The 4-Hour Work Week Book Review

Timothy Ferriss explains how he freed himself from the rat race and slashed his working hours by delegating, outsourcing, and automating his businesses. He spends his new free time living on his terms, which for him means traveling the world. He wants you to do the same, and provides the motivation and action steps to do so. The basic message of this book: take shortcuts.

In most cases, those shortcuts involve working smarter. In a few instances, however, Ferriss promotes what I would consider questionable or unethical behavior (such as telling “half-truths” to your boss or others, or taking advantage of loopholes in rules). Ferriss comes across as someone I could never fully trust, and thus wouldn’t want to emulate entirely.

Ferriss says that “Becoming a member of the NR [New Rich] is not just about working smarter. It’s about building a system to replace yourself.” Ferriss calls this system Income Autopilot. He says the path to wealth and freedom is to own, not run, a business. An owner has people and systems do the work, while someone running a business is another cog in the machine.

Ferriss advocates creating a product business that you can quickly scale through delegation and automation. He discourages service businesses because they’re not as easy to scale. He says that if you have a service business, you should convert it into a product business by turning your services into information products like ebooks, webinars, audio recordings, etc. I found this an interesting point, because my online t-shirt business, Punchy Store.com , is a service business, and I’m looking to maximize profits with the least effort.

One of Ferriss’ main ideas is that rather than postponing fun activities until retirement, you should take several mini-retirements that are weeks or months long, throughout your working life. This book was part of the reason that I quit my 9-5 job to start OptimWise. I wanted the freedom of working when and where I wanted, so that work fits around life, not vice versa. I really liked The Parable of the Mexican Fisherman referenced in this book.

I really liked Ferriss’ advice about going on an information diet. I’ve tried to follow his advice by frequently unsubscribing from email newsletters and RSS feeds. After reading this book the first time in 2008, I stopped reading the newspaper and news sites, and replaced them with NPR’s daily 5-minute news summary podcast.

Ferriss advocates effectiveness in place of efficiency. He says to eliminate all the unnecessary busyness that takes up most of our time, and focus on the tasks that actually matter.

Ferriss certainly presents an extreme example of the New Rich lifestyle. What if you love your job and have no desire to leave it? This book is still worth reading for the lessons about prioritization and time-management.

Notes
• DEAL: Define, Eliminate, Automate, Liberate.
• People don’t want to be millionaires. They want the millionaire lifestyle. You can have it without being a millionaire.
• Effectiveness is more important than efficiency; doing a few things effectively is better than doing many things efficiently.
• The seeming lack of time is actually a lack of prioritization. Focus on the important.
• Use the Pareto Principle and Parkinson’s Law to limit the tasks you undertake.
• Consume information only when the need is immediate and obvious. Use “just-in-time” learning.

• Eliminate before you delegate.
• Don’t let people interrupt you. Force people to define their requests before you spend time on them. Empower others to act without interrupting you.
• Batch routine tasks. Check email and phone messages only at predetermined times.
• If you have a service business, sell information products (ebooks, audio, video, etc.) for $50-$200 (a price high enough to increase the perception of quality). (less)