The US pioneer of lifestyle design, Tim Ferriss, says it is possible to escape the nine-to-five grind and end up happier and better off financially as a result.

Mr Ferriss, a guest lecturer in entrepreneurship at Princeton University, has developed an ideology that rejects the traditional structure of working life and encourages people to develop their own rules.

In his best-selling book, The 4-Hour Workweek , he shares life-changing strategies that allow people to cut out the noise of modern life and focus on the critical tasks only.

Albert Pope from financial services giant UBS had this to say about Mr Ferriss: “Tim is Indiana Jones for the digital age. Simply put, do what he says and you can live like a millionaire.”

Most people have resigned themselves to a nine to five grind in exchange for a relaxing weekend, but Mr Ferriss said you can escape this pattern.

“The four-hour work week is possible but you need to completely unplug and reset,” Mr Ferris said.

So, how is it done?

GET YOUR PRIORITIES IN ORDER

Mr Ferriss said it’s important to figure out what your priorities are to maximise efficiency.

He even advocates setting a not-to-do list to cut out tasks that waste time and don’t matter.

In a recent Huffington Post article, Mr Ferriss provided his key tips on how to be more productive and efficient at work:

1. Wake up at least one hour before you have to be at a computer screen. E-mail is a mind killer.

2. Make a cup of tea.

3. Write down three to five things that make you most anxious or uncomfortable. They’re usually things that have been left over from yesterday’s to-do list.

4. For each item, ask yourself: “If this were the only thing I accomplished today, would I be satisfied with my day?” and “Will moving this forward make all the other to-dos unimportant or easier to knock off later?”

5. Pick an item where you answered “yes” to at least one of the questions and devote two to three hours uninterrupted to focus on one of them for the day.

“Cut out the static, all the things that consume time and income without contributing back and focus on the critical few. You’ll find that very few things matter,” Mr Ferriss said.

STOP THE INTERRUPTIONS

Allowing yourself to be contactable 24-7 through email, mobile phones and social media is a barrier to productivity.

“Giving everyone around you, every person in the world immediate access to you is inviting interruption and inviting minutia to completely invade you life, which is happening to everyone,” Mr Ferriss said.

One simple way to address this is to take control of your emails.

“Email is the single largest acceptable interruption in modern life and it's a very convenient way of simulating forward motion without accomplishing anything,” Mr Ferriss said.

To get on top of your emails, he suggests people set up an auto-response, similar to one you would set when you go on holidays that says something like this: “I will be checking email twice a day at 11am and 4pm. If you require a more urgent response before one of those two times, call my mobile.”

This easy step has the power to set you free.

“This gives you the breathing room finally to … focus on completing the mission-critical tasks, the critical few, from start to finish without interruption,” Mr Ferris said.

THE BUSINESS OF BUSY-NESS

Mr Ferriss has some harsh home truths for people who describe themselves as busy. He tells them to put these two statements onto a Post-It:

1. Being busy is a form of laziness, lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.

2. Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.

OUTSOURCE YOUR LIFE

Mr Ferriss swears by outsourcing tedious and time consuming tasks.

He encourages people to use virtual personal assistants through sites such as Ask Sunday, who can schedule doctor’s appointments, make dinner reservations or even do your Christmas shopping for minimal cost.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Mr Ferriss says people need to train their bosses not to confuse your presence at work with good performance at work. If you can train your boss to value performance over presence you can trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”.