I recently finished reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. Although I learned a lot of interesting concepts from the book, I didn’t appreciate the author’s pretentious tone and disagree with some of his advice on avoiding meetings, making up excuses to avoid interaction, pretending to be busy, only checking email once a week, pretending to be more prominent/important than you actually are, getting your secretary to send personal emails to your family and friends, and other antisocial and rude behavior. Nevertheless, Ferriss does put forth a lot of useful information and strategies to become more efficient, to free up time to pursue your dreams, and to achieve financial and location independence.
The 4-Hour Workweek is a self-improvement book that teaches readers ways to work less and live more. It points out a lot of stark truths in the beginning, such as the fact that most people don’t really get to enjoy and live their lives until they retire in their 60s or 70s, that most people don’t really enjoy (and often hate) working their 9–5 jobs, and that many live unfulfilling lives and don’t get to pursue their dreams. The book goes against the deferred-life plan that most people follow where they work hard for 40–50 years before saving enough money to retire and do other things.
Ferriss uses the term The New Rich (NR) to define “those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility”. He also uses the term Deferrers (D) to classify those who stick to the conventional deferred-life plan. He uses the abbreviations NR and D throughout the book.
A lot of people want to be rich but don’t reflect on why they want the money anyway and what they’ll do with it. To quote the author, “People don’t want to be millionaires — they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy. Ski chalets, butlers, and exotic travel often enter the picture. Perhaps rubbing cocoa butter on your belly in a hammock while you listen to waves rhythmically lapping against the deck of your thatched-roof bungalow?”
If you could live the millionaire lifestyle without being a millionaire, would you do it?
The 4-Hour Workweek makes a distinction between absolute income and relative income. Absolute income is the dollar amount a person makes in a year, while relative income is the dollar amount a person makes per hour. Ferriss states that relative income is more important, because having time to do the stuff you want is essential to living a fulfilling life.
For example, an investment banker working in New York City could make $150,000 a year, but will be working 80 hours per week. A NR could be living overseas (lets pick Argentina for example) and be making $40,000 a year, but will only be working 4 hours per week. That’s $36 per hour of income for the investment banker in New York City [$150,000/(52 weeks * 80 hours per week)] compared to $192 per hour of income for the NR [$40,000/(52 weeks * 4 hours per week)]. Which would you prefer?
Add on top of that the vast difference in cost of living between New York City and Argentina. In fact, lets pick Buenos Aires, the capital and most expensive city in Argentina, as an example. For luxury living in Buenos Aires, including a penthouse apartment in Buenos Aires’ most expensive area with maids, servants, and personal security guards; daily meals at four or five-star restaurants; VIP tables and champagne service at the top clubs; private Spanish and tango lessons; and much more, the author paid about $1,500 a month total. Forget luxury living, in New York City the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan is $3200 a month, the average cost of groceries is $475 a month per person, and the utility bills are about $125 a month. The subway or bus fare is $2.75 per ride, and assuming the average person uses the subway or bus twice a day, that amounts to $165 per month ($2.75 * 2 * 30). Adding all that up that’s $3,965 for just the necessities for an average lifestyle in New York City. Additionally, the New Yorker would probably need to buy clothes and other items, eat at restaurants (a three-course meal for two in a mid-range restaurant costs about $80), get drinks with dates or friends or colleagues, buy a morning coffee before work, etc. with total costs very likely exceeding $5,000 per month. Compare this average New Yorker lifestyle with the luxury lifestyle in Argentina’s Buenos Aires for only $1,500 a month. Now which would you prefer?
The Four-Hour Workweek aims to get you to that point of financial and location freedom so that you can actually make that choice yourself.
The book recommends four steps: Definition, Elimination, Automation, and Liberation, forming the acronym DEAL.
I’ve covered the essence of the Definition step above, laying out the major concepts and philosophy behind the book.
For the Elimination step, Ferriss suggests multiple strategies to eliminate or reduce the busywork that clutter our lives. First he says we should forget about time management and focus on effectiveness. Instead of “being busy”, which is often just a guise for inefficiency and delaying the important but difficult actions, people should aim to be effective, which means accomplishing the things that get us closer to our goals.
A concept I found very useful from this part of the book is the 80/20 rule. Originally used by the economist Vilfredo Pareto to demonstrate that 80% of the wealth in society was possessed by 20% of the population, this principle extends far beyond economics. For example, 80% of the results often come from 20% of the time and effort, 80% of profits come from 20% of the customers or products, 80% of stock market gains come from just 20% of the portfolio, etc. Some people even change the ratio to 90/10, 95/5, and even 99/1. What is important to understand is that the 80/20 principle can also extend to our lives. 20% of the work and effort we put in is responsible for 80% of the goals we achieve. 20% of the people we spend time with, the hobbies we do, and other sources are responsible for 80% of our happiness, while another 20% of these sources are responsible for 80% of our unhappiness.
The 80/20 rule taught me to focus. Focus on the 20% of the things that produce 80% of the results, and eliminating the 20% of influences that bring 80% of the problems, unhappiness, and negativity.
Another important concept I found helpful from this part of the book is Parkinson’s Law, which shows how having a set goal with a definite deadline will force you to accomplish that goal by the deadline (assuming the goal and deadline are realistic).
Other strategies I learned and have personally adopted are batching and limiting media consumption (Ferriss calls this “The Low-Information Diet”). Batching is the act of doing the time-consuming, repetitive, and interruptive tasks like answering emails and texts or doing errands together at a specified time. For example, the author checks and answers his emails once a week every Monday.
Reading about batching and lowering media consumption inspired me to do it myself. Although I have already been doing this in the past (but to a lesser extent) I now put my phone on airplane mode for most of the day. This eliminates all the distracting notifications I get when I need to focus on whatever I’m working on. I turn off airplane mode to read and reply to texts and emails, return or make phone calls, and check other notifications at 12pm, 4pm, and 8pm. This makes communication a lot less time-consuming for me because I can batch all incoming communications and answer them all at a specified time. More importantly, it allows me to get off my phone and focus on whatever I’m doing throughout the day. Using airplane mode also lead me to reduce unnecessary media consumption and now I mainly consume media on my computer or iPad.
Of course, when I need to Google something, use Google maps, or exchange numbers with someone I’ll turn airplane mode off, but generally I keep it on for most of my day except when I perform my batched tasks at 12pm, 4pm, and 8pm. I’m also more liberal with phone use on weekends when I’m out with friends because sometimes we split up and need to contact each other. I also turn airplane mode off before a date or appointment because people sometimes run late or want to confirm that I don’t flake (I don’t).
The third step of the book, automation, is about outsourcing your work or business. The 4-Hour Workweek isn’t for people who want to run businesses, it’s for people “who want to own businesses and spend no time on them”. Ferriss talks a lot about how labor is cheaper in other countries and an ordinary American can hire a virtual assistant in another country to do his or her work, and even to do personal errands. Ferriss recommends multiple virtual assistant sites, mostly based in India, but since the book was written in 2007 today’s readers should do their own research if they’re interested in hiring one.
In addition to hiring virtual assistants, automating a business means doing market research, creating a website, doing marketing, finding payment and credit card processors, finding fulfillment companies, partnering with call centers to manage customer service, etc. which the author describes in detail.
In order to be a “remote-control CEO”, you should empower your employees, assistants, and partners. Ferriss had a lot of trouble in the beginning when he was traveling while managing his sports-supplement business because he would be bombarded with emails from his customer service call-center partners, fulfillment companies, and other assistants asking what to do. To prevent this problem, he described in greater detail what his partners and assistants needed to do, and also different scenarios that could come up and how they should respond to them. Moreover, Ferriss empowered his assistants and partners by giving them explicit written permission to make inexpensive decisions themselves without consulting him (he allowed them to make decisions of up to $400 without his permission). Empowering the people working for him allowed them to do what they do best and unleashed their innate creativity and problem-solving skills. In fact, his business did even better when he worked less and delegated his tasks to specialists.
The last step of the book is liberation. This step mainly applies to those working at a job rather than entrepreneurs. It covers how to escape the office and negotiate a remote-work agreement. In order to do this, Ferriss recommends you go sick for two days and offer to work at home while sick, and to make sure your productivity during those days at home is noticeably higher than at the office. He then says that you should ask for a remote-work trial for two days remote-work per week for two weeks. The author says that during this trial period you should make sure you are far more productive when working from home than in the office, even if it means intentionally doing less work in the office. If the trial is successful and you’re granted a remote-work agreement of 2 days per week, continue doing your most productive work at home and then ask for a trial of 4 days remote-work per week for 2 weeks. If this is granted and you get a new 4-day remote workweek agreement, the author says you should ask for a full-time remote trial for 2 weeks while visiting relatives (or make up another excuse). He adds that you should do so during the middle of a project to make it harder for the boss to say no. If the trial is successful then you can negotiate a full-time remote-work agreement.
The author also goes over common fears of quitting a job and how to overcome them, how to live a luxurious nomadic lifestyle, and tips on finding a purpose once you achieve financial and location independence. One nice example he gives to demonstrate the possibilities of a nomadic lifestyle is how he spent only $150 to charter a private plane for 3 days in Argentina and fly over the beautiful vineyards and Andes mountains.
I learned a lot from reading The 4-Hour Workweek and have already adopted some of the concepts from the book into my own personal life. I did however find the author’s tone a little arrogant at times and disagree with some of his advice such as avoiding meetings, making up excuses to avoid interaction, pretending to be busy, etc. I think interacting with people in person is important to developing positive work relationships. I also believe that lying and misleading people is wrong and dishonorable, and can taint your reputation and worsen relationships. A lot of business success relies on working well with others, and people will want to do a better job with someone they respect and enjoy working with. Moreover, great ideas and strategies are often developed from brainstorming and discussing with talented people you work with. Although this wasn’t too much of a problem for the author, since his income only relied on a sports-supplement business, I think if he had a more complicated business his results would be different. My opinion is that the author goes too extreme by only checking emails once a week. I would check texts, calls, and emails briefly 3 times a day, which already increased my productivity dramatically because I can do all of that in 3 batches a day and focus on other thing for the rest of the day without distracting notifications. It also eliminated unnecessary, and sometimes toxic, media consumption.
If you would like to read The 4-Hour Workweek yourself, here’s a link to order it on Amazon.
The 4-Hour Workweek: https://amzn.to/36NLemv
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