The 4-Hour Workweek

Sharing my learnings from the book, The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times.Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, or earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, The 4-Hour Workweekis the blueprint. 

This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches: 
• How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week
• How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
• How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
• How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
• How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”

• The 4-hour workweek sounds like a dream but according to Tim Ferriss there is a recipe that anyone can follow to achieve this.
• The goal is to become a member of the New Rich. The New Rich is a subculture characterized by mobility and financial freedom. They’re tied down by nothing. They decide where they go. They decide what they do. They’ve realized that the right moment to live your dreams, to really live your life, is now. 
• you only need two things to accomplish this:
  • more freedom
  • more free time
• Redefine wealth and happiness. The formula is called the DEAL formula. And it stands for:
  • Definition
  • Elimination
  • automation
  • liberation
• Definition
  • So wealth equals activities, your ability to do the things you want to do. It’s about freedom and free time – not the amount of money you’ve accrued.
  • the opposite of happiness isn’t sadness; it’s boredom. To truly be happy, you should dedicate your time to doing things that excite you.
• Elimination
  • 80/20 principle – roughly 80 percent of your work output results from a mere 20 percent of your effort. 
  • Parkinson’s law – a tendency where the more time we have to complete a task, the more time we’ll spend on it
  • pinpoint and prioritize the 20 percent of tasks that will yield 80 percent of results. Eliminate all tasks and activities that don’t bring you closer to your personal goals.
  • be on the lookout for interruptions – things that prevent you from completing important tasks, from start to finish, without pause. A time waster is any task that you can ignore without negative ramifications. All time-wasters can – and should – be eliminated.
• Automation
  • Automation is crucial if you wish to decouple the time you spend working from the money you make
  • everyone involved should have the freedom to communicate independently with one another.
  • you should give as much responsibility as possible to those you’ve entrusted with your tasks.
  • if you want to create an automated income stream and construct the architecture to support it, you’ve got to have a product to sell. To get started, look at the markets you’re most familiar with and brainstorm product ideas based on your findings. Look for your muse in a niche that doesn’t require you to invest much time or money upfront to get started. it’s important that you outperform the competition and demonstrate to prospective customers that you’re the best person to buy from. Test the market before making your product.
• Liberation
  • most workplaces encourage activity, not productivity, which means that no matter how little time it takes you to complete your work, you’ll always have to put in 40 hours per week.
  • The solution is to escape the office. there are five steps you’ll have to follow:
    • Increase your value to the company
    • Prove increased output when working remotely
    • Quantify the business benefit
    • Propose a trial period
    • Expand the time you work remotely
• a few things to keep in mind when designing it that’ll help make your product successful.
  • you should be able to summarize the product’s purpose in one sentence.
  • you should make it as easy as possible for customers to decide to purchase your product.
  • to attract the right customers, you should give your product a high price point
  • to attract the right customers, you should give your product a high price point