real genius has nothing to do with buying things. It's all about renting.
TMI stands for "target monthly income". When Tim Ferris runs this calculation, he doesn't calculate how much things cost to own. He calculates how much they cost to rent. At first this struck me as irresponsible, but I gradually learned to recognize the wisdom in it. Most of the fun of owning a sports car comes in the first few day. Instead of buying one, why not just rent one for the fun first few days? That saves 99% of the cost and 99.9% of the maintenance headache. It's lower risk too. How do you'll even know how you'll feel about owning a sports car after 7 months when you've never owned one before? Renting instead of buying even allows you to buy stuff right when you want it, instead of having to plan.
The trick is to think in terms of hedonism instead of utilitarianism.
4. What are the worst things that could happen? Could I get back here?
This is a tool for fear setting. See #1.
5. If I could only work 2 hours per week on my business, what would I do?
This doesn't just apply to business. It applies to any time sink.
6. What if I let them make decisions up to \$100? \$500? \$1,000?
Tim Ferris applies this to his underlings but I apply it to myself. Back when I didn't have much money, I would agognize about the price of attending various social events. This was ridiculous because the financial downside was small and short-tailed whereas the holistic upside was massively long-tailed. Eventually, I made a rule that if the price of a social event was less than $20 I would just ignore the sticker price. I later made a similar rule for buying food when I was out-and-about and hungry.
If you find yourself under-spending on something, then pick a price you're always willing to buy it for and commit to buying it when you can.
Here's my current list:
7. What’s the least crowded channel?
Start with your target audience first and then work backward to figure out how to find them.
I'm constantly on the lookout for new media platforms. If you think there's something I should be on, let me know[2]!
8. What if I couldn’t pitch my product directly?
The most popular stuff I write about rationality isn't my nonfiction posts that explain rationality directly. It's the fiction.
9. What if I created my own real-world MBA?
School is a suboptimal system for learning things. I created my own real-world courses in programming, Chinese, writing, business and so on. It was faster than school and I learned more but there's one big catch: Teaching yourself things comes with no credentials. If you want to get a job, then credentials matter, but if you're learning something to use it on your own then real-world learning is way more fun than school.
10. Do I need to make it back the way I lost it?
Don't try to fix a toxic relationship or a bad job. You cannot fix that which is irreparably broken. Just replace bad things with a good things.
11. What if I could only subtract to solve problems?
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12. What might I put in place to allow me to go off the grid for 4 to 8 weeks, with no phone or email?
One of the biggest benefits I got from reading The 4-Hour Workweek is I stopped checking notifications so often. Most of the time I don't have to put anything into place. I can just ignore it. See #4, #5 and #11.
13. Am I hunting antelope or field mice?
Tim Ferris often paraphrases this "Which [thing], if done, would render all the rest either easier or completely irrelevant?"
14. Could it be that everything is fine and complete as is?
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15. What would this look like if it were easy?
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16. How can I throw money at this problem? How can I “waste” money to improve the quality of my life?
This question only applies if you have money. Paying other people to cook food is an obvious win. Otherwise, I'm still figuring this one out.
17. No hurry, no pause.
[Not actually a question.]
[1] This rule does not include books I want to read later. I only includes books I want to read right nw. ↩
[2] If you do, please include a link to this page. ↩