Yesterday, I finished listening to the 4-Hour Workweek and I really liked it. That's right, I said 'listening' because I have the audio version of the book.
While the title does make a bold statement, as a reader (or listener) you have to look through the facade of making lots of money while spending all of your time doing the things you'd like to do. Once you see beyond that facade, a lot of useful advice emerges. I'm sure that almost everything that Tim Ferriss describes in his book worked out great for him. On the other hand, the things he achieved in his life didn't came without consideration and preparation as opposed to some of the bold statements he made in the book.
Nonetheless, this book is filled with good advice on how to take your life into our hands. In fact, I've been applying some of the things he described and I like where things are going. I'm not drastically changing my life yet, but this book certainly got me thinking about some stuff.
Anyway, the book is divided into four sections, each describing a particular aspect of lifestyle design.
D is for Definition
This part discusses why setting your goals is important. The general advice is to avoid working yourself to death, looking forward to your retirement that may as well never come. Asking yourself "What do I really want?".
E is for Elimination
This particular part really struck a chord. This part of the book talks about how to get yourself on an information diet. I've started implementing this diet as soon as I finished this chapter. Now, I only read email three times a day, I started eliminating all multitasking immediately, I'm slowly declining meeting requests where I can't be of any use, don't have a clear agenda or that has nothing to do with my current activities. I'm even thinking about hanging up a "do not disturb" sign ;-). I've been doing this for two weeks now, and I can notice some clear improvements.
A is for Automation
If I had to choose the least interesting part of the book, then this would be it. Here the author talks about outsourcing your life (which maybe interesting when it comes to maintaining the garden). Besides that, he also provides a lengthy description of how to become a successful entrepreneur.
L is for Liberation
This final part puts all the pieces together from the previous parts. Very good advice about working remotely and how to achieve more efficiency this way. All in all, very inspirational stuff.
I enjoyed listening to this book so much that I also just ordered a hard copy. Why would I still want the book itself despite having the audio version? Whenever I read a book, I tend to stop reading for some time every time I want to give some thought about the particular topic I've read. This is rather difficult with the audio version, especially while being in traffic :-). Second, this book contains a lot of links to some interesting web sites. It would come rather in handy as a reference later on and for reading it a second time.
I can certainly recommend that you read this book. Maybe it will change your life. What do you have to loose?
