Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

The 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Work Week is a self-help book that teaches readers how to escape the traditional 9-5 work schedule, live anywhere, and join the “new rich”.

The book deals with what the author refers to as “lifestyle design” and repudiates the deferred life plan in which people work grueling hours for decades and save money to relax after retirement.

The main themes of the book include interrupting interruption and the art of refusal, being effective rather than efficient, outsourcing menial tasks, making income automatic, living your ideal life today, and living a proactive lifestyle instead of a reactive one.

Useful takeaways from the book include avoiding information overload, boosting effectiveness by outsourcing menial tasks, making income automatic, living your ideal life today, and living a proactive lifestyle.

What I Liked

For all its’ faults and weirdness, this book did actually change my life and how I think. Even though I grew up in an extended family with plenty of entrepreneurs and business owners, I still didn’t really absorb the mindset or the individual tactics of how to actually start a business.

I missed the whole “you don’t know what you don’t know” set of knowledge about hustling, startups, and true productivity that some people have. I have always had the mindset of just raw hard work – rather than “working smarter, not harder.”

This book helped shift my mindset into working smarter, not harder. I love how it’s about working at 10x effectiveness (hence, the title) and then choosing what to do with the “leftover” time.

Also, I actually started my own business (among other things) after reading this book. It failed…but later led to some success.

What I Did Not Like

It’s hard charging, chip on the shoulder writing style. It’s also easy to stereotype…even though the book never falls into how its stereotyped. If anything, it was simply before its time.

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