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A review by nerdiediaries
The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
2.0
My Rating: ☕☕
I’ve never written a negative book review on this blog. This is going to be the first. Writing a review for a book you didn’t enjoy feels almost as worthless as reading a bad book. Never mind, let’s get it over with…
In this book, Tim Ferriss shares techniques and processes using which he escaped his 9-5 job (Is that really a thing? I have always worked at 9-7/8 jobs, as well as most of my acquaintances. Never mind.), and you could, too. According to him, anyway.
The book had no flow. The chapters were haphazardly organized. The writing was delusional, pompous and insulting to professionals working in certain roles.
Some parts of the book made sense, and the quotes were inspirational, while others sections were just full of horse-shit. Some of the techniques shared are actually well proven by studies as well as individual experiences to have an incredible impact on productivity and time-management, while others are just exploitative in nature and a part of capitalist propaganda. At first, I thought it was just me, because this is a successful book. Then I went online to read other reviews, and sure enough, found other people voicing the same thoughts.
Let me list out the key lessons from the book.
Outsource and delegate – Anything and everything, including book-writing, ahem. Jokes apart, Tim believes in outsourcing each and every task of his life in order to gain control of his time and profits. Business operations, marketing, research, writing, e-mails, buying flowers for Mum? Outsource the stuff to a team of virtual assistants in some undeveloped/developing country. Earn in dollars, live on pesos, and compensate in rupees. Never do an honest day’s work in your life again.
Beat the game, instead of playing it – Tim Ferriss became the kickboxing champion of the world by using the most unorthodox, meanest and most dishonourable technique possible. In order to beat the kickboxing champions and take away the title by whatever means, he researched the rules of the game and found a technical detail which revealed that participants who stepped outside the ring three times would be disqualified. He used this knowledge to manoeuvre his body in ways to get his opponents to do just that. In addition, he also de-hydrated his body for hours so as to get in a lower-weight category.
The Pareto Principle and the Parkinson’s Law – Filter everything in your life based on the Pareto Principle of 80/20, which states that 20% of your actions/tasks brings about 80% of the results. Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in perceived importance and complexity in relation to the time allocated for its completion. These two techniques for increasing productivity are inverse in nature, and the best solution is to use them together: Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to your income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.
Take mini-retirements – Don’t defer your wishes and goals to old age retirement. Distribute “mini-retirements” throughout your life instead of hoarding everything you have, all the time and money for the ultimate after 60 or 65 retirement.
Effective elimination – Eliminate everything that is unimportant. Focus on a few important tasks and ignore the rest. There should not be more than two critical items to complete each day. Also, check your mails only twice. Don’t fall into that trap again – “I’m just going to check my e-mail for one minute”. Oh, you won’t.
Why I disliked the book and its author:
1) First off, the title of the book is mis-leading. To select this title, he did tests using Google Adwords campaigns and discovered that “The Four-Hour Workweek” got the most clicks, and selected the name. There goes his credibility. Do you know about any person who became financially successful by working only four hours a week? Anyone?
2) This book is all over the place. He talks about hustle, workouts, life tips, philosophy, business, outsourcing, detailed travel guides, NGOs, entire paragraphs on how to pack your suitcase, how and where to book a flight, how to write e-mail… It’s a hodge-podge.
3) The book is insanely, illogically optimistic, and light years away from reality.
4) The guy has no integrity whatsoever. Read the second key takeaway above.
5) The techniques to escape on-site and in-office work would only work for professionals working in specific sectors/roles. Someone who has daily deadlines, targets, projects to manage, presentations to make would not be able to pull it off, except if they outsource the tasks on some freelance website, which again, not everyone will be able to do.
6)Lastly, I wonder if this book was written by him or a bunch of Asian virtual assistants! The guy outsources everything, from running his company to checking his e-mails to sending flowers to his Mum. How on earth would he make precious time to sit down, do the research and write a book?! It’s unthinkable.
Would I recommend this book? Probably, not.
He is the first author I’m boycotting from my TBR (To be read list). I had another one of his books on my to-read list, but I’m not interested in any of his works anymore. Peace out!
