Efficiency Hacks

Efficiency Hacks are simple things you can do daily, hourly, weekly, or yearly. Below are short stories and tips to help you become more efficient in every aspect of your life.

Nothing Starts Off Perfect. Start Now and Perfect Later

When have you ever started something new in your life? A new job, a new relationship, a new eating habit. Did you start all of these things flawlessly and perfectly? I doubt it. If you did, you are a rare and fortunate individual. If you are like me then things likely started off pretty bumpy with a lot of mistakes, setbacks, and hurdles to overcome.

Hacking your job– and your life– is just like starting a new career or habit. It is going to feel weird and uncomfortable at first. You might lose money in the beginning. You might feel like you’re not being productive. You might even just feel generally awkward. That’s the point. It’s okay to feel this way. Nothing in life starts off perfect, Just get started and perfect it later.

Successful people always talk about how they found something they were passionate about and figured it out. Elon Musk hardly knew anything about electric cars or rockets when he started Tesla and SpaceX, but he perfected it and figured it out as he went.

Little Machines to Hack Your Life

I would assume you have likely seen a Rube Goldberg machine either in person, online, or on TV. If not, a Rube Goldberg machine is a contraption– invented by engineer turned cartoonist Reuben Goldberg– that uses a chain reaction to carry out a task.

The reputation of a Rube Goldberg machine is to carry out a very simple task through many unnecessary steps and stages…that is not what I am telling you to do with your life. It’s the complete opposite actually. I am trying to convey a simple way for me to explain that you need to incorporate small steps and machines to carry out small hacks in your life. Make your businesses like a Rube Goldberg machine.

I learned to cheat the system using things like AI, online manuals, and set standards to complete tasks whether they were difficult or simple. Developing your business around machines (especially AI) is crucial to hacking your job and your business. Let’s all be realistic, the main inefficiencies within a corporate structure are all directly tied to the imperfections of humans. I fully understand the imperfections of machines as well, however the imperfections within humans seem to be slightly more obvious, especially within inefficient systems like companies, organizations, and business empires.

Machines, and AI in particular, are the wave of the future– whether you want to admit it or not– and you need to jump on board and hack your life with these little machines.

Is a Fear of Outsourcing Keeping you from Attaining Your Goals?

We’ve all heard some form of the old adage, “Why hire someone when I can do it myself?” I know I’ve heard my dad say that my entire life– and while I will admit, my dad can fix anything you put in front of him– I can see the places in his life that are lacking because of stubbornness or the unwillingness to allow someone else to do something.

On the surface I totally get it. All of our lives we have been conditioned to save money at any lengths possible. Until we started this book I would not have batted an eye at anyone that told me to save money by doing something on my own. However, that is why ‘Hack Your Job’ is such a revolutionary and eye-opening book; it challenges your pre-conditioned views of what success is and how to attain it.

Outsourcing is a key feature of ‘Hack Your Job’ and the depth of research within the book proves that spending money to outsource small and mid-sized projects positively affects attaining goals within a project.

For example, if I had not outsourced a ghostwriter to finish writing this book for me, the book would have never been completed. I had multiple other projects going and trying to juggle them all on my own was noticeably taking its toll on me and the potential success of each project.

I am now able to directly attribute much of the success of the book to outsourcing by freeing up my time and allowing me to focus on getting the cover designed, edit the ghostwriter, and come up with any new ideas I might have missed before I hired a ghostwriter. Stop letting ‘saving money’ get in the way of your goals.

The Corporate Power Shift

Since 2020, the objective power shift in the US– and around the globe for that matter– is becoming more and more apparent. I believe history will look back on this time period and realize that there was a subtle, yet highly impactful shift in the way Americans work and the way we view the hierarchy of employment.

Pre-pandemic, one in every thirty jobs listed online were remote jobs, that number as of 2023 was one in every seven jobs is remote according to wusf.org. As Gen Z and Millennials become a more prominent sector of the job force, I believe we will see a rise in these numbers as this age bracket tends to put a larger focus on quality of life and where it sits in terms of importance for them.

However, I also believe that it isn’t necessarily based on what many perceive as “laziness” or “lack of work ethic,” but rather a larger understanding of the personal importance of earning time and freedom– and also understanding it is the most important form of currency. As I have explained in many of these blogs and throughout “Hack Your Job,” learning how to use the system to your advantage is a massive benefit for you.

As we sit in this power shift, there has never been a better time for you to leverage yourself in your career. Yes, I am telling you to take advantage of the current corporate structure and do everything possible to work remotely. If I was able to finagle myself into a position to work from home as an engineer, then almost anyone can position themselves to work from home.

Employers are extremely understanding these days of working from home, so why not shoot your shot? Have a respectable, well-planned and thought-out discussion with your boss/supervisor, and see how you can begin working remotely. Remember, working remotely can even be two or three days per week. A great plan would be to ask your bosses for a possible trial run. If you can work remotely for two days per week for one month and prove you’re more productive, you’re more likely to get what you asked for!

The trick is to be disciplined enough to work when you know you need to work. I always tried to schedule things on a daily basis to compartmentalize my productivity. In this stage your current job should always take priority and the other things you’re working on will follow.

The power shift is in full swing. It is up to you to use the tools I’m giving you to take advantage of this power shift. Be brave and talk to your bosses about it. This is the future of the workplace as well as the future of our society.

Here's One of the Many Ways to Hack Your Travel

As I was writing "Hack your Job," I was always looking for different ways to hack anything and everything. Hacking is addictive! Pictured to the left is one of the many ways I began to hack my hotel and hack my travel.

I devised a way to fit almost an entire kitchen into a backpack! I have a coffee maker, skillet, stove top, and a water boiler that fit perfectly into the backpack pictured to the left!

When I was first learning how to perfect hacking my job, I was traveling everywhere all over the Northeastern United States. This created the perfect scenario for me to teach others how to hack their travel. I had a van that I could easily live out of while being able to get my work done and travel wherever I wanted.