A reminder that we'd be happier with less stuff and more time

Date of Review:

11/17/2002

Published Work:

Reviewer:

Jerry Large

Source:

The Seattle Times

Review Excerpt:

Ernie Zelinski hadn't quite gotten up when I called him early one Friday morning.

Ernie Zelinski - The Lazy Person's Guide to Success

"I usually get up about 9:30," he mumbled. Around 2 or 2:30 in the afternoon, he'll get in a couple of hours' work, writing on his laptop at a favorite coffee shop, and maybe a bit more in the evening.

You have to keep to a grueling pace like that to write a book called The Lazy Person's Guide to Success: How to get what you want without killing yourself for it (Ten Speed Press and Vipbooks)

Work really can kill. You may have read last month about the Finnish researchers who followed 812 healthy men and women for an average of 25 years and found the ones who had the most job stress were more than twice as likely to die of heart disease.

I'd bet money we're more stressed out here than folks are in Finland. The St. Petersburg Times surveyed the statistics and reported a soaring number of people calling in sick or taking more vacation time than they are due. The cost to employers of unscheduled absences reached a record this year and is 30 percent higher than it was two years ago.

Every statistic pointed in the same direction. A survey by the Conference Board this year found 50 percent of workers unhappy with their job. And, not surprisingly, prescriptions for antidepressants are way up.

Something is amiss, and Zelinski thinks he knows what it is. You probably know too.

Many people have given up control of their lives to the pursuit of money to buy stuff that they don't need because they are bombarded by messages that tell them everyone else has it, and they'd better get it too.

Too many people work for security, when security is not ever a sure thing. A lot of people have been thinking about that after Sept. 11 and while watching their investments shrink, but it's hard to get off the treadmill. A person still has to eat.

Zelinski thinks people would be happier with less stuff and more time. We'd be happier if we defined success for ourselves rather than wearing an off-the-rack definition that doesn't fit.

Success for him means doing work he enjoys and feeling he is contributing something to society. He'd also like to make The New York Times best-seller list some day, but he's done all right. This is his eighth book (published by Ten Speed Press — in Berkeley, of course), and he says he has $200,000 in the bank. He lives in a duplex in a nice part of his hometown, Edmonton, Alberta, and his time is his to do with as he pleases.

Zelinski, who is 53, was an electrical engineer once. "I did well in university in courses but never liked it. I went into it because they told me I should because I was good at math."

He was promoted quickly, but his heart wasn't in it. He was putting in the time, though. He'd gone nearly three years without a vacation when he decided he wanted to take two months off. The company said no, but he went anyway. They fired him.

Zelinski still wanted a job. He got an MBA and thought he might teach, but nothing came along. "I thought, 'Well, I could become a public speaker.' But you need credibility. A book gives you credibility. So in 1989 I did a book on public speaking.' "

Bingo, instant credibility. He made a living speaking but kept on writing, too. When he realized he could make a living writing, he stopped speaking. Less stress, more free time.

He also learned about and adopted the 80/20 principle, which says the first 80 percent of our productivity comes from the first 20 percent of our effort.

So a person could dispense with the 80 percent of effort that is mostly busywork and still do a good job.

Work smart, not hard. Tell your boss that, or your co-workers.

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, our society has been preaching industriousness as a moral virtue. People think they need to be busy all the time. But, Zelinski says, do the essential things well and forget the rest. Use the saved time to play with your kids or have coffee with a friend.

Maybe you'll make less money, but what's more important, money or time?

Zelinski did have that year when he was $30,000 in debt, when a cubicle started looking good, but he stuck it out.

That's easier for a single guy, but he says you can be responsible and still have balance. What good is a family, he asks in the book, if you never see it?

He's not anti-work, anti-stuff, or anti-money. It's just a matter of who's in control of your life — you or those other things.

Too many people, Zelinski says, sacrifice their present working toward a future when they'll be able to enjoy life. That future isn't guaranteed to anyone.

Everybody already knows this stuff, Zelinski admits, they just need to be reminded. They need someone with credibility to say it's OK. And Zelinski gets more credibility all the time.

By Jerry Large

Excerpted from the Seattle Times

Note: Check out:

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Vipbooks by Ernie Zelinski on The Library Thing