I’ve never written a negative book review on this blog. This is going to be the first. Writing a review for a book you didn’t enjoy feels almost as worthless as reading a bad book. Never mind, let’s get it over with…
In this book, Tim Ferriss shares techniques and processes using which he escaped his 9-5 job (Is that really a thing? I have always worked at 9-7/8 jobs, as well as most of my acquaintances. Never mind.), and you could, too. According to him, anyway.
The book had no flow. The chapters were haphazardly organized. The writing was delusional, pompous and insulting to professionals working in certain roles.
Some parts of the book made sense, and the quotes were inspirational, while others sections were just full of horse-shit. Some of the techniques shared are actually well proven by studies as well as individual experiences to have an incredible impact on productivity and time-management, while others are just exploitative in nature and a part of capitalist propaganda. At first, I thought it was just me, because this is a successful book. Then I went online to read other reviews, and sure enough, found other people voicing the same thoughts.
Let me list out the key lessons from the book.
Outsource and delegate – Anything and everything, including book-writing, ahem. Jokes apart, Tim believes in outsourcing each and every task of his life in order to gain control of his time and profits. Business operations, marketing, research, writing, e-mails, buying flowers for Mum? Outsource the stuff to a team of virtual assistants in some undeveloped/developing country. Earn in dollars, live on pesos, and compensate in rupees. Never do an honest day’s work in your life again.
Beat the game, instead of playing it – Tim Ferriss became the kickboxing champion of the world by using the most unorthodox, meanest and most dishonourable technique possible. In order to beat the kickboxing champions and take away the title by whatever means, he researched the rules of the game and found a technical detail which revealed that participants who stepped outside the ring three times would be disqualified. He used this knowledge to manoeuvre his body in ways to get his opponents to do just that. In addition, he also de-hydrated his body for hours so as to get in a lower-weight category.
The Pareto Principle and the Parkinson’s Law – Filter everything in your life based on the Pareto Principle of 80/20, which states that 20% of your actions/tasks brings about 80% of the results. Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in perceived importance and complexity in relation to the time allocated for its completion. These two techniques for increasing productivity are inverse in nature, and the best solution is to use them together: Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to your income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.
Take mini-retirements – Don’t defer your wishes and goals to old age retirement. Distribute “mini-retirements” throughout your life instead of hoarding everything you have, all the time and money for the ultimate after 60 or 65 retirement.
Effective elimination – Eliminate everything that is unimportant. Focus on a few important tasks and ignore the rest. There should not be more than two critical items to complete each day. Also, check your mails only twice. Don’t fall into that trap again – “I’m just going to check my e-mail for one minute”. Oh, you won’t.
Why I disliked the book and its author:
1) First off, the title of the book is mis-leading. To select this title, he did tests using Google Adwords campaigns and discovered that “The Four-Hour Workweek” got the most clicks, and selected the name. There goes his credibility. Do you know about any person who became financially successful by working only four hours a week? Anyone?
2) This book is all over the place. He talks about hustle, workouts, life tips, philosophy, business, outsourcing, detailed travel guides, NGOs, entire paragraphs on how to pack your suitcase, how and where to book a flight, how to write e-mail… It’s a hodge-podge.
3) The book is insanely, illogically optimistic, and light years away from reality.
4) The guy has no integrity whatsoever. Read the second key takeaway above.
5) The techniques to escape on-site and in-office work would only work for professionals working in specific sectors/roles. Someone who has daily deadlines, targets, projects to manage, presentations to make would not be able to pull it off, except if they outsource the tasks on some freelance website, which again, not everyone will be able to do.
6)Lastly, I wonder if this book was written by him or a bunch of Asian virtual assistants! The guy outsources everything, from running his company to checking his e-mails to sending flowers to his Mum. How on earth would he make precious time to sit down, do the research and write a book?! It’s unthinkable.
Would I recommend this book? Probably, not.
He is the first author I’m boycotting from my TBR (To be read list). I had another one of his books on my to-read list, but I’m not interested in any of his works anymore. Peace out!