Leo Babauta is releasing his exclusive audio interview with Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek and famed liver of a simple but productive and exciting lifestyle.

Ferriss is famous for reducing his business hours down to the minimum required, putting much of it on autopilot, outsourcing a lot of work, cutting himself off from information overload, and freeing up most of his time to pursue his passions and travel the world.

His book has inspired thousands to make changes in their life, and it quickly rose on all the best-seller lists, including No. 1 on the N.Y. Times list.

Download the audio interview with Tim Ferriss (mp3)

In this interview, Leo and Tim talk about:

• What started him on the road to 4-Hour Workweek
• His biggest inspirations
• His daily routine (in detail)
• How he sets up his environment for writing
• Why it’s better to control environment than behavior
• How he figured out his most productive time of day
• How technology tools can make it easier to be distracted
• His trick for ensuring he focuses on important tasks
• His unproductive confessions
• How he motivates himself when he doesn’t feel disciplined
• What he has coming up in 2009, including his next book

Enjoy the interview!

Feel free to share it on your blog, via email, on forums, in social media, or however you like! (Click on the “Tell-a-friend” button below to easily share with friends.)

Also, please help spread the word by adding this page to your Delicious bookmarks or on StumbleUpon!

Leo Babauta is offering a Tip of the Day through Twitter — powerful tips to help you focus on the essential and get to less.

The tips so far:

1. Don’t make resolutions, create a new habit. It lasts longer. Try the New Year’s Challenge.
2. Start your New Year with a clear desk. Clear everything off the top of the desk but the essential tools.
3. Set one major goal for this year. Focus yourself completely into making it happen. Make it a mantra.
4. Take action TODAY to make your One Goal happen. Even a small action. Tomorrow: repeat.
5. Schedule time for yourself, right now. Every day if possible, even if it’s just 10 mins.
6. Practice effective focus. Spend 30 minutes just focusing on one task. Clear distractions. It gets easier.
7. Realize that you don’t need to respond to email right away-no one expects you to. It can wait! Checking email just twice a day is possible if you let go of the need to respond immediately.
8. To relax during times of stress or chaos, focus on 10 breaths. Pay attention as each breath comes in, and out.
9. Limit emails you send to reduce the flow and time spent on email. Try choosing just 5 essential msgs to send. (Or whatever number works best for you.)
10. Try 30 min patience sessions: don’t get mad or impatient with anyone/anything. It gets easier with practice.
11. To experience amazing levels of productivity, disconnect from the Internet for an hour.
12. Learn to be in the moment. When you eat, just eat. You’ll enjoy life more.
13. Make one small change in your diet at a time. Much easier than making a drastic overhaul of your diet.
14. Positive public pressure is a huge motivator. Tell as many people as possible about a goal or habit change.
15. If you spend a lot of time fiddling with your to-do/productivity app, try a simple notebook or text file. Then focus on doing.
    

Follow Leo on Twitter today to receive the daily tips!

Leo Babauta is releasing as a free audio download his recent interview with top productivity blogger and speaker Merlin Mann of the incredibly popular 43 Folders blog. Merlin is also known for his Inbox Zero series, his speeches on productivity, his video podcasts including the Merlin Show and MacBreak, and other creative work.

Download or listen to it here:

Leo Babauta Interviews Merlin Mann (mp3 – 20MB)

In this interview, Leo talks Merlin about:

• Some of his heroes and inspirations.
• How his daughter changed his conception of priorities.
• His new rule regarding his laptop.
• How many emails are in his inbox, and what matters more than that.
• What motivates him instead of fear, and how to stop from overworking.
• What direction his work will take in the next year or two.
• And in the end, Merlin turns the tables on Leo.

Enjoy the interview!

Feel free to share it on your blog, via email, on forums, in social media, or however you like! (Click on the “Tell-a-friend” button below to easily share with friends.)

Also, please help spread the word by adding this page to your Delicious bookmarks or on StumbleUpon!

The second in a series of four free audio tips podcasts made available here on ThePowerofLess.com:

Go to the download page (note: click through the link, don’t do a “save as”):

The Keys to Setting and Achieving Goals (mp3 download)

This podcast can be played on your computer, iPod or other media device. The podcast talks about:

• How taking on too many goals can lead to a cycle of failure and guilt.
• Simplify: Focus on one goal at a time.
• Why you should start small.
• Focus on that One Goal to completion.
• Breaking a goal into smaller goals.

Feel free to share it on your blog, via email, on forums, in social media, or however you like! (Click on the “Tell-a-friend” button below to easily share with friends.)

One other audio podcast tips has been released and two more will be released this week related to The Power of Less:

1. Office Zen: How to Focus on One Task at a Time. (released)
2. Taming Email: Tips on Finding Inbox Zen. (released)
3. Effective weight loss strategies. (soon to come!)

