Учебное пособие: English in business

4 Can Cary Cooper improvise easily when communicating with people?

5 Does Cary like to share his views with other people?

6 Do you agree that Cary Cooper is the guru on work-life balance?

7 Can Cooper type fast?

8 Is the family important for Cooper?

9 What can stimulate Cary Cooper?

10Can we say that Cooper is a well-known person?

TIMOTHY FERRIS, author of The 4-Hour Workweek and owner of a dietary-supplement business.

Timothy Ferris claims you can run a global company and do all your work in four hours a week - if you want to. One way is to outsource most of your life. Ferris uses service providers for more than just to help run his dietary-supplement business, Brain-QUICKEN. According to his bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek (Random House, ISBN 978-0-307-35313-9), he has also outsourced private jobs to an Asian company called "Your Man in India". Asha, his contact there, has paid his bills and bought toys for his son. He once even wrote an e-mail to Ferris's wife when she was angry with Timothy, who also outsourced our interview request to his book publicist. The author is tango dancing in Buenos Aires - so instead of an interview, the publicist refers us to his book.

"Most of us work like hell to save for a future dream," writes the crusader of living-for-now. He says an investment banker friend once said that, if he worked an 80-hour week for nine years, he could become an MD(managing director) and make up to $10 million a year. "Dude, what would you do with that money?" Ferris asked him. "take a trip to Thailand," the

banker answered. "Guess what?" writes Ferris in his book. "You can do that for less than $3,000!"

Ferris himself takes many "mini-retirements" a year, when he combines a burning interest with a destination. So, for example, when he lived in Rio de Janeiro, he learned Portuguese and Brazilian jujitsu, and while he was in Hong Kong he even acted in a very popular television series.

Ferris says the concept of working nine to five is totally arbitrary. "It means we have to plan things to keep us busy all day." To manage his time, he applies the 80/20 "Pareto principle", which says that 80 per cent of results flow from only 20 per cent of inputs. "I found out that only five of 120 wholesales customers were ordering regularly and bringing in 95 per cent of revenues. Yet I was spending 98 per cent of my time chasing the remainder. All of my problems came from this unproductive majority." Ferris also takes note of Parkinson's Law, which says that the more time you have to finish a task, the longer it takes.

It may be too early to say the young Ferris has found work-life heaven: his life has been filled with crazy, failed initiatives. But his time-saving ideas are worth noting. One of the top tips in this day of information overkill is never to read a newspaper, but to outsource this task, too. "I ask people what's new, and the do the job for me," he says.

5 Complete the sentences below:

1Timothy Ferris runsbusiness.

2Timothy wrote a bestseller "".

3Timothy is sure that one good way to manage time is toto other people.

4Timothy's friend had a dream

5Ferris has a rest from his business

6Timothy doesn't take the conceptas obligatory for everyone.

7Pareto principle says that

8Ferris found out that onlybrought him 95 per cent of revenues.

9from unproductive majority.

10is never to read a newspaper.

6 Comment on the word combinations which you came across when reading three stories. Go back to the context to explain and illustrate:

To have a reflective mood, step-children, at one stage, clockwork, to detox, to declutter, to process input fast, to talk off the cuff, to outsource, dietary-supplement, to combine a burning interest with a destination, the concept of working nine to five, information overkill.

7 The table below contains a list of personal time-management recommendations and tips coming from Penny Ferguson, Cary Cooper and Timothy Ferris. Read all three lists, think and say:

Whose list fits you personally the best?