Things I Learned From the '4 Hour Work Week'

Tim Ferriss's now seminal work, "The Four Hour Work Week", has become essential for individuals seeking to live a life that fosters their freedom from the slog of 'work'.

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When you think of your ideal life, what comes to mind? For many, it's having the freedom to travel, to live without financial stress, and to ultimately be able to do what you are most passionate about without constraint.

In fact, this is often the kind of life people envision upon retirement...30-40 years after working at a job that restricted their freedom and wasn't fulfilling.

The idea that you need to spend the prime years of your life working towards the dream of pursuing your dreams is utterly self-defeating. Many people die within the first 5 years of retirement, so what's the 9-5 drudgery really worth?

According to Ferriss, you don't need to work most of your adult life to attain this freedom. He posits that it is within the reach of anyone willing to seek out remote work, whether it be through telecommuting at your current job or leaving your place of employment to pursue the means that will allow such an arrangement.

Maximize efficiency to reduce time

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Reducing your work time to 4 hours is likely not possible for most people. However, when a person looks at how much time they actually spend working at their job, reducing the time spent in the office to something closer to 15-20 is completely within the reach of many people who work in an office setting.

Of course, service-based jobs and jobs that require your presence at a particular location for a full shift aren't applicable, but according to Ferriss, you should leave these types of work for something else.

Take out the coffee breaks, the wasteful chit-chat, the useless meetings, and all other things throughout your day that are unnecessary, and it's surprising to see how many hours are spent 'working'. In past jobs, my 8-hour shift often consisted of only 2-3 hours of actual work.

Whatever you can't automate, delegate

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A critical component in achieving the 4 hour work week is the idea that whatever you can't automate, delegate. If a person is spending time doing tasks they could automate, they are wasting time that could be spent on things that cannot be automated.

Bills can be set to autopay. With services such as Amazon's product subscriptions, time no longer needs to be spent replenishing supplies of products. Set auto-response settings for email, to avoid endless and unnecessary messages informing your contacts of your inability to respond (ironic).

If a task cannot be automated, such as email responses that require a human mind to formulate and deliver the message, seek to delegate this task. Ferriss discusses using a virtual assistant, specifically one from India, as they are much cheaper than someone from a western nation.

Don't be afraid to try out a few assistants, testing which ones are most up to the task of responding to your clients and customers as if they were you. It most likely will require a few VA's before you land the one that can accurately play the role of you.

Ferriss utilizes VA's to the extent that he is willing to turn over sensitive financial and personal information in an effort to allow him to delegate more of his life. The general theme here is that if you value your time at a certain dollar amount, say $25 per hour, being able to dole out a task at $5-10 per hour is ultimately a savings.

Eventually, you will increase what you value your per hour rate as you increase your income/revenue stream, and will thus be able to delegate more tasks.

Set it and forget it

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Work for work's sake is an immense waste of one's time and energy. When you get a business up and running, one that allows you to operate it from a distance, you should not put time into the business more than is necessary. Of course, spending additional resources on improving your marketing and sales volume makes sense, and if it is an activity that will effectively improve your revenue then it is worth taking the extra time.

But a pitfall can be when people work just because they feel like it’s their obligation. Working 80 hours per week might be helpful and necessary in the beginning stages of a business, but working 80 hours just to fill the time is a massive waste of one’s life if they are drained and unable to do anything outside of their job.

If you work 100% more than normal, but only receive a return of 50%, you’re not efficiently using your time correctly.

Face your fears, increase your comfort zone

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Throughout the book, Ferriss has a variety of activities that challenge fears as a way to make the world more available to you. Some of these ideas are absurd and hilarious all at once. One such challenge asks you to lay down for 10 seconds in a public place, such as a restaurant, bar, or the sidewalk, and then get up and go about your day as if nothing happened.

When you lose your social fears and inhibitions, you are much more likely to feel comfortable making radical leaps and taking ‘chances’ that are only ‘risky’ because you don’t think it’s possible. I’ve yet to attempt any of these challenges, but in my experience of facing social fears, I can attest to this principle.

Expand your comfort zone and more of the world will naturally open up for you. Business opportunities will present themselves, potential romantic partners will be more accessible, and the world will start to seem like your playhouse when you let go.

The new rich

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The old rich (OR) define themselves through their possessions, bank accounts, stock portfolios, and country club memberships. The new rich (NR) define themselves through their mobility and time. Old rich individuals may have a plethora of financial wealth, but they also tend to be poor in the way of time and mobility.

The NR don’t have to be the wealthiest person on the block to be ‘wealthy’. In fact, by redefining what it means to be rich, the NR liberate themselves from the rat race, opening themselves up to the things that the OR work their adult lives away to one day experience.

Ask someone what they would do if they were rich, and it’s usually things such as traveling the world, spending more time with their friends and family, and making time for the things they are passionate about. According to Ferriss, the old way of thinking is to slave away most of your adult life so you can spend your 70’s living the high life.

What an epic failure!

Saving your dreams for your 70’s likely means you’re saving your dreams for another lifetime. And even if you do achieve the dream retirement, wouldn’t you rather live that life in your earlier years?

One of the major points of the book is that you can and should live your dream lifestyle now instead of saving it for some future point that never comes. A mini-retirement (2-3 months) should be taken frequently, at least every 2-3 years. This period is a retirement in the sense that you are not engaging in your normal ‘work’, whether it be your business or the company you are employed for. For the entrepreneur, this concept further stresses the importance of automation and delegation.

Mini-retirements, when utilized to their full potential, allow a person to recharge and reexamine where they are in life. It also allows for massive personal experimentation and exploration. From my experience of traveling the US for 5 months a few years ago, I can attest to the transformative capacity of mobile mini-retirements. When you realize that the greatest things in life are usually shared, novel experiences, it becomes clear that life should be as much about accumulation new experiences as it is about accumulation a store of currency or possession.

Money still matters to the NR, but the relationship these new rich have with it is dramatically different from the OR. A source of income shouldn’t come with shackles. Wealth doesn’t mean being a well-paid servant for someone else’s dreams. A large source of income is obviously still desirable, but not at the expense of your ability to live the life you want.

Don’t let your possessions possess you

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The principle behind Ferriss’ work is a valid one worth paying attention to. Maximize your productivity so you can free yourself to create new experience, learn new skills, and ultimately live your dream life. A job that pays $50,000 and allows for total mobility and work freedom is more valuable than a $100,000 salary that restricts mobility and takes up most of your waking life.

An actual 4 hour work week is probably not feasible for most people. But it’s much more attainable than people realize, and that’s the point to keep in mind. If we aim to only work 4 hours and have the freedom to travel and live the high life, is it that much of a failure when we end up having to work 10 hours per week? Of course not.

Rethinking and reimagining what is possible is one of the biggest takeaways from this book. Breaking down the idea of what constitutes a wealthy lifestyle and how to get there makes “The Four Hour Workweek” essential reading for entrepreneurs, dreamers, and anyone that gives a shit about their freedom and time.

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All uncredited pictures from the pixabay.com

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