Book review: The 4-Hour Work Week
Wow. Just wow. The 4-Hour Work Week is the most influential book I’ve read in years. Author Timothy Ferris, though a self-proclaimed extremist, dishes on slowing down your life, getting out of the rat race, outsourcing menial tasks, ditching your RSS feeds, batch processing email instead of checking it every 15 minutes (if not more), reducing unnecessary information consumption in favor of productivity and real learning, how effectiveness trumps efficiency, and how the idea of “retirement” is grossly flawed. In short as the book description tells, “Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.”
Ferriss defines the new rich as those who favor mobility, experience, and service in favor of materialism. He counsels in great detail how to setup an automated online company for newbies (easier said than done, though possible) and how to focus your daily work efforts without letting fluff work get in the way. Best of all, Ferriss delivers it all in a very grounded, balanced, and hilarious way despite what his sensational title and clever tagline suggest. Overall, the book is unthinkably smart and of value to any person over the age of 18. I resolve from here on out to work smarter while striving to do what I love further still. That and more world travel, of course. 🙂
On that note, I’m planning my attempt to ditch the Internet for an entire year. I don’t have all the kinks figured out, and twice weekly email use will have to stay, but I will triumph within the next five years. Just you watch.
9 Comments
Ditch the internet for a year? Are you kidding me? I don’t care who this author is or what the book says – how are you going to make a living building web sites if you ditch the internet for a year? For one thing, if you ditch RSS feeds and the net for a year, you’ll basically be a noob when you come back. In one year the internet will be an entirely different planet!
Now I’m going to have to go pick up this book just to review the lunacy of ditching the net for a year. Other than that part, the rest of it sounds basically how I live already.
I’m reading it now. I heard the author speak at the Web 2.0 expo. It was great.
Phil,
Ditching the internet for an entire year is not the author’s idea. It’s mine. 🙂
“In one year the internet will be an entirely different planet!”
Wrong. I didn’t access the internet for an entire 2 years from 99-01. Didn’t miss a step so 1 year should be a sinch.
I guess the question is then, why would you WANT to ditch the internet for a year? Like Phil, I am concerned about how you will make your living for this year. Are you going to go live up in the mountains without running water during this year, too?
@Bella,
Running water can stay.
It’s just something I want to do. Like I said, I don’t have all the kinks out, (read: don’t know if it’s financially feasible), but I’m betting I can take care of the important stuff via email twice a week and still work offline to produce work using only the finest ingredients.
Ditching the Internet for a year sounds pretty inspiring … but I don’t think I’m capable.
For all the naysayers out there, as a web developer, the only time I actually get any development done IS when I ditch the Internet (I just do it for short periods of time).
If you have a good testing environment (which you should), development can easily be done 100% offline. With planning and fore-site, you can deliver a better product without ever touching the Internet.
hmmm…mb its true ,
[url=”http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=buy_tramadol”]buy tramadol[/url] , >:), buy tramadol, :^=
Thanks for the review. Someone just lent me this book and I am pretty excited to get started reading it especially after hearing what others have had to say about it.