SCORE: 5.8
Entrepreneurs won’t catch any value because the tips and hacks are what most business owners would call Business 101. However, I recommend the 4-Hour Workweek to anyone new to entrepreneurship, freelancing, or interested in a life of travel.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:
How to automate your life with virtual assistants
Productivity hacks to declutter wasted time
Ideas to earn a passive income
How to travel the world on a dime
READING TIME
7 hours 32 Minutes
2 TACTICS TO DO TODAY
Elimate The Information Overload: Most of the content we consume is time-wasting: News, Netflex, Instagram. Cut it out of your life and focus of actions that will produce income.
Create hard Quick Deadlines On A Task: This follows the Parkinson’s Principle. Instead of procrastinating a project till the end of the week. Create a goal to finish the first draft of a project by noon tomorrow.
Review
Productivity, time management, and nomads: If you googled any of those words, this catchy title would pop up in your browser.
Part entrepreneur’s guide, part self-help book, Tim Ferriss’s The 4 Hour Workweek reads like a political manifesto pushing people towards a worldly lifestyle.
The rise of a new social class dubbed the “New Rich” that will replace the hoarding billionaires for the better of humanity. But in Tim’s mind, the proletariat meets the corrupt bourgeoisie, not intending to instill a perfect society, but to relinquish all personal responsibilities and take a 3-month surfing course in French Polynesia.
How does the new class accomplish this feat: Trim the fat!
Find a niche product, make money fast, focus on 20% of the task that generates income, hire a virtual assistant to do most of the grunt work, and Boom! Now you can relax and do whatever the fuck you want!
All jokes aside, I found the 4-Hour Workweek especially enlightening. Veteran entrepreneurs will deem Tim’s information dated and useless, but I’m not an entrepreneur! (I’m a corporate office broker, that’s about as corporate as corporate gets). The themes, including automation, the 80/20 principle, mini-retirements, and low information diet, were a revelation, and I was eager to learn more!
AUTOMATION:
The idea of hiring an overseas virtual assistant for $4 — $14 an hour that will now handle all the mindless grunt work that hours eats your day. This new personal employee will answer all your unimportant emails, dentist appointments, schedule meetings, and even buy your mom a birthday card.
PRODUCTIVITY:
The 80/20 rule or Pareto Principle: This means that 80% of outcomes derive from 20% of causes or inputs (generally speaking).
You can apply this principle to most environments. For example, in business, 80% of a company’s wealth is generated by 20% of the salespeople.
In terms of your production, this means 80% of your desired income and happiness are generated by 20% of your tasks.
Parkinson’s Law: The theory that you are more likely to complete a task when you place a hard-quick deadline. Famous British historian and potential Downton Abbey character named Cyril Northcote Parkinson came up with the theory in 1955.
Example: If you give yourself a week to complete a two-hour essay, then (psychologically speaking) the essay will increase in complexity and become more daunting so as to fill that week. We call this paralysis by analysis.
MINI RETIREMENTS:
Take mini-retirements throughout your life instead of waiting until the grand finale retirement when you’re 65.
I love this idea, but I’ve never met anyone who put this into action. You’re young now! It truly feels like a shame to hold off all the big-ticket retirement fun for when you’re old and frail.
LOW INFORMATION DIET:
According to Tim, most of the information you consume is time-wasting. He’s talking about Netflix, fiction books, even the news!
I’m on board with this to a certain extent. There’s an information overload, especially in the business book industry. I often get stuck reading a pointless book that doesn’t stick with me at all — a waste of 5 hours! I wrote my blog site www.yoprolibrary.com to help twentysomethings find the right book and eliminate the clutter.
Final thought:
The book is dated (2007). Tim cites several resources and websites, but most of them are either gone or buried by a newer company. Entrepreneurs won’t catch any value because the tips and hacks are what most business owners would call Business 101. However, I recommend the 4-Hour Workweek to anyone new to entrepreneurship, freelancing, or interested in a life of travel.