Alan Krueger’s 2007 Positive Psychology Summit presentation–entitled “Time Use and Well-Being”– described how self-reported mood varies amongst activities. He discussed how mood changes as people commute, eat, work, spend time with family, etc. Sex was conspicuously missing from the activities list, but I have a good idea of where it would have appeared. Though interesting, most people would probably have difficulty making use of these data; most of the people wrapped up in our rapidly globalizing economy have less and less control over how they spend their time.

However, an assumption-questioning, barely-thirty, best-selling CEO is determined to arm people with the flexibility necessary to change this. I finished reading Tim Ferriss’ riveting monograph–The Four Hour Work Week–a few months ago. The details of his time-saving prescriptions are out of scope, but I encourage those interested to check it out. Ferriss basically asserts that the labor model designed for manufacturing Model T’s is obsolete if you’re manufacturing iPods, that a surprising number of assumptions about work from the days of Model T’s are still the modus operandi, and that you can forego these assumptions to free up massive amounts of time.

Most of his suggestions sounded risky, but they were too intriguing to ignore. So, I decided to take the plunge and test some of Ferriss’ prescriptions. My preliminary conclusions are: a) his suggestions are extremely risky and b) Ferriss’ suggestions lack essential details regarding the micro-testing needed to minimize risks associated with his prescriptions. I’m convinced, however, that his suggestions could be effective if there were appropriate risk management strategies in place.

And now, the obligatory 2008 resolution. A few blog posts from now, I hope to be able to provide a blueprint–a series of detailed steps that will allow people to identify and micro-test the types of strategies that Ferriss suggests in Four Hour Work Week. By mid-2008, I hope to be able to provide step-by-step instructions for using some of the most cutting-edge time-saving techniques available, without the massive risks that are associated with these techniques, so that more people can spend more of their time doing the things that are closer to the top of Kreuger’s activity list.

Stay tuned.