Review By: Myra Salzer
This short little book is packed full of practical, life-changing ideas that one can implement to – you guessed it – do less and live more fully. While the vast majority of this book is about services, apps, and software that, if used correctly, can increase one’s productivity while simultaneously improving the state of one’s “life vs responsibilities” balance.
The author has an interesting personal history, having been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at a relatively young age and through self-experimentation and documentation, overcoming the need for multiple prescription drugs by implementing many of the strategies explained in this book. In short, it’s mostly about having a balanced life. The author transformed himself from an overweight, overworked, overwrought, symptomatic person into a balanced, healthy triathlete and family man.
You’ve heard much of it before: get enough sleep, eat well, lose weight, exercise, etc. But there were a few surprises in his strategy (most notably that by training too much, one’s quality of sleep can be negatively affected, which can lead to weight gain), and many of his suggestions were new to me, especially those concerning software and outsourcing services.
I won’t get into specific capabilities of the software he mentions, except to list many of them, if you’re interested in checking them out:
- RescueTime
- iDoneThis
- InsideTracker
- Skillshare
- Evernote (he is a huge fan!)
- FollowUp.cc
- IFTTT
- Contactually
- Resnooze
- HassleMe
- Fancy Hands
- Zirtual
- TaskRabbit
- WakerUpper
- FastCustomer
- LucyPhone
- CardMunch
- Postable
- Delivery
- GroundLink
- StumbleUpon
- Elance
- Fiverr
- Shapeways
- ScheduleOnce
- Mint
- BillShrink
- FileThis
- LifeLock
- Catalog Choice
- SquareUp
- HelloFax
- SignNow
- Doxie
- Postal Methods
- Virtual Post Mail
- CamScanner
- ScanDigital
- ShoeBoxed
- Blue Apron
Maybe we will experiment with each of these and write a blog about them in the future… we shall see. 🙂
I appreciate his suggestions for handling email, but despite my best efforts, I could not seem to shake my old habits. One particularly brilliant idea was to funnel all emails that contain the word “Unsubscribe” and that don’t have the term “FW” or “RE” into a folder labeled “Optional.” I’m envious of his ambition to never leave home (or office) for the day with more than 50 emails in his inbox. He also has ideas about managing to-do lists, specifically, eliminating items. His suggestions were just not working for me, though.
I have yet to try his suggestions about hiring virtual assistants. I guess I don’t feel the need personally since I’m surrounded by such great colleagues who seem to know what needs to be done even before I do! Some of the services an outsourced virtual assistant can accomplish include product comparisons, fact-checking, travel research, finding the nearest store with an item in stock, proofreading, making dinner or travel reservations, or updating a document.
While I enjoyed the book, the old “drinking from a fire hose” analogy comes to mind. In fewer than 100 pages, Meisel reviewed more services than I could implement in a year. While I have no doubt that the result would be “Less Doing, More Living,” getting to that point would be (at least for me) darn hard work! How about for you?