Less Doing, More Living, by Ari Meisel

Ari Meisel. Less Doing, More Living: Make Everything in Life Easier. New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2014. 123 pages. ISBN 9780399168529.

Less Doing, More Living is a brief compilation of a bunch of time saving strategies that are intended to make the reader's life easier to manage. It's organized into nine chapters that recommend creating an "external brain," customization, choosing your own workweek, stop running errands, batching your work, and more. It focuses not only on your paid work, but also wellness and your finances.

This is a quick read, and has the feel of a compilation of blog posts. It feels a little like The Four Hour Work Week-Lite, and Meisel does in fact mention Timothy Ferriss' book. Many of the recommendations include the use of apps or other software that seem at first glance like they would be more of a pain to start using than they're worth, but that may be a prejudice on my part. And not fair, since I haven't actually given them a try yet. Meisel, like Ferriss, is a strong proponent of outsourcing your work. This appeals to me to a certain extent, as I've gone from a job in which I had someone to help me with my travel, calendar, and other critical activities to a job in which I have to manage all of those detailed projects myself.

Overall, Less Doing, More Living has a lot of tips that readers might find useful. As I re-read the book and try to implement some of the recommendations, I may continue to write about it on this blog.