Ebook Review: Source Control

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I would like to preface this review with the fact that this is the FIRST product review I have ever done on this site.  This is mostly due to the reason that I don’t want to review anything I can’t stand behind 100%.  There ARE affiliate links in this post, but don’t feel any pressure to use them.  I wouldn’t recommend anything I don’t fully believe in, and I truly feel that this is very valuable information.

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Over the last few months I have always been impressed by the quality of blog posts coming from David Walsh’s site Muse Life.  It seems like everything he says is directly aimed at me, and it carries the weight of a freight train as I am always reminded that I could be doing things a different (better) way.  Along with this I have seen snippets of information about his upcoming M6 Creator, as well as his ebook on outsourcing.  Needless to say, I was more than excited when I received an email asking me to give the ebook a read and respond with my thoughts.

After reading all 160 pages of Source Control, I couldn’t be more impressed.  David’s book takes concepts that were first made popular in Tim Ferris’ 4 Hour Work Week (4HWW), and expands upon them.  After the release of 4HWW, everyone was getting excited about the concept of hiring  a virtual assistant (VA).  This basically entails hiring someone else to do all of the things you don’t like doing in your life, thus enabling you to focus on the things that will add the most value to your goals.  Things you can have a VA do range from paying your bills, to coding websites, to proofreading copy.  The possibilities are endless.

Whereas 4HWW mentioned the idea outsourcing, it really didn’t provide the tools necessary to effectively apply the concept.  This is were Source Control truly shines.  David walks you through step by step what outsourcing is, why it is beneficial, and how you can apply it to your life to start saving you time and money.

What sets this apart from many other similar books is the passion that he exudes in his writing.  You can tell that David genuinely cares about the stuff he is talking about, and the result is a very engrossing final product.   I read the entire thing in one sitting, and that isn’t something I do very often.

From Source Control:

“There is something you love, something you would choose over all else.  Each day offers us 24 hours to do with as we please. Sleep demands some of it, but time sleeping need not be time lost.To live extraordinary lives, we need to own our hours. The fewer hours we control, the less fulfilled we’ll be.  If we want to own our time fully, we need to stop doing worthless things. The act of doing doesn’t make it important. Being the person that does it doesn’t make it important. To stop doing something ourselves, we need to eliminate it or enable someone else to do it.  Always seek to eliminate first. If it’s not possible, we remove ourselves from the process.  To enable someone else, we need to unpack the strategies we use to perform. It’s often rather unconscious.  Once we know what we do and how we do it, we need to find others to do it for us.  To find the right person, we have to look in the right places and ask the right questions.  After we have someone, we simply communicate our needs and oversee the process.  All of this must be done systematically and without consuming more time than it reclaims.  It’s time to do this, and do it right. Your fleeting time hangs in the balance … and that’s a loss you can never recoup.”

There aren’t many flaws in this ebook, however the one thing I would have liked to see more of were case studies.  To have a few more practical application situations to help us relate to the idea of outsourcing, would have been beneficial.  I talked about this with David and he is well aware of this fact.  His goal was to get all of the most important “how-to” details out, and there will be follow up case studies on his blog Muse Life.  However, don’t get me wrong this is a very minor downside, as there are still plenty of personal tales of his experiences with outsourcing.

Bottom line, if you are currently working for yourself, our have a goal of working for yourself in the future, the content here will make you completely rethink how you do things.  One of the most important things David touches on is the fact that location independence DOESN’T equal freedom.  There is no difference between working 50 hours a week in a Scranton office park, or a Thai bungalow, aside from the fact you will probably resent your job even more from the bungalow.  This whole book is about creating a system to allow you to get more done in less time, and that is something that you can’t put a price on.

If you wish to purchase Source Control, you can buy it here.

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