Book Review: The 4-Hour Workweek

Timothy Ferriss is an Internet entrepreneur who also penned The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.   I saw it on the shelf of the bookstore and thought it looked appealing so I gave it a shot. Four hours a week would be a nice goal to shoot for.  Even if you only make it halfway, you’re still a lot better off than you were, right?

The book itself is not the most well-written piece of literature I’ve picked up, and Ferriss kind of comes across as an arrogant jerk (in one section he explains how in college he would go ask the professor 3 hrs of questions if he didn’t get an A on a paper, saying they always thought twice before giving him a bad grade again), but he does make some good points on how to simplify your life and make the most of it.

Most of the book relies on the 80-20 rule: the principle that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the effort.  And importantly, on the converse, 80% of the effort only accomplishes 20% of the results that matter.  Ferriss recommends doing an analysis of which of your activities, either at home or at work, get results — ie. generate the most happiness or the most profit.  Once you’ve figured that out, cut out the stuff that just kills time.  The argument is that life is short and should be spent wisely.  If a certain task isn’t generating a great return financially, professionally, personally, or emotionally, why do it?

I found this principle to be true at the UW Business School.   Every class was graded on an inflated curve, and was packed with type-A business majors who all wanted to be at the top.  The effort required to beat them all and earn a 4.0 was exponentially more than the effort required to adequately learn the material and earn a 3.8.  In other words, those last .2 grade points required a far greater time investment than they were worth.

One of Ferriss’s examples of a high-time-cost, low-return activity was reading or watching the news.  How often do you come across a news story that really, truly affects your life in an actionable way?  Almost never.  And when something big comes along, like an earthquake or a 9-11, you’ll hear about anyway.  Yet I still read the Seattle Times and CNN.com every day like a sucker.

Ferriss also is a proponent of outsourcing day-to-day tasks overseas.  I’ve outsourced the web development of Shoes ‘R Us to Mani India Tech, but haven’t tried hiring any “virtual employees” to run the daily operation of the site yet.   The 4-Hour Workweek espouses adopting an itinerant lifestyle, with extended overseas travel and “mini-retirements”.  You can really live large, Ferriss explains, when you pay wages in rupees, earn income in dollars, and live off pesos.  It all sounds good, but may not be the most realistic aspiration for people with jobs, kids, and mortgages.

All in all, I would still recommend the book.  Even if you come away with just a couple ideas on how to save time or simplify, that’s a victory.

-Nick

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