The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich - Expanded and Updated

he resorted to just dragging or throwing his bags down stairs—I’d like to save you the breakdown. Trip enjoyment is inversely proportionate to the amount of crap (read: distractions) you bring with you.

Practice in 30-plus countries has taught me that minimalist packing can be an art.

I returned from Costa Rica last Wednesday and have since landed in Maui, where I’ll stay for one week. What did I pack and why? (See the companion video at www.fourhourblog.com.⁸⁶)

I practice what I’ll label the BIT method of travel: Buy It There.

If you pack for every possible contingency—better bring the hiking books in case we go hiking, better bring an umbrella in case it rains, better bring dress shoes and slacks in case we go to a nice restaurant, etc.—carrying a mule-worthy load is inevitable. I’ve learned to instead allocate $50–200 per trip to a “settling fund,” which I use to buy needed items once they’re 100% needed. This includes cumbersome and hassle items like umbrellas and bottles of sunscreen that love to explode. Also, never buy if you can borrow. If you’re going on a bird-watching trip in Costa Rica, you don’t need to bring binoculars—someone else will have them.

Here’s the Maui list.

1 featherweight Marmot Ion jacket (3 oz.!)

1 breathable Coolibar long-sleeve shirt to prevent sunburn. This saved me in Panama.

1 pair of polyester pants. Polyester is light, wrinkle-resistant, and dries quickly. Disco dancers and flashpackers dig it.

1 Kensington laptop lock, also used to secure all bags to stationary objects

1 single Under Armour sock, used to store sunglasses

2 nylon tanktops

1 large MSR quick-dry microfiber towel, absorbs up to seven times its weight in water

1 Ziploc bag containing toothbrush, travel toothpaste, and disposable razor

1 Fly Clear biometric travel card (www.flyclear.com),⁸⁷ which cuts down my airport wait time about 95%

2 pairs of ExOfficio lightweight underwear. Their tagline is “17 countries. 6 weeks. And one pair of underwear.” I think I’ll opt for two, considering they weigh about as much as a handful of Kleenex. One other nice side effect of their weight: They’re much more comfortable than normal cotton underwear.

2 pairs of shorts/swimsuits

2 books: Lonely Planet Hawaii and The Entrepreneurial Imperative. (The latter comes highly recommended. Check it out.)

1 sleeping mask and earplugs

1 pair of Reef sandals. Best to get a pair with removable straps that go around the heel.

1 Canon PowerShot SD300 digital camera with extra 2GB SD memory card. God, I love this camera more than words can describe. It is the best designed piece of electronics I have ever owned. I now use it not only for all of my photos and videos, but also as a replacement for my scanner. I’m considering testing the newer and cheaper SD1000.

1 coffee-harvesting hat to prevent my pale skin from burning off

1 Kiva keychain expandable duffel bag

1 Chapstick, 1 Mag-Lite Solitaire flashlight, and 1 roll of athletic tape. The last is a lifesaver. It’s as useful as duct tape for repairing objects but gentle enough to use on injuries, which I am fond of inflicting on myself.

1 Lewis and Clark flex lock (for luggage, lockers, zippers, or whatever I need to lock down/shut together). Standard mini-padlocks are often too cumbersome to thread through holes on lockers, etc.

1 Radio Shack kitchen timer, which I’ve been using to wake up for about four years. The problem with using a cell phone alarm to wake up is simple: The phone often needs to be on, and even if you use vibrate, people can call and wake you up before you want to wake up. The second benefit to using a kitchen timer is that you know exactly how much sleep you are—or aren’t—getting, and you can experiment with things like caffeine power naps of different durations … but that’s another post;)

—JULY 11, 2007

The Choice-Minimal Lifestyle: 6 Formulas for More Output and Less Overwhelm

I was stressed out… over dog cartoons.

It was 9:47 P.M. at Barnes and Noble on a recent Saturday night, and I had 13 minutes to find a suitable exchange for The New Yorker Dog Cartoons, $22 of expensive paper. Bestsellers? Staff recommends? New arrivals or classics? I’d already been there 30 minutes.

Beginning to feel overwhelmed with a ridiculous errand I’d expected to take five minutes, I stumbled across the psychology section. One tome jumped out at me as all too appropriate—The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen or read Barry Schwartz’s 2004 classic, but it seemed like a good time to revisit the principles, among them, that:

The more options you consider, the more buyer’s regret you’ll have.

The more options you encounter, the less fulfilling your ultimate outcome will be.

This raises a difficult question: Is it better to have the best outcome but be less satisfied, or have an acceptable outcome and be satisfied?

For example, would you rather deliberate for months and get the 1 of 20 houses that’s the best investment but second-guess yourself until you sell it five years later, or would you rather get a house that is 80% of the investment potential of the former (still to be sold at a profit) but never second-guess it?

Tough call.

Schwartz also recommends making nonreturnable purchases. I decided to keep the stupid pooch cartoons. Why? Because it’s not just about being satisfied, it’s about being practical.

Income is renewable, but some other resources—like attention—are not. I’ve talked before about attention as a currency and how it determines the value of time.

For example: Is your weekend really free if you find a crisis in the inbox Saturday morning that you can’t address until Monday morning?

Even if the inbox scan lasts 30 seconds, the preoccupation and forward projection for the subsequent 48 hours effectively deletes that experience from your life. You had time but you didn’t have attention, so the time had no practical value.

The choice-minimal lifestyle becomes an attractive tool when we consider two truths.

Considering options costs attention that then can’t be spent on action or present-state awareness.

Attention is necessary for not only productivity but appreciation.

Therefore:

Too many choices = less or no productivity

Too many choices = less or no appreciation

Too many choices = sense of overwhelm

What to do? There are six basic rules or formulas that can be used:

1. Set rules for yourself so you can automate as much decision making as possible [see the rules I use to outsource my e-mail to Canada, included at the end of this section, as an example of this].

2. Don’t provoke deliberation before you can take action.

One simple example: Don’t scan the inbox on Friday evening or over the weekend if you might encounter work problems that can’t be addressed until Monday.

3. Don’t postpone decisions just to avoid uncomfortable conversations.

If an acquaintance asks you if you want to come to their house for dinner next week, and you know you won’t, don’t say, “I’m not sure. I’ll let you know next week.” Instead, use something soft but conclusive like, “Next week? I’m pretty sure I have another commitment on Thursday, but thank you for the invite. Just so I don’t leave