Comments on: Are You Addicted to Power Porn?

By: tyler

tyler — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:24:54 +0000

this article offers a very unique perspective

By: Josh Kaufman

Josh Kaufman — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:27:21 +0000

Amity – way to go! Kudos to you for doing an experiment that yielded real-life results; learning about something and applying it are two different things, and the latter is far more valuable.

By: Amity

Amity — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:20:11 +0000

Hi all, I read this post on 20-May and decided to give it a try. Since then, I’ve read following books and virtually no newspaper/mag.
The Definitive Drucker
The Essential Drucker
Never eat alone
Think and grow rich
Science of Getting rich
Winning
What makes a leader

Trust me, life is much better without news, only problem is now I’ve got nothing to discuss at dinner table except business and self development principles.

I think its worth it because I’ve been getting – OMG this guys knows something (nonverbal looks) which feels great. Thanks J

By: Paul Derham

Paul Derham — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:48:26 +0000

Great website. I just found it and have just added it to my blog subscription list.

The irony of this article is that I’m currently listening to Branson’s audio-book “Losing my Virginity” and contemplating (just today) whether spending a full hour each day in my typically 10-11 hour working day on self-development stuff, is worth it.

It is. I agree with you, Josh, that the real issue is filtering out the signal to noise ratio, to maximise that time. There’s looooots of noise out there, probably including this comment (for some people).

An example of keeping the noise down, is blog subscriptions. Now that I’ve subscribed to this one, I’ve got to axe another off my list – maximum of 5 subscriptions for me!

I touched on this issue in a recent blog about stupid bodylanguage tips – http://visionadvancement.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/stupid-body-language-tips-from-the-world%E2%80%99s-top-5-articles/

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:29:28 +0000

Having been a business information addict all of my adult life, I must admit that the best bit of all of this are summed up so well in the initial bullet points do it all for me, especially the first one:

It’s amazing how quickly you make progress once you decide to stop comparing yourself to / trying to be like other people. They aren’t you.

Mark

By: Taiyo

Taiyo — Sun, 24 May 2009 00:48:30 +0000

I was going to make a comment like Brian’s just to razz you Josh, but he beat me to it

Certainly the pmba is NOT business porn.

But the danger of wasting valuable time on news and magazines (and blogs) is very real. There are even a few business books that touch on it. A book that mentions (actually uses the term) “business porn” is A Good Hard Kick in the @$$: Basic Training for Entrepreneurs. It was making a similar point.

This article also reminds me of Tim Ferriss’s “elimination” section in 4 Hour Workweek. I just recently re-read it and resolved to limit the time I spend looking into every new idea (a bad habit of mine).

Just like you mentioned before about not watching tv (I’m also tv-free), news and magazines are time stealers.

We all have to make our own way (based on our passion), that requires output and not so much input.
(1) figuring out what type of life you want to live, (2) making a plan to move toward that kind of life

By: Dmitriy

Dmitriy — Sat, 23 May 2009 03:53:46 +0000

Mea culpa. I’m addicted to business porn myself.
For me it’s Fortune, Kiplinger, BusinessWeek and Bloomberg. I’ve thinking about quitting cold turkey ever since I started reading PMBA books. A chapter in the majority of PMBA books easily outweighs 3 months worth of reading all my business mags.
Magazines are good for keeping up with current news, not learning lifelong business concepts.

By: Joshua R. Poulson

Joshua R. Poulson — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:53:56 +0000

Amity hit it on the head. There are competing interests at play here. One is that appropriate time management is a mainstay of executive effectiveness. The other is that “systems thinking” requires information outside your normal work/life to add perspective and insight. Nurture your perspective by focusing what you read to articles that discuss how things work and what the concerns of other companies are, because these folks may be your customers or suppliers or employers some day. I go through cycles of finding new sources and reading voraciously then trimming them down to get the “good parts”.

By: Josh Kaufman

Josh Kaufman — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:18:32 +0000

Brian - to clarify: I'm not saying that all magazines are worthless. It sounds like you're using magazines exactly for what they're good for - finding new ideas or interesting people, then doing something in the real world with that information. All I'm saying is that it pays to be mindful of the signal to noise ratio. I personally found that the periodicals didn't add much real value, so I redirected my time and energy towards things that were. Tom - in my experience, books tend to be better organized and researched than magazines, so you can delve more deeply into a subject. Information-focused magazines are great for getting exposure to new ideas. As Abby Marks-Beale and I discussed, you can go through books in roughly the same time as magazines if take the time to learn how. Amity - excellent strategy; very wise approach.

By: Amity

Amity — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:03:26 +0000

I am not going to criticize or give my opinion, like other monkeys.
I am going to try this out for next 2 weeks and see what happens.
Action plan -
Max 10 minutes on newspaper & mag.
Biz books – everything I can find about Peter Drucker & Jack Welch.
More social interactions and discussions about the subject.
AND
I wont stop reading this blog, because its the ’source’ for inspiration.