The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

I am a first time reviewer. I don't know Tim. I only know his book. That there are so many first time reviewers speaks volumes about the book. That said, here is my review: It took a kid to get the grown-ups to acknowledge what everyone knew to be true: the emperor was naked. Tim Ferriss is a kid relative to most other "self-help" authors but, like the young boy in the fable, his simple, uncluttered collection of "information we already know" more explicitly and successfully states the truth: our idea of achievement that requires a slavish obsession with working ourselves into the ground is a naked religion. Success is joy. Few books have the potential to inspire passion and fuel personal revolutions. The 4-Hour Workweek is one of them. This book speaks the common yearning to be liberated from the punishing work habits that our society has convinced us are compulsory for success. In simple, often humorous, terms, Tim Ferriss tells us how most of us lie to ourselves about why and how we work and shows us how we can become free. The modern age promised to bring freedom to humanity. Automation would liberate us from the drudgery of many common tasks, allowing us to complete our work with lightening speed, reserving the rest of our time for leisure. Like millionaires who can afford servants to do the drudgery, the common person would be able to forget the mundane and engage in the profound, to travel, to explore, and most importantly, to be free of worry. Unfortunately, we humans forgot about freedom and became slaves to our machines. Machines increased productivity and the availability of things. We reacted by convincing ourselves that we had to have them all to be satisfied and so became slaves to the jobs we believed necessary to obtain those things. More recently, email and cell phones, which were intended to increase productivity and communication, did so by making us instantly accessible and required us to be instantly responsive at any time of the day or night. Cable television and the Internet also increased communications and the flow of information, but also resulted in an information bombardment that left us catatonic, unable to disengage, yet unable to absorb it all. The result? At the end of our working lives - many times not by our own choice but because of downsizing and outsourcing -- exhausted and demoralized, we cannot enjoy the delayed gratification that has been our beacon of light, our holy grail, for so many years. Tim Ferris has the audacity to set the whole paradigm on fire in order to illuminate its true nature. Tim questions our assumptions about what progress is and what progress has done for us by highlighting the terrific costs we have imposed on ourselves. With gleeful delight Tim opens our eyes to the fact that we have become the cyborgs, less human rather than more. In a clear, step-by-step fashion, he presents elegant concepts and applies them to life in practical ways that have profound results. He reminds us that "the opposite of happiness is not sadness but boredom" and employs Pareto's 80/20 principle to demonstrate how we can identify those aspects of our lives that hold us back from being happy. He urges us to understand that life is not about the acquisition of things for later enjoyment, life is about happiness, fulfillment in the present, rather than in some un-promised future. Unfettered by useless jargon and overly academic presentation, Tim demonstrates how we can return to sanity and achieve happiness by finally becoming masters over the technology that was supposed to free us. He challenges us to give ourselves permission to quit the rat race and rejoin the human race. These ideas are not entirely new, but Tim's particular expression of them is like sparkling water to the parched souls of millions who now labor incessantly to achieve success yet yearn to quench their thirst for freedom. You don't have to be a millionaire to live a millionaire lifestyle, Tim says. Do you have a dream? Live it now.

