The 4-Hour Work Week by
Tim Ferriss
Overall rating: 8/10
Will I re-read the book? Yes
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Overall thoughts:
The 4-hour work week is no doubt a very popular non-fiction book on personal growth and finance, and I only got the chance to read it in 2021, 13 years after it’s first been published. It is not difficult to tell that ideas (passive income, side hustle etc) trending on Youtube nowadays echo with the concepts in this book, which seemed novel back then.
Despite there are more resources on passive income and better work-life balance out there on the internet than 13 years ago, this book is still a good read. Reading a well-structured, concise book works more effectively for me than watching short Youtube videos that sum up to the total hours. Many ideas in the book are still relevant, if not more relevant, during post-COVID era. I did find some of the strategies mentioned are less relevant for me, since I work in tech and WFH (from anywhere) is a privilege that I willingly accept.
Overall I believe everyone who needs to make a living should read this book, with a grain of salt. Things might be applicable or not depending on the situation, but the out-of-box thinking of liberating from a day job will for sure bring value regardless of your status.
Step 1: D is for definition
New rich (NR) and deferrers:
NR’s goal is to do what excites them, not to reach an inactivity：
Cash flow first, big payday second
Be the owner, not the boss nor the employee
To have others work for you
Defining the goal:
dreamlining.
Step 2: E is for elimination
I learned from Jake Knapp that there is a fine line between being productive and being effective. Productivity is how much work produced in a unit time, while effectiveness focuses on how much impact is produced.
Tim talked about the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency cares about the most economical manner, which might include time, money, and other resources. Some people look to maximize productivity, and it’s one of the methods of maximizing efficiency. Effectiveness is a much better word, because it takes the overall impact into consideration, not focusing on a unite time, i.e. the metric to be optimized is at a higher level and this prevents short-sighted local optimization.
Parkinson’s Law states that the time required to perform a task tends to extend to all the time available to perform it. We have all experienced procrastinating a term paper for two weeks and eventually put it off for just two nights. A 9-5 job gives you 8 Hours a day to stretch the work, and even an illusion that all the work you can do is important (typing manually vs using Python to crawl the web).
Step 3: A is for Automation
Get a virtual assistant to deal with admin work, and remember to automate their workflow first.
Income autopilot:
Step 1: pick an affordable reachable nice market
Step 2: Brainstorm products
Option 1: Resell a product
Option 2: License a product
Option 3: Create a product
Test market response without manufacturing, and if the test is successful, proceed to manufacturing. Information product (digital product) is low-cost and has low marginal cost of duplicating.
Don’t sweat if you’re not an expert: you only need to know more about the topic than the purchaser. Automate and be prepared to leave the equation.
Step 4: L is for liberation
I shared 6 things I learned during my 6-month mini-retirement. Honestly I had no idea it was called a “mini-retirement” when I left my job.
Tim’s idea is instead of working 80-hours a week for 10 years before taking a proper “vacation”, it would be healthier to take month-long trips to places that would cost the same as a 2-week vacation.
This circles back to defining the goal and optimizing the right metrics. If the goal is to take a vacation that brings calm and joy, then there’s no need to wait for 10 years before doing so. If the goal is to have one luxury experience, you can probably do it already. Experience doesn’t cost as much as a lifestyle. If the goal is to have all that while maintaining a good financial status, then you should probably work very smartly and accumulate financial power.
But at least have a taste of it before putting down 30 years and potentially realize it’s not what you really want when it’s too late.