These topics and more are discussed in more depth in The Power of Less — for more information:

• The Book.
• Q&A with Leo Babauta.

You can order the book today:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Borders
• IndieBound

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” - Albert Einstein

A FREE download is available now: Leo Babauta has written a companion to The Power of Less — a free ebook called “THRIVING ON LESS: Simplifying in a Tough Economy“.

Thriving on Less: Simplifying in a Tough Economy (pdf format)

Feel free to share it on your blog, via email, on forums, in social media, or however you like! (Click on the “Tell-a-friend” button below to easily share with friends.)

Also, please help spread the word by adding this page to your Delicious bookmarks or on StumbleUpon!

From the introduction:

The recent economic recession has a lot of people worried, about their jobs, their businesses, their homes and their bills. When your income is dropping or in jeopardy and you still have a mountain of bills to pay, things can get pretty scary.

However, tough economic times do not have to be a time of struggles! If you look for the opportunity in the middle of difficulty, as Mr. Einstein suggested, then tough economic times become an opportunity to transform your life.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. A Simple Lifestyle
2. Focus on the Essentials
3. Thriving on Less, Not Struggling
4. Focusing on Enough, Not More
5. Make Small Financial Changes First
6. Look at Large Expenses for the Long Term
7. Changing Your Spending Habits
8. A Guide to Getting Out of Debt
9. Tools for a Frugal Life
10. Resources

Be sure to also check out:

• The Book: The Power of Less
• Audio podcast: How to focus on one task at a time
• Audio podcast: How to tame your email

The second in a series of four free audio tips podcasts made available here on ThePowerofLess.com:

Taming Email: Getting to Inbox Zen (mp3 download)

This podcast can be played on your computer, iPod or other media device. The podcast talks about:

• Why email is a great tool, but results in us doing more and more than ever before.
• Why you should control email instead of vice versa, and why the world won’t end if you don’t check email.
• Strategies for reducing the flow of emails.
• Strategies for handling the emails that do get to you after you reduce the flow.

Feel free to share it on your blog, via email, on forums, in social media, or however you like! (Click on the “Tell-a-friend” button below to easily share with friends.)

One other audio podcast tips has been released and two more will be released this week related to The Power of Less:

1. Office Zen: How to Focus on One Task at a Time.
2. Setting and achieving goals.
3. Effective weight loss strategies.

These topics and more are discussed in more depth in The Power of Less — for more information:

• The Book.
• Q&A with Leo Babauta.

You can order the book today:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Borders
• IndieBound

The first in a series of four free audio tips podcasts made available here on ThePowerofLess.com:

Office Zen: Focusing on One Task at a Time (mp3 download)

This podcast can be played on your computer, iPod or other media device. The podcast talks about:

• Why focusing on one task at a time is better than multitasking.
• How to clear away distractions and set up the perfect productive environment.
• How to practice staying focused and develop awareness.
• How to get rid of clutter and create a “desk sanctuary”.
• Other tips that have been proven to work.

Feel free to share it on your blog, via email, on forums, in social media, or however you like! (Click on the “Tell-a-friend” button below to easily share with friends.)

Also check out the three other audio podcast tips being released this week:

1. Taming Your Email: How to Reach Inbox Zen. (now available!)
2. Setting and achieving goals. (coming soon)

These topics and more are discussed in more depth in The Power of Less — for more information:

• The Book.
• Q&A with Leo Babauta.

You can order the book today:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Borders
• IndieBound

Recently Leo Babauta was interviewed about his book, The Power of Less … what follows are his answers:

Q: A few years ago you quit smoking, lost weight, created an extremely successful blog called Zen Habits, got out of debt, and began to truly enjoy your life. How did you do it?

A: I began simplifying my life when I realized that I was working too much and rarely got a chance to spend time with my family. It’s heartbreaking to miss school recitals or soccer games or not to see them before they go to bed at night because you’re working late. So I decided to change my life to make room for what’s important to me.

The most important thing is that I didn’t tackle all of these things at once. Simplification taught me to accomplish the really important tasks and projects in a smaller amount of time. I focused on doing things that would have the most impact and eliminated unimportant things from my schedule. I started with one habit at a time, as I talk about in THE POWER OF LESS, and focused my energy on that habit completely.

Q: THE POWER OF LESS is coming out just in time to help us through the recent financial crisis. What advice to do you have to readers who are facing tough economic times?

Three easy steps that readers can take right away:

1. Identify the essential and eliminate the rest: reevaluate your needs vs. wants and eliminate the wants;
2. Create a thirty-day list: When you want to buy something that’s not essential, put it on your thirty-day list with today’s date. A month later, reevaluate the purchase—you probably won’t want it; and
3. Avoid advertising: Eliminate emails with advertisements and discounts that might tempt you to buy things you don’t need. Advertising is proven to cause us to spend more.

The good news is that a simpler lifestyle doesn’t have to be difficult, if you focus instead on the things that are truly important to you: your loved ones, your passions and hobbies, the things that really make you happy. These things don’t have to cost much, and if we scale back our lives we actually have more time for the important things.

Q: New year, new you? So many people make and break New Year’s Resolutions each January. Why don’t these our best intentions lead to success, and what can we change to achieve our 2009 resolutions for once?

A: New Year’s Resolutions fail for two main reasons: 1) people try to do too much, and end up running out of steam a couple weeks into it, and 2) they don’t use effective principles to create a new habit. As a result, whatever effort they put into the resolution is wasted.

Instead, focus on changing one habit, and start small with an achievable goal. In the book I created THE POWER OF LESS Challenge: it’s a 30-day challenge where you commit to forming one new habit using the effective habit-change principles in the book, like committing publicly to family and friends. The key is to start small and take baby steps. Once a habit is firmly ingrained in your life, you can build on it to reach a heftier goal.

Q: These days, everyone’s proud of their ability to multitask. But why does it somehow feel like we have fewer and fewer hours in a day?

A: Multitasking has been synonymous with productivity for decades, and in the days before email and the Internet, perhaps that made sense. But these days, we are so overloaded with tasks and information that we have trouble concentrating on any single task. As a result, our lack of focus greatly decreases our effectiveness, and we end up running around like crazy, highly stressed out, without getting much done at the end of the day.

Instead, THE POWER OF LESS tells readers to single-task: focus on one important task at a time. Clear away distractions such as email, instant messaging, and your Internet browser. Put the full power of your attention on that single task until it’s completed. Then focus on the next task and do the same thing. Single-tasking takes practice, but it’s worth the effort for the sake of your work and your sanity.

Q: Your book shows readers how to become more effective by creating new habits, simplifying your work and home life, prioritizing, and maintaining focus. Where should readers begin?

A: The place to begin is always in identifying the essential. What is most important to you? Who and what do you love the most, and what do you want to really accomplish? By identifying the essential, we can figure out where to place our focus, and eliminate the rest. By simplifying, we make room for the essential, and start to create the life we really want.

Start by creating a Short List of your life’s essentials; this is the 4-5 things that are most important to you. Mine are spending time with my family, writing, reading and running. Once you’ve done that, pick one thing to focus on and start to create the habits necessary to make it a reality. Take small steps and focus on less to create a better life.

Q: One of the most compelling ideas in your book is finding “flow.” What is “flow?”

A: “Flow” is that state of mind that you get into when you lose yourself in a task. We’ve all done this from time to time: you are so immersed in doing something fun or interesting or intense that you forget about the world around you and lose track of time. Before you know it, an hour or three have gone by! Well, it turns out that “flow” has tremendous benefits: it makes you more effective and productive, it reduces stress, and it increases happiness in your life and with your work. Set yourself up for “flow” by focusing on things you’re passionate about, challenging yourself, and eliminating distractions. You’ll be setting yourself up for success.

Q: You encourage readers to report progress to friends, families, and online communities to stay on-track with their goals and commitments. Why?

A: One of the biggest motivations for accomplishing any goal is positive public pressure—the desire in all of us to do well in the eyes of others and to live up to our promises. If you only promise yourself, you’ll often let yourself off the hook and give up. But if you promise a lot of people—the more, the better—you won’t let yourself off so easy. No one wants to look bad, so we put even more energy into accomplishing the goal.

These communities can also provide much-needed encouragement and support during challenging times.

Interview Leo

If you’d like to do an interview with Leo Babauta, through email (preferred) or over the phone, please contact him: zenhabits [AT SYMBOL] gmail [DOT] com … with the words “interview leo” in the subject line to avoid spam filters.

Review Copy

Would you like a review copy of the book? See this page.

Music licensed via Creative Commons from Josh Woodward. Video created by Leo Babauta.

If you enjoyed this video, please share it with your friends, family and colleagues … or on your blog, Twitter, Facebook or other favorite social service! (Click on the “Tell-a-friend” button below to easily share with friends.)

More on THE POWER OF LESS:

• The Book
• The Author
• FAQs
• The Free Ebook: THRIVING ON LESS (coming soon)
• Free Audio Podcasts (coming soon)
• The New Year’s Challenge (coming soon)

NOW OPEN: THE POWER OF LESS New Year’s Challenge!

Leo Babauta challenges all readers to form a new habit for the New Year by focusing on one new habit for 30 days — just 10 minutes a day!

Challenge participants can sign up for free, and follow the effective habit-change principles in THE POWER OF LESS to create their new habit.

What habits can be formed in the challenge? Anything, including:

• daily exercise
• healthy eating habits
• waking early
• controlling spending
• saving
• becoming organized
• breaking bad habits
• and much more

The tools given to challenge participants will help them form the new habit if they follow the rules of the challenge.

Join the Challenge now!