This book provides a completely new way of looking at your job and potential residual income. It's a guide to help you shift your focus to your residual income which can set you free. Our school system teaches kids that, until they're in their late teens or early 20s, they're going to spend their days in school and college. These habits of showing up and punching the clock (via attendance) are so ingrained by this point in life that few question whether there's another realistic option. And adults go into jobs that perpetuate this cycle of clocking in early in the morning and checking out late in the evening. Timothy Ferris shows that it is indeed possible to escape this rat race. He shows a clear step-by-step plan to do so. And it's there for the taking if you're bold enough to grab the steering wheel of your life. This is quite a comprehensive book discussing everything from your job transition to your travel, and how to set up your company and manage it without taking too much financial risk. He talks about guarding your time, which I believe is one of the most valuable points in the book. He mentions throughout the book strategies to reduce getting caught up in time-wasting activities such as meetings, spending too much time on email at the wrong times, or wasting time on phone calls. He details out his techniques to keep distracting people on the sidelines while he's living his life and doing the things that his heart desires. This book is an instruction manual for escaping the rat race. It's somewhat of a memoir, and a work in progress, of how he's doing it. He has examples throughout the book of how different people have applied his principles and changed their lives. He included a few people who had kids, which is great because a lot of people will use that excuse as a reason to not be able to do what he's doing. He's so open in the book revealing how he takes care of many personal matters in his life, even down to giving his travel checklist and his preferred brand of underwear, relevant for people who want to travel light. He's probably one of the world's most eligible bachelors. That is, if he's willing to let someone get any time on his calendar? I like him. I'd love to run into him in a coffee shop in a foreign country and have some time to just chat with him. He warns that some people really don't know what to do if they aren't working. This is a vital component of the book. He's going full-force at experiencing life in different cultures and getting involved in many different activities that give him new life experiences and perpetuate more new ways of thinking. It's important to know what to do when you are free. Otherwise you just have a vacuum of time which can feel like a boring retirement, where you're available, but all your friends and family are at work. I'm a writer, so I wasn't interested in setting up another company, but he also addresses intellectual property and its intrinsic value. Despite the fact that I don't want to set up a product-based business, many of his strategies are completely applicable and I've begun to apply the techniques right away. Yesterday, I choose to schedule a quick phone call instead of an in-person meeting when the in-person meeting would have been much more time-consuming, for example. He reminded me that I really need to guard my writing time. I certainly can't spin out books on 4 hours a week, but I could if I were willing to farm out the writing activity. He gave me a whole new appreciation for time and what I do each day of my life. If you're not satisfied with your work, or if you're searching for more ways to expand your income and free up your time, this book will be well worth your time. It's urgent for parents to put their kids in a different situation if they don't want them to get caught up in the same rat race that hasn't been fulfilling for them. If they change their own happiness level, it will certainly inspire their family and everyone they know as well. I love the title--The 4-Hour Workweek. At first it seems so absurd, like how could anyone do that? Yet after I read the book, I have tremendous respect this man who is the architect of his own freedom. And he shares his path for others who want to follow.

The title of this book was the first thing to grab my attention and it was recommended read on a podcast I was listening to. I'll be honest, Ferris' journey was extreme and I'm sure it is mush easier to take the steps he did when you have a few million dollars in your bank account as he did. That said, he does raise some really thought provoking questions of priorities and self-imposed limitations, it really did stop to make me think why, when I actually have the means, was I not doing at least some of the things I thought that I would do if I won the lottery? A thought that led to me booking a fabulous exotic holiday, moving house and starting yoga. There are plenty of examples in the book of people who were not millionaires who have managed to make this happen in their own lives. His thoughts and advice on automation of work and outsourcing are a useful tool for anyone looking to relieve workplace stress. The idea of asking for reduced hours or flexible working might seem really scary but, I suppose, if you don't ask you don't get. If you're still not sure on this principle I would recommend reading The Aladdin Factor as that covers this area in much more depth. I personally think everyone should read this book at least once a year, just to remind themselves not to get stuck in the humdrum of mundane living and it's a must read for anyone looking to work for themselves or retiring soon. I bought my parents a copy in the hope that it would entice them to spend their retirement doing fun, exhilarating things that they've always put off before... the idea of tango lessons in Argentina was definitely appealing to them.

Would really recommend this book, one of those you can read multiple times over your life

Good book

J'ai hésité longtemps avant de lire ce livre, pensant qu'il n'allait pas m'aider à me motiver au travail. Et bien, au contraire, voici un ouvrage qui m'a redonné l'envie de prendre en main ma vie professionnelle. L'anglais est très facile à lire, avec quelques termes techniques bien évidemment mais se lit essentiellement comme une lettre de conseil à un ami de l'auteur (pas un ouvrage théorique). La version française est certainement très bien aussi. Du coup je l'ai dévoré contrairement aux livres d'organisation personnelle que j'ai pu lire avant. Et si, comme beaucoup d'entre nous, nous ne nous destinons pas à appliquer les méthodes et astuces à 100%, ce livre reste parfaitement utile. Rien que les clefs de réflexion sur la façon d'envisager son rapport au travail valent largement le prix et le temps passé à lire The 4 hour workweek. J'ai personnellement mis en place un certain nombres de conseils avec succès pour me dégager du temps et surtout de la disponibilité d'esprit au quotidien, par exemple en ne regardant mes mails qu'une fois par jour maximum et en limitant strictement la quantité d'informations auxquelles je m'expose. Un livre chaudement recommandé pour tous.

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