Less is more.

5 important reminders on putting quality over quantity from author and investor Tim Ferris.

Success requires the ability to work smarter, not harder.

Building a product, running a business, and making corporate myths all have one thing in common.

They take focus.

In his breakout 2009 book, The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferris lays down five principles to help business owners, product makers, and marketers prioritize tasks so they can gain maximum impact from their efforts.

1. Stop being busy

It's easy to be busy. Just say yes to everything that comes your way.

Instead, Ferris says we should make thoughtful decisions about how we use our time.

Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective is the path of the productive.

— Tim Ferris, The 4-Hour Workweek

If you feel like you're out of time day after day, you're doing something wrong. Cut out some of that busyness and focus on your most important priorities.

What is the one thing you want to accomplish every day?

2. Take your time

We all complain about our lack of time. So much to do and so few hours in the day.

Ferris says don't get caught in the trap.

It’s easy to get caught in a flood of minutiae, and the key to not feeling rushed is remembering that lack of time is actually lack of priorities.

— Tim Ferris, The 4-Hour Workweek

It's better to get that one important thing done than respond to a million new requests.

3. Give up control

We can't do everything. And yet many business owners try.

If we're concerned about controlling every little aspect of our business, Ferris says we've failed.

Maximum income from minimal necessary effort is the primary goal.

— Tim Ferris, The 4-Hour Workweek

What can you give up? What can you delegate?

If you're feeling like you're spinning your wheels, take a good hard look at how you've structured your business. Will it fall apart without you?

I've got an idea. Start with delegating this.

4. Get over yourself

A lot of us have been trained to think that doing less is lazy. It's just not true.

The most successful people in the world figured out how to focus on just a few high-impact activities.

How do you think Michael Jordon got a shoe named after him?

It's how Speilberg became synonomous with director, Madonna with pop-star, and Hemingway with author.

Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness.

— Tim Ferris, The 4-Hour Workweek

5. Forget about the details

Before I started this blog, I wrote a lot of lists.

What software will I use to host and publish my articles? What type of content will I write? How will I reach my audience?

Give it up and get to work.

What you do is infinitely more important than how you do it.

— Tim Ferris, The 4-Hour Workweek

Once I realized that I wanted to simply tell stories about great marketing campaigns and products, it was easy to sit down and start writing. The rest of the pieces fell into place.

The point is, stop spending so much time figuring out the details.

Just get your product out there already.

— Mike Doane