The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
What do you do? Tim Ferriss has trouble answering the question. Depending on when you ask this
controversial Princeton University guest lecturer, he might answer:
?I race motorcycles in Europe.?
?I ski in the Andes.?
?I scuba dive in Panama.?
?I dance tango in Buenos Aires.?
He has spent more than five years learning the secrets of the New Rich, a fast-growing subculture who has abandoned the ?deferred-life plan? and instead mastered the new currencies?time and mobility?to create luxury lifestyles in the here and now.
Whether you are an overworked employee or an entrepreneur trapped in your own business, this book is the compass for a new and revolutionary world. Join Tim Ferriss as he teaches you:
? How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
? How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
? How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
? How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and freuent "mini-retirements"
? What the crucial difference is between absolute and relative income
? How to train your boss to value performance over presence, or kill your job (or company) if it?s beyond repair
? What automated cash-flow ?muses? are and how to create one in 2 to 4 weeks
? How to cultivate selective ignorance?and create time?with a low-information diet
? What the management secrets of Remote Control CEOs are
? How to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50?80% off
? How to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office
You can have it all?really.
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich Accessories
 Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide
Simpleology: The Simple Science of Getting What You Want
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
The Magic of Thinking Big
The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies
Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel
Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week!
Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich Reviews
I assumed this meant that he must have amazing ability and be able to learn new skills very fast. I'm a cross country skier, and was a high school champion. If he can repeat it in another sport that doesn't have loopholes, I will reconsider listening to what he says. But then he explained how he did it: By exploiting the loopholes he found in the rules.
The advice he gave in the book is not unique. He did not even try to legitimately fight his opponents, instead he just pushed them out of the ring or something. There are dozens of other authors who say the same or similar things as Tim, but don't have to trick you into reading their book. Being an athlete myself, I was impressed and wanted to learn more.
Otherwise, I have to conclude that he took me for a ride early on in the book.
He grabbed my attention early on by saying he became the National Chinese kickboxing champion with only 4 weeks of preparation.
But for me, even that life will lose meaning if I don't base it on integrity.
This book seems to largely be built around the 'compelling' personality of the author, and if you take that part away the rest of the book becomes unimpressive, even unnecessary.
I don't think Tim could get away with this kind of trick in many sports.
I lost my faith in the author only a few pages into the book.
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I agree with what Tim is promoting - a life doing what you want, when you want.
If some huckster like Tim managed to win that race by somehow not putting forth any real effort, while the rest of us put in hundreds of hours of training each year, I don't think many of us would respect him.
Thank you for the opportunity to offer my feedback. It was a very positive experience. The book was shipped promptly and arrived in very good condition.
Get the book, read it, apply it, and then buy copies for your friends. - Time manage that focuses only on high value tasks. I just completed the 4 hour work week by Timothy Ferris not because as a senior manager I believe I could actually achieve a 4 hour work week, rather it was after reading Tim's blog that I became intrigued with many of his ideas and having a 14 hour flight to the US ahead of me I figured this would pass the time quickly. Timothy Ferris is a 29 year old who through exploitation of flaws in the system became a Tango champion and a Chinese Kickboxing champion.
There are plenty of examples of Tim's advice being applied for real success and if you can apply them in whole to your life there is an amazing new world that will open up to you. I am pleased say that I was impressed and the flight did go quickly. For me it was his advice on email and interruptions, which I tweaked slightly to fit my work environment, gibing me an additional two hours of productivity per day. - Setting up a self operating business. I really enjoyed this book and if you effectively applied any one of the following approaches he espouses in your daily life you will recoup the cost of the book a thousand times over:.
- Mini sabbaticals rather than the standard two week vacation. Being a bit of a self help junkie I have read many books in the genre because I recognize that there is always a chance to have a sliver of a take away that can be applied into my daily life with an immediate impact. If you take a serious look at how he accomplished both it can only be defined as "going ugly"; which isn't necessarily bad because it worked. - Outsourcing your life. Most of his techniques have little downside risk to your current job and one of the more salient pieces of advice is that you can always get another one.
- Avoiding busy work for the sake of working.
Apply the 80/20 rule to clients and activities. The book can be read in an hour or two; great plane reading. This book is certainly worth a read although it is more of a manifesto from a bit of a self-obsessed, vaguely doubtful character. 1. needed to put many of these ideas into action most can only read it and reflect. Email, the Internet and social networking can easily eat up 1/2 day of what could have been productive time). Less fear, more positive visualization. Because most people lack the freedom (kids, family, etc).
On the other hand if you actually enjoy your work and it's knowledge intensive the book is less valuable. Take your notes on the last page and tear it out so you can leave the book in the seat back for the next guy. (Not much new there). However if combined with some other ideas the book can be helpful. What the book really is useful for is developing interests and hobbies more effectively into sideline businesses. Outsource everything you can. (Practical advice. By applying the 4HWW methods to one or two of these it could make a positive difference.
Don't think in terms of limits and think big. We're working on a system that combines the GTD and 4HWW ideas into something that works well and is extensible (at least for us and our line of work where we have many projects). 4. Batch activities to be done at certain times. Don't manage time but eliminate all but the high-impact efforts. First of all the net:. It is possible to divide up some areas into projects that might lend themselves to the 4HWW approach but it takes some extra effort to figure it out.
(There are lots of details and resources on how to do this). 3. 2. Design a product you can sell online for $200 and a big enough margin to generate major profits. Don't check email all day.
I put the book down when I got to the line: "practice picking up girls in order to build your confidence - even if you're married". He assumes all his readers are men, and there are many "in jokes" at women's expense. Let me start by saying I'm an entrepreneur, running a profitable internet startup. The author's sexism was insufferable. The author neglects to mention that the vast majority of people who've achieved a 4 hour work week got there after years of working 70 hour work weeks. Now there's some really bad advice.
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