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The 4-hour Workweek

Lifehacker is (again) featuring Tim Ferriss’ recently published book, The 4-hour Workweek, today. I’m currently reading it, and it’s truly an amazing book!

Focusing on the one question - how to make enough money with minimal effort to finance the lifestyle of a billionaire without having to be one -, the book has a lot of wonderfully simple, yet quite conclusive tips on how to achieve just that: Become mobile, free up your time and follow your own dreams (well, or whatever else you want to do with lots of spare time).

Personally, I’d classify the tips and principles Ferriss presents as ranging somewhere between brilliant and jerk-y: While some ideas are truly fascinating, especially his takes on time management and the creation of almost self-sustained businesses that function with little attention of the owner, others make me wonder if I would actually want to be like this (for example, tips on how to get away from doing little favors for your co-workers that would cost you some time). Sometimes, it has a certain “I’m smarter than you” arrogant attitude to it, not overly obvious, but much comparable to a successful entrepreneur appearing at a conference as a speaker, dressed in scruffy jeans and a t-shirt while the audience is wearing their shiniest suit.

However, it’s notable that the book’s premise is not that you need to ditch your job the next day and pursue your own entrepreneurial ventures. Rather than that, there are ideas working on multiple levels: While some stuff is mostly applicable to people who are actually ready to turn their lives upside down, other paragraphs deal with simple, yet sometimes truly valuable tips on how to shave a little bit of superfluous work off here and there. Thusly, the book is geared towards everyone who loves their spare time and would like to have more of it.

Additionally, the book is written in a riveting style and is fun to read. It’s not a boring bulleted list of management tips, but rather the life story of Ferriss himself, featuring occasional anecdotes, personal opinions and success stories of other entrepreneurs.

Even if his principles definitely aren’t for everybody, Ferriss certainly manages to spark quite some inspiration, at least in me. Highly recommended!