Tim Ferriss is the author of the bestseller The 4-Hour Work Week. I confess to being a regular visitor to his blog and find much of his writing inspirational.

If you would benefit from becoming more productive read his post The Practicality of Pessimism: Stoicism as a Productivity System. It features a 5 minute presentation in which he discusses what he considers to be the two most effective productivity techniques that he’s found since 2004. Considering the amount of success he’s achieved, it’s well worth considering the question he raises about whether defining your fears could be more important than defining your goals.

His blog provides plenty of motivational material which all falls under the umbrella of his aptly named ‘Experiments in Lifestyle Designs’. Instead of finding a niche to work in Tim has managed to create his own and when you watch his videos or read his writing you can see why!

David Risley who I referred to earlier in my post about Self Promotion Enthusiasts, is another good writer who likes to ‘tell it how it is’. His blog talks about his passions and lifestyle design through the use of the Internet. This lifestyle design thing is pretty big hey! Even though he says so himself, David does seem to have a great balance of knowledge in marketing, blogging and using social media.

Both Tim Ferriss and David Risley provide plenty of food for thought for anyone keen to shape their lifestyle design. They use the incredible power of the internet to convey their approach to online marketing and thoughts about life.

You know The Kind of Person

One of the things that I personally find annoying in the world of online marketing is the large number of people who seem to focus on shouting continuously about their own products, services or get-rich-quick schemes without ever offering any real value to their victims (readers).

There’s nothing wrong with promoting your own products or with a measured amount of self promotion, but people who try to reach the masses and do nothing but harp on about their latest ‘good thing’, tend to send me running in the opposite direction.

On The Other Hand

In contrast to these self promotion enthusiasts, people who provide good value by offering helpful information, or people who show an interest in trying to help solve other peoples problems tend to draw me towards them like a magnet.

When I find someone who provides great content about a subject that interests me, or information that helps me to overcome a hurdle, I feel inclined to try and find what they have to offer and often catch my credit card starting to sneek out of my pocket.

Getting Rid of The Dead Wood

I was inspired to weed out some of the people who over practise the art of self promotion by David Risley who has a very cool blog. I’ve had great pleasure in deleting contacts on the various networks. You know the kind of people, those who just about stop short of spamming.

I’ve also started a little experiment where I send a message to these self promoting enthusiasts expressing an interest in their product, service or opportunity. Then record how long it takes them to get back to me. Many of them are so busy promoting that I don’t think they notice my buying signals and fail to respond. Most of the others just send another message full of sales copy, HOW INVITING!