Book Review: The 4 - Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

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What Nicolas Darvas did for stock investors, Timothy Ferriss does for entrepreneurs - especially online entrepreneurs.

In his book “How I made 2 million in the stock market” - Nicolas Darvas writes about how he went on a world tour and yet turned $25,000 in $2,000,000 within 18 months by playing the stock market. In a similar vein, Timothy Ferriss explains how he went on a 15 month vacation, worked just 4 hours a week - and yet made $40,000 per month selling a health product online.

One of my favourite quotes is by a not-so-well-known Texas oil tycoon:

“Success requires two things and two things only.

1. You must know exactly what you want. Most people never make this decision.

2. You must determine the price that you will have to pay to achieve it and then get busy paying that price.”

- H.L. Hunt (Texas Oil tycoon)

Ferriss expands on that success secret in his book. He provides us with the DEAL Formula.

Dreamlining
Eliminate
Automate
Liberate

Dreamlining: Ferriss shows us how he charts his wants and needs. And more importantly, figuring out how much all of it will cost per month. He divides the dreamlining process into 3 parts:

• What I want to Have in __ months.
• What I want to Be in __ months.
• What I want to Do in __ months.

Its a very comprehensive way of charting your goals. You can check an online example of Dreamlining here (pdf format).

Eliminate: In my opinion, this section of his book is the best section. Although you may know all the theories of productivity, Ferriss brings it all together. And provides us with some nifty tips in eliminating time wasting and unproductive tasks.

• Remember the 80:20 principle. 80% of results come from 20% of effort. So focus on the 20% to work less yet earn the same.
• 80% of complaints come from 20% of clients. Can you fire these 20% trouble clients that waste your time and fry your head?
• Limit your timeline per task. Have strict deadlines and you won’t spend your time wasting on frivolous tasks.
• Do not multi-task.
• Read less.
• Don’t let others interrupt you while you are working.

Automate: This section talks about how can you start a new side business. And automate it so that it earns more than you earn right now - without you having to spend a lot of time on it. At the end of the chapter in this section, Ferriss gives us a list of tools and resources that encapsulates almost everything you may need to get done to run your online business. This section is a bit of a let down though. Because it just gives us a couple of examples. And doesn’t talk about a lot of things that can go wrong.

The whole idea is: find a product with 8-10x profit margin. And start selling it online. Hire people to promote your website and to take care of the order processing and shipping. But there is not a lot of detail to go with it. You will have to find other sources to fill in the gaps. (This blog is a good place to start with.)

Even though this is not my favourite part of the book, this is the most talked about part of the book. Because Ferriss talks a lot about outsourcing. Finding cheap labour in developing nations (India) and outsourcing your work over there.

Liberate: This section of the book is sprinkled with idea, tools and resources that you can use to quit working 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week. And take several mini-vacations every year while you are young. If you are interested in mobile-living, you will love this section of the book.

It gives you some tips that you can use to quit working 9-to-5. Even if you work for someone else. The good thing is Ferriss gives you entire dialogues and phrases you can use to convince your boss and reduce the time you spend in an office!

Book Score:

Ease of Reading: 9/10
Ideation: 7/10
Practical Knowledge: 9/10
Worth The Price: 9/10
Overall Score: 8.5/10

Even though this book leaves a few gaps - and I don’t think very many people will be able to start working just 4 hours a week after reading this book alone, it is a worthy read. And it is very inspirational too: knowing that it can be done and reading about some one who has done it.

People who have already read a few self help and productivity books before may not find a lot of new ideas in this book. But the book compiles a lot of useful ideas together and is an excellent summary. I heartily recommend it.

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Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Misc on 30 Jul 2